A study on learning embodied skills to harmony with the material world: Climbing water through catching at words as a straw

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to construct a model of how human beings harmonize with the material world and learn embodied skills in a way that makes good use of physical laws. Taking swimming as an example, I analyze the process in which I, who is a beginner of swimming, have acquired the relationship between physical moves and water, in which my coach, using words and physical demonstrations, has taught me how to manipulate water. Finally, I have reached a model on learning embodied skills which consists of the relationship between representations by words, somatic sensations, physical moves and the laws of the material world, found in the first-person's views of myself as a learner and the second-person's views of myself and the coach to the thoughts and somatic sensations of each other.