Friday, February 27, 2009

Deterioration

Sunday's training pretty much reflects how ragged my form has become.

I don't think my form is horrible. I managed to execute First Drill properly (despite some initial hiccups with the second step). I managed to get through the variations fairly well. I even survived the (comparatively brisk) warm up on Sunday, along with a fair execution of Syllabus Form.

The problem here is the lack of "stressed" training.

It showed a lot during the mock tournament we held. Kenneth and Yu Sarn have been able to truly integrate their training into a useable martial art. I have not. They can execute sword forms while thinking tactically. I cannot. They can step off the line as a natural response. My feet feel glued to the floor.

The strange part is - all of these problems only appear when I am in a stressful situation - i.e freeplay.

I know what this means - it means I don't have enough reps under my belt to really integrate this into a proper martial art. I've been doing a lot of armchair martial arts - critiquing styles, forms but not really training.

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The other problem now (which is related) is that I'm at an incredibly low in energy. I think I know why it's so low, and I know from experience that it tends to be self-correcting after a while. I just need to refill my energy reserves that I've spent on creative endeavours of late - i.e helping friends through their love problems, writing out scenarios for the games that I run etc.

Perhaps what I really need to do is to get some way of getting healthy without my reliance on swordsmanship as a head fake. I think I've relied on that for too long, and I really should move on based on that foundational activity.

More later. Head is hurting again.

2 comments:

The Disappearing Man said...

As with all things physical, muscle memory does fade, but it retains better than mental memory. Hence you're still able to do a lot of the basic stuff pretty well. I'd say a lot of it is just rust.

The other aspect is getting in the reps in the first place. The more you've trained something to begin with, the longer it takes to fade, and the easier it is to regain. This isn't a criticism - obviously you've had more important things to do recently. ;)

Something to consider is Brown Belt Syndrome - knowing all the stuff, being able to perform it technically, but finding it difficult to execute under pressure because there are too many things to think about. This is why I find the whole 'decision stick' concept so useful. It drastically cuts down the decisions you have to make. Combined with enough reps of basic techniques, it means you don't have to think much under pressure, you just pull a technique out of the hat. Fiore allows us to do this - in fact more and more I suspect the entire system relies on something like modern 'operant conditioning'. Especially with posta longa....

As for your lack of energy, well... "The practice of swordsmanship setteth aside all ills" and so on.

Anonymous said...

The other aspect is getting in the reps in the first place. The more you've trained something to begin with, the longer it takes to fade, and the easier it is to regain. This isn't a criticism - obviously you've had more important things to do recently. ;) 2945abc45 0305
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