Beauty

Perhaps Mac's latest blog post http://quantumdonuts.blogspot.com/2011/06/levels-of-personalityhtml inspired this thought, or perhaps it was Steve Morris's latest blog post about multitasking: http://stevemorris.livejournal.com/50785.html

In any case I started thinking about what things really are separate, and what things really are just one thing, perhaps complex and dynamic, but a single whole none the less ...
For instance, is walking multitasking? After all many, many things are going on to propel you forward ... What about driving - lots of different things going on there? How about dueling?

Watching Sonny work was a thing of true elegance and beauty, though I have to say that finding it 'beautiful' was a strange thing to get my head around for a long time. After all, (to quote Rory Miller) he was in the business of making 'cripples and corpses' ...... perhaps not such a beautiful thing ....
Really, how could that be beautiful?

Took me a while, but what I realized was that the beauty came from his total 'connectedness'.
- His body was totally connected - all the parts worked as a whole - left, right, hand, body, hips, legs, toes, head, eyes ....
- His weapon was connected to this, the angle of the blade, the angle of the strike, the recycling and containment of the power all worked in concert with his body - no gaps or glitches.
- His alignments to hold his body in gravity with the most efficiency were precise and accurate. He knew his footing and was aware of his surroundings, using them to his advantage to trap and corner his opponents.
And ... He coordinated perfectly with his opponent ... by which I mean he played them as though were part of the scenery, a part of the moment like him, and just another element to connect with.

Like I said, a thing of beauty.

Just one thing going on - him, his weapon, his opponent, and his environment.