Discovering through “Practice” (which “wire-in” then need to “correct”)

[Anonymous]

A big issue, which I’ve written here way-back and I think is basic sport-methodology (and biz-process systems-thinking) but may not be as clear in these traditional (or modern technique-driven) subjects.. Like NeiGung- chi practices and/or martial arts…. is muddling about, getting “lab-time”, ie Discovery as a part of Practice… and yet.. as you Practice (“Intentional” practice as the term goes, more on below).. that wires-in to your system…

so each time one tweaks your understanding, ah do it that way, either as an adjustment, or as a “more” to it (expansion).. one not only needs figure out how to do it that way, but then you need to fight-against the training you’ve done… thus spend a month, months, a few years doing a form… and as you develop you come to an understanding about say how the connections (coming in, going out, side to side, top to bottom– or further the San Wai, Liu He), then you need to stumble as you lose your automaticity (the ability you had to do it per “Knowing” it).. but all the time you spent doing it that way is a reflex-pattern

(1,2,3… repeat.. 1,2,3.. repeat) whether drillling boxing hits on a bag, or a longer-set “Form”.. would it be better to develop skills and insert them in (from something else) like LEGO-building blocks.. that are assmbled… and yet still to have the continual investigation each time doing it, to discover.. (how much can change, without it being a change? within the form, vs changing the form, to another…)
….
So the conflict between those two… – if you add in “Intentionality” (is one actually making a free choice? not just programmed domino implications, of course that follows this is the form, and I want to do this form, so I am doing it.. but is that intentional? -even “Reasoning it out” is just following a sequence of words, Dominos knocking down the next in thought-clumps…

Both what and why to do, as well as each motion.. (concretely, within each step- not just two parts L&R, but each step has multiple pts of stability where a change of where to step “Can” be made, so the stillpt.. flow into and in.. then out of, with that flow of the CentralChannel integrating all the separate extremes.. but to do this in a flow, and not just “seek a stillness” but in each of these pts, to have a choice (not just an ok-a choice but I plan to circle-walk. or I change dir.. and it was In my Head planned way out.. “Thus the Other can see it coming, a Mile away.”)
…….
(relates to Spontaneous- at the physical lvl, then the more core “Personal”.. until (perhaps” the less personal, impersonal, universal? lvl.. the three steps again)

===============
So get your feet wet, muddle and discover, or Practice and Wire-it in…?
How to balance (and have both, and yet not blur them and lose the benefits of each)- discovery learning/paying attn to .. balanced with scratching in that groove

The phrase, many practice not for ten years but practice one-year(‘s worth) over ten years (repeated 10times)
-each of these two has a benefit (who can do math without having spent time memorizing/reciting the times tables? “4 x 6 is … ___” or even memorizing shapes of letters of alphabet, then finger movements to keys on keyboard (so long ago we think that is basic) -need repeat until it “sticks”… yet those “skills” are explicit (clearly an answer, and one answer for each- then drill it…)

(recognizing that any missteps take you off course, and if you can adjust how you are doing it, and feel not conflict.. that the pattern didn’t develop much before.. is that a goal, to develop a pattern vs the repetition?)

—-and then What does it mean to Intentionally Practice (not the off- the top of your head answer, but assume that if one awakens a-bit-more.. you might see the thoughts you’ve had as a character/a computer program.. would that change one’s grasp of “purposefully choosing”?? and sustaining that choice-purpose while/as practicing…

Again to return to Circle walking, time spent stepping, let alone changing, without the internal LiuHe Connections being established, without basic Opening/Closing (spherical-stabilized-dynamic), and without Twisting naturally tingling as you step.. then one has wired in “stepping” not doing that… -to then later add that in…. (and to move in a way that those Neigung components are avail gives a different sort of intention, than one that is “intended” efforting to make them happen.)
=========================
Add to that the stories (Tales of Power) of those even just a few generations ago, that practiced quite a bit day (who can do that today? or would? not just a short burst, or “Teachers” that do some inbetween classes, and such.. so not really drilling as they did).. but still,
the founder of IChuan (for ex) was said to have been taught (and practiced) “A Handful of yrs” (?) before he “got” something… (not so much the intensity, but a difference in method? also just as put food in the over on a cooking heat will bake the meal, the warmth of a candle over a longer time period (with breaks to cool down).. might eventually add up to the same amount of heat.. but the same baking won’t have occurred).

[Anonymous]

IMO, everything you describe is true. It is only true because no one knows what they are trying to achieve.

