The mind and memory never cease to amaze me. Just occasionally, a fragment of something bubbles up from the depths, years ago, and somehow dovetails into your current interests or obsessions. In my case, this was a vague memory of a magazine or newspaper article mentioning someone – I couldn’t even remember the person’s name…
Category: Psychology
The Transmission and Evolution Models of Martial Arts Instruction
The big problem here is that too many people believe, because they have been so told, that martial arts skill development only comes from a teacher (Sifu/Sensei/Guro/Guru/Kru etc.) transmitting the information to the student. The passage of real info only occurs once per generation, and only one real successor is chosen. The transmission of the…
Motivation
Yesterday, Felix Baumgartner took his Big Step, plummeting from a weather balloon 39 kilometers above the Earth, reaching a top speed of 1342 km/h on his way down. On the same day, a number of the world’s elite Jiu Jitsu athletes competed in an invitational, win by submission only, tournament called Metamoris. Close to home,…
Handedness
I first learned the Peruvian Necktie (a type of choke applied to a turtled opponent) a couple of years ago. I understood it during the lesson, but found it a bit awkward to apply and never pursued it. Fast forward to last week. We practised a few attacks to a turtled opponent, including the anaconda…
Mobility
I recently travelled to America with my wife, including a cruise from Mexico to Hawaii. I don’t know if it was an American thing, or a cruise thing, but there was a much higher proportion of people, not all of them old, using those electric scooters, walkers, and walking sticks. Some in wheelchairs as well,…
Giving less than 100%
I enjoyed the free wrestling in Peter King’s class last night. Escaped Sonny’s first formidable guillotine choke attempt and passed his guard, though he tapped me with a second guillotine right at the end of the round. The local teenage prodigy, Andris, got my back, somehow I escaped that to half guard and fended him…
A nice vacation, and reassessment
I’m just coming to the end of a couple of weeks vacation. During this time I only went to Jiu Jitsu once, the Monday night class with Anthony. The first week Pat and I spent on Daydream Island in the Whitsundays. We felt a bit locked in on a small resort island and there were…