Christian Köhler-Warmbrunn - President

Christian Köhler-Warmbrunn (born 14 October 1981 in Dessau; known as Christian Köhler before marriage) is a German anthropologist, philosopher and martial arts teacher. He works as a social entrepreneur and writer.

Life

Köhler-Warmbrunn has practised various martial arts since 1992 and, while studying anthropology and philosophy at Martin-Luther Universität Halle (MLU) with Prof. Dr. Thomas Hauschild, became increasingly concerned with their sociocultural context. Since 2005, he has been a founding member of the cultural, sports and educational association Culture Academy e. V. and active in its organisation and development.

His Magister thesis ( Citation: Köhler 2015 Köhler, C. (2015). Capoeira. Körper, Flow Und Erzählung Im Afro-Brasilianischen Kampftanz. Tectum. ) explored the viscerally encoded foundations of social relationships and accessible potentials for enlightenment in the Afro-Brazilian martial dance Capoeira. He received a DAAD research scholarship for his fieldwork in Salvador da Bahia. The work was revised and published as a monograph.

In his dissertation ( Citation: Köhler-Warmbrunn 2025 Köhler-Warmbrunn, C. (2025). Körper, Geist Und Gewalt. Ethnographische Perspektiven Auf Leiblichkeit, Emotion Und Bildung in Den Martial Arts & Combat Sports . ) , Köhler-Warmbrunn further developed his original approach to cultivating emotion and relationships with the world through bodily practice into a general theory of the phenomenological connection between movement, knowledge and humanistic education. He received a research scholarship from the state of Sachsen-Anhalt for his doctorate.

Based on his research findings, as a board member and academic director of Culture Academy, he develops open standards for educational work in Martial Arts & Combat Sports (MACS) that is accountable to civil society, specifically in Capoeira and Mixed Martial Arts. These are applied in the association’s educational concept and interdisciplinary personal training.

Work

Köhler-Warmbrunn’s view of combative bodily practices in Martial Arts & Combat Sports (MACS) is strongly influenced by Capoeira Angola, which frames combat in terms of play. This allows a departure from hegemonic discourses about winning and losing and opens the way to considering the practices in terms of emotion and personal development. The focus is on play as an instrument of humanistic education and on the philosophical anthropology of emotions.

Köhler-Warmbrunn’s philosophical position is shaped by Immanuel Kant’s universalism, Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology and aspects of phenomenology. His empirically grounded research emphasises the courageous, emotional aspects of the idea of enlightenment and the integration of emotion through combative bodily practices.

Publications (selection)

• Christian Köhler 2015 Capoeira. Körper, Flow und Erzählung im afrobrasilianischen Kampftanz. Tectum
• Christian Köhler 2017 Ökonomie der Gewalt und ethisches Lernfeld - Feldbericht zur »Gewalt« in den Capoeiras und Mixed Martial Arts. In: Swen Körner and Leo Istas 2017 Martial Arts and Society. Zur gesellschaftlichen Bedeutung von Kampfkunst, Kampfsport und Selbstverteidigung. Feldhaus. Editino Czwalina. 101-110
• Christian Köhler-Warmbrunn 2025 Körper, Geist und Gewalt. Ethnologische Perspektiven auf Leiblichkeit, Emotion und Bildung in den Martial Arts & Combat Sports, in press

Cited literature