True Mastery

 

Before I do anything else, I’d like to say that I purchased a Pocket Bushman folder from Knifecenter.com recently.

To be perfectly honest, I had some doubts about the knife, due to some rather negative reviews of it on the web, but I have, thus far, found those concerns to be without cause.
First of all, the knife exits the box razor sharp. I have a bare spot on my arm (for the first time in a long time) to prove that it is delivered that way.

In normal usage, without any deliberate attempt to overstress the spring, the knife does its job just fine. As a matter of fact while using the knife in one of the most punishing (inland) environments I know of (the kitchen) it performs better than just about any other knife except for my carbon steel antiques (naaaah, no bias here).

O.K, so here I sit at my computer; trying to figure out what I should talk about now. Should it be about technique? Should it be about style? Or should it be about some of the more esoteric subjects (a favorite of many students) that run rampant through all martial arts legends and mythology?

None of the above.

What I’d like to wax poetic on today is the subject of real, or true, mastery of a subject or discipline.

Discussing mastery is kind of like trying to find land mines by putting on a hakama, blindfolding yourself; then grabbing your favorite bokken or staff and looking for the land mines by commencing to whack the ground as you slide step forward. No matter what you do, the outcome isn’t necessarily what you expect it to be.

But, if you care to try that, let me know how it works out for you.

My father, and Uncle Frank, had both told me that the real essence of a master isn’t found in the physical mastery of fighting or warfare. Real mastery begins, and only BEGINS, mind you, when you are able to teach a six year old how to fight in a disciplined manner. Without resorting to negative reinforcement techniques.

Well, as you can imagine that wasn’t a lesson that I believed or learned the easy way.

By the by, I have a history of hard learned lessons but, as my parents used to point out, I also have a short learning curve. I tend not to repeat my mistakes, but I do find some interesting new ones to make.

When my father opened his kwoon, my uncle was his chief instructor. I was the chief assistant instructor, a position that I probably took much too seriously but it did help to make certain that when I was in the kwoon, I was practicing as hard as I knew how.

When my uncle told me to take over the adult classes and teach them the basics I was very proud. Eleven year old me, leading adults in learning the basics.

There were a few, to be sure, who didn’t care for that. But each challenge led to them having to free spar with me and none of the matches went the way that the challengers had anticipated. The rules didn’t matter (street rules or tournament, the choice was theirs) I either won, honestly, or lost by such a close margin (one point) that the adult in question didn’t even care to discuss it afterward.

For a kid, especially in those pre-“junior black belt” days I was on top of the world.

And then the excrement hit the stationary push prop.

Dad decided to open the school to children.

After all, he already had four sons, all of whom were very competent assistant instructors.

Initially, with the first few children, they worked out with the adults, but after there were enough students (ten or so), Dad moved them to their own time slot in the kwoon schedule.

Which meant that (unbeknownst to me) there was now a reason to have a second Chief Instructor.

Now, when Uncle Lanny made that announcement I was hoping that it would be me. I knew that he was the Head Instructor, which led me to believe that I would be put in charge of the adults. I reasoned that, since Everett (number two son) was already leading the children in most of their training that he would be put in charge of the children; which then left me with teaching the adults and Uncle Lanny overseeing it all.

Well, I thought it was a good idea.

What did happen was that Uncle Lanny became the Chief Instructor for the adults, Everett became his new assistant and I became Chief Instructor for the children. Dad brought Uncle Bill in to be the Head Instructor and I fought back the urge to start sucking my thumb in the corner.

Hey, we ALL start out human.

So there I am, accustomed to teaching the adults. Living with; talking to and associating with adults. Most of my friends were adults and I only had minimal contact with other children my own age, which suited me just fine, as most of them appeared to be severely brain damaged. I mean, who wants to hang out with people who think it’s funny to stick two pencils up their nose?

First of all, there was a communications gap. The oldest was still only fourteen, with a mental age of maybe ten (remember the pencils? Yeah, that’s the one) and the youngest was a thumbsucker (literally) of about five. Physically, a nine year spread in ages, mentally? Not so much.

They kept me busy, oh god, did they keep me busy!

The first thing I learned was that the attention span wasn’t much more than twenty minutes at best. So things had to be kept to fifteen minute increments. The next thing I learned was that they couldn’t be pushed as hard as the adults, or even as hard as I’d push myself or my brothers. Compared to them, we were little powerhouses.

