Pedagogical touch: exploring the micro-realities of coach–athlete sensory interactions in high-performance sports

Background

Touch has emerged as a social taboo rather than as an educational tool among sport pedagogues, especially in the #MeToo era. Believing that minimising physical contact will protect themselves from sexual allegations, instructors (coaches and PE teachers) are increasingly opting for hands-off practices, which transforms sport into a no-touch zone. Although extant sport literature has focused on the potential risks and controversial issues of intergenerational touch, academic endeavours exploring its pedagogical value in sensory interaction are limited.

Purpose

This study emphasises the fundamental necessity of pedagogical touch (PT) in high-performance sports. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty’s (Citation1968) ‘flesh’ as an elemental tissue knitting the inter-world by entangling (subjectively sensing and objectively being sensed) the existences of oneself, others, and the world, we examine the micro-realities of PT occurring in coach–athlete interactions. As one of the few empirical investigations using video analysis, this study is expected to complement the current understanding of coach–athlete tactile communication by linking it with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological concepts.

Methods

Sensory ethnography was employed to comprehend the nuances and dynamics of PT in coach–athlete relationships. Sixteen participants, comprising eight coaches and eight adolescent athletes across four high-performance sports (golf, taekwondo, wrestling, and handball), were selected. Empirical data were gathered through observations using body-mounted camcorders (GoPro7), stimulated recall interviews, and semi-structured interviews. The data were analysed by alternating between inductive fieldwork and deductive framework.

Results and discussion

Our empirical investigation revealed three key findings. First, PT aims to transfer each sport’s normative body schema of postures, muscles, and senses. Second, the overlapping zone of tactile, visual, and auditory sensations—synaesthesia—enables coaches to explore athletes’ inner sensory conditions appropriately for individualised prescriptions of PT. Third, coaches utilise objects as extended bodies to touch opposite-sex athletes without skin-to-skin contact. Reflecting on the results, we discuss conducive considerations for coaches to maintain the pedagogical benefits of touch: (a) educational persuasion regarding the discomfort caused when athletes’ body schema is de/reconstructed by PT; (b) appropriate questions to understand athletes’ internal sensations; and (c) inclusive application of object-mediated touch to ensure the safety of PT by avoiding direct contact with athletes’ sensitive body parts, irrespective of sex or gender.

Conclusion

Based on the findings, the authors suggest that sporting agencies broaden their attention towards supporting coaches to be professionally prepared for potential touch-related problems. This can be achieved by offering coaches opportunities to cultivate their ethical and pedagogical sensibilities about intergenerational touch through education on actual un/professional PT cases, instead of continuing with the current no-touch discourses (less touch, less problem). Thereby, coaches, who face dilemmas regarding tactile communication without alternative pedagogies, can reflect on their own practice compared to others’ PT cases while building didactic contracts with their athletes and handling problematic circumstances.