[Essentially A White Paper for SQI]

Some problems are both insidious and unnoticed. They eat away in the background. Eventually weakening or even destroying the host. When all crumbles they are still not noticed. The collapse is then attributed to other causes. We need a story. Stories make us feel safe and control. So we make up a story. Yet the story is untrue. The cause goes undetected. It infects another host. Wash, rinse, repeat.

As a biped, we have a unique relationship with gravity. Our ability to remain upright and balanced is an amazing neural feat.be It is so ingrained that we do not notice its functioning whatsoever. Not even when the system is disrupted. Whether that be for a moment or chronically.

That system can be honed. It can be developed poorly. It can alter itself to adjust to an injury. And amazingly we can build new systems, with new rules, that operate in completely different ways than our bipedal balance system. Once we have new systems we can switch between them seamlessly.

To preface this, I am not a crypto expert. I'm merely a fan boy. I read the Satoshi white paper in 2012. At that time my life was a wreck largely due to the 2008 crash. So Satoshi's solution stood out to me as a game changer. I spent the slow weeks over Christmas vacation to dream about and publish a book on the subject. I enlisted help to help me understand it and write the book. Mainly as a means to understand it myself. The book is here.

Way back in 2012 I caught the crypto bug. After reading Satoshi's whitepaper I was absolutely blown away. I've always been a student of economics. When I was a child I was a big believer in Keynesian economics. When I grew up I realized that the Keynesian principles being distorted were the source of our biggest problems.

Last night I chatted for a moment with an old student. It has been many years since I have seen her. She's grown up, is married, a mother of two, and has a great career stretched out in front of her.

She thanked me for Liz and I helping to shape who she is today.

That felt pretty good and it also got me thinking. We are always looking forward to what we want to do but realizing what we have done is sometimes helpful too. So I started thinking about who else I might have helped shape. The list grew long in my mind. I thought it might be good to get a bit of it down.

When I first started in martial arts there was one evening that massivelt influenced whether I would succeed or not.

We had just finished class and had circled up for the finalbit of advice. Shun Shifu Perez had entered and was at the front ready to speak. We all anxiously awaited his wise words.

There were about 30 people in the class. All very new white belts. Enthusiastic and eager.

He told us to look around. To look at each person in the group. To look at their face and make eye contact.

Every once in awhile when I am teaching I puff out my chest and strut. I then say,

"Who Is The Greatest Teacher"

Most of the time I am answered with a nervous, "You are Shun Shifu"

And I reply, "No, pain is the greatest teacher"

This is ussually followed by an example.

It's been a running joke I have relied on for years in my teaching. But there is much more to it than I ever knew. Pain is far more complex than any of us realize. And indeed, it is a teacher.

In this lesson, we introduce the concept of Pre-Sense and going with the opponent's energy.

Pre-sense is the development of the kinesthetic senses to such a degree that you can feel an opponent's intent. Sensing the positioning and direction of all other parts of his body through a single touch. 

This lesson just touches on the concept.

If you have ever seen Push Hands or Sticky Hands exercises that is the intent of those exercises. 

It creates a way of controlling your opponent that is extremely confusing to the opponent. Always one step ahead.

Enjoy!

In this lesson we cover proper distance line on an inward block. 

A common mistake is to move in to before blocking possibilities. This creates a big problem. Crowding your own weapons and also putting your own targets closer to the opponenets weapons. 

This mistake necessitates the need for extreme speed in weapons. The speed is needed to make up for the technique. And speed is no substitute for positioning. Obviously speed is good but a trained fighter should not rely on it to cover for positioning mistakes. That's a very dangerous ground.