The aim of this article is to critically reflect on Pierre Bourdieu’s methodological proposition to amalgamate reflection and observation by using two ethnographies of boxers, Loic Wacquant’s Body & Soul [2004] and Tomonori Ishioka’s Local Boxers in the Impoverished World [2012], which mark two culminating achievements of qualitative research in sport sociology. A critical exposition of these works must not simply reflect on the perspectives and intentions of the researchers in the field; rather it requires us to appreciate their bodily experiences (which requires concrete accumulation of time), their efforts to measure the sense of distance from the subject (boxers), and their awareness of their positionality in the field. In other words, we must acknowledge that their acts of writing were cultivated through their bodily practices, that is, that they were not simply the reflections of their thought processes. This exposition helps us to recognize the presence of “double moral indebtedness”, the sense that some research subjects feel indebted to other research subjects, and that researchers feel indebted to the research subjects. The act of this recognition essentially means to “objectify the objectifying”. Yutaka Suga, by revealing his own moral indebtedness and problematizing institutionalized knowledge of academics, has recently proposed to amalgamate research practice and social practice by binding himself to a disaster-hit area. The practice of reflexive sociology reveals the pitfalls of institutionalized knowledge in the ‘field’ of sport sociology. It also demands that we not only objectify ourselves, but that we expose our own bodily experiences.

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　I am a child adolescent psychiatrist, but when I was younger I was a ‘young carer’ who had a mother with schizophrenia. How this influenced my upbringing was profound, and in my adolescence, I was so involved in deviant behavior that I had to consult a psychiatrist who prescribed medication.
　A few years ago, I publicly revealed my mother’s situation, and since then I have begun to think of myself as a ‘trinity’, a family member, a patient and a psychiatrist, although the borders between these have at times become obscured.
　Before disclosing my mother’s schizophrenia, I had ‘internal stigma’, and that affected my work. I maintained a distance from my patients, telling myself that I was protecting them, but in truth, I may have believed that they were incapable of recovery.
　The stigmas attached to psychiatric disorders have been a factor in the prevention of recovery of patients and their families down through the ages, but the stigmas are not only limited to the psychiatric field.
　This journal includes some papers on social inequality based on ethnicities, wealth and poverty, educational backgrounds, and cultures, among others. The process of people overcoming these social disadvantages through sports could be inspiring for psychiatric patients who are aiming for ‘recovery’.
　Medical caregivers ‘protect’ patients based on their standpoint as supporters, but that can be, in a sense, a way of drawing a line between ‘normal and disorder’ and a way of limiting the activities and hopes of patients.
　‘Recovery’ is a new means of finding continuity between normal and disorder. With this awareness, I considered ‘protection ’ ‘resilience ’and ‘recovery ’ by referring to my experience as a child adolescent psychiatrist.

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　Ethnography is a means of understanding people’s lives, societies and cultures by visiting places where we do not usually live and staying there for a long time. But we are already familiar with some aspects of ethnography in daily life because we always have new experiences and try to understand the new worlds of other people. Therefore, we could describe ethnography in a broader sense as “ethnography related to living”, while we could refer to ethnography written by a researcher as “ethnography related to research”. Clinical practice with an inquiring mind means that professionals objectify reality and identify problems and consider them deeply in a clinical setting. Ethnography is a very important practical attitude and a method for all kinds of professionals. I think that “ethnography related to living” is a necessary method of carrying out clinical practice with an inquiring mind. In this context I discussed a conceptual method and a practical one on ethnography. And I discussed how to describe reality and how to apply sequence analysis, which is a kind of qualitative analysis for ethnography.

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　The purpose of this paper is to explicate characteristics of qualitative study in sports sociology. We will discuss the point that sociology of sports has to illustrate “specific logics of practices”.
　Former studies in sports sociology, such as sociological functionalism, supposed that sports are subordinate to the social structures. Such a relationship between sports and “the social” is still a pitfall for qualitative studies. So, in this paper I examined two ethnographies, one is a study on boxers in the Philippines, the other is a study on wheelchair basketball players. The former describes sports practices that exist at the crossing point of daily life in the Philippines and practices in a boxing gym. The latter describes “the social” that appears in sports practices. In other words, sports experiences are accomplished as interaction in the practices. In any case, these two studies pay attention to the “specific logics of practices” in sports practices, and the qualitative research and analysis used to grasp the logics of practices.
　The description of “specific logics of practices” does not explain sports practices by inserting social structures or social norms from the outside.

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　In social sciences of sports and physical education, several remarkable characteristics of adult social activities have been found in time-series analyses based on qualitative research in a national survey of participants in sports and physical activities carried out by the Cabinet Office. However, national physical fitness tests conducted by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology have also presented several trends as quantitative research. In the former case, gerontology research indicated two major theories, activity theory and disengagement theory. Activity theory may explain the situation of some older people, especially those who have adhered to a lifelong pattern of high interaction. Sports activities have provided several networks for the elderly in the community. Recent trends of elderly participants in sport were applied to activity theory. From the perspective of society, disengagement permits younger members to enter functional roles, thereby facilitating turnover without intergenerational conflict. It also ensures that equilibrium and stability will be maintained, since members are replaced in the functional roles of society before their death. Continuity theory followed on from activity theory. Through the early-life socialization process, the individual learns and internalizes habits, commitments, preferences, and dispositions that become part of the personality and life-style. These tend to persist as an individual grows older, and to remain prominent factors in social interaction unless there is a reason for change. In two or three decades, Japanese adults have become involved in sports because of health reasons, competitive values or simple pleasure. The national physical fitness test computed average and standard deviation by controlling four patterns of activity levels of children and teenagers from 1977. The four types of participation in sports and physical activities were: no activity in the previous twelve months (Type1), less than once a week (Type2), once to twice a week (Type3), and three or more times a week (Type4). Fifty meter running and softball throwing were measured in each type from 1977 to 2012. While the four types remained unchanged, there was a decline in performance. Whereas the performances of Type1 changed to a high degree, the other types showed little decline in the standard of physical abilities. Why then did the number of participants decrease? A gradual decrease in participants in Type 4 occurred simultaneously with an increase in Types 1, 2 and 3. The relation of the qualitative research toward the quantitative phenomenon in sports sciences has employed significant techniques in order to clarify and understand the critical changes of society, and to re-construct the new hypotheses.

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