Search

What should professional development of knowledge and skills of academic sport scientists look like? We address this question by first dwelling in what 'being a professional academic' entails. Professionals work methodically, typically specialising their knowledge and skills while strategically planning how to progress their careers, often not rocking the boat of the academic discipline they call home. To gain promotion, they expertly work within predetermined disciplinary boundaries, and are typically adjudged on objectified metrics that demonstrate a 'track record' in meeting professional standards, closely linked to university performance measures. Disciplinisation and performance evaluation becomes an issue, though, when rules, regulations and conventions prevent academics from exploring beyond their disciplinary walls, instead being lulled into "playing the game." The amateur, in contrast, typically studies for the love of it, enthusiastically embodying their interest as a way of life, maintaining the highest standards of knowing-in-becoming. This passionate exploration is not limited by disciplinary conventions or performance metrics, but by how far they wish to roam through boundaries of knowing. They are, in other words, a "wayfinder," making their way through life by corresponding with what holds their interest as they go. Never neglecting the "ethos of amateurism," we contend its potential value for professional development of academic sport scientists, embracing -- and perhaps even rekindling -- a love of continued learning with and from those we encounter.

How best to summarise the professional work of sport scientists? What if we were to view them as artisans? As enskiled crafts-persons who think "through" and "with" their materials? What implications would this idea have for how we take up with research and ensuing scientific methods? Here, we explore these philosophical questions -- of applied relevance -- through Ingold's process of making. From this perspective, skilled artisans like potters, basket-makers and sport scientists, "think through making and doing," as opposed to "make and do through thinking." Where the latter imposes form onto matter by way of conceptualisation, the former goes along with materials in active participation, corresponding with what such things have to say with a skilled attentiveness and selective responsiveness. We argue that the implications of these propositions for research in sport science are profound; encouraging a progression from the traditional hypothetico-deductive theory of scientific method ("make and do through thinking"), towards an art of inquiry ("think through making and doing"). In the former, phenomena are studied "about," (re)producing categorical (sub-)disciplinary knowledge by way of vertical integration, while in the latter, phenomena are studied "with," growing storied knowledge of by way "of" correspondence. These arguments are not to be construed as a call for more 'qualitative research' within the sport sciences, but rather to underline the value of situating "participant observation" at the core of one's inquiry. Through a prologue and epilogue, we exemplify our arguments in the very process of this paper's becoming -- detailing the careful attentiveness and selective responsiveness to the various invitations to write, emergent while "thinking through making and doing."

Research has shown how social and cultural factors continually shape an athlete's development journey. For example, the types of practice designed, in which individuals are identified as talented and the characteristics that distinguish a good coach, are continually shaped by sociocultural constraints. This potential for a myriad of possible complex and ill-defined challenges (a wicked problem), highlights a need for a framework to guide both research and practice within specific sports organizations. In this paper, we present the Learning in Development Research Framework (LDRF), a deeply contextualized, transdisciplinary approach to action research that is founded in ecological dynamics that utilizes the Skilled Intentionality Framework (SIF) to capture the role of sociocultural forces in shaping athlete development. Further, we present a practical example from a professional football club highlighting the main aim of the LDRF: that player development frameworks should evolve in, interaction with the specific sociocultural context in which practitioners and individuals are embedded. The implication is that there are no 'copy and paste' templates. Practitioners and applied scientists should seek to comprehend the distinct contextual complexities of cultures, communities and situations as they encounter them, co-creating practices that, respectively, amplify and dampen helpful and unhelpful aspects of sport forms of life.