[Anonymous]

Aye, not know “what” one is trying to achieve, let alone “how” to do so.. but further

– I think the “real stuff” (core principles- actual gungfu- whether external gf, -or- internal gf), ) isn’t even conceivable, its outside the realm of experience, even if it is close or subtle a distinction, but like a spice tasted that isn’t really like any other spice. (How describe that?) Its always brought back into what one can experience, or has-in the past- experienced… or language hints at.
……
That last pt is what is fallen-back upon, language, and this degenerates away from actual doing of this new context, and just implies one is trying to achieve (and do, in order to, achieve) something like already known.

[In this way, I veer away from the current idea of “use modern terms” because it can be all explained as “we” understand it.. for the above reasons.]
-Just like electronics still uses the term ‘electricity’ even though it isn’t experienced, beyond a shock, and isn’t explain able.. but pop-culture has grown used to that term and accepted it. Likewise other physics, it is tempting to tell Qtm-Mechanical theoretical physicists to use “modern-understanding/physical observable” terms and concepts (to relate/explain the building-blocks.. quarks & quiffs)… but

This is how the explanation of chi as “bio-electricity” is misleading, but also ironic.

Also it could be a “feeling-sensation” that signals a set of , relationships, a functional-object (like lining up a target with gun sights.. that is perceived as one thing, even though it is three different pts (front-back and targer) as well as all the balance-alignments of the body: feet-ground to the contact-supporting points. (the “RightBrain” summarizes all this as a feeling that is either “On-Target’ -literally- or not got it, losing it)

– and one can argue there isn’t such an actual thing, an object that can be found, that is that “lining-up” feeling… so lets give it another name “on-target neural-pathways” (for ex)- just moving terms, and seeming to connect up to “modern understanding” but likewise stepping away from the systems that developed using that specialized term (electricty, quarks, chi, on-target, nei-jing steel, An-jing distorting/heaviness..etc. )

..
[ unless one is trying to reset the context, and redefine (from the ground up) how-tos and step by step: from “here” (modern understanding- no knowledge of this specialized subject, on up.) ]

Its just a) most case I’ve seen- just my exper- others trying have watered down and distorted in that explaining, and b) the only subjects that don’t use “sophisticated code” (to use the rhetoric-term of a jargon-vocab) are those without much depth,otherwise.. even simple ones like names of boxing punches (jab, cross, hook, cut…) or exercises (clean, press, snatch, dip, burpee).. etc..
those have meaning, and show up in other “movements” (exercises, or concepts being explained, even which looks entirely different), those being the most simple (medical: whether TCM, heat-chill, excess-deficient, rise-fall, wet-dry, still-moving; or medical with all the latin terms and names of bacteria and micro-cellular- what matters what things that can’t be seen are called? -it informs that context, that world-view.. and the steps and methods from.

Any student of botany (and all the names of herbs- tradition or latin), or medical terminology (above, even massage therapists questioning, why do I need know names and locations? reduce this unneeded detail), etc. Any student that has a list of terms to memorize will think, too much..

even a few core-concepts that are a struggle to get-absorb, our modern-times says you should be able to show a person how to move (this way, not that) and lo they can see-do a difference 5mins, or perhaps 20 mins, or at least in a few days.. they have the skill

(which is a coordination timing thing, clearly not developing a skill-ability that wasn’t there)… its how to describe steps, or the entire path, fumbling in the dark (to one that it is entirely new to, without them going too astray.. and them not just recontexting it as another version of what they already know.)
……….
(that seems to be the unspoken demand, at times actual spoken- the assumption being, otherwise one can’t explain and is just guessing, or it is being held-back and “making” the students wait & struggle to find it on their own…)
Not that I don’t see the value on the other side as well (and thus spending so much time on disassembly and putting it back together myself- to try and learn more about how the “clock works”……

[Anonymous]

It is knowable, concrete, and reasonably simple. However, it does take time to make the unconscious conscious.

[Anonymous]

Indeed..

(just to add an aspect of what I was meaning), how to express that path, and that goal, to people with no experience. (as that can sound abstract.. to those with no experience, unless they just trust and follow, and thus so many of the “interpretations” that don’t seek something like “making the uncon-con).

I would think that, to present this, either:
a number of discrete steps are parceled out, where the first is understandable (to an outsider), the next less so, until they’ve developed the first skill, etc.)
[but as you mention elsewhere, some might jump a step, or all the way to the “advanced material”.. and then “It won’t work” they complain}
or- there is some way to describe that “what they are trying to achieve” From-Here (no experience mindset) ie what would most think “Making the unconscious conscious” means (I don’t write that to ask you to describe it… just many would have various interps, or even think it doesn’t mean something at all)

—Above only matters if you intended to present your ideas, beyond “teaching” yourself, formulating and formalizing (which helps one’s own understanding) but- I believe- if you do seek to pass along, the conceptual structure also needs to be “translatable” (so to speak)..

-I hope that adds something

[Author]

Posts