Lessons from My Masters 38: Observations - The Grandmaster Chronicles - Part X

“What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Alluding to a previous post, as we say, Guided Chaos is based on the laws of physics and human physiology; if we say that the reason we go slow at first is to develop our muscles and the timing in our movement; if we say that all things being equal when moving if you can do it slow then as you practice to do it faster, you can do it fast providing that you develop the skill to do it (because that’s what we say). Then what I’m saying here has to be true. We can’t have it both ways.

But in order to do this, I also believe there needs to be an understanding of how the pieces fit. A logical sequence of how it all comes together. So what I’ve done here is put together the principles as I see it in my mind and how I go about things when moving with others.

The Principles in Action as I See It

This is not something that is a formal thing that we do within Guided Chaos but we do discuss these concepts on a regular basis. So since I was discussing issues regarding teaching I thought I would write this out to aid folks in their thinking about the principles whether teaching or practicing on their own. I call this, “The Movement Continuum” (I just made that one up).

So here we go…

FREEDOM OF ACTION ENCOMPASSES ALL BELOW:

Balance = “Looseness”, which = “Control of Balance”. Sensitivity = “Context”, which allows for Control of Balance and the ability to “Create Space” through Looseness, which when combined = “Body Unity”, which = Grace, Finesse, Effortlessness, “Smoothness”, which = “100% Control” over your body within your “Sphere of Influence”, which = The movement of your sphere to arrive at a “Future Position”, to which = The ability to “Strike with Impunity” within the “Natural Range of Motion”, to “Strike or Evade” from “The Void”, which = The ability to “Strike First”, which = Victory!

Now here is the key, while I have laid this all out in a sequential manner in truth these are all working together simultaneously and no one principle is working without the other. So while Balance is the foundation from which all of the other principles work off of. It is Sensitivity that places everything in context and tells up where to get Loose (or not), when to move (or not), when to push, strike (or not), evade, etc. it is Looseness that gives us the subtle muscle control that “free feeling”, we have in our body where we feel like we can do almost anything. This is important because it also allows you when you are training or training others to learn how to move as well as you can within your body but as always there’s something else…

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Like I’ve said in “Lessons from My Masters 36”, if you can’t see it with your mind you cannot see it with your eyes. Well, I want to take this one further,

“If you cannot feel it in your body, your mind cannot imagine it, see it. If your mind cannot imagine it, you will not think you can do it. They work off of each other because at the end of the day it’s just you”.

Interoception the 8^th Sense

I don’t really know if it’s an 8^th Sense I just added that anyway as a definition. “Interoception” - the sense of the internal state of the body these can be both conscious and non-conscious. It encompasses the brains process of integrating signals relayed from the body into specific sub-regions – allowing for nuanced representations of the physiological state of the body… potentially adding in self-awareness”.

Okay, because usually when I use this word I’m told by one of my students (who will remain nameless) that I pronounce it wrong, but in a nutshell what all that means above in layman’s terms is you can feel what’s going on in your body.  This is important and a major part of how the art of Guided Chaos works. When people tell you “you just have to feel it”, what they’re also talking about even if they are not aware of it is this internal feeling we have in our body’s to feel things. For example, when we walk, we not only feel the ground with our feet we but feel how it feels to us internally. When we sit down we can feel the weight of our body as we sink into a chair, when raising our arms or lift weights, we can not only feel the arm moving we can feel the muscles and joints working.

In other words, we don’t just feel what is going on externally but internally as well. When someone pushes on your arm say at the elbow, you not only feel the pressure on your elbow but in your shoulder joint as well. And while this Is a crude example of interoception at work in how we can feel things when it comes to fighting for your life, it’s good enough for “government work”.

“Be extremely subtle even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious even to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

This internal feeling is crucial to your development because you not only feel the internal aspects of your body all of the time but if you can learn to develop a sense of “internal awareness”. You can then learn to develop a higher level of sensitivity where you can move like a ghost with the lightest touch from another person while remaining in contact.

This is what Grandmaster Perkins was describing when he said to me that, “You want to maintain about five percent movement in your joints at all times.”

This extra space that you allow for yourself acts as a buffer zone (that 5% John talks about) that prevents you from losing the slack in your body and if done correctly always allows you an out in the event you cannot step when moving. It is what allows you to create space through Looseness via both an “internal feel”.

When Grandmaster Perkins is “faking people out” as he frames it. There is a decision made in the body that takes place before he’s actually made the move. There is an almost “deceleration” of movement as he changes direction. In truth what has happened is he has already arrived at the place in the future which allows him the time to “decelerate” his movement, within the movement, or isolate within isolation (this is a way cool skill to develop, I’ve seen John almost make people fall down without touching them while doing this). To prevent the over travel in his body, while allowing you the opportunity to screw up and get ambushed. This is why when I say once he gets ahead of you “it” already happened. It’s because “it” has. So get over yourself…

But there is something else...

Follow the White Rabbit (The Thing You Do Before You Do the Thing You’re Going to Do)

“It’s not so much that I just anticipating, it’s hard to describe but it’s almost like Pre-Movement.”