From the theoretical perspective of ecological dynamics, skilful behaviour in performance contexts like sport and education is predicted on the establishment of a functional relationship between an individual and the environment. The strength of this functional relationship is shaped over time by everyday behaviours, values, and customs (sociocultural practices) within a specific sport organisation. A growing body of research seeks to identify these influential sociocultural practices that emerge and exist in sport cultures and organisations. However, little is known from an ecological realism perspective how these practices affect an athlete's engagement with opportunities offered by the environment (e.g. affordances). In this study, we draw on ethnographic data and theoretical tenets of James Gibson's ecological psychology to identify how the sociocultural practices of a British rugby league football academy might shape an athlete's engagement with affordances. Findings revealed that masculinity and disciplined behaviours were the dominant sociocultural practices, instrumental in developing beliefs, values, and customs of athlete development practices. An ecological realism analysis of the data suggested that cultural pressures meant that key actors ignored the potential for development and learning of athletes' self-organisation tendencies, and inhibited individuals' capacities to respond to opportunities for action offered in many traditional practice designs. We conclude by discussing implications for sport practitioners that promote 'affordance-regulated' practice designs to enhance athlete-environment interactions.

Introduction: Recently Baggs and Chemero (2018. "Radical Embodiment in Two Directions." "Synthese," 1-16. doi:10.1007/s11229-018-02020-9) advocated for the possible 'productive synthesis' between the enactive and the ecological approaches in order to understand and to explain how an agent behaves and interacts with the environment. This paper argues that data production methods from 'enactive anthropology' and 'ecological dynamics' show complementarities and differences that can inform research and pedagogical applications. Purpose: From the analysis of two studies of pedagogical interventions, we explore the potential of intertwining enactive anthropology and ecological dynamics approaches in Physical Education. Methods: We summarise two previously published studies, which address skill learning through the intertwining of phenomenological and behavioural outcomes. The first investigates the interactions between students engaged in orienteering during PE lessons, the second focuses on learning climbing skills during an individual lesson. We utilise the data to highlight the advantages and limitations of intertwining enactive anthropology and ecological dynamics approaches. Findings: We suggest caution in using principles of both approaches together, due to key epistemological and ontological differences, which may impact data outcomes and preferred methodologies. The approaches differ in conceptualising the nature of individual-environment coupling but may be complementary in investigating the complexity of this coupling. Conclusion: We assert the scientific potential of intertwining enactive anthropology and the ecological dynamics approaches and the need to consider this productive synthesis to propose practical implications for PE teachers. The outlines of a pedagogy 3E (exploration, experiential and empathetic) from intertwining these two approaches are traced.

Contemporary learning and development models have identified parkour-style training as a vehicle for athlete enrichment. However, perceptions of team-sport coaches and their receptiveness to such models of athlete enrichment have not been investigated and remain unclear. To explore how parkour-style training could be integrated into athlete development programs in team sports, we interviewed sport practitioners to explore their preexisting knowledge of parkour and their perceptions on its potential applications. Experienced talent development (n = 10) and strength and conditioning coaches (n = 10) were interviewed using an open-ended, semistructured approach with a two-stage thematic analysis being conducted to identify themes. Three dimensions were identified: coaches' general perceptions of parkour, potential applications of parkour, and feasibility of integrating parkour into athlete development programs. Participant perceptions revealed that: (a) parkour activities were viewed as supplementary activities to enrich sport-specific training routines, including use of obstacle courses and/or tag elements; (b) parkour-style obstacle environments needed to be scalable to allow individual athletes and coaches to manipulate object orientation and tasks using soft play and traditional gym equipment; and (c) the implementation of continued professional development opportunities, athlete-centered approaches to learning designs in sport, and coach-parent forums were recommended to support the integration of parkour-style training.

