The VAK only informs the linguistic This is why when I teach at a high level I can only check in. Did you feel that? Do you understand? And then, if they say yes, I look for signals that they are truly understanding. If they are, I leave them alone to just understand. But it’s important to remember that VAK lies, this is why people get off track and arts are lost.
Back to basics! This is a beginning technique. Anthony is currently working on higher level material than this but he knows the value of going back to basics. Always bringing the basics up with you is the path to success in Shou’ Shu’. As well as in anything else you are trying to achieve. If we forget the basics and do not develop them as we go then eventually we are working from a weak foundation. Or at least a foundation that is too weak to support our new knowledge. Since we have nothing to stand on we can’t reach up and therefore we are stuck. Conversely, if we work basics just as hard as the new shiny object then we give the new shiny object value. Without the basics, it is nothing more than theory. Not practical, not applicable, and useless. Bringing the basics up and working them just as hard as the newest thing is rare. It is one of the few things that separates those that have massive success from those that have little success. When Shifu Liz Weaver tested for her black belt under Da’ Shifu (she was the last to do so) a high ranking black belt who was trying to deride her credibility said “Her lower material is way better than her advanced”. His tone clearly stated that he was trying to discredit her. I felt a heavy weight in my gut. I had trained her hard. She had trained hard. Even Da’ Shifu had spent a great deal of time and effort training her. (Which was just one of the sources of jealousy, no other black belts got this attention from the Grand Master). We wanted to be so proud of her and here was this piece of doo doo thrown right into the middle of the celebration. Then I looked at Da’ Shifu and I said: “Isn’t that the way it should be?” He smiled Then he laughed Then he put on his mighty Da’ Shifu face and in his tone that said to everyone that this statement would be the final word, he said “Damn right, I wish they were all that way” Then he walked off to put his arm around Shifu Liz so he could parade around his newest black belt. I watched from a distance with that feeling of pride that drives my entire life. The feeling of seeing one of my students suceed. Moral: 1) Basics, basics, basics 2) Be proud of other’s successes Both of those things make the world a better place
We can think of the brain as having latent programs. Some of them running continuously in the background and others only triggered when needed. All of them, at a very base level, have to do with survival, or at the minimum, survival of the species. The more immediate the survival needs are the more immediately the program takes over and the more difficult to override. And the more it overrides other programs. We can also look at where these programs reside in the brain. (caveat: Neuroscience is still in its early days and certainly not exact. However, the models mostly work for our purposes). Social signals are mostly processed in the temporal lobes. So here we would have tribalism, reciprocity, care for others in the species, etc. The four F’s (fight, flight, ,freeze and f___) originate in the amygdala. The autonomic nervous system resides in the hypothalamus and works with the amygdala. And balance resides in the cerebellum. You might have noticed that I listed these in order of 1) The distance to the brain stem (inversely) 2) The distance away from the PFC (prefrontal cortex) 3) The more difficult to override. There is no coincidence here. The further away from the PFC the more difficult to override. The closer to the brain stem the faster and more primal the response. All of these latent programs have the ability to shut down the PFC to varying degrees. We can see this in action in our world around us. For the first few just look at the media and the response to it on social media. For the for F’s just pay attention to how you respond to stress. Depending on the individual and maybe the stress type different individuals may trigger faster into different F’s. Interestingly we can develop our brains to be more or less triggered into the 4 F’s. While all of these have utility in controlling the brains of others, the first few constantly being used in evil ways, for us martial artists balance is the most powerful. The control of balance resides right at the brain stem. So fast acting. It is an always on program. Constantly operating in the background unless we are lying down. It is extremely complex. We are the only creatures that spend most of their time upright. This endeavor takes huge processing power to achieve. If you have ever tried to understand in detail how all of our muscles work together to balance us you know it is not an easy thing to understand or even achievable. And if you’ve ever dived into robotics you know that it has never been achieved in this arena even with massive computing power. So to summarize, balance is fast acting and uses huge processing power. So much so that when it goes awry it momentarily shuts down most other programs. For us, this makes understanding balance and how to manipulate it of tremendous utility. And this is why “controlling centerline” is one of the three rules of Shou’ Shu’. Controlling centerline means to control your opponents center of gravity and to simultaneously control your own. A part of “mastering” Shou’ Shu’ is mastering our own centerline. Each beast does it differently so this gives us highly adaptive centerline skills. Incidentally mastering our own centerline is one of the highest forms of mind-body exercise. Because of this, I believe it is extremely effective and causing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity which in turn develops the hippocampus. Which in turn shrinks the amygdala. Which in turn diminishes our 4 F response. A positive feedback loop. There have been studies on less complex mind-body exercises which show this to be true but none on anything so sophisticated as Shou’ Shu’ (Hint, hint to you up and coming neuroscientists out there) My teacher used to say, “It’s more fun to almost take someone down than to take them down” You can take offense to the use of the word “fun” but whatevs. The point is that when you take your opponent’s centerline you take control of their motor responses. I tell my students, “Once you take control of your opponent’s centerline they can no longer fight you. They can only fight for their balance” In other words, you have complete control and you are then completely safe. You are in control of your opponent’s brain systems. They can perceive but they cannot act. This is not the only way to take control of your opponent’s brain systems, but it is the most powerful. And it can be a far better substitute than beating them to a bloody pulp if you have the skill to take centerline and the situation warrants refraining from doing extreme harm.
