Breaking the Circle of Common Actions by Building the Circle of Seamless Mind–Body Creativity in Sport
摘要
In this chapter, we focus on creativity and ways to ignite it in the example of a sport—Breaking—that has recently entered the Olympic arena. Firstly, we address three fundamental functions of creativity in open and closed skills sports: (1) structuring movement routines whose originality is an evaluation criterion (e.g., technical-compositional sports), (2) dealing with unpredictable real-time challenges to maintain a strategic competitive advantage (e.g., team sports), and (3) developing new techniques that help improve performance efficacy and efficiency (e.g., track and field). We make the case that these different functions of creativity are intertwined and equally critical to Breaking performance. To shape creative practice in Breaking, we embrace Dietrich’s (2019) view on deliberate, spontaneous, and flow modes of creativity, encompassing both ideational and sensorimotor pathways, and cross-pollinate it with the Ecological Dynamics view on creativity. We address how to (1) make a deliberate use of divergent and convergent creative thinking, (2) release spontaneous creativity under constraints of the person-task-environment system, and (3) facilitate flow as a catalyst of creativity. We conclude on the essence of creativity in Breaking, embodied in movement actions, embedded in a context of opportunities for action, and enculturated in a unique socio-cultural environment.