Purpose: Using an action-research design, this study examined the impact of combining concepts from two contemporary pedagogical approaches, the Constraints-led Approach (CLA) and Step-Game Approach (SGA), on the development of youth volleyballers' tactical knowledge, as expressed in performance, throughout a full competitive season. Method: Fifteen players and one coach participated in this study, which involved three action-research cycles, each including the processes of planning, acting and monitoring, reflecting, and fact-finding. The first author, who had the role of coach-researcher, collected data using a reflexive diary and field notes between September 2017 and June 2018, as well as eight semi-structured focus-group interviews. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis, in which inductive procedures deepened understanding of the development of the participants' tactical knowledge. Results: Findings suggested that combining CLA with SGA improved tactical knowledge in specific ways. Players progressed from a starting point where they were only able to describe game scenarios, and act without tactical criteria or considering contextual game constraints, to a point where their intentions during tactical actions were shaped by their ability to think strategically and guide their attention to recognize and interpret different constraints. Conclusions: Results suggested that the development of players' tactical knowledge benefited from a mutual integration of different, yet complementary, pedagogical approaches. By integrating SGA and CLA it was possible to enhance players' adaptable thinking using learning tasks involving the manipulation of meaningful constraints that afforded variable repetition and the resolution of tactical problems.

Background: Nonlinear Pedagogy, underpinned by concepts in ecological dynamics, is a pedagogical framework that advocates an exploratory approach to acquisition of movement skills with an emphasis on individualised movement solutions. Its key principles have been successfully implemented in sports teaching and coaching and are currently being applied to learning designs in PE programmes. Purposes: The purposes of the paper are to provide an overview of the theoretical underpinnings and practical implications of Nonlinear Pedagogy (NLP) for Physical Education (PE). To exemplify applications of key concepts, we discuss how NLP is being implemented as a methodological framework for learning design in PE programmes of Singapore schools. For simplicity, our analysis focuses on the 'What', 'Why' and 'How' of NLP to illustrate its application in Singapore PE programmes. Discussion: Understanding the 'What' and 'Why' of NLP can provide a sound foundation to understand how this pedagogical framework can be applied in formalised school PE settings. While it is important for teachers to know what NLP is, the 'Why' of NLP, referencing its effectiveness as a pedagogical approach, can provide a rationale for its adoption to enhance teaching and learning. The 'How' of NLP's practical implementation in Singapore schools is of primary interest for teachers, managers, administrators and policy makers in education. Conclusion: The article discusses key pedagogical principles from NLP, which can provide a platform for teachers to design effective lessons and practices to enhance learning in PE programmes. An important practical implication of the current paper is to provide educators with guidance and training for incorporating pedagogical principles of NLP in lessons and learning programmes to enhance 'nonlinearization' of some current practices.

To cope in various aquatic environments (i.e. swimming pools, lakes, rivers, oceans), learners require a wide repertoire of self-regulatory behaviours such as awareness of obstacles and water properties, floating and moving from point to point with different strokes, decision making, emotional control and breathing efficiently. By experiencing different learning situations in stable indoor pool environments, it is assumed that children strengthen aquatic competencies that should be transferable to functioning in open water environments, where prevalence of drowning is high. However, this fundamental assumption may be misleading. Here, we propose the application of a clear, related methodology and theoretical framework that could be useful to help physical education curriculum specialists (re)shape and (re)design appropriate aquatic learning situations to facilitate better transfer of learning. We discuss the need for more representativeness in a learning environment, proposing how the many different task and environmental constraints on aquatic actions may bound the emergence of functional, self-regulatory behaviours in learners. Ideas in ecological dynamics suggest that physical educators should design learning environments that offer a rich landscape of opportunities for action for learners. As illustration, three practice interventions are described for developing functional and transferrable skills in indoor aquatic environments. It is important that aquatic educators focus not just upon 'learning to swim', but particularly on relevant transferable skills and self-regulatory behaviours deemed necessary for functioning in dynamic, outdoor aquatic environments.

Currently, there are numerous definitions and interpretations of the concept of physical literacy within the literature, potentially leading to a lack of consensus as to how to employ it in practice. In this position paper, we argue that ecological dynamics is well positioned to provide a theoretical framework that will bring clarity as well as support the operationalization of physical literacy in practice. We argue that this theoretical conceptualization provides an excellent framework for understanding physical literacy because of its emphasis on the person-environment relationship. More directly, we propose the establishment of an "individual-environment fit" across varied movement contexts over a lifespan as a central tenet of the physical literacy concept. We conclude by discussing how sports practitioners, national governing bodies, public health, and education sectors could re-design sport, exercise, and physical activity environments, in accordance with an ecological dynamics rationale to enhance physical literacy.

