Embodied learning in interaction: The case of aikido

This chapter uses a phenomenological and enactive approach to focus on embodied learning in the interaction which characterises couple-based activities. The case of practising the martial art aikido is used to both exemplify and drive the argumentation. Descriptions of how we are to be aware that interactions take place on multiple levels simultaneously, and that skills are to be understood as context sensitive, provide grounds for analysing the extended and enactive characteristics of interaction. By drawing on descriptions of coordination with another subject, the chapter indicates how the interaction has its own dynamics that cannot be reduced to a combination of individual agencies. As the aikido case indicates, practitioners develop their skills and abilities to participate not only in relation to but through the movement of the other. Finally, the relevance of these extended and enactive characteristics of embodied learning is discussed in relation to physical education.