Art and technique were once virtually synonymous, at least until the advent of modern scientific “technology, ” and the languages of most peoples used the same word to refer to both. However, the “technology” of modern science is something completely alien to the art/technique of the past. The latter is acquired in an unspoken manner through mystical discipline, while the former is characterized by its verbalization and logicality, through which it strives for universalization. The difference between these two is essential, and should rather be considered an opposition. We need to clearly understand that one cannot be substituted for the other, or interpreted by the other.

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In this paper I play devil's advocate and address the question as to whether it is worth continuing to conduct the Olympic Games. Specifically, I raise concerns about what I call the problematic moral validity, sporting validity, and pragmatic (economic) validity of the Games. I question the moral validity of the Games in terms of the processes of prolympism, globalization, totalization, and corruption associated with the Games. In turn, I suggest that the sporting validity of the Games is compromised by alternative world championships in most sports, the absence of many of the world's best athletes in a number of sports, and the potpouri of specific sporting venues of the games. And I question the pragmatic (economic) validity of the Games in terms of overall costs in general, and bidding costs, security costs, drug testing costs, and infrastructure costs in particular. In conclusion, I pose the question: “Are the Olympic Games worth the cost of economic and human capital?”

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In this paper, we note international Olympic Committee (IOC) claims with regard to moral authority over the conduct of sport, and identify areas in which this moral authority has had a clear and positive impact on sport. We also point to 1999 as a key moment of reform, and propose that the IOC should build on the momentum of progressive reforms from 1999 to re-assert its moral authority by addressing a number of pressing issues facing sport. These are identified as both internal reforms regarding the administration of the IOC, and external reforms regarding practices related to sport and the Olympic Games. The proposed internal reforms include: the democratic structure of the IOC (particularly with regard to membership, regional representation, and accountability), gender equity on the IOC, the work of Olympic Solidarity, and the responsibilities of National Olympic Committees. The proposed external reforms include: the equitable treatment of children in sport, the introduction of fair labour practices with regard to the manufacture of sport uniforms and equipment, greater concern for the health and safety of athletes, and the introduction of independent impact and equity assessments for cities hosting Olympic Games.

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This paper gives a report on a research project on “Sports and Language”, which was conducted by this academic society for a two-year period from 2003 to 2004.
We first discuss the characteristics of live sports commentary. We then analyze the differences between the live television commentary of the ski jumping events at the Sapporo and Nagano Olympic Games. While the commentary for the Sapporo Games tended to be in full sentences (subject+predicate), at Nagano we found a conspicuous repetition of the predicate. From this and other differences, we postulate that there was a change in the practice of live commentary between 1972 and 1998.
In order to explain this change, we next address the question of professional wrestling and the former announcer Furutachi Ichiro. Professional wrestling is on the margins of the world of sport. It embodies elements which were rejected by modern sports when they chose to pursue legitimate competition. In the early 1980s, Furutachi developed a unique, overboard style of commentary to express the ambiguous world of professional wrestling. After retiring from professional wrestling broadcasting he was active in the entertainment industry, and broke new ground with his on-stage “talk show” monologues, before becoming a newscaster, where he now keeps a tight rein on his former extravagant style of speech.
Finally, we discuss the post-modern context of the popularity of the New Japan Pro-wrestling company and Furutachi's commentary in the 1980s. As is well known, in the 1980s wrestling broadcasts once again found an important niche in Japanese TV culture. Although pro wrestling no longer had the mass-culture appeal of the Rikidozan era, it became a subculture of mainly young men and boys.
In the 1980s, Japanese youth culture, or “info-consumer” culture, had yet to enter full-fledged post-modernity. And as Azuma Hiroki points out, Japanese youth culture entered a new stage of post-modernity from 1996. In recent years, the original equation of Furutachi with pro wrestling has faded along with the so-called “snob culture” of the 80s, and for the sub-culture of today's fans it just functions as another source of excitement.