Purpose: This study analysed the effects of a training intervention programme using principles of Non-Linear Pedagogy (NLP) on the decision making (DM) and performance behaviours (P) of youth footballers. Method: 19 footballers (U12 yrs) participated in 14 training sessions, spread over three phases: Pre-intervention, Intervention, Retention. The intervention was based on Small-Sided and Conditioned Games. We assessed progress during the intervention phase at two different points: intermediate and final. The GPET instrument was used to analyse the DM and P during the completion of 3208 passes in the intervention. Results: Results shown significant improvements in the DM and P after the intermediate and final points of the acquisition phase. Moreover, significantly higher values were also obtained in both variables in the retention, compared to the pre-intervention phase. Conclusion: Results indicated that the NLP intervention programme was effective in improving both aspects of team games performance in youth players, with effects consolidated over time.

Background: Oversimplified, reductionist approaches to operationalising Physical Literacy (PL) have been a barrier to the development of a complex, dynamic and embodied understanding of the individual Physical Literacy journey. Further, there has been no appropriate approach that might allow practitioners to integrate Physical Literacy in Physical Education (PE). Whilst popular approaches, such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) and Game Sense (GS), for operationalising learner-centred and problem-based learning, have gained professional traction in the last three decades, the development of a comprehensive theoretical basis to underpin pedagogical principles has been neglected -- particularly in Physical Education. Pedagogical approaches grounded in "play" have gained popularity as a vehicle for Physical Literacy development in Physical Education. Despite the prominence of a Constraint-Led Approach (CLA) in sport pedagogy to assist in developing 'the intelligent, autonomous individual' in sport, application to Physical Education is limited. Purpose: In this article, we propose key pedagogical principles of a Constraints-Led Approach (CLA) in primary physical education, underpinned by the theoretical framework of Ecological Dynamics (ED). Driven by the challenge of designing affordance landscapes for learning, we present our reflections on a recently designed PE curriculum for primary schools, Boing, which could facilitate the development of movement capacities in play-based curricula designed to nurture the Physical Literacy journey for individuals. An articulation of support for the key theoretical ideas is provided in this paper. Design: This is achieved through reflections on the play-based curriculum (BOING) founded on the principles of Ecological Dynamics (ED) underpinning a Constraints-Led approach (CLA) to better serve the implementation of a Physical Literacy focussed Physical Education in a Primary school setting based on key principles for delivery. Findings: Summarising the findings, the we were able to highlight the importance of developing key principles for delivering a theoretically informed curriculum that elicits key principles of Physical Literacy. Whilst movement skills are key, these approaches are able to elicit the intended outcomes in learners of confidence, motivation and competence (Whitehead 2010, 2016). Conclusions: A CLA affords the theoretical design of play-based curricula beyond just play or sport towards purposeful, inclusive learning environments. Practitioners should look to underpin their practice with key theoretical ideas. This paper is of particular interest to those coaches and teachers tasked with designing practical environments for learning beyond the rhetoric of skill development in sport.

Background: There are deeply relevant questions concerning how to integrate and organise various nonlinear pedagogical strategies and methods in order to structure training in the professional development of Physical Education (PE) teachers and sport coaches. To promote the emergence and development of innovative and adaptive performance behaviours in sport, nonlinear pedagogy advocates the methodology of constraints manipulation to facilitate learning. Sport pedagogues have to manage and apply different constraint manipulations at varying times in practice contexts, that is, while planning before/following a learning session (i.e. designing the micro-structure of practice) and in interactions during the session. In nonlinear pedagogy, the design of practice micro-structure is predicated on the continuous, intertwined relationships between decision-making, action, perception and cognition in sport performance and learning contexts. Purpose: Here, we present an analysis of the activities that pedagogues engage in to facilitate learning and performance in sport (i.e. the "micro-structure of practice") during practical interventions in sport and exercise contexts, based on the use of a Constraints-led approach by PE teachers and coaches. Method: Based on data from illustrative studies on performance analysis and constraints manipulation, we exemplify some of the main principles and assumptions of nonlinear pedagogy. This synthesis, framed in a nonlinear pedagogy, aims to reveal how adopting a constraint led approach can straightforwardly enhance learning designs of sport practitioners. Conclusions: This article shares insights from a nonlinear pedagogy that can frame the micro-structure of practice during interventions, compared to utilization of traditional pedagogical practices. It is proposed that PE teachers and coaches are designers of learning environments and that both learning and performance improvement are seen as emerging from the interaction of key constraints (related to task, learner and environment).

