The Moment Before

What is tactically possible in any moment, is predisposed by what is happening in the moment before.
This probably seems obvious, but has a profound effect on what can and cannot succeed, and the variety of options viable at any one time.
For instance, you can only land a shot on your opponent after you evade, if you are loaded onto your legs to move back into range the moment before. You can only exit successfully if you are already prepared to do so as you enter.
It's a very short moment you see, which means you already have to have the idea about what's about to happen, and what you can do, 2 STEPS ahead AS you do the next thing ....... (and I might add that though this may be practiced consciously, in real time it's a 'feeling' that comes from 'seeing', and seems to bypass the thought process), so everything you do ends up being part of a chain of events, a Kadena if you like.
The opposite of this would be working purely 'IN the moment', reactively that is, meaning you are basically trusting your reflexes, and to some extent, luck, relying solely on your opponent to create the opportunity.
So using the previous post's video clip as an example -
The Japanese stylist is always spring loaded to take advantage of the opponent's lapses in concentration .... but is still relying on the opponent to lapse, taking advantage of a situation in the moment, seizing it very efficiently, but really has no part in creating it.
OK, he does change his kamai some and shift his feet which could have an effect, but basically, in my opinion, why there are so many double death cuts in the interaction, is that neither party is creating, they are just trying to take advantage, of situations AS they unfold.
Sometimes one party engages the other's weapon, creating a bridge, and I guess this could be construed as trying to create opportunity. Problem is that neither seems to have a game plan leading forward from that contact - the Western fencer never has good enough footing to kick, trip, or shunt his opponent off because he is not ready for this to happen. Neither does the Japanese stylist.

This ability to create, or writing, as Sonny called it, is a step above reading which is what is mostly happening in the video clip.
Now, often 'reading' is good enough, and a hard enough skill to learn in and of itself. And technically the Japanese stylist 'won' on the first interaction, because it's only the first one that really counts after all ....
But what if it isn't enough? Say because your opponent is skilled or a difficult read, what then? Surely it's better to have luck and reaction play a smaller role and learn how to 'write' the game for yourself?

So back to 'the moment before' ..... The key ingredient to what is about to happen next. A predictor, a 'tell' about your opponents next move, and the last, diminishing moment of influence YOU can have on a forthcoming event.

- How late can you change something to your benefit?

- How early can you influence a chain of events?

- How long can you play this sequence and lead the interaction?

Well, it's impossible to know unless you play IN TIME, and by 'in time' I don't mean on the beat, I mean in the 4th dimension. In a situation that models, as closely as possible, a real interaction between you and another.
Set sequences of prearranged techniques don't qualify as you know what comes next, so are learning nothing about how to influence events, set up opportunities, read intent, or gain on the timing.

That is why, in my opinion, flow training is so valuable (free sparring too, though often it's too fast to 'see' what's going on and change behavior very efficiently), and what separates it from static and purely technical learning. How are you ever going to learn to work with this 'moment before' if it never appears in your training?
And if you never get to work with this moment ......?
Perhaps the whole event will remain a mystery, and everything you do will be down to luck and fast reflexes .... Not such a great prospect in my book.

Wile

Middle English wil, from Old North French, from Old Norse veel, trick, or of Low German origin.

 

Synonyms: wile, artifice, trick, ruse, feint, stratagem, maneuver, dodge

These nouns denote means for achieving an end by indirection or deviousness.  

Wile - suggests deceiving and entrapping a victim by playing on his or her weak points

Artifice - refers to something especially contrived to create a desired effect: 

Trick - implies willful deception: 

Ruse - stresses the creation of a false impression 

Feint - denotes a deceptive act calculated to distract attention from one's real purpose 

Stratagem - implies carefully planned deception used to achieve an objectiv 

Maneuver - often applies to a single strategic move 

Dodge - stresses shifty and ingenious deception

 

Below is an interesting clip of a match between a Japanese stylist and a Western stylist. The Japanese fencer is more skillful, using a wider repertoire of targets and attacks, and with a better understanding of how to take advantage of gaps in his opponent's intent. He is quite successful with his hand and arm targeting, I counted about 6, which the western fencer seems not to have trained to avoid.

The Western stylist concentrates mostly on binding the weapon though has a nice long lunge at one point.

The rest of the strikes, and I don't know what the rules are here as to when someone acknowledges a hit, are split about 3 to each opponent for successful body strikes with no counter, and about 10 'double death' strikes, where both opponents get caught.

Of course this combat could be considered armored, in which case perhaps many of the body strikes, and perhaps arm cuts too, could be void. Perhaps the tactics assume this, but then this would be a battlefield type fight not really a straight duel as this engagement is set up to be .....

Anyway, it is a great illustration to me about how difficult it is, when you present yourself as a static target, to prevail.

There is a momentary movement off line in the first encounter, but then each subsequent engagement is done from standing and facing off, in the standard 'Here I am, come get me' mode ....

 

There's something missing .... what could it be .....?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WoYNb6lr94

Open Mind

An open mind implies that you are not certain. That you are willing to entertain new ideas to expand your world view, be surprised even, and adapt.

