Anu Vaittinen received her doctorate from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2014, with a thesis entitled "Varieties of embodied knowing: an ethnographic study of Mixed Martial Arts." She is a sociologist of sport and physical culture with a particular interest in phenomenology, embodiment knowledge and visual culture.
Authors | Anu Vaittinen
Articles on Amodern by Anu Vaittinen
INTERSECTIONS
Ways of Knowing Mixed Martial Arts and Visual Culture
This paper examines the intersection of ways of knowing Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) skill and visual culture with a specific focus on the ways in which MMA coaches and practitioners engage with the visual as a part of learning and coaching MMA: illustrated with examples from an ethnographic study of two MMA gyms. Existing research has only relatively recently begun to systematically explore the significance and connections between sport, education, new media technologies and visual culture. In this paper I argue that the practitioners and coaches engage with different aspects of visual culture through diverse channels as part of the process of developing practical understanding and skills required for MMA.