Daniel (number four son) once kicked the fourteen year old hard enough to knock the wind out of him and land him flat on his back.

The fourteen year old attempted to reciprocate, with permission, and only succeeded in seeing his opponent slip the kick, grab his leg and, you guessed it, land flat on his back.

Again

Daniel, age six, opponent, age fourteen; match goes to Daniel.

Houston, we have a problem.

Last, but not least, was that I knew all the movements so well that I could do them in my sleep. Ask me to demonstrate a technique and I could do it with no problem, whether the uke was willing, or not. Ask me to demonstrate a skill set and I could run through the entire series without missing a beat.

But I was accustomed to working with adults, whom you could show a technique to and expect them to see the nuances you needed them to learn. For them, the fact that my movements were as natural as walking was a good thing. When they got stuck all I had to do was to show them, and they’d pick it up.

Doesn’t generally work that way for children.  

Think it’s not much of a problem?

Then try explaining to someone who’s been in a wheelchair, for his whole life, how to walk.

The odds are pretty good that you’ll miss about ninety percent of the more crucial information no matter how well you plan it out.

And you’ll miss it, precisely because you no longer have to think about it.

So there was the problem, I had to find a way to explain something which I knew so well that I no longer had the words to explain.

Words exist because of meaning.  Once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.  Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can talk with him?  ~Chuang Tzu

I had gone to a great deal of trouble to become the “man who has forgotten the words” but now I found myself in the unenviable position of having to remember them again. So I went to Uncle Lanny for help.

Should have known better.

Uncle Lanny looked at me for a long time, “You know all the moves, right?”

Well, yes, I do.

“And you know them so well that they’re second nature, right?”

Yeah

“So what’s the problem?”

Explaining them to my students.

“You know the moves, they want to know them, where’s the problem? Don’t you both speak the same language?”

Well, I used to think so.

“Then listen to them, learn their language.”

What? Standard English isn’t good enough? What the heck do they speak, Swahili?

Uncle Lanny just smiled and said, “Just listen.”

Well, I did listen, at least I thought I did, and things continued along pretty much the same. The fourteen year old continued to act like a five year old, the five year old was acting about two and everyone in between were just acting like fools.

The turning point came when I “met” Miss Sally.

Miss Sally hosted a children’s television show titled “Romper Room;” my youngest brother, Daniel, seemed to enjoy watching it. The rest of us considered it to be too “young” a show for us.

But, it did hold my brother’s attention.

And he, although he was more disciplined, was still only about five.

Hmmmmmmm, let’s see what the fuss is about.

So I watched the show, took mental notes and observed how my brother responded to Miss Sally.

Shortly afterward, I made some changes in how I taught the class.

First, I began by making the exercises more like games. Jack LaLanne was my role model for doing that, he had a way about him that made the exercises more enjoyable. Considering that he was attempting to “lure America” off their sofas it was definitely a job requirement for him. Stretching became more dancelike and the breakfalls became an exercise in seeing who could fall and make the least noise. Weight distribution is vital in breakfalls, the quieter you can land, when thrown, the softer you just hit the ground.

Teaching the strikes and blocks became a combination history lesson/mythology class and story hour. While I moved my students into the correct positions (standing still became an exercise in static balance) I would regale them with stories about the move’s presumed historical precedence, factual when I could, mythological if necessary and flat out fictional (but logical) if I couldn’t locate information about the basis for the movement/strike/kick/block.

Uncle Lanny directed Everett in leading his students, watched and smiled.

When my routine had become pretty much set and I knew I could count on my assistant instructor (David) I began to take breaks and watch from the desk with the Sifu, (Dad) and my two Uncles.

After a few months of everything going smoothly, Uncle Bill came to me and asked, “So have you thanked your students yet?”

I didn’t even ask why, I didn’t have to.

I lined them up and had them stand there as I thanked them for what they had taught me and bowed to them.  Looking puzzled, they returned the bow.

As I left the mat, Uncle Lanny leaned over and said, “Do you know what the second stage of True Mastery is?”

Yeeeeeesh

At least I had a month or two of enjoying the THOUGHT that perhaps I had achieved True Mastery.

That, though, is a story for another time.

There isn't one of us that doesn't want to be someplace else. But this is what we do, who we are. Live for nothing, or die for something. Your call.

John Rambo