Sunday, March 22, 2020

The Principle of Harmonious Chaos.

Viewed a video of someone doing a drill, attempting to feel some principles at work, good stuff all around except one point where they stopped and said ‘no, that isn’t good because your hand is there and I would walk right into it.’
No. In reality the hand is not going to be there, it will not be hanging there for your convenience, nor will it remain there as an impediment just sitting in one spot.

Drills like these have flaws built into them for a reason. It is not necessarily important what the other person is doing or how they are standing because that is NOT reality. What IS important is what YOU are doing; how you are moving, getting a feel for it.
THAT is where one should reframe their focus, keeping in mind that, in reality, it will NOT be so clean and crisp either, but the mechanics will be there. Don’t get hung up on form, or how something should look, that is never the bottom line and anyone looking strictly at these things is missing the point entirely.

There is a lot missing from any given drill. Look at what is missing, take note, look at where your focus is, take note.
Remember that you are NOT fighting or defending against a technique, you ARE fighting or defending against a PERSON, complete with all their ferocity, aggression, and will.
That hand is going to move, come from another angle, a different hand will come at you from somewhere else, now a foot, now a head, grabs, pulls, pushes, knees, elbows, fingernails, spit, slobber, cuss words, derogatory statements... Maybe a weapon appears, maybe not.

Sometimes you need to close distance, sometimes you need to create distance... The latter is going to be your ultimate aim in order to escape and get to safety.
Maybe you have that option, maybe not.

My Teacher used to say ‘Don’t think, just do,’ and ‘No Mind.’ Going along with my previous post about hyper-vigilance and operating from the lizard brain, this is precisely correct.
Thinking about things in logical sequence, trying to make sense of these things from a higher brain standpoint is okay, it has its’ uses, but the aim is to sink into the lizard brain, to hone our ruthless survival traits, to focus them and, ultimately, act without thinking.
Some people call this second nature, but it is really first nature, innate to all of us, otherwise we would not be here. 

This is not a philosophical journey in its’ primary aim, most of that is secondary stuff. The aim is always to seek advantage, to dominate or be dominated, so when I see people going through motions and thoughtfully considering things, but then getting hung up on things that don’t really matter, it is a wonder that things have degraded over time.
The proper aim of things has been lost. 

It is easy to see the nature of a person by the way they move and their intent. One can pick the ruthless from the meek in just a few simple movements.
Now for the philosophical side. One need only know that peace is preceded by war, without conflict we would not have needed to invent two separate words to describe two concepts such as war and peace.
The truly peaceful are those capable of terrible violent things, yet choose not to do those things unless  absolutely necessary.

I understand the idealistic views some people hold. The romanticized view of things as we would want them to be, but reality rarely confirms to our ideals and when we try to force it to conform then all sorts of things go wrong.
It is best to live in balance with nature, knowing full well what that actually implies. Harmony is an action word, it has nothing to do with pacifism, it has nothing to do with doing nothing when something must be done.
It has everything to do with seeing things as they are, without blinders, delusions, or personal idealistic opinions.
It is both ugly and beautiful at the same time. Great and terrible. Ordered and chaotic. It is a mess. Live with it or be torn apart by it.

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