Fixing and stopping

In the last week, I have been reminded of a couple of key elements of karate and martial art in general.

One came as I was working one of my students through some hojo undo drills, focusing on proper posture. We moved into posture and movement in kicking. The drills were meant to work the legs and core specifically. But, before every kick, the student hesitated and attempted to shift all weight on to the support leg. The more effort to correct, the more it became a conscious effort to try to get the leg to do what it should do.

We have a tendency to think "our karate" rather than let the techniques flow. I talk to my people about 'feeling' their karate versus thinking about things. When we ‘think’ our way through things – karate, reading, walking the dog etc - we have a tendency to stop and focus on one thing. We are fully into that one thing, but everything else becomes a void in our minds.

"Thinking" on each technique individually will get us through each technique individually. You'll know that you are stopping or fixing on technique when you catch yourself looking at your hand or staring at the floor when you move forward. How many people have seen someone perform a kata and then stop in the middle of things because he ran out of mental tape?

Or there is the other issue that comes up in class that sits pretty much at the other end of spectrum. It happens with my younger students moreso than with my older ones. At any one point in a kata or in kihon exercises, there will be a point in training where their focus will inexorably drawn to a noise or movement (such as the main door opening). It’s not simply an eye thing, it becomes a whole head/ body thing. Not to make light of ADD, but if one willingly allows their attention to zip from thing to thing, it would seemingly defeat the purpose of working on something wherein developing focus is the key.

Both represent perils and pitfalls. For the person who overthinks a technique or a movement, it becomes paralysis. Paralysis happens either before a movement occurs (when the brain is thinking, ‘I can’t do this’, ‘how do I do this’) or between movements (such as within a kata). This would be the type of person for whom the adage “he who hesitates meditates horizontally” was written. For the person whose attention wanes from the issue at hand to something that is external to what is going on so much that it now has their entire focus, there is equal danger. Our mind may be prone to wandering, but we must be able to conquer it and the physicality of this wandering. I liken this to a hypersensitive defensive radar system that goes off when a mosquito or bird enter the airspace of a country. How would you know when a real threat was coming.

One of the things that I do with my students is a little thing I have called ‘snowchin,’ the performance of Sanchin in subzero temperatures. Snowchin is a great way to provide a negative stimulus that will sap the brain’s focus somewhere beyond the kata itself. Most people focus on the cold surrounding their bodies or the nagging chill of the snow on or beneath their feet. Yet, despite this, they must keep the focus on the task at hand. You can feel and accept the cold and the pain, but you must keep doing what you are doing – not put the brunt of the energy and attention to the cold. It is a hearty exercise with a simple goal – keep full perspective of things, but perform your task.

In a conflict, the same issue comes to bear. If I think about how big the person is, or how muscular the person is or even how I am going to beat the person, I am pretty much in the bag already. Any potential conflict cannot be "thought of" in advance. If I defeat myself in thought, my opponent will defeat me in action. Conversely, if I focus on individual incidents (fakes and feints), my focus becomes fixed on something and draws me into a single course of action that may leave me exposed.  I will not have the focus flow necessary to counter my opponent or move strategically.

Take, for instance, what happens when you are hit - if your mind goes to the point where you are hit and comments "oh, I've been hit," it stops there. You are not thinking beyond the strike - you become fixed on one thing. But, while the mind is there, fixed on the pain and the point of impact, there is a goodly chance that you will not like what happens next: more pain. You can recognize pain, but you cannot focus on pain. Recognize the pain, live with the pain, but do not focus on ridding yourself of the feeling of pain or thinking of only pain. If the brain starts seroing on individual things, micro-managing and double-thinking movements or execution, then you become "fixed" for lack of a better term.

Think of your computer - how slow would it be if it processed single moves individually? If it ran every command individually rather the running several hundred (or even thousand) commands at once. Would you be happy with this system? I bet not. Yet, this is what you allow yourself to do when you overthink or overfocus on details or trivialities.

The concept we strive for is called mushin or ‘no mind.’ It is not that the brain is shut off or that it is empty. It is closer to say that it is free – free to absorb, take in and process that which is happening around it, yet so ‘tuned’ that it still accomplishes what needs to be done. In our current world, we would call it ‘presence’ or ‘awareness,’ but the concept is still deeper than that.

But, how does one develop this constant stream of presence that allows us to move and act and interact?  How do we train ourselves to move beyond the distractions, to know what to do, think and feel in the moment?

Practice. Pure and simple.

We cannot eliminate the internal or external distractions, so we must learn to accept them, give them their space and allow them to exist and fade as needed while focusing on the objectives at hand – our kihon undo, kata, etc. Whether we become nervous, cold or scared, if we allow these feelings of distraction ‘space’ but not prime real estate in our headspace, we will be able to do what we need to do. And we will do it with calm and resolve. No matter how ‘advanced’ we are in rank, we are all striving to achieve that goal – some of us just hide it better than others.

Yes, even in moving meditation, one can still try to fake it til they make it.

But, constantly working to train your brain to be vigilant and ever open and alert to what is around and yet responding to what needs our attention is one of the threads of the discipline of karate. This skill will come in handy if you are ever thrust into a situation such as a car accident or even a physical attack. You need to focus on the collective series of what is happening in the present, not individual events (seeing the car careen towards you, observing the aggressor running up to you). Do so in either situation, and you will be overcome, overwhelmed.

Try this the next time you do kata or you practice technique. Relax your mind and your body and let your techniques go. Register the thoughts, the sounds, the sensations, but do not fix on them. Process them, give them the space they need, not the space your brain thinks they need.

Process and practice. Repeat as needed.