Review
Beauty in
sport is often experienced, but seldom studied. It is a primary reason for the
popularity of sport. It is a venue in which people can experience movement in
pleasing ways; feelings of control and competence and even beauty in their own
motion and the vicarious appreciation of the agony and ecstacy of others
performing. Yet, because beauty defies empirical description, it tends to be
absent from the art and science of movement except as a form of performing art,
such as in the case of Dance. This is a sad state of affairs, for the aesthetic
moment is one of special significance. We are excited by skilled sports
performance in which such qualities as speed, strength and strategy are employed
to explore human limitations. We enjoy participating for the personal experience
of mastery and the vision of beauty we see in our own motion. The premise of
this chapter has been that we should not shy away from the richness of the
aesthetic experience in, and through, sport. In fact we should take every
opportunity to seek it out and we should appreciate it as fully as we can. In
the process, it is incumbent upon us, as educated human beings, to understand
and discuss the indefinable. Rather than ignoring the ineffable, we should
accept the challenge of exploring uncharted territories of human experience.
Although words cannot fully reconstruct our movement reality, we can strive to
improve our expression and our evaluation of the aesthetic moment.