The other night I was talking to some of my students about the correct technique and developing power in their punches. Out of this discussion I pointed out that the way you deliver the technique is important but I also discussed the feeling you get when it is right. I mentioned that I just know when a jab was good or a combination; likewise I could just feel when it was bad.

The other night I was talking to some of my students about the correct technique and developing power in their punches. Out of this discussion I pointed out that the way you deliver the technique is important but I also discussed the feeling you get when it is right. I mentioned that I just know when a jab was good or a combination; likewise I could just feel when it was bad. It was not just simply someone telling me it was good or bad or even just an after thought on my part. It was really an internal feeling that made me feel it was good or bad in the instance that I did it.

This intense feeling also comes about when I have neglected any part of my game, I instinctively know that I have been lacking in this are, no body has to tell me I just know. It almost seems to be an internal monitor that governs my every action. This feeling is very difficult to explain to another person, but I believe that all athletes at a very high level of performance and one that is in tune with their body and mind experience it. After discussing this issue with them I happened to be reading a book the other night and came across this, talk about synchronicity!

"My imagery is more just feel. I don’t think it is visual at all. I get this internal feeling. When I am actually doing the skill on the ice, I get the same feeling inside. It is a very internal feeling that is hard to explain. You have to experience it, and once you do, then you know what you are going after…." -Brian Oser, former world champion in men’s figure skating.

I also believe that most people will never come to this point of realization, most view the technique as purely mechanical and an end in its self and not as something that is intrinsic and alive. The more I though about it, the more I became aware that unless you perform what you do with aliveness you might never reach this level. All martial artists who train in a dead environment will never come to this point. Technique will merely be that, technique. Through competition against world-class athletes Brian Oser came to this point of total aliveness where he just was in the moment, knowing what he was doing was right. He essentially went beyond mere technique!

I then came across another explanation of the same idea,

"If one really wishes to be master of an art, technical knowledge is not enough. One has to transcend technique so that the art grows out of the unconscious…. you must let the unconscious come forward. In such cases, you cease to be your own conscious master but become an instrument in the hands of the unknown. The unknown has no ego-consciousness and consequently not thought of winning the contest…it is for this reason that the sword moves where it ought to move and makes the contest end victoriously. This is the practical application of Lao-tzaun doctrine of doing but not doing." -Suzuki

This then reminded me of something I read in one of the Bruce-Lee books (I am adlibbing here),

"Before I studied the art, a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick. Once I began practicing the art, a punch was no longer a punch and a kick no longer just a kick. Once I understood the art a punch was just a punch and a kick was just a kick".

I feel that this is a state of being that all of us should strive to achieve, if that is the correct word to use or rather experience the beginners mind. There are people who come to mind who have reached this level, Rickson Gracie in BJJ, Mohammed Ali in boxing to name only two. This ability to be in the moment, to transcend mere technique is one of the highest levels of aliveness.

And the synchronicity continued the whole week; "All at once I forgot the public, the other bullfighters, myself, and even the bull; I began to fight as I had so often by myself at night in the corrals and pastures, as precisely as if I had been drawing a design on a blackboard. They say that my passes with the cape and my work with the mullet that afternoon were a revelation of the art of bullfighting. I don’t know, and I am not competent to judge. I simply fought, as I believe one ought to fight, without a thought, outside of my own faith in what I was doing. With the last bull I succeeded for the first time in my life in delivering myself and my soul to the pure joy of fighting without being consciously aware of the audience.
-Juan Belmonte, the great Spanish bullfighter

This "PEAK EXPERIENCE" is something so special, and I can honestly say I have experienced it few times completely in my life. When I have thought consciously about the technique that I was doing or the strategy I was to apply I found myself further removed from this peak experience. Only through constant alive training, where I was no longer consciously thinking about the next move, but instinctively moving almost before my opponent was I able to reach this place.

Buddha spent many years in isolation and meditation to achieve this "PEAK EXPERIENCE" or as he termed enlightenment. Unfortunately for most of us our lifestyles, responsibilities and natural attitudes will not allow us to follow this path of rigor. I however believe that in the martial arts, through aliveness we all can achieve this peak experience even if it is for a moment.

This has really made me excited about training again!

-Rodney "Chico" King
http://www.streetbrawl.co.za