Movement and Performance: Room 6
The Golfing Body Mnemonic: The Poetics of Swing Mechanics and Muscle Memory
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Thomas A. Hamill
In this essay I examine the first known written instructions on the golf swing as meticulously enumerated between January 1687 and December 1688 by Thomas Kincaid, a medical student at Edinburgh University. Kincaid’s diary of his studies and everyday experiences, replete with reflections upon surgery, poetry, and philosophy, includes perhaps most notably extensive and systematic ruminations on what he claims to be “the only way of playing golf.” Addressing fundamental issues such as muscular control, swing plane, bodily motion, and ball position, Kincaid enumerates in these passages what I suggest is a working mechanics and poetics of the golf swing, especially insofar as his careful and recurring articulations of club arc, arm and torso rotation, leg control, and shaft angle eventually cohere in verses that frame the repeatable golf swing (and the laws of motion that govern it) in metered rhyme. My paper focuses on Kincaid’s detailed criteria for effective golf and considers in particular the ways in which the diarist establishes a paradigm for effecting muscle memory through linguistic repetition and poetic form. Much like other sections of his journal wherein he attempts to “digest” medical authorities, these golfing passages, I hope to demonstrate, constitute an effort to incorporate, through syntactic and literary models, the muscular and mechanical aspects of the golf swing into comprehensible, theoretically informed, and, perhaps most important, reproducible bodily and linguistic routines.
Governance with or without Government: The Impact of International Organization on Global Sport
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Efthalia Chatzigianni
For decades, the global sport has been governed by Non-Governmental Organizations. The particular features of sports NGOs have rendered them unique actors in world politics and have preserved and highlighted the unique nature of sport through more than a century. Yet, as derived from globalization and increased sociopolitical and economic interdependence between societies and economies, a number of significant changes are taking place in sport governance at a slower pace though than in any other policy field. The present paper deals with factors of modern global sports governance which are a consequence of the developments taking place in an international organization. It aims at showing the significance of the creation of international sport lobbies and sports networks and the formation of relevant alliances as well as their impact on the governance of traditional sport governing bodies. In this framework, examples of sports interest representation within international organizations at international and European level will be presented as means to highlight and identify the complexity and importance of various sports interests, sports government and governance in international sports organization as a result of globalization and multi-level governance.
Elite and Mass Track and Field in the United States: Best Practices and Opportunities for Advancement
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Peter Smolianov, Winston To, Nicholas Stone, Soufiane Rafi, Steven Dion, Christopher Schoen, Jaclyn Norberg Morrissette
This study examines the current state of track and field in the USA against an ideal-type model for developing high-performance sport integrated with mass participation. A questionnaire was developed for the following elements of the model: talent development; advanced athlete support; training centers; competitions; intellectual services; partnerships with supporting agencies; and, balanced and integrated funding and structures of mass and elite sport. Survey questions were validated by 12 international experts including executives from sport governing bodies, track and field coaches, academicians, and administrators. To determine the areas for improvement, 102 coaches completed the questionnaire. Possible advancements were further identified through semi-structured discussions with 10 track and field administrators. Results suggest possible enhancements at macro level (e.g., new partnerships and incentives for greater support of mass and elite track and field), meso level (e.g., additional sources and models for better coach education and facilities), and micro level (e.g., advanced lifelong track and field guidelines for excellence of everyone).
