ABSTRACT
The extreme sports experience may well be described as a profound experience of transformation. This chapter examines the typical attributes of extreme sports participants that relate to this concept in order to position a more comprehensive explication of the lived experience of extreme sports people. It is commonly assumed that the extreme sport participant epitomises modern Western male characteristics. The last few decades have been witness to an enormous increase in extreme sport participation and a decrease in traditional sport participation. Some theorists and researchers link this change to identification with certain sub-culture or neotribe norms. Other perspectives on extreme sport activities reveal an identity at odds with the personal qualities encouraged by modern Western countries. The extreme sport experience transforms participant views on life and relationships with others. The practice of phenomenological reduction enriched Husserl's psychic life and triggered a personal transformation that he reportedly compared to a 'religious conversion'.