An interesting thought came up in a conversation with B -

Can the experience of training, physically, in uncertainty, as in random flow, help open your mind to new possibilities, and perhaps in other ways outside of training also?
... Or is an open mind necessary as a prerequisite for successful random flow training?

Face It

One of my teachers (Ming Liu) shared a quote the other day:
"When you run after your thoughts you are like a dog chasing a stick.
Every time a stick is thrown, you run after it.
Instead be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower.
One only throws a stick at a lion once."
Milarepa

The quote relates to meditation practice, but struck me as a useful model in other arenas also.

If there is something you need to work on, something that needs troubleshooting or fixing ... say repetitive tendencies, freezing points, giving away targets, lack of escape routes from tight angles etc ... anything that occurs as a pattern. Then best to look at the problem area head on rather than try to make it go away by doing what you've always done ..... but faster .... or harder.
This tendency to try to fix things by either adding more power or more speed to exactly the same reaction, is very very common ... as is the tendency to deny that the problem even exists in the first place, or refuse to see it at all.

I guess it's linked to a switch from the 'human brain' into the monkey or lizard, to use the 'triune brain' model, and is pretty universal as some level of frustration overcomes the conscious mind.
The old standard of hitting the TV to make it work, throwing an offending object or pushing a button over and over again to try to achieve the desired effect faster, seem common enough experiences to us all (OK, maybe not the TV one for those who have only known flat screens ...) but, back to martial arts ....
Sonny was a big fan of understanding a problem by observing it in ACUALITY, and solving it through the experience of making the mistake, becoming conscious of it, and trying to work out how to fix it - sounds obvious, right? But hard to do in practice. A coach can help here of course, as sometimes the solution is invisible to the participant, and often it takes time, and patient training partners, too.

The 2 key elements are -

1) EXPERIENCE the problem

For instance, if you keep getting your hands tagged in dueling .... put your hands in different places and WATCH where they get tagged, WHEN they get tagged, HOW? WHY? If you keep getting stuck in the same corner with no escape, watch what happens before you end up there. How? Why?
Understand the parameters, then you can start to fix the problem.
Keep running away from the problem without understanding it first, and basically you are trusting to luck.
Recognize it, face it, feel it. THEN fix it.

2) GO SLOWLY ENOUGH SO YOU CAN DO THIS.

Some might disagree with this, as certain situations and motions only happen in real time, and are hard to recreate slowly ... but you have to have some way of exploring the moment. With a good teacher you can go faster and can work on real time solutions, especially if the teacher can point out when something is ABOUT to happen so the student can readjust ... and the student is capable of keeping their mental and emotional focus, and ability to change their movement, at speed. But it also works well to concentrate on just one aspect of the game, and work at a pace where the problem becomes manageable with any training partner.

Our nervous systems seem to possess a mechanism that wigs out, and ceases to process rationally when it reaches a certain level of panic or emotional frustration.
You can't fix things here, as this is the place of preexisting patterns, and if your preexisting patterns do not work consistently, then you have to change them ... and this has to occur in a stimulus/reaction scenario in the CONSCIOUS part of the brain.

Trick is to notice when the switch has flipped ... because it sure feels like you are completely compos mentis even when you are not ....
Quick way to check - Decide to go half speed and touch lightly. Possible? Or not?
Ask your training partner.

DIY

I'm in the UK getting ready to teach some privates and then to Switzerland next week for 3 days of seminar.
I always bring training weapons with me when I travel to teach. Sonny was a master craftsman at making aluminum swords and a myriad other kinds of weapons and training gear, and felt strongly that a practice sword should be as 'lifelike' as possible to prevent students from getting blase. The appearance and feel, he felt, were hugely important, so he designed practice blades to have similar characteristics to the real thing.
This included a blade that was thin, like steel, cut to closely replicate actual sword shapes from the Visayan region, with good handles, and occasionally guards and other features to play with. His preferred material was aluminium and he would cut and shape his own blades with a dremmel and a grinder, adding hand carved wood or plastic handles with leather and other materials for texture and grip.
I have a few of Sonny's creations that we still use in class - seems weird that something designed for use should gather dust on a wall, but I am leery of traveling with them.
Luckily I have a friend who has a full wood shop with a band saw who has been happy to make me copies of Sonny's designs that I also use in my own classes, and which go with me when I travel.
In addition to the metal swords, Sonny made foam practice weapons for full speed, contact flows and sparring. Again he wanted the blades to bear some resemblance to the real thing, so they are designed to be as thin as possible, shaped like the real thing, and often covered with gray/silver tape or 'pleather' to look the part also.
Sadly I am not a craftsman like Sonny, but when needs must, as they did today, I can approximate.
I needed to fabricate some soft trainers - and though there are plenty ready made versions out there to buy, Sonny preference for a particular 'feel' to the weapon meant I needed to find some kind of stiff foam, some kind of strongback, and tape to put together. The end product would be rigid enough to slice with ... but only when the angle was correct .... and something you could cut or poke with that had a little give, to prevent injury.
So it was off to the local hardware store, and I have to say that it's amazing what you can put together from memory foam insoles and duct tape :-)
......Sadly my cunning plan with the rigid laminate floor underlayment (only sold in packs of 16 which was way too much material and too expensive anyway) and the double BBQ skewers did not come to pass, but if you feel like experimenting, I think it will work great.