Background: In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the evolution of physical education teaching practice from a traditional "teacher-centred approach" to a "student-centred approach." Consequently, research has focused on questions about the changing conceptions of the teaching and learning process, that is, from how 'we' teach to how 'they' learn. A contemporary theoretical model of the teaching and learning process could underpin learning design and delivery adopted in physical education. The constraints-led approach (CLA) is a viable alternative as its practice design and delivery is grounded in the contemporary motor learning theory of ecological dynamics within a nonlinear pedagogy framework. However, its implementation is thought to present unique challenges to physical education practitioners due to the dynamic individual learner-environment interactions from which learning occurs. For this reason, it has been suggested that researchers work symbiotically with practitioners to help facilitate the adoption of nonlinear pedagogies and provide valuable information regarding the application of theory into practice. Purpose: This study sought to explore two PETE students' experiences learning to implement a nonlinear informed pedagogical approach, specifically the CLA, with physical education students in a school practicum setting. The two PETE students were provided with support from the primary researcher during the experience. Participants and setting: A purposive sample of two second-year PETE students from an Australian university were recruited for the study. Participant selection was based on meeting the pre-specified selection criteria of a demonstrated receptiveness to the CLA and a demonstrated confidence, ability and enthusiasm to implement the approach within a school setting. The two study participants were given the opportunity to implement the CLA within a supportive school culture while on their first physical education teaching practicum. Data collection and analysis: The data collection methods utilised were documentary evidence, in the form of PETE students' post lesson written reflections, primary researcher observations with written reflections and semi-structured student interviews undertaken within 1 week of the culmination of the practicum. These data sources were analysed collectively using thematic analysis to identify repeated patterns of meaning within the data. Findings As expected, implementing the CLA presented significant challenges to novice practitioners, due to the complex nature of student learning within a nonlinear informed approach. Specifically, the PETE students rarely detected any of the multiple pupil responses that 'unexpectedly' emerged from their modified learning environments. They also had difficulty manipulating the learning environment to facilitate the emergence of learners' tactical problem-solving behaviour through the natural learning processes underpinning the CLA. Conclusion For an evolution of physical education teaching practice to progress, it is important that PETE educators work together with the physical education department of a local school to support PETE students to effectively implement nonlinear informed approaches in a school environment. Opportunities need to be provided to allow PETE students to progressively develop their experiential knowledge and conceptual understanding of the exploratory learning processes underpinning a nonlinear approach.

