You don't have to be great all the time

In her fabulous book, Writing Down the Bones, author Natalie Goldberg introduces a Zen-inspired practice of writing, whereby one sits and writes for an allotted time, say five or fifteen minutes without stopping, without correcting, always keeping the pen moving. This is not writing for publication, but rather writing as spiritual practice, more akin to meditation, therapy and martial arts practice than writing for an audience.

Here's my favorite anecdote from a book packed with wonderful vignettes:

Artistic Stability

I have a pile of spiral notebooks about five feet high that begin around 1977, my early years of writing in Taos, New Mexico. I want to throw them out -- who can bear to look at the junk of our own minds that comes out in writing practice? I have a friend in New Mexico who makes solar houses out of beer cans and old tires. I think I will try to build one out of discarded spiral notebooks. A friend who lives upstairs says, "Don't get rid of them." I tell her she can have them if she wants.

I pile them on her stairs leading up to her apartment and leave for Norfolk, Nebraska, for four days to do a writing workshop. When I return she looks at me oddly, plunks herself down in the old pink chair in my bedroom: "I've been reading your notebooks all weekend. They are so intimate; so scared, insecure for pages, then suddenly they are not you -- just raw energy and wild mind. And now here you are -- Natalie -- in the flesh, just a person. It feels so funny." ...

She said it was empowering to read my notebooks because she realized that I really did write "shit," sometimes for whole notebooks. Often I tell my students, "Listen, I write and still write terrible self-pitying stuff for page after page." They don't believe me. Reading my notebooks is living proof of that. My upstairs neighbor said, "If you could write the junk you did then and write the stuff you do now, I realize I can do anything. There's so much power in the mind. I feel like who knows what I can do!" She said the main thing she saw in the notebooks -- whole notebooks of complaints, boring description, and flagrant anger -- was an absolute trust in the process. "I saw that you kept on writing even when you wrote 'I must be nuts to do this.'"

When you see someone do something amazing, it's a mistake to attribute it to mere talent. You just don't see the hard work.

Female exemplars in Taijiquan

More from Turning Silk: A Diary of Chen Taiji Practice, by Kinthissa:

Apart from Chen XiaoWang's* magnificent XinJia** renditions, I have seen only one other person whose XinJia has impressed me. This was a woman, Japanese, one of the six, all teachers, who came to Sydney in 1997. She was of a narrow and light build. Her delicacy had a lithe power, it brought out quite a different quality in XinJia's character. I find wildness suits women. Female practitioners have a paucity of exemplars to be inspired by. Master Chen said that the woman was gold medal material, only her responsibilities in running an organization did not allow her enough training time. When I have asked him if the training for women is different from men's, his reply has been, "No, it is the same." When I enquired after women in his family who had reached a high level in TaijiQuan (as one hears almost exclusively of men), he said that some had excelled in their early years, but then they had married, etcetera.

* Chen XiaoWang is Kinthissa's famous teacher. An impressive video of Chen XiaoWang in action.

** XinJia ("new frame") is a more modern form of Chen style taijiquan, compared to the LaoJia ("old frame"). In her book Kinthissa writes interestingly and in detail about her experiences studying both frames.

The road to wisdom

From Turning Silk: A Diary of Chen Taiji Practice, by Kinthissa:

Practise mindfully, with ease in the heart. Practise because it is doing one good, not because it will make one a master. To become a master, or mistress, of TaijiQuan is a very long aim. Practising without expecting the day to arrive soon will be the most sensible way. Remember the road to wisdom: "Err and err and err again -- but less and less and less."

The quote within the quote is from a grook of Piet Hein:

The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain
And simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again,
but less
and less
and less.

Theme of the month November 2009: Fun and games

It's a busy time of year. Qualification contest, gradings and kata competition are all coming soon. So let's lighten things up with some fun and games.

In the last month I've taken my young son to a few kids' judo classes, and I've been stealing ideas for my regular class. Naturally, adults like a bit of fun too. Here are some of the activities and games that I've either tried, or plan to try soon:

• Dive rolls over increasing numbers of class mates (arranged like sardines)
• Rolls using big gym balls
• How many throws can you do in thirty second seconds (racing back and forward between two ukes)

More generally, this month I'd like to leaven competition and grading preparation by bringing a bit of playfulness and game elements to our training. For example, with qualification judo contest coming up, I'd like to try some mock bouts in which points are awarded to pairs of participants for the most breakfalls, to encourage an attacking (and safe) approach to judo competition.

How about you? What are some fun activities that both kids and grown-ups look forward to in your classes?

Hard stuff

Both stylistically, and by temperament I tend towards the softer end of the spectrum in my martial arts. Sure, when I throw my partner hits the mat hard and when I apply a joint lock it hurts, but I aspire to use leverage and whole-body power, rather than the "brute" force of local muscle.

That said, lately I've wondered whether a teensy bit of "hard" practice might do me a bit of good. So I've picked three training drills that have a hard element and have added them to my personal routine: 2-5% hard, leaving 95-98% soft.

1. Horse stance with tension: Just stand in horse stance and tense every muscle, all at once, increasing the duration over time. Warning: If you try this do not allow pressure to build up in your head, as it can be dangerous.
2. Low forward stance: The front knee should be in line with the toes; the back leg braced straight. Sound hard? It is.
3. Circular punching: This should actually be fairly relaxed, but my shoulders and upper arms don't understand this, and tense up, making me want to stop.

Note that the former two exercises are static hard exercises, not dynamic. There's some virtue in exploring what hard feels like, as opposed to adopting it as a normal state of movement.

For dynamic I still want soft. The latter two drills are primarily hard in the sense of difficult, and this leads to hard in the form of unwanted tension. Certainly, the punching should become softer with practice.

What exercises do you find hard, in either or both senses? How do you balance hard and soft in your training?

Hand-y hints

In judo and jiu-jitsu we generally:

• Keep our thumbs and fingers together (not splayed), so that an adversary can't snap 'em off, and for concentrated force
• Grip more tightly with the weaker fourth and fifth fingers to strengthen them, while keeping the thumb, index and middle finger more relaxed and sensitive; these guidelines apply whether taking a grip of your partner's gi, forming a fist, or a holding a sword
• Breakfall mainly with the hands (fingers together!), even though there is greater surface contact with the fleshy part of the forearms.

It's one thing to read tips like this; it's another to make them second nature. Good luck!

Go on: Put me in a lock!

In jiu-jitsu we learn a lot of joint lots, mainly as part of our restraint and control syllabus.

To apply them for real you need to be more skilful than your opponent because people will try to naturally try to escape, typically by either using muscular resistance or trying to twist themselves out. Part of the art is first breaking your partner's balance, so that (s)he loses the ability to effectively resist, as well as adapting to whatever response they (s)he manages to muster.

But what happens if your opponent is simply much, much better than you? Check it out:

Although the attacker is allowed to start to apply locks, at no stage does he control the defender's balance (or center). Quite the reverse!