Index Power and knowledge Power, Foucault and the coach-athlete relationship Power, Foucault and gender Discourse and knowledge Ideology Discourse This assignment will examine and write about the theorist Michael Foucault and understand his importance and the influence it has had on knowledge and power in sports coaching. This assignment will also reflect on knowledge and power and how his theories have influenced gender/feminism in sports coaching and also how his theories have aided the development of the coach-athlete and will reflect on the importance of the impact of knowledge and power on a mental level and how they can influence women especially in sport. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayMichel Foucault was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, and critic of literacy. Foucault's theories mainly address the relationship between power and knowledge. He did not write about sport as such, but he puts into perspective what his theories concluded, so his focus on the body of domination and control makes his work relevant to the development of the coach and the athlete. Power and knowledgeMichel Foucault describes power as "If power was never repressive, if it did nothing but say no, do you really think one would be induced to obey it? What makes power so good, what makes it accepted, is simply the fact that it does not weigh on us as a force that says no, but that produces and passes through things, induces pleasures, forms of knowledge, produces discourses. It must be considered as a productive network that passes through the entire social body, much more that as a negative instance whose focus is repression”. By this he means that “power” is more powerful when it is less exploited. It helps us to understand that “power” does not only work through denial, but is there other ways of being and forms of pleasure. Power, Foucault and the coach-athlete relationship Foucault defined power as a relationship and this means that the actions of some help to guide or direct “the possible field of action of others”. he did not view power as operating in a “top-down” manner, but as a sequence of relationships in which an individual interacts with others. Regarding the 'top-down' method, Foucault suggests that a coach effectively dictates to the athlete without negotiation in a hierarchical manner as opposed to the sequence of relationships in which the athlete and coach support each other at the same way. To put Foucault's understandings into perspective and understand how coaching produces power effects, Markula and Pringle (2006) used the following example to provide a good understanding of what an athlete-coach is and how they function: “A coach and an athlete exists within a specific power relationship, as the coach typically guides the athlete's conduct or performance. Although the coach can develop strategies to direct the athlete's actions, for example by keeping the athlete on the bench, the athlete is still relatively free to decide his or her response and, ultimately, whether he or she will continue to be coached. The athlete's actions can also reciprocally influence the coach's actions. If the athlete, for example, tells the coach that he or she is thinking about quitting, this could prompt a change in the coach's future actions. Therefore, even though the power relationship between coach and athlete may be unbalanced, it can still be seen as existing within a specific power relationship.” The disciplinary techniques analyzed by Foucault are linked to systems and tacticsused to train and train athletes. From this it emerges that Foucault analyzed how coaches use different systems and tactics to train their athletes. Sport science has been a key element to disciplinary power in sport as, for example, Shogan (1999) has discussed how Foucault's descriptions of sport techniques of disciplinary power read like a how-to manual for coaches. This explains how coaching can function as a practice to help guide and discipline modern athletes. This type of power, which is the core of the control and discipline of bodies, was used in an exercise, which Foucault (1979) otherwise calls “through surveillance”. Foucault's (1972) description of disciplinary power explained by Markula and Pringle (2006), state that the discipline of power is almost perfectly parallel and this is how coaches try to control and regulate their athletes. Coaches do this by having a structured plan to get the best out of their athlete and by using diverse training activities, rigid training programs, and observation and judgment practices. As for coaches, this may have been practiced many times, for the better and to aid not only the coach's training style, but the athlete's development. Shogan (1999) best explained modern discipline as “both an exercise in control and an argument.” Power, Foucault and GenderFoucault's writings have had an enormous influence on many different types of people, personalities and characteristics, but among feminist theorists, they have largely criticized and developed his work. Feminists have widely followed Foucault's work and engaged with his theories, but it seemed that Foucault had never shown so much attention to feminism or gender issues. For many people, it would seem that this would be very biased towards women and would cause gender issues, and also the way that Foucault shows the power bias by focusing on the ways in which it invests in the body, but in a curious way is neutral with respect to type. This has been widely criticized as failing to address the importance of gender in power plays. He is accused of “ignoring the gendered configurations of power”; to “neglect to examine the gendered character of many disciplinary techniques” and to “treat the body in all its parts as if it were one, as if the bodily experiences of men and women did not differ and as if men and women had the same relationships with man, institutions characteristic of modern life”. From these quotes, it appears that I do not differentiate between genders in seeking how or why power works to invest, shape, and produce bodies that are gendered. According to Bartky (1998), he appears to be “blind.” This has extended to the point where that gender decides the techniques and degrees of discipline applied to the body. Bartky (1998) goes on to ask, “Where is the explanation for the disciplinary practices that generate women's 'docile bodies', bodies more docile than men's bodies?” This implies that there is no concrete evidence to suggest that a woman is less capable of displaying the same effective coaching strategies as a man. From the context of sports coaching, Bartky's study is a valuable way to empower female coaches to believe they have the same abilities as their male counterparts, provides an equal perspective for all sports coaches internationally, and has no ability limitations. She also says that “women, like men, are subject to many of the same disciplinary practices described by Foucault. But it is blind to those disciplines that produce a typically feminine mode of embodiment.” This suggests that although a study.”.