Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I use Olympic Weightlifting as a case study for how athletes learn requisite movements and techniques for their sport. I contrast training (when athletes engage in ritual movement) with competition (when athletes enact performative movement).

Paper long abstract:

To perform the competitive lifts in Olympic Weightlifting athletes assume positions and postures that novices find awkward and uncomfortable. Alongside postural discomfort, the competitive lifts require athletes to enact rapid, explosive movements with balance and flexibility. The patterns entail precise movements and orientations of the body with the bar. Coaches provide lifters a myriad of cues during their training sessions, instructing them about where to position body parts, and what to do with said body parts (e.g., "keep your shoulders over the bar", "let your arms loosely hang"). Novices can feel overwhelmed at the complexity of the movements, and prioritising and fulfilling the coaches' commands can be a struggle. Athletes often first approach the movements as an abstract, intellectual problem. Coaches describe the what and how of the movement. Athletes attempt to enact what they have heard; to embody the commands. Coaches provide reinforcement, and athletes gradually begin to approximate the "correct" movements (they learn to feel the movements). With diligent effort, the athletes train away postural discomfort, become stronger, and achieve technical proficiency. Mastery comes through training, but, the intent of training is competition. In the gym, "ritual movement" requires work that is routinized, internalised, and repetitive. On the platform, in competition, the athlete must purge distraction, avoid intellectual parsing of coaches' cues, and overcome emotions and feelings of doubt and uncertainty. Competition demands a "performative movement", dealing with weights that exceed previous personal bests, the athlete find success by abandoning herself to the pattern.