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This article examines tournament in Middle Ages, which was not examined in Elias's analysis of the origin of sports from his cultural sociological perspective. This study shows that the sports and sportsmanship, which have been supposed to be invented in modern Britain, actually evolved in the games of tournament.
Tournament is the one and only sport that could attract broad social attention in Europe in the Middle Ages. The transformation of the style of this particular competition is consistent with maturing morals of knights and the process of development of mechanisms that forced knights to keep violence under control. This article examines this process from a socio-historical perspective. It is true that this moralistic world-respect for lives, restraint on private desire, contribution to the public, and protection of the weak-could not reform reality of feudal society in the Middle Ages. However, it created a peculiar form of love, namely courtly love, and the great popularity of knight stories and tournament inscribed it into the European culture. It survived in the European spirit long after the Middle Ages.
Later, when English gentlemen stratum was urged to redefine their identity in the particular political and cultural situation in modern Britain, they rediscovered and reconstructed the moralistic world that was dreamed of in the tournament game in the past. In conclusion, this article shows that ‘sportsmanship’ is a unique European concept. Since sportsmanship can never be a universal idea, we must be careful about its application to diverse cultures that have developed unique forms of training social bodies.

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For Michel Foucault, the “body” was discovered an indispensable thing as an object of power in modern times. And, it was found that physical education and sports took one end of discipline which Foucault pointed out by some scholars. In addition, “bio-power” which Foucault pointed out was the thing which let us expect welfare-state which appeared after World War II without remaining all the more. After having stood on these theoretical backgrounds, this study tries to describe the politics of “body” that put the today's development of welfare/health policy and of public welfare administration in a field of vision.
In addition to theoretical deliberation, this study tries to describe people who participate in “club-T” which has fitness program, which is a measure of health promotion for “elderly people” in Ibaraki. Through the fieldwork, I found that people who participate in “club-T” not only practice fitness but also enjoy having tea time. And, they want to reveal themselves in front of others though they age. However, their joy that did it this way has a relation of the front and back with the act, they say “getting behind”. Finally I found that these bring about strength of their ties and homogeneity. And it has ambiguity that may become unsociable.
As a result, for rethinking politics of “body”, I show necessity to regard the actuality, through Foucault's “bio-power”, from practice of people, political and economic trend, and history including both sides.

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The aim of this article is to describe football activity in Africa's rural villages through empirical fieldwork research. Particularly, it focuses on a dynamism that is created through football, in a localized match system which could be called “promise-binding-deposit”, but which is not only limited to football, in that this dynamism is a form of social relationship which is built into villagers' livelihood security, such as seeking employment, reciprocal help with everyday meals, and so on.
There are two reasons for focusing on this dynamism. The first is to break down an implicit perception among sport sociologists who deal with non-Western societies that sport is not in fact very important or that it is just a pastime recreation in a society which faces danger on the “existence” level.
Secondly, studies concerning sport in non-Western societies have only been focused on the space of sporting activities. Hence, they have eliminated an aspect of “presence” of people who have particular everyday livelihood problems and are trying to deal with them. However, this article shows that football players in an African village hold not only “uppermost feeling” on a pitch, but also “anxiety of life”. Football activity is strongly connected to their livelihood, and moreover it takes a very important function in it.
People's reciprocal help in non-Western society has been well discussed in the domain of anthropology and regional studies. This study especially refers to M. Matsuda's criticism against J. Scott's theory. Ultimately, it seeks to distill the “logic of one's livelihood” through investigating the football activities and everyday life of rural Ghana's villages.

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Hitherto, Kumiko Ikuta has been doing a lot of research on the training process in Geido in Japan. Ikuta argues that the characteristic feature of the training process in Geido is “non-phase”. Referring to Zeami's theory concerning practice in Geido, Ikuta suggests that there are various phases of the training process of physical education in Geido. Ikuta's explanation of the meaning of physical education in Geido also includes the various stages involved.
The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate the contradictions in Ikuta's arguments on the nature of the various phases of physical education in Geido, using the documents that Zeami, Herrigel, and Saigo have produced and clarifying their descriptions of the peculiar phases in physical education in Geido. In addition to this, this thesis also intends to point out the significance of the various phases of physical education which Ikuta has apparently failed to explain.
When phases are created in Geido, it is done through “phased guidance” whereby the leader ascertains the generation process of the phase of the learner, and mediates to the next phase. It seems that the “phase” that Ikuta has assumed is a fixed one seen symbolically in contemporary school education. However, the “phase” in physical education in Geido is one that flows dynamically. What all this probably means is that the phases of physical education in Geido have been created and developed through a complex generation process between the leaders and learners.

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