The Adjustment Bureau

I have ridden motorcycles for many years, but was never really that interested in watching racing until I started to do so with someone that understands the game. As it turns out, there is alot more to it than meets the eye.

I like watching the top class of racing, called MotoGP, which is a limited field of manufacturers putting forward the most cutting edge machines they know how to build.

There are rules - for safety, and to make the races somewhat 'fair', but essentially, money is of no object, and each manufacturer participates pretty much for the prestige of winning .... and great advertising of course.

At this top level of performance, the margins of error are very, very, slim, and the bikes so fast that a thousandth a of second is equivalent to a few inches/centimeters, or the difference between winning and coming second, so everything has to be as near to perfect as possible.

Obviously, seeing these guys navigating a track at incredibly high rates of speed is cool all by itself, but if you are taught how to look at the whole picture, you realize just how many elements can be adjusted to give that couple inches of edge over the competition, and how complex the whole enterprise is.

The first variable the team has to consider is the course they are racing on - Each one is different.
Each crew has to pay attention to what makes it unique: Does it have more right or left hand bends? How is the surface of the track? Smooth? Grippy? Bumpy? Are there other issues like the ever present sand that blows onto the track at Quatar, or the side winds of Phillips island?
How long and fast are the straightaways, and thus how important is top speed? What kind of corners do the fastest sections run into - so how extreme is the braking that will be needed to negotiate these transitions?

How about the weather? Is it raining? How warm is it? Tires can degrade through use, especially if they are softer for more grip, and especially if it is very warm. Conversely, if it is cool, they have less grip, and so can be more unpredictable for the rider. Should they choose the softer, faster, tire for advantage near the beginning of the race, but which may become unridable later on?

All this information has to be assessed and then connected to the design of the bike itself, for designs are always a combination of compromises.

For instance, you can build an incredibly powerful engine, but if you cannot transfer that power through the transmission and the frame into the tires, the wheels will just spin. Conversely, the better the transfer of power, the greater the stresses, so the weight of the bike might have to increase so it does not shake itself apart .... which also means the brakes must be able to handle it ... as will all the connectors holding the suspension and frame together as it flexes against the stresses and strains of the constant acceleration, deceleration and turning ....

And talking of turning .... the bike, left to it's own devices, wants to go in a straight line, so the rider has to literally force it to turn. Make the steering and front suspension too sensitive, and it can be dangerous and unpredictable. Make it predictable, and maybe it becomes less agile.

And the rider .... often these guys are small, to keep the weight down, but they still need to be able to man handle these powerful, unstable, objects round twisty, turning tracks as fast as they can possibly go, right at the edge of where they might wreck through a split second error or loss of focus. All this on two contact patches where the tires meet the ground that probably amount to less that 2 square inches.

Each has a particular riding style, things they do better, things they need to improve. Each prefers to ride different lines around the corners, and this has to be taken into account when combined with the geometry of the bike - how late the brakes can be applied, how it picks up from leaning to upright, out of the corners, how easily the front wheel wants to lift off the ground when the throttle is opened, all have to combine with the rider's strengths and weaknesses.

Every time a team turns up at a track to race, their job is to adjust the bike in whatever way they can - shorten this, lengthen that, change the ride height to throw the geometry into a potentially more advantageous position, move the seat for a different weight distribultion.
They have to choose tires, gauge how much fuel to put in the tank, watch the weather, note any injuries the rider is riding with ..... fix anything that breaks.

All the choices made are based on knowledge, experience and feedback - data from the track itself from previous visits, the conditions (track surface and temperature/weather) on the day, and most importantly the feedback they get from the rider going round.

In essence they come up with a 'best guess' for race day, and all the geometry, mathematics and physics boils down to a 'feeling' that the rider describes over the course of a couple days of free practice round the track before the actual day of the race.

So many variables, so many considerations, from the pattern of the bolts on the frame, to a few degrees in temperature variation on the day, all coming together through the verbal descriptions of an experience a real human being is having, riding the bike in real time, coupled with their ability to describe what is happening.

You will see the riders testing the track a few times, then ride back to the pits, huddled in the corner of their garage with a track map and the technicians, describing problem areas, perhaps the lack of drive out of certain corners, or the loss of feeling of what the bike will do when the front end gets light. All these descriptions are then combined with the experience of the team and the designers as to how to change things for the better.

I find that knowing all the pieces that effect the race enhances my appreciation many fold .... but find it just as fascinating that every single piece adds up to a tactile, in the moment, experience, still subject to the vagaries of chance, timing, and luck.

So why bother?

Anything where the results depend on a narrow margin of error, where the line between win and lose is extremely fine, and the price of loss, whether it be injury or death, is high, demands the same considerations. You COULD trust to luck and wing it .... but why would you if it was in your power to influence?

