While in Seattle I had the privilege of learning a little short blade (short sword and knife) with someone who has unbelievable talent. Maija opened my eyes to a new world, one that I had touched the edges of while training in various martial arts, but never truly understood until she put a practice weapon in my hand and started teaching.
Why didn't I pick these things up in martial arts? Two main reasons, and then a host of subtle reasons. I won't go into them all, but I'll point out some of the most important ones.
The first main reason: the information didn't pass from my instructors into my brain, either because I wasn't understanding or because the instructor didn't know how to explain it. Fuck, the instructor might not have even been aware. They just did it. And you have to know how to do it before you can just do it (something to consider before following through on those New Year's resolutions, especially ones that involve physical training.)
The second main reason, culture. I came from a non-touchy culture, so I enjoyed forms and preferred to work with those, and that limited my learning. Also, I studied mostly Japanese stuff, which is great for discipline and not-so-great for explaining things in terms of how everything applies. Though we spent some time looking at applications, it wasn't in an applicable way. The sparring lacked vocabulary and context, and the analysis of kata failed on a lot of levels because it was so boxed-in by the way the arts were taught. Before all the martial artists out there start protesting my generalizations or discard my experience as my own failing, I hope they'll keep their minds open and give me a chance to relate this back to the sword.
I had, in just a few minutes, multiple epiphanies in regard to combat. Over the half hour or hour (I lost track of time the same way I do when I'm writing) my brain filled up with a continuous aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh that was both exhilarating and overwhelming. Fill the void. Rory Miller had spoken about that numerous times but I never got that in my martial arts classes. It was done, I'm sure, but I didn't know to look for it because no one told me about it. In sword work it became perfectly clear. You have sharp, dangerous stuff coming at you. Once that danger has passed by, literally, as in you've deflected or avoided it, the space behind it is safe. That's the void. That's where you go in. And your void is what you have to next defend when your attack goes by your opponent. This applies to hand-to-hand too, and battlefield stuff … everything.
Right of way, as in fencing. Not taught in martial arts. Do you know what I learned in martial arts instead? Expect to get hit. Learn to take a blow. Block and strike. These are valuable concepts, but was that all that they really wanted to teach about combat, really? It's all over the movies, too. The good guy takes a punch to the face and stands there, heroically weathering it, or he winces and keeps moving. Yes, yes, you have to be tough and you have to keep going when someone hits you because if you quit you're at the mercy of your opponent(s). Block those incoming attacks as best you can and then go in. Sure, good. And yet, wouldn't it be nice to understand what to block, what to glide, what to ignore in the same way that fencing has a right-of-way? You need to know which things you have to deal with that you can't ignore, and stuff that you can ignore because you have the right-of-way. And because I haven't fenced (much, just baby stuff) I didn't really get right-of-way until Maija began talking about how blades and bodies interact. Because no one really wants to get cut even a little bit, there's no bullshit head game internally or externally coming from art culture pressuring me to ignore stuff or make stuff up that excuses my complete lack of understanding of how it all fits together in a combative situation. Having that sharp edge clarified everything. Right-of-way is all about knowing what is lethal and what isn't. Right-of-way is crucial because if you are a sane person learning this stuff so you can survive (as opposed to throwing your life away because getting the other guy is more important than a future above ground) you will respect the dangerous things coming at you and blow off the stuff you can live with. Though I understood the fencing concept, I didn't practice it in hand-to-hand arts. Hence my ignorance (and seriously, where the fuck was this in my fifteen or twenty years of instruction!!) and hence my mind being completely blown when it all came together. The intellectual and the physical skill combined and for brief moments I felt I understood how skilled combat worked and how skilled combatants interacted.
I also understood why a very skilled martial artist could easily end up in a double-kill situation because it's so fucking obvious to them that their opponent must deal with the incoming attack that they're caught flat-footed when the idiot fails to see it and goes in on them.
And of course because I'm a writer I had to dash back to my computer and apply this knowledge.
But I'm not all brains, which is good, because I don't have a lot of brains. I'm very much into having a working, competent body, so I'm hungry for more. The next time I get a chance, I'm going to work with Maija again. And this time I'll be prepared. My body is starting to break down and so I have to train so that I can train. I have to get rid of this elbow bullshit (which may have something to do with my hand … I have exercises I have to do to try and bring back the strength to my hand and arm.) I have to increase my lung capacity. It's okay, but not great. More upper body strength is always good. Flexibility, crucial, especially spinal flexibility. I've been enjoying my laurels for too long. I've taken pride in things like a personal trainer telling me I have a good fold. Well … about ten minutes into playing with Maija I realized that my legs weren't flexible enough to accommodate my tweaked knee. And I have bad feet. They used to be strong, but years of walking on concrete has made them stiff and fragile. I've got a bad stress fracture in my left foot that I've been babying for a while now that I need to not just allow to heal but actively strengthen the muscles in there so that the bones are better supported.
Stuff like that.
Because now that I've had a taste, I want more more more. I want to play. And this was absolutely, utterly play. Random. Chaotic. Even though we were going slow it was fast mind stuff. That's another thing I have to train. My brain. Because my brain has gotten slow and lazy from years of thinking deeply with no physical consequences should I not come up with an intellectual solution to a problem quickly. I've been able to take days, weeks, months, even years to solve a problem. Now my brain has to operate in fractions of seconds. And that's great fun.
That's a challenge my mind wants and embraces. I'm ready. I know, because I'm already talking about training for a purpose beyond aesthetic or health reasons. It's been a long time since I've really wanted to play.
Time to play with blades.