Specific learning experiences are vital for athletes to continuously interact with developing knowledge of the performance environment, through the refined design of representative learning contexts (ecological paradigm), and appropriate didactical interventions (constructivist paradigm). Although there is a well-established relationship between tactical knowledge (TK) and tactical behaviours (TB), research has investigated the development of both separately. Thus, the inter-dependency between knowledge and behaviour has been inferred, but not contextually interpreted in a process-oriented analysis of performance. Through an insider action-research (AR) design, and adopting a mix-methods approach, this study aimed to: (i) investigate in-depth the influence of a constructivist-ecological pedagogical intervention on developing players' TK and TB; (ii) explore effects of integrated tactical knowledge and behaviour on competitive performance. Fifteen female volleyballers participated in this study. An insider-AR (first author assumed the dual role of coach and researcher) was conducted from September 2017 to June 2018. In total, four AR-cycles were completed. A mixed-method approach was used to obtain distinct, but complementary, data on the impact of a constructivist-ecological pedagogical intervention on development of players' TK and TB. Qualitative data were used to explore the development of TK, while TB was analysed through quantitative methods. Qualitative data on the coach's perceptions were collected using a reflexive diary and field notes, while players' perceptions were recorded through four semi-structured focus-group interviews, one per AR-cycle. Quantitative data from four official competitive matches, one per AR-cycle, were analysed. Players' positional coordinates were used to calculate the synchronisation tendencies of lateral blocking and defensive lines through the cluster-phase method. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis, in which inductive procedures deepened understanding of the development of the players' TK. A 4 (matches) x 1 (court direction) repeated-measures ANOVA was used to analyse quantitatively the differences in the mean cluster-amplitude values of lateral blocking and defensive lines between matches. The unique integration of constructivist and ecological principles scaffolded the development of players' TK and TB. Players evolved from an initial stage in which they verbally described competitive game scenarios (using knowledge about environment), to an endpoint where they revealed superior tactical understanding and action intentionality. Increments in tactical complexity favoured the development of TK and TB in a long-term analysis. However, over the short-term, TB was reduced. The development of players' TK (supported by interactions yielding knowledge of practice and performance environments) shaped a basis for the acquisition of co-adaptive TB during competitive performance. First, sport practitioners could benefit from combining strategies from different theoretical approaches so that they can satisfy the daily needs of athletes in practice. Second, we advise coaches to adopt didactical and representative learning designs, grounded on video analysis and the co-creation of game-plans. Third, the data imply that time and the continuous exposure of players to meaningful and representative practice tasks in learning environments are needed so that athletes can enrich their tactical behaviours, using knowledge of the performance environment to interact effectively its constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Played-form activities in soccer are customized variants of the original game, configured to emphasize important informational and task constraints in the way players perform in practice. Parameters of play such as the shape and dimensions of the playing area, number of participants involved, and conditions of play are key properties that activities are designed from. These properties impact on the specific practice contexts in which players are challenged to perceive information, make decisions and perform actions, during competitive performance preparation and player development. There are countless possible configurations of played-form activities that can provide development or training opportunities for players to improve performance. Although there are no standard guidelines for designing such practice tasks, here we propose how a theoretical rationale like ecological dynamics can frame the configuration of activities, modelled on typical formats, specific task constraints and key developmental needs. In this article, these formats are depicted with reference to common coaching licence curriculum needs and scientific literature. This insight paper presents a continuum of played-form activities, exemplifying characteristics of different practice designs in soccer. This integration of knowledge provides a valid continuum of play practice designs, based on an extent of specific opportunities for actions in different phases of play. Our insights suggest how coaches and trainers in team sports could gain a deep understanding of how specific played-form activity configurations impact on skill adaptation in players, providing opportunities for coaches to function as learning facilitators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is common to encourage people to envision life as a process of fulfilling their potential. But what exactly does this mean? Traditionally, this question has been addressed by way of 'complementarity'; dividing the human into biological and cultural components. Fulfilment is placed on the side of the cultural; an acquisition of encoded secondary information transmitted from predecessors that represents what it means 'to know'. Potential has been defined from the biological, as a suite of innate capacities localised to the mind and body, passed on through a mechanism of genetic inheritance. Founded upon a metaphor