Mobiliser par les sens, pour se comporter en équipe: massages, messages et passages par le vestiaire au rugby

Abstract

Element of folklore which gives rugby some of its flavour, object of curiosity for the medias and more generally for all those that are not accepted in it, the before the match lockers' room is a Mecca for Rugby. This contribution describes what is at stake inside those walls and shows how, through the mobilization of senses, collective preparation allows teaming up. We can see how the preparation time has moved from a silent moment to a collective sharing time of listening to the same music, or how each player is captured by and becomes one with the group during the camphor oil massage. Touching one's partner, rubbing on the same smell enables the player to connect with the group and with the expectations of the task to come : the symbolic charge of this esthetic transposition finds its energy in the mobilization of the senses on which it is grounded. The warming up is an expression of the values and goals of the group, trough gesture and words : it is about feeling together in order to better be together as one. All of the before the game activities is but a ritualised mediation, which, through the senses, adjusts and frames experiences, regulates emotions through focusing and introduces the player to the game's specific esthetics. Compulsory moment of expression, coded time and place, the lockers' room offers thus also an opportunity to question the effects of such a management shaped by our senses and which makes of the team both a political system and a galaxy of emotions.