Cultural Study of “Fighting Body”
Fieldwork in Kick-boxing
2001 Volume 9 Pages 119-128,139
Details
2001 Volume 9 Pages 119-128,139
The purpose of this study is to analyze why kick-boxers are “still fighting” even when put at risk and afflicted with pain. Fieldwork at a boxing gym, among other places, has revealed information on this subject by focusing on the physical work-out process involving an ascetic lifestyle and hard training. The approach employed in this analysis was as follow:
To analyze
1) a self-discipline process carried out on the boxer's body through observation in a boxing gym. The process focused the boxer's weight and subduing his desire.
2) a linkage between the kick-boxer's ascetic lifestyle the social context in which he lives.
3) Why they are “still fighting” based on the above two items.
The result of this study clarified that the coherence in the boxer's body-schema reflected the experience of a lacking social life and growing feeling of “dry-out” which are spawned when reducing weight and/or subduing desire. Furthermore, thought continuing to practice an ascetic lifestyle, the boxers come to want to still fight, as well as maintain their identity by acting their dry-out desire to fight.
