This study is grounded in the perspective that athletic performance is an emergent property of a multi-layered system structured by social-relational patterns, rather than merely a display of an individual’s fragmentary skills (Loy, 1968; Coakley, 2...
This study is grounded in the perspective that athletic performance is an emergent property of a multi-layered system structured by social-relational patterns, rather than merely a display of an individual’s fragmentary skills (Loy, 1968; Coakley, 2017). Despite the prevailing discourse that “athletes do not exist in a vacuum” (Hardy et al., 1996), the understanding of performance has long been disproportionately focused on technical proficiency or linear outcomes, often overlooking the complex dynamics surrounding the athletes. Consequently, this study conceptualizes performance not as reductive numerical metrics, but as an optimized state of organic cyclic dynamics between an athlete’s holistic growth and multi-layered contexts. To support this, the study adopts the Multi-layered Approach and the Holistic Ecological Approach as its theoretical foundations (Henriksen et al., 2010; Fletcher & Wagstaff, 2009).
To explore this, the researcher designed a multi-layered mental coaching framework and implemented it within an elite sports environment over several years. The participants comprised 19 athletes from a professional women’s team (Club A) in South Korea. The researcher conducted insider research by dwelling within the club for four years, closely observing field dynamics and providing multifaceted support. Methodologically, the structure of the athletes’ experiences was rigorously elucidated through Colaizzi’s (1978) descriptive phenomenological analysis, while Gadamer’s (1960/2004) hermeneutic reflection was employed to integrate the researcher’s pre-understanding with the contextual nuances of the field, thereby providing a multidimensional perspective on the experience of change.
The analysis reveals that the athletes’ change experiences unfolded through layer-specific dynamics: First, at the individual level, an ‘Ontological Return’ enabled athletes to secure psychological well-being and self-management agency as autonomous beings. Second, at the team level, a ‘Collaborative Transition’ occurred, where individual changes evolved into relational emergence characterized by psychological safety and collaborative self-regulation. Third, at the community level, ‘Structural Settlement’ transformed the organization into a ‘phenomenological community,’ where the club’s system and leadership served as a horizon protecting growth. Throughout this process, multi-layered mental coaching functioned as a multifaceted scaffolding, bridging psychological and structural gaps and catalyzing systemic dynamics.
Ultimately, the essential structure of this change experience is identified as the ‘Cyclic Spiral Growth Dynamics of a Multi-layered Ecosystem.’ This suggests that performance improvement is a feedback process that originates from an individual’s ontological return, resonates through relational dynamics, and aligns with organizational stability. Furthermore, the study confirmed the potential for evolution into an ‘autogenous ecosystem’ as multifaceted support is internalized over time.
In conclusion, this study contributes to the field by reframing performance improvement as a ‘resonance between systems and the integration of holistic growth’ rather than a linear achievement. While acknowledging the contextual specificity of a single case and the necessity for rigorous vigilance regarding the researcher’s subjective bias, this study provides critical implications by expanding the horizon of sports psychology into an ecological paradigm and deriving an ‘integrated growth grammar’ grounded in the field context.