Touch and Tension: A Collaborative Autoethnography of Women’s Embodied Memories in Martial Arts and Combat Sports

This paper explores the significance of touch in Martial Arts and Combat Sports (MA/CS) through collaborative feminist phenomenological autoethnography, drawing on women’s lived experiences to examine how physical contact shapes both the body-mind-self and environment. Through personal reflections, the paper investigates the tensions of touch in the development of technique, trust, power dynamics, and identity within combat sport practice. The collaborative nature of this autoethnography offers multiple perspectives – each woman’s unique experience of touch in training, sparring, and combat – highlighting how this often-overlooked aspect of MA/CS is integral to understanding embodiment, learning, trust, and personal growth. We argue that touch offers a valuable lens for understanding embodiment, gendered power, and resistance in MA/CS.