Bodywork as a form of culture

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The aim of the current study was to discuss the process of learning techniques of the body as a form of culture. This study discusses issues with a liberal arts education, which seeks to create a sense of self while responding to the changing times. At the same time, this study attempts to expand that education to theories of interpersonal relationships that entail issues with others. The perspective of“ acting” in the world via one’s culturally defined body is ultimately predicated on having a “body that is open” to the world. Opening up avenues to the outside world is achieved through a concept that functions as a cultural apparatus for maintaining order. Habitual body techniques, i.e. “habitual physical activities” and “traditional physical activities” that systemize techniques for eliciting physical sensations, based on these cultural elements are closely related to cultural inheritance and our lives. In addition, the “techniques” evoked by traditional physical activities are learned and refined through the spontaneous repetition of physical activities, i.e. exercise and training, and become a way of improving one’s self. As “techniques,” “traditional physical activities” powerfully appeal to people’s perceptions in comparison to habitual physical activities. Thus, traditional physical activities both allow people to acquire body techniques and they are “bodywork” that are able to act on the ways in which humans live. Moreover, traditional physical activities are a process of cultural inheritance infused with the building of relationships with others.

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