• Grandmaster John C. Perkins

Folks, I waited a “loooong time” to hear those words…

Folks this is a “deep” concept and I’ll admit not one easily grasped. Now, it’s not that he hasn’t said it to me a million times a million different ways. It’s that he summed it up in a succinct way wherein a flash it all made sense. Of course! It’s the only thing that makes sense, it’s the only way it could be done. The adumbration, the uncanny timing. The ability to make people move in a predictable manner where it’s not so much they are moving but that he makes them move because he’s already there. Both in mind and body, he’s already in the future. His body has already done it. In other words, by the time he does the thing that he says he’s going to do, he already did it. Please re-read what I just said, meditate on it memorize it whatever the Hell you have to do but just get it! This is like the “quantum physics” of body movement dynamics and martial development. Like I said this is deep stuff and far too deep to get into here, maybe in another Blog Post, I’ll try to explain it.

I’ve discussed some of this before but what I’m going to do here is take it a little further because

a) this is a way cool thing the Grandmaster revealed to me;

b) I like talking about this kind of stuff and;

c) if you can understand this it will begin the process of taking you down the “Rabbit Hole” where the hole is “very deep”.

Imagine a level of preparedness in the body, a level of adumbration where the decision to move a certain way in the body is so deep, so ingrained that your movement almost feels even to you as a form of “precognition”. This is what pre-movement is all about. “The thing you do before you do the thing you’re going to do…”

I’m all about it.  

How per-movement feels as I’ve briefly discussed in other Blog Posts is akin to being in the starter's block when running track where your body is already poised to “explode” out if the blocks. Or like standing in the batter’s box waiting to hit a pitch where your body is already prepared to swing at the ball. While these are gross examples it’s basically the same idea. When you engage in pre-movement your body is already prepared to do whatever it is you’re doing. However, what differentiates this in Guided Chaos is that the pre-movement is generally set up “within the flow of movement” so that there is this “seamless transition” in the body from one position or impression to another (this is another example of why in the beginning when learning a skill, you want to start off slow).  

The Matador in the Bull Fight

“All warfare is based on deception.”

• Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Probably the best example of pre-movement is the brilliant analogy John uses where he describes how he moves as being like a matador in the bullfight. You see the matador is not faster than the bull, stronger nor more agile. So in order to compensate, he learns to “move sooner” which is different than moving faster. No matter how fast you are if someone is faster you can’t play with their speed but what you can do to compensate is learn to move sooner at the right moment. By moving sooner, it has a way of leveling the playing field since it forces the attacker to have to adjust to the new position that you’ve moved to.

So think of it like this, when the matador entices the bull to attack he’s already determined ahead of time of when he’s going to move. So, based on from the time the bull hits a certain mark on the ground to when he has to begin moving his timing must be precise. Move to soon the bull may have time to readjust, move to late and you get mowed down. My point is the matador is already poised in the body (pre-moved, pre-positioned himself) to move at the "right movement "when the bull charges because he’s controlling the flow of the battle.

This is key to your understanding because this is what you want to be able to do even when engaged with another person at “uncomfortable man distance” where your body is right up against theirs. You want to develop your body to the point that it’s not so much that they move on you but that the reason they moved is that you moved in a way that influenced how, when and where they moved. Understand, that like the event horizon of a “Black Hole”, once you get sucked in it's the point of no return. While this is not something that can be developed overnight it’s something that is attainable but you have to learn how to do it and then practice it until it just becomes a part of how you move at all times.

I’ll give you an example, we have students who we have taught this too who “use their powers for evil” as I like to refer to it who like to go to department stores and made people crash their shopping carts into things (they’re going to get kicked out of the “Jedi Order” if they keep this up, just sayin). It’s because they’ve learned to move in a way where the person they are dealing with doesn’t know which way to go, but more importantly, they didn’t know why they made the choice they made because, in essence, it was already made for them.

I had another student (who will remain nameless), who moved on an individual right in front of me and I’m not going to say what he did, but let’s just say when he moved the person he was moving on had that slack-jawed, glassy-eyed look on his face little kids get when they hear the ice cream truck coming. If you have kids you know what I’m talking about, all existence melts away, reality collapses, and nothing under Heaven can break the spell of the “ice cream man”.  When my granddaughter was younger not even the “Jotnar” (Ice Giants) from Jötunheimr could deter her from the ice cream truck. Well… that’s the look he had.

Yeah like for real… I know from some reading this they’ll think this is bullshit, which is why it always, always works on them. Remember there are always two participants in any deception, the “deceiver” and the “deceived”. They can’t see it with their minds so they can’t defend against it. Trust me if properly trained, you can do this but it takes lots of development in the body but it doesn’t take decades to learn you just have to know how to practice the right way. Remember, we’re all playing off of each other’s movement and so how a person moves with you is also based off of how you move and interact off of each other's bodies. Through the concept of pre-movement, you begin to notice that even the most-subtle movements that you make as they become smoother makes is harder for them to rack you in time and space.

Make sense?

“It's not enough that you believe what you see. You must also understand what you see.”

• Leonardo da Vinci

Well, that’s it, for now, I’ll build on this as I go along.