Though boxing is usually perceived as an individual sport, the merging of boxer and coach into a joint corporeality is essential for prevailing the fight. Using several video recordings (respective transcripts and drawings of video stills) taken during professional boxer`s training sessions, fight preparation, and actual fighting, I show how this connection is established over long-term training, renewed immediately before a fight, maintained during fighting, and (at times) lost. Deploying an ethnomethodological approach, I illustrate the coaches` methods of engaging in an intercorporeal relation with their boxers. When connected properly, they fight together with the boxers` performance enhanced by the coaches` perception and skilful experience. However, coaches and boxers permanently oscillate between an intercorporeal connection and a laboriously established substitution of such. Thus, their endeavour remains delicate and the connection`s fragility is exposed, especially during fighting itself when it is - literally - hammered on by the opponent.
© Copyright 2023 Sports Coaching Review. Taylor & Francis. Alle Rechte vorbehalten. / Übersetzt mit https://www.DeepL.com/Translator