Comfort, and buried treasure

Today I was playing my favorite xbox game. It’s called MMA, and is all about Mixed Martial Arts. You know, jujitsu, boxing, wrestling all rolled up in one event. My fighter reached a spot in his career where I had to decide which league he would join. He could either join a mundane group, or go into a Japanese association which allows really nasty stuff. I chose the easy road.

I went with what I already knew how to do. Even in a stupid game, I went for what was safe, and comfortable.

People do this in real live, too. Big time. Martial Arts people more than most.

Karate typically has hard blocks, linear punches, and heavy kicks. Good instructors are open to things outside of this, but there seems to be some form of gravity pulling back.

If you’ve never seen Kata, you are missing something special. A Kata is a series of techniques performed in a particular rhythm. The Katas were developed many, many decades ago. Every move, strike, and pause must be performed correctly, with laser intensity.

Each move also has at least one real combat application. Often, this explanation is obvious. Obvious, and wrong. Often the easy answer makes no sense in a real-world interpretation. Most Karate people just accept this.

An example is the very first move of the very first Kata. Turn left, move forward, and block a kick. The silly explanation is that you are blocking an attack from the left. But why do you move forward? We practice blocks for hours with partners, and we move back, not forward. In the Kata, you move forward.

The silly explanation is that, in real life you’d move back. They throw out the very first move of the first Kata, because it makes no sense alongside all that one has been learning. Doing this also makes the following movements puzzling.

When I first learned what this forward movement meant I was astounded. It instantly explained things about the following movement that the short answer couldn‘t. I love this stuff.

To make this move work the way the better explanation calls for is hard, at least Brown Belt level. Did you catch that? To do the first move of the White Belt Kata correctly you have to be a Brown Belt.

Might there even be a better explanation for that first move. Sure could, but I won’t find it. Certainly will never find it without being willing to step outside the old comfort zone.

Seeing the hidden is hard.