In a way, one on one combat with swords, is no different (even though we really risk nothing nowadays), though I think many fail to appreciate the benefits of understanding the underpinnings of the game. How precision can enhance everything, and the large field of parameters that can be adjusted.

Many think of it just as 'going round the track faster than anyone else', but there is much more to play with if one cares to look. Perhaps the lack of necessity has weakened the incentive to exploit all that is available? ..... After all, it takes a great deal of trial, error ... and practice  ... with no real consequences for choosing not to.

Still, it's all there, for those that care to explore ..... just have to find someone who can see the big picture, and the small details, next time you are 'watching the races'.

June 16th Sword Workshop

Next Sword Workshop will be June 16th.

Once again I will be hosted by Soja martial arts of Oakland and will run from 11am - 4pm.

Reckon we'll review the pieces from the previous 3 sessions, work some partner drills to see how to test stuff out, and then move on to some free form Random Flow.

Trying to grab a few of the other guys from Sonny's to come flow too. :-)

Here's the link to Soja's 'Events' page.

One Dish

Had the pleasure the other day of meeting an martial arts teacher of the older generation, plenty of skill, and unusual in the fact that he is still highly motivated to refine and improve what he has. Always discontent with the level he is at, he is constantly looking for that 'extra edge' as he put it.

He has had a great deal of real life experience by all accounts, at least in his younger days, and was never afraid to fight. Still now (into his 70s I think) he would be a tough proposition - strong, efficient, and ruthless.

He said that for him fighting is easy, as he knows the 'flavor' of it. He said that in his mind, there really is only one 'dish', and like a high end chef, he can understand the combination of ingredients that go into the recipe, and knows when the combination is right. He only has to recall the flavor of the 'dish' to fight .....

But, how does he pass that 'dish' on? .. In fact, not really even the dish, but the flavor of the dish ....?

From a student's point of view, can you find the flavor of the dish from learning about it's individual ingredients .... Or do you need to cook and experiment with ingredients yourself?

Are some ingredients more vital than others?

Perhaps the 'dish' is different for every individual, though there is the possibility that they are all versions of the same recipe ..... ?

I don't know, as I can't taste what he tastes.

Maybe the real question is, what ARE the basic flavors in a martial context? Are they techniques? Are they ways of moving the body through space? Power acceleration? Mental clarity? Adaptability? What?

And ... Is it useful to 'taste' them individually? Can one create a 'dish' from that experience? Or is it their inter relatedness and context that is much more important - How cardamom effects sugar and coffee, as opposed to what it does with cumin and coriander in curry paste, for instance?

And for those that have never tasted cardamom, can you really describe it in words? Or is it better to head down to your local Turkish or Indian restaurant .... or Russian bakery for that matter ...... and taste for yourself ...?

.... And lastly, what would the martial equivalent of Turkish coffee look like .....?

(Apologies for the punt into left field, but I just watched a couple documentaries on Richard Feynman the physicist. Amazing chap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXtnYnoutKk  It's a long documentary and totally worthwhile, but if you don't have the time, may I suggest minutes 15 through 22 )

Look With Your Whole Body

 The following link is about rock climbing, but the basic idea about 'affordances' and 'peripersonal space' absolutely cross over.

A bunch to contemplate when training .. especially in the last sentence.

http://mindhacks.com/2008/03/31/rock-climbing-hacks-now-with-added-speculation/

Limited Palette

Rory Miller has been in town for the past week, and it's always a great pleasure to be able to hang out and interact with him.

I did not have the time to attend everything he was teaching, which was OK as I have been through his workshops on more than one occasion, but I did want to play One Step with some new people and see what had ingrained and what had not. So I jumped in for an afternoon of environmental fighting in a garage/warehouse.

I am personally much more comfortable playing weapons than empty hand, so it's fun to jump into something I kinda dislike but want to understand more, and even more so with opportunities to fight in bathrooms, stairwells, on ramps, and amongst the dumpsters.

So, what did I notice?

I noticed that it's still hard to remember to 'find the emptiness' and not struggle against the force, and that I am not naturally good at seeing locks or pressure points. Also that my internal sense of geometry diminishes when I am grappling with someone who knows what they are doing, and though I can see simple take downs ... reversals are difficult for me, as my brain can't see the set ups, or in other words, the time frame in which I can negate the opportunity, or be ahead of the power to take advantage of the momentum.

Of course it's just a question of doing it more to get the feel for it, but I admit that at my age, I'm not too keen on taking break falls or having the semi skilled apply joint locks onto the 'tools of my trade' - my hands (for painting) - and the rest of my joints to keep those hands employed.

