We are not instinctive creatures which is why we are so helpless as children. Within a short amount of time after birth many animals are able to fend for themselves in some capacity, but we take many years. We have no innate ability to forage for food or to hunt. It is this intrinsic ability of animals that caused the development of the animal styles of kung fu. If we could somehow develop their instincts we could then protect ourselves from our core being. When we learn anything it is initially a cognitive process; we do it with our brains and intellect. We move and condition our body as if we are in the control room that is our brain, observing what we do. From this detached vantage point we make decisions about our training and our goals. We look at our punches from a distance, mentally judging them as "good" or "bad." So we have this sense of a self, a person that is doing or controlling the punching or kicking that is apart from the act itself. There is a separation between the mind and body; there is that which observes and that which is doing the action. From this standpoint:
This is not how animals do it. A cat does not have a mind that is separate from its body. It does not objectify its body parts to know it has claws or that it is made up of different organs. It does not work on making its muscles bigger, because it has no sense of itself as a combination of parts like we do. When the cat fights, it just fights, completely and wholly engaged in the act. It did not consciously train itself to do this. It is its instinct to do what it does. It is not "Fluffy-the-Cat" that is fighting, it is just the pure act of fighting. In this sense is has no claws; it is the claws and everything simultaneously. It fights wholly committed with everything it is and without doubt. We, on the other hand, must train ourselves to make this mind/body meld. This idea of harmonizing mind and body is unique to humans; animals do not have this dilemma. The separation that our mind creates is very difficult to overcome, but it is achievable. It is what happens to anyone who has mastered their craft; they disappear and become the craft. They are unaware of what they are doing while being perfectly aware of it. The action and the actor are one in this aspect. In practicing any technique you must lose the technique to become the technique. The only way to trust in what you do is to become what you do. Your hands will not be flailing about, but will be alert and intelligently engaged. You will move from your core being and not from your mind. The Chinese often refer to this as 'reacting from your spine', in other words, your brain is not involved in it. If you do not fight from this core then you will be self aware in the fight. Besides being separate from your own body you will now be separate from the opponent’s motions. You will be in a constant mode of reacting to them rather than moving as them. You will know you are "Jack fighting Bill" and be aware of how you may get hurt. When you master technique it must dissolve into you. Your awareness will not be bound by consciousness or thought. You will move freely and completely. The cat has no claws; it is its claws. The cat does not fight; it is fighting. We must train so that we have no fists or legs. We must have no body and no mind. “You can only fight the way you practice” Miyamoto Musashi
1 Comment
Marshallaw
1/5/2013 04:04:43 am
When studying to become a personal trainer, I had to cover neurobiology to extent relevant to conditioning. Interestingly you are 100% right, when we learn we go through the motions and lay down the nuerons through conscious action... However at some point, skills such as dribbling became solely subconscious in nature. Researchers could observe this event bc it manifested itself physically; the new players who recently learned to dribble at some point developed the ability to focus their conscious awareness away from dribbling only and were thus able to do other things while dribng simultaneously. The more the subjects could do while dribbling (court awareness, shooting, passing, play formation) the more dribbling was thought to be subconscious. Through repetition we transfer biomechanical processes from the conscious (pre frontal cortex) to the subconscious (limbic? I dunno, could be wrong bout that). As dribbling proficiency increased along with proficiency in other simultaneous tasks, the process of dribbling is further seated in the brain as a subconscious second nature function. .... On a related note, there's a book my aunt told me about and the main assertion posited therein is that it takes a human about 10,000 hours of Focused practice to master a physical or musical skill at the highest level. Case studies within showed that the top professional athletes at the time had amassed 10,000 or more hours in strict practice... Players of slightly lesser talent were shown to have amassed slightly less time in practice (around 7-9 thousand hours).... Thus, the amount of time one spends doing something is the most significant factor in predicting ultimate skill level reached... Provided you are actually doing it right .. Interesting
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