Aret's avatar

Aret

Mmmm, sea kittens
107 Watchers40 Deviations
73K
Pageviews
The difference between an art that uses imaginary opponents and one that uses real ones is party understanding and partly focus.

Without a real target, lots of confusion and mistakes pop up that are pretty easily fixed if you find a way to get an opponent in there. That said, it requires focus to "see" the invisible enemy, that dude who is about your height and only slightly less skilled. If you put a weapon in the hands of people who spar, it's harder to get them to focus on drilling moves and process.

Technically each move we learn ends with the attacker escaping, but it's very easy to just flow into all the other moves. Which is how I ended up in a battle yesterday when I should've been drilling properly. It's hard to practice dodging for the millionth time when I've just learned how to catch a strike, hip check the opponent and stab him in the gut. And of course, if I lose focus and fight, my opponent realizes that dying is less interesting than moving to parry and striking back.

Free flow sparring may be the most fun thing I've learned. It's killer on my ability to focus though. Also my hands. My heavily bruised hands. The kendo folks get armor but we get... a first aid kit. XD

Guess I'm not a jedi yet.

___________________________
This is a footer!
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
I've been doing a lot of sitting and watching and reading while my leg heals and I expect I'll continue to sit and watch and read for a few weeks more. No choice if I ever want to bend my ankle or run without collapsing. As it is, I think what I tried to do on Sunday has strained or torn something in my calf.

Sigh.

I think part of the problem we have retaining people in martial arts is that it requires a certain type of person to enjoy it, basically the exact opposite of the person in Hollywood movies. Rather than the aggressive defender of justice always moving to the next adventure, we need the geeks and nerds. The people who can sit and focus on a problem until it's resolved, who get lost in minutia and details and perfectionism. The book learners with imagination. These are the people who understand that walking back and forth and swinging a stick for three hours isn't the boring stuff, it's all the stuff. It's body mechanics and power and distance and endurance. Magic tricks with simple movements.

We've been getting new people but they don't stay, they get bored when they aren't Kenshin after an hour or a day.

You don't join a martial art for self defense or to win fights. There are no kidnapped princesses and you are not the chosen one. There's no career in wandering the countryside as a sword for hire. So if you show up, expect reality: sweat, sore muscles, and repetition.

Fun is what you make of it. If you look hard enough, it's precisely as much fun to stand and cut or walk and cut as it is to learn how to defeat enemies coming at you from three different directions. Probably because there's basically no difference between those two things.

Join to be a better person. Join to get some exercise. Join to be part of a massive organization that stretches across the planet and back through time. Join to be calmer, more mindful, and silence the screaming of all your electronic notifications.

Do not join to be an anime character. You'll be disappointed.

___________________________
This is a footer!
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Cycle of Pain

4 min read
The circle of my personal stubbornness looks like this:

• Something I'm doing hurts. Refuse to stop because that would be 'weak'.

• The pain continues. Now it would take a much longer time to fix. Slow down (but don't stop) to try to let it heal. Alternatively, end up in enough pain to force me to stop.

• Pain seems to be getting better. Start pushing limits.

• The thing I'm doing hurts again. Refuse to stop...

Not good. There's no meaning in it. Pushing limits to breaking point only shortens the time you have to enjoy your limits. It's so hard to admit that though. To sit out and watch. I hate how fragile I am. It makes me feel embarassed to even try things. But I mean... it's all sort of silly anyway. Short, chubby white girl with glasses, from Canada, wearing a hakama, swinging a wooden sword around. Until yiu realize we're not really learning how to fight. We're learning intangibles. Calm. Control. Clarity. Confidence.  ... Coolness? Ha.

Nothing embarassing about any of that. Physical disability has no impact on a person's ability to learn those things. Stubbornness does. That's where my weakness is.

Things to remember from last night: move with intention, keep your feet glued to the floor, keep your hand tight and tip up, and aim for the eyes, if they flinch you win. Look where the opponent is. If you stabbed him he's probably on the floor so look down. Use your hips to move, to cut, to strike. Never take a hit on the sharp part of your blade.

Things to practice: tate hiza. Who the heck invented such a painful way to sit anyway? Seiza is a piece of cake comparatively.

Moving on to kata 4 once I can learn how to sit again. >_>

Physio appointment tonight and then I'm getting myself a treat to celebrate passing my advanced driving test yesterday.

___________________________
This is a footer!
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In

Contrast

4 min read
As a previously bullied, shy child with very conservative parents, anything I liked was usually picked apart and/or mocked. To this day when I like or love something, you'd never know it because I act disinterested. It's hard to overcome those old lessons.

"You need to find your voice."

It was interesting to me in class the other day that my voice was the loudest. Newbies are quiet and uncertain regardless of temperament, as they discover quickly that it's oddly hard to focus on your feet, your sword and try to talk out loud, even just to count to ten. I was told early on that the idea behind kiai (or just counting loud) was that even if your technique is the worst and you know nothing, you should be loud as it shows energy and willingness and excitement for learning.

See the challenge for me?

I had thought it was impossible but there it is, now I'm as loud as you could wish. A newbie asked me which of the arts I like best and I was able to allow myself a moment to gush over Niten, an art I find exceptionally fun. 6 months to break 27 years of silence. The magic of martial arts I suppose. Or rather, the thing I find most interesting, the clash of themes, the contrast. Smooth, beautiful, dance like movements with gruesome purpose, and the ability to find peace by learning violence.

___________________________
This is a footer!
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
In the process of learning any new skill, you also have to learn how to ask questions. Not just how to speak up, this isn't about being shy although it can be. It's about what to ask.

At the beginning you have no questions because you don't know anything. How can you ask questions when everything is just one big ??? to you. You have to trust your teacher to give you some basic skills. You have to learn, and then find the right questions, the ones that fine tune those basics and give insight into why we do things that way and pave the way for the next set of skills.

I think this is part of why people who dedicate themselves to a learning a thing eventually gain a confidence that inspires other people, why they seem almost superhuman. There's an empowering feeling in finding your voice, in knowing enough to ask the interesting questions and understand the answers.

You need to know what excellent looks and feels like before you can ask why it's awful when you do it or why you can't change X and Z and then apply the answer and see/feel the results.

Although I take great geeky pleasure in trying different kinds of swords and calling myself a samurai, the fact is, learning how to kill people is making me a better (and much more humble) person.

With a lot of questions.

___________________________
This is a footer!
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Featured

A Fight Breaks Out by Aret, journal

We Lose More People That Way by Aret, journal

Cycle of Pain by Aret, journal

Contrast by Aret, journal

Learning How to Ask Questions by Aret, journal