Fear of Falling

Go force on force against an opponent who can absorb your force, whether due to size, strength or skill, then all you're doing is bleeding energy into them or through them.
If they give something into the system however ..... whether through momentum or because their center of balance is off, you have something to play with.
And there is almost always some kind of movement in the system ... they can't strike or throw you without moving, and if there is no movement in the system ... usually it means nothing is happening, so maybe nothing needs doing. Even if it is a very bad position for you, still you must create, or wait for, movement in the stronger part of the equation to be able to change it significantly.
Most martial arts talk about this - using the other person's force against them, but for some reason it's incredibly hard to access, especially if you think you are losing ....

Last weekend Rory Miller was in town again, and I got to play with a bunch of new people.
Because the drills, by their nature, are practiced in a non compliant manner, any disparity in size or skill becomes apparent quite quickly. The bigger the disparity, the more the above applies. Play with someone skilled at joint locks, twice your weight, 6 inches taller, with a great root ... and you better believe that it's better to avoid resisting their force, because whatever you give into the system they can either just absorb, or use against you, whereas you cannot absorb what they give to you. You have to go with it and wait for the right ma-ai when you can use the space that is available around what's happening to redirect, slip, trip, or counter.
The lesson is, tense up and resist what's happening and you will exhaust yourself pretty fast. Relax, notice the emptiness and the potentials, and you can prevail.

This same tendency to tense up and resist what's happening, occurs in dueling also.
New students tend to play with their blade out in middle ground, desperately covering and blocking anything that comes into view.
This of course seems to make a great deal of sense, but tactically it's a bad idea, mostly because you are behind the timing, and giving unnecessary contact over unimportant non-threats creates openings, or worse, just makes bridges to the target instead.

Purposefully seeking contact is, of course, a way to create potential opportunity for yourself. Bagua does it by forcing contact through offense or defense - you threaten or block, and work with the meeting force to create your attack - circle meets line.
Another example would be when one blade leans against another, and through the contact point manipulates the opponent into an error - I push on you, you push back, I slip under and strike the opening caused by the spring load - many applications of this in Toyama Ryu, Fencing, and Eskrima.

Of course if you don't want to be taken advantage of this way, you have to practice relaxing into the contact point, going with the force, reversing the advantage (often by taking center first), or not giving contact at all ... especially with swords.
Really, in dueling, the opponent should never feel your contact unless you have screwed up and are blocking, baiting to cause a reaction, or deflecting AS an entry. In other words 'with purpose'.

Sonny said many times - "Let them come. They are coming anyway. Don't push them/keep them out. Invite them in and control the game".

What this means essentially is being open, taking the weapon out of the game, away from target, seeming defenseless.
When I first tried this I thought, like most other beginners, that it was one of the most counter intuitive things I'd ever heard. But, as it turns out, it works quite well .... but only if you can exploit the potential reactions that manifest from what you offer, from getting your opponent to commit, and move.
The ability to be comfortable with this idea enables practitioners of throwing arts to do reversals and sacrifice throws. It enables practitioners of striking arts to fold joints, climb up, slip and counter, grappling artists to roll out and reverse locks, and duelists to become ghosts.

Everything is a gift.

Trance

There's something very hypnotic about rhythm. Most have probably noticed rocking backwards and forwards as a calming behavior in themselves or others.
Music is another one, and has obvious affects on the emotional state, whether played heavy, fast, or slow.
In fact all things seem to 'breathe' or have a natural rhythm if you pay attention.
In humans, walking is an age old form of meditation - step step step step. Bagua circle walking is just another version of this. (Flow can be too.)

So rhythm and trance ... age old ways to alter state.
Trance can be good. Great stuff can come out from getting absorbed in the beat, not 'thinking' for one.
Constant editing and chatter often impede free movement, so changing states can help a great deal to find this 'natural' way.
Trance also has a calming affect on the mind - it's great stress relief.

On the other hand .... trance can also be addictive, you must watch yourself, and especially those that you teach that trance, as stagnation and addiction, has not overtaken practice.
Trance is cool, but it's nice to have a choice as to whether you want to stay with it or not.

Big sign that you, or others, are hypnotized and stuck (easier to notice in others)  - You/they can't vary their walking speed ... Even if prompted to do so, it either does not change at all, or it briefly changes and the original speed returns almost immediately. This one, same, unmodulated speed pervades everything.

I like how Yizong structures training, alternating precision with smoothness, slow with fast, loose with controlled, and often begins and ends practice with unfocused 'walking in the park'. The goal is not one thing all the time, and in fact encourages playing with opposite ideas.
Cool the emotions, relax, smile, focus the mind, yes, but remember that trance loves the repetitive and continuous, so also remember to keep the aliveness and flexibility (mental and physical) that change brings with it, because Bagua after all, at it's root, is ALL about change.