What did seem better than previously, was seeing the opportunities in the environment to use to my advantage, shearing angles, and the use of at least 2 'weapons' at once.

We all fight from the limited palette that our body type, personality, and health/age dictate, and these parameters change over time. So on the one hand, it seems totally reasonable to enhance what one has, and learn to negate the opponent's ability to take advantage of the weaknesses .... but still, it seems risky to avoid looking at the weaknesses at all ......

For me, at the most basic level, it is a risk reward scenario .... How great are the risks of injury compared with the potential skills learned? How risky is it to have great yawning gaps in my skills?

Logically, and realistically, I know that I will probably end up training what I enjoy the most, it's just the way it is ..... but there's still the part of me that is bothered when I don't understand something ..... like an itch I can't quite scratch .....

Perhaps it will come down to the opportunities that cross my path and their timing.

In the end, it's all about the timing ......

The House is on Fire

The pitfalls on the path to understanding are well known, warnings abound from scientists, philosophers, teachers, in fact from anyone that has ever been wrong and learned from it.
Here are a few:

1- All beliefs in whatever realm are theories at some level. (Stephen Schneider)

2- Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. (Dandemis)

3- Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. (Francis Bacon)

4- Never fall in love with your hypothesis. (Peter Medawar)

5- It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts. (Arthur Conan Doyle)

6- A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong. (Francis Crick)

7- The thing that doesn’t fit is the thing that is most interesting. (Richard Feynman)

8- To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact. (Charles Darwin)

9- It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. (Mark Twain)

10- Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong. (Thomas Jefferson)

11- All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second, it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident. (Arthur Schopenhauer)

My friend Russ shared a quote recently (was it Buddhist ..?), about a person in a burning house trying to work out who started the fire ... The teacher in the quote pointed out that instead of 'Who started this'? A better question for that moment would have been "How do I get out of here"?

Asking the right question is indeed a skill, but so is context - It might be important to find out how the fire started, but if trapped inside, it is somewhat more pressing to locate the exit. Knowing the former will not help with the latter ... though knowing the latter will make finding the solution to the former possible ... and both may play a part in how to put the fire out, or if it is worthwhile to do so at all.

What is important? What is less so? 

What are just tangents or distractions?  

What are the keys? What are the corollaries?

And the pieces that many miss - 

How is the problem a problem? 

How many answers are there? 

In solving it, what are the consequences? Intended? Unintended?

.......... But what if you run out of questions to ask? Your imagination dries up? If you have no more loose ends in your mind, does that mean that the question has been answered? 

Maybe. Maybe not .......

To get past this impasse, you will need 2 things - Play and Adversaries, 2 catalysts that create a place where mistakes can be made and accidents can happen. A place where nothing is preordained and you have purposefully rescinded control ......

If the linear and rational have stopped yielding returns ... it's time to embrace the random .....

Everything has edges - It's important not to assume you know where they are ....

 

Me, I'm Just a Lawnmower ....

Everyone moves in their own, individual, way - A combination of personality, experience, injury, and training.
We all have a way we walk, run, dance, and if you train a martial art, it's quite easy to see which one, sometimes even who your teacher is, by the way you move when you do something, even if it is in a different art.

Put a sword in someone's hand and all their previous movement patterns will come out. Some will be useful - We already know how to dodge, fade, and run away from playing games when we were kids (though of course freezing when faced with a sword may prevent this, if one are not used to playing with one).
All the rest of the stuff that has been trained in from other martial arts may or may not be as useful, especially if the conscious, trained, stuff overlays the subconscious, 'kid', stuff.

Add to this that you then have to train IN a bunch of overtly counter intuitive stuff ... and it becomes an interesting process.

It seems that the only true motivator to change ingrained habits is from repeated exposure to moments when they fail. If these moments do not occur, these tendencies seem very hard to work with, as the person doing them does not seem to have conscious control of them ..... and with no incentive to change, they repeat.

Even with failure on the table, there often seems to be huge resistance to change these familiar patterns to something smarter, and even those that intellectually might want to change ... find it hard to actually change.

I guess our brains hold on to movement patterns at a pretty deep level, and as they are connected to our self image, our identity in how we present ourselves to the outside world, there has to be a mental shift, and perhaps emotional too, before the physical can also free itself to be new things.

Addendum: After I wrote this piece, I read a study that may point to another reason why:
http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug01/blindspot.aspx

Here is a quote:
"The problem," says Bjork, "is that if people confuse the current sense of ease with learning, they'll tend to prefer training conditions where things are kept constant and predictable--conditions that act as crutches to prop up performance without fostering learning."

Once again, thanks to Steve Morris for the link, and his eternal quest to find the science behind movement and learning.