I don't think you can truly understand physical stuff through reading words .... too fuzzy, and you can't really appreciate what you have not felt to be 'true' ... unless you have the had the physical feedback to make it so. (Hah! Even describing this piece of the whole is difficult ...)
Anyway ... Good discussion with Jay, another of Sonny's students, yesterday at a seminar I was invited to teach at. During a break we were discussing where what we do fits in, how to frame it if you like. Who it might appeal to, if we should make instructional videos, and how to put it out there as a 'thing' worth spending time with.
We both feel that it is an 'experience' and that it is not really possible to learn it without doing it ... where 'doing it' means not playing by yourself in isolation, but learning how to see your gaps with someone that can point them out to you ....
That's the whole point - Doing what you do, unselfconsciously, and see where it falls down. And .... in addition, working out solutions that can be found within the context of uncertainty.
I suspect you can already see the problem with this - Many people are hugely resistant to even thinking they have gaps. or problems that need solving. That would mean that they are not as secure as they thought they were. Add to this the issue that the 'open mind' post brought up, that 'acquiring' knowledge is more important to some people than thinking that there is more for them to learn .. and selling this experience is not the easiest of things to do.
That's OK, but the pressure to put out videos of Sonny's material has again brought this issue up for discussion.
What ARE we teaching? What does someone that 'gets it' look like? How can others 'get it'?
The discussion yesterday ended with this idea of Random Flow as central to the learning - both using it as a tool to troubleshoot gaps in those that want to know .. and as a skill to teach others to take away and use for the same purpose.
It is this part, this skill of the 'physical dialogue' if you like, that Sonny gave us, and that we feel is the most important part to pass on. Not the warm up exercises, accuracy drills, or the technical information ... People already have so much of the 'what' ... It's the 'when' and 'how' and 'why' that needs to get added .....
3 comments:
I know I think differently sometimes...
But how can I not have gaps and areas where someone else, especially someone with a different perspective, might open my eyes and improve my training? If I had no gaps, nobody would ever be able to touch me without my consent, in any context... and I know I ain't that good!
One of the best things about training with Rory a couple weeks back was that he didn't really teach anything new... just helped us to discover new things about what we already knew. He brought a new or different perspective or take, a new paradigm -- not new techniques. (That's the physical side... mental/emotional side was a little different.)
Indeed, Jim!
Where I personally find it hardest to see my gaps, is in those areas that I think I have covered.
The obvious stuff is ..... obvious. The insidious stuff sits right alongside your confidence and your comfort zone, hidden in areas you never even thought you had to look.
It's for those places that you need to find someone else to bring them to light. Seeing something come at you that you can't deal with is one 'gap' that needs fixing ... being absolutely blindsided is another. :-)
And, by definition, blind spots are those areas we are least able to find or see on our own.
I'll use an easy example. For a long time, when I taught self defense, I taught the same stuff to everyone. It took someone pointing out the massive blind spot: I'm a fairly sizable, rather strong, guy. I can almost literally pick up many people. So, some things I taught that worked great for me were absolutely useless for someone much smaller facing someone my size... You know, many of the people I was supposedly teaching to defend themselves! That led to rethinking some of what I teach... or how I teach it.
Then there was the night I handed a rubber knife to one of my newest students, and said "attack me!" Damn if she didn't attack me the "wrong way"! LOL Rapid fire rethinking and redefining ensued!
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