Saturday, December 4, 2010

The Wheel



More circles.

Often, our technique consists a large circle (the arch of a shoulder throw), and often, or almost always in the case of my art, it has a smaller one as well (the tight wrist lock that finishes the technique).

I see the whole experience in this way.

When we initially come to train we start recognizing patterns, and learn by returning to a technique again and again over a course of months and years. It's a big cycle of learning, where, at every level we realize that we are just at the start of a new one. It's a constant spiral of understanding that seems to never end.

And then there are the small aspects. Returning to a wrist throw and honing the way it's applied ever more sharply. Ever more carefully. This is the small circle of one's education that insists on perfecting the simplist techniques in order to perfect the larger whole of one's abilities.

It seems that it's only when both circles move in unison that we advance further our journey.

2 comments:

  1. Recently, I've never been so excited to do the techniques I first learned so that I can improve those basic movements. Round and round we go ... hopefully at an upwards ascending motion maybe? Or down?

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  2. Good stuff lately my friend. You seem to be on a good budo trip.

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