Embodied approaches to sport and movement cultures

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores how and what embodied approaches to the study of sport and movement cultures might contribute to conducting meaningful research. It suggests that adopting an embodied approach to research presents opportunities to reveal embodied experiences that are simultaneously emotional, physical, social, moral and political. An embodied orientation that incorporates the physical effects of a movement experience allows opportunities to consider embodied factors in tandem, where moral dilemmas may reside within broader emotional considerations. The book then highlights the significance of pleasures and pain in ways that involve considerations of the moral and emotional as well as the physical. By learning how to distinguish between different experiences of pain the young dancers develop knowledge of their bodies and the requirements of what it is or what is expected of a trained ballet dancer.