Friday, April 09, 2010

Need Some Sleep

Played with some good people with good skills today. My biological clock says I've been up since 0300 and local time is almost 2300. Only 2200 back home, though. Still very tired.

Weird images today. Flying into Austin and looking out the window it looked like flat and scrub and swampy. I got flashes (maybe of refueling in Panama?) it looked familiar. Odd.

Lots of talking. This crew plays hard and they don't need a lot in the physical skills department. I could teach them stuff, maybe tons of stuff, but it likely would be different stuff and not better stuff. Some of the precepts from "7" are pretty new to many of them. Not sure how I feel about that. Things that seem obvious now, essential, were unknown and unexplored quantities to me not that long ago.

With luck, I'll be able to keep saying that for the rest of my life.

The head instructor is good. Saw him move but even without that, the skill and intensity of the students spoke well for him. Students are like footprints. If you see a lion print, you can be pretty sure that a lion made it.

(Which brings up a huge aside to play with-- if someone who should be a lion, judging by skill and knowledge and personality, is leaving rabbit tracks, what does that mean?)

Advanced the blindfolded training. Defensive movement is relatively easy, being able to read what the threat is about to do by shifts in center of gravity and movement of the shoulder and pelvic girdle. These men and women (all instructor ranks) were able to take it to static targeting (hit her rear ankle with your left foot; now touch his nose with your fist) often without the movement clues. In only half an hour. Really impressive.

Long day tomorrow.

10 comments:

Kai Jones said...

if someone who should be a lion, judging by skill and knowledge and personality, is leaving rabbit tracks, what does that mean?

You ask such good questions.

Anonymous said...

First time visitor to your blog. I'm curious as to what YOU think the rabbit/lion question means?

Rory said...

Anon- I'm not sure. Why didn't Ueshiba produce someone who could approach his skill? It's an important question for people who want to teach. And I'll have to think about it. I've spent the last two days with a very happy, well adjusted group of students. Healthy people in a healthy school. It made me think of many others who are less healthy and wonder 'why?'

Tiff said...

Rory -

An excellent seminar. Thank you for leaving your mark on us.

(And yes, today my nose is finally feeling it.) :)

Viro said...

"Why didn't Ueshiba produce someone who could approach his skill?"

This brought to mind something I read about in regards to hiring a new head coach for a sports team: 'Always ask the exiting head coach who he thinks should replace him. ..and then promptly remove that name from your list.

In some things, to be truly 'great' you have to be an SOB. One problem is that SOBs tend to not want competition around.

jks9199 said...

That's something I've been pondering for a couple of weeks now, thanks to something Rory posted.

We stand on the shoulders of giants; accordingly, we should be giants, too, right? Why don't we approach or exceed our teacher's skill? I'm now approaching the point in training time that matches my teachers when I started. I don't feel I'm near the level he was then... Where is the failure? Is it me? Have I simply not trained enough?

Rory said...

Thanks, Tiff.
Jim- Maybe it's you, that's possible. But it is so common that two possibilities that have to be ruled out first are:
1) Is it a product of the teaching method?
2) Is it a product of student expectations, a self fulfilling prophecy?

I lean towards the second idea, but I'm far from sure.

Master Plan said...

I often wonder how much of it is teaching method. I've been to a few schools now and most of them seem...*I* get the impression a LOT more time and effort is spent on "how does this work (for me)?" than is spent on "how can I best and most quickly teach this to others".
I get the impression a lot of the 'older' methods of instruction also served as gut\integrity checks on the students. Using methods which were in some ways designed to make people quit....a good idea? Or...no?

I guess more concisely I would say that many of the schools I've visited, in my opinion, don't seem to have anything coherent enough to call a 'teaching method'. Progression of knowledge being taught? Certainly, but rarely (again, IMVHO n00b opinion) did the means of teaching seem to be much more than an afterthought.

Just me?

Kai Jones said...

What I wonder (never having studied MA of any kind):

Can you understand something kinesthetically but be unable to pass that knowledge on to students who don't learn kinesthetically?

Can you express an unconscious understanding of predator-prey dynamics through your physical art, but because you can't teach it verbally, the students don't learn?

How do you teach people who have never experienced predation not to be prey? I'm always shocked at how shocked people are when they've been robbed or burgled--as if their very identity was shaken by the idea that they could be prey.

I think identity is key; we tell ourselves stories about who we are (often fitting facts into the story, framing our perceptions to reinforce the story). For example, I am "the one who overcame, who walked away and made a good life" and I respond defensively to anything that attacks that version of my life. But I can change the story I tell myself about who I am, now that I've named it; I can even see the facts that never fit the story, the ones I rejected. What story can we teach people to tell about themselves (even if only internally)?

jks9199 said...

Jim- Maybe it's you, that's possible. But it is so common that two possibilities that have to be ruled out first are:
1) Is it a product of the teaching method?
2) Is it a product of student expectations, a self fulfilling prophecy?

I lean towards the second idea, but I'm far from sure.


That'd be another aspect of me, wouldn't it? My own expectations and self imposed limitations...

Of course, it might be my own perceptions, too!

I'm not a carbon copy of my teacher; he gave me the freedom and room to develop on my own. I hope I'm giving my own students the same freedom.

But I still have to wonder... If our teachers (and their teachers...) were so great -- why aren't we? (Please take this as a generic we, not an assessment of anyone beyond myself.) I wasn't fortunate enough to train in those days; some aspects of that training can't be duplicated today for lots of reasons. But some things are trained better or smarter today, too. The art I train in and teach has evolved, and lots more information is out there and available that wasn't in the "days of legend." Are we perhaps better, in different ways? Or hampered in our training by having so much available? A guy who makes only omelets gets pretty good at making them, and can probably produce a better omelet than a five star chef.

I know I've seen elements fail to be transmitted, for lots of reasons. Sometimes, they're innocent, occasionally they've been deliberately omitted. And it can sometimes be pretty tough just to find someone who wants to train that way.