In search of a martial habitus: Identifying core dispositions in wing chun and taijiquan

Introduction: The Problem of the Martial Habitus In the last 10 years, the field of scholarly study of martial arts and combat sports has been expanding steadily. For example, a range of empirical qualitative (particularly ethnographic) research has been produced within capoeira (Delamont and Stephens 2008; Joseph 2008a), Venezuelan stick and machete fighting (Ryan 2011), military and ‘reality’ schools of fighting (Bar-On Cohen 2011), mixed martial arts (MMA) (Downey 2007a; Spencer 2009; Abramson and Modzelewski 2011) and Chinese martial arts (Jennings, Brown and Sparkes 2010). A number of these make quite extensive use of the concept of habitus as developed by Bourdieu (1977) and Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992). This concept has provided a powerful analytical tool for making sense of the reflexive cultural dynamics taking place between these arts as transcultural practices, their specific sociocultural contexts of adoption and adaption, and the pedagogical and transformative nature of these practices for their practitioners. The notion of a martial habitus has apparent interpretive connections with Wacquant's (1992, 2004a) work on the ‘pugilistic habitus’ (for example, certain key dispositions are seemingly shared such as Wacquant illustrated, the near monastic devotion to routinized training practices). However, unlike the field of boxing, which is the product of a long and increasingly globalized process of standardization of pugilistic logics of practice (i.e. winning, losing, professional, amateur, legitimate, illegitimate, types of body (weight, condition, age, gender) and uses of the body techniques, etc.), at this point in time there are difficulties with accounting for the commonalities and differences of dispositional schemata that might be constitutive of a martial habitus covering the range of martial arts and combat sports that currently exist (Sánchez and Malcolm 2010). This is due to their immense variety, cultural location and associations, lack of standardization, various intended outcomes of practice and, crucially, body pedagogies.