of inter-generational transmission, this perspective leads to a conceptualisation of life as a progressive closure, 'filling up' the biologically innate with the culturally acquired. However, despite its prominence, this static view leads to a troubling question: with one's potential fulfilled, where is one to go next? In this theoretical commentary, we offer an alternate, dynamical account of potential and fulfilment by leaning on Ingold's notion of wayfaring. From this perspective, life is not a process of being 'filled up' with secondary information, but of responsively 'opening up'; corresponding with varied experiences cast forward by others, as they to ours, situated within a continually unfolding field of relations. Ontologically, this view is of 'us', not as beings, but becomings, finding our way along generative paths inhabited alongside others. Knowledge is not transmitted inter-generationally, but is grown by primarily experiencing the coming-into-being of things we enter into correspondence with. Initiated through a prologue, these ideas are exemplified in sharing our storied journey as sport scientists in-becoming, following not objects of convention, but corresponding with things of curiosity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Never has the domain of sports coaching been so inundated with secondary information. In high-performance contexts, for example, coaches are routinely presented with detailed reports specifying features about an athlete's or team's performance. Here, we question whether such detailed secondary information has led us to know too much, obscuring what the world has to share directly with us. To over-rely on secondary information is to narrow in on certainty, on cause-effects that are oft-espoused through de-contextualised 'performance' tests and metrics. This indirect approach eschews opening up to uncertainty, to ongoing inquiry embedded in primary experience. For where certainty risks closures, uncertainty opens to the possibility of carrying on with and alongside others. We explore this thesis through the reflections of an Olympic Canoe Slalom coach, meandering through three sections: (i) on paying attention; (ii) on knowing better; (iii) on guidance without specification. In presenting this thesis, we hope to encourage others - in sports coaching and beyond - to embrace an ethos of not-knowing, opening up to the 'goings on' of what interests them, actively attending and directly responding with genuine care and curiosity. Indeed, while embracing an ethos of not-knowing can be unsettling, vulnerably exposing oneself to changing power relations in a world perpetually on the move, it can facilitate primary experience of the surrounding ecology. The accompanying growth of responsiveness to one's surroundings emerges from listening to what it has share, joining in conversation to find ways of carrying on. It is in this responsiveness, we contend, that a wisdom can be found; a wisdom of not-knowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our societally extractive age, sport science risks being swept up in the intensifying desire to commodify the experiences of those that scientists proclaim to study. Coupled with the techno-digital revolution, this stems from a vertical (onto)logic that frames the sporting landscape as a static space filled with discrete objects waiting for us to capture, analyse, re-present and sell on as knowledge. Not only does this commodification degrade primary experience in the false hope of epistemological objectivity, it reinforces the unidirectionality of extractivism by setting inquirer apart from, and above of, inquiry. Here, we advocate for a different, more sentient logic grounded in the relationality of gifting as understood in indigenous philosophies. This foregrounds an ecological orientation to scholarship that sets out neither to objectify or describe that which is of concern, but to correspond with its becoming. On this, there are three threads we cast forward. First, in a corresponsive sport science, inhabitants are not objects of analysis, but lines in-becoming, who in answering to others, form knots in a meshwork. These knots constitute communal places in which inhabitants have joined with the differentiating coming-into-being of others. Second, knowledge is not authoritatively (re)cognitive, but humbly ecological; not produced vertically through imposition, but grown longitudinally in responsively moving from place to place. Third, research does not follow a vertically extractive (onto)logic, but is a practice of participant observation. This perspective appreciates that we, sport scientists, are also lines in-becoming that form parts of the knots in which we seek to know. In coda, our thesis is not a call for more qualitative or applied research in the sport sciences. It is a call to response-ably open up to that which sparks our curiosity, answering to what is shared with care, sensitivity and sincerity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this insight article is to explore the relevance and value of some of Bruce Lee's ideas that influenced his coaching philosophy, (re)viewed through the lens of contemporary discussions in movement skill acquisition. To achieve this aim, we highlight empirical and anecdotal examples of many of the important concepts that support Bruce Lee's interpretation of martial arts, Jeet Kune Do (JKD). We contend that Lee's approach to coaching and skill refinement was deeply aligned with ideas that underpin an ecological dynamics framework. Central to the philosophy of Bruce Lee and JKD is the need for coaches, practitioners, and athletes to embrace and express more water-like adaptability throughout their practice. Examining the various, nuanced insights of Bruce Lee, we can observe many practical lessons which have stood the test of time, remaining highly applicable to athletes of today seeking to move skillfully in sports. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]