When teaching I often get frustrated students when they lack boldness in their heuristics. When they make feeble attempts at corrections rather than going all in. In most cases, their language will reflect their actions. Such as: Me: “Push off the ground when you kick” Student: “Oh you mean I should push off the ground more?” Me: “WTF do you mean MORE? More would imply that you pushed at all. Obviously, you have zero awareness of what your foot is doing and your ^#&$&*(%#@! language has completely stopped you from learning anything at all. Are we going to do this little dance of appeasing your ego and making believe you’re trying to learn? You are completely wasting my time. Fix it now” Yes, I’ll admit. I get a bit angry. Am I apologizing? Absolutely not. Anger is a great tool. And the fact that I can hit the student makes it even better. Then I usually go into the following rant: “So imagine you are in a room and you do not know the size of the room. You are blindfolded. You have the job of finding the center of the room. How do you do it? Well, the most efficient way to do it is to take off in a full sprint counting your steps until you smash into the other side. Then sprint back half as many steps. Done. But instead what you are doing is taking a tiny little step and then coming back. Then maybe you take two tiny steps then back. Then three then back. And I’m supposed to sit here all day and watch you do that? Are you serious? And that is how you are learning. You use the same method. It will take longer than we have so that method is useless. Go home if you are going to learn like that! Sit on the couch and watch a soap opera because that’s how productive you are being now.” As an instructor, I want to see big mistakes. Bold mistakes. They are like hitting the other wall. And I can quickly help the student correct them and we move on. When a student does this well they generally do something that is awkward and stupid looking. And I love it. We laugh and then we correct. It is a glorious moment of learning. It truly makes my heart swell to see. It is the fear of awkwardness that stops some from using these bold heuristics. The fear of mistakes. But we needed that mistake to happen to move on. We needed boldness. We needed to remember that mistakes are simply a part of the process of learning. When we make them we then have something to compare. We can compare this side of the room to that and find the middle. As is the norm, learning Shou’ Shu’ is not only a parallel to how we learn (or don’t) at life, it magnifies it. We see our processes in action, in a mirror, magnified 100x. Our own personal faults are clearly shoved right in our face. It’s painful for the ego. So most avoid it. But the few who don’t avoid it learn about themselves at hyperspeed. They confront themselves boldly. And they very quickly become better humans. It’s a difficult path. In my estimation, only one in a thousand people will persevere through it. Maybe less. But not taking such a path, long-term, is far more difficult.
Most arguments of what should be, exist at the macro level. It’s easier for the simpler, and often wrong, argument to exist there. It’s easier to stay in the self-righteous there. Yet the real problem, which is apparent, is often exposed at the micro-level. And more often than not, problems which are blamed on a business or even a large corporation, are really produced, exacerbated, or at least the solution hindered because of the individual. In other words, if individuals acted more ethically, with more thought for other individuals, and without false entitlement, the problem would be solvable or diminished. Example: I was just speaking to a friend about the economics of food. this is a subject that interests me and my wife and I work hard to make food choices that are healthy for us, benefit the environment, and benefit the economies of those who produce food in more friendly ways. These are extremely important decisions to us. My friend runs a catering company that serves lunches to the employees of a large IT company. These employees demand that certain products are organic and properly sourced. A reasonable request. So to make that happen the economics must work. Not difficult, prices can be adjusted to match. The caterer can make a profit and the consumers can get what they want. That is capitalism and it is good. However, there is a problem. The lunches are subsidized by the IT company. I don’t know what it is about when there is a third party involved but in my observance, this creates a risk for things to go badly. And in this case, it did. The employees, seeing that there was high-quality honey, coffee, and whatever else, began stealing the products. Making the economics of the endeavor fail. These were not street urchins, these are employees of a tech firm. People earning large salaries. Yet they steal and think nothing of it. The argument is then made again that the caterer should provide high quality, yet he is stuck. They are stealing his profits. He can’t get the explanation of the real problem across to the subsidy provider. They don’t care. So he is in a conundrum. Likely his only response will be to do something underhanded himself, like substitute inferior products. And if that is discovered he’ll be the only one to receive blame. This is how these things often go. The employees will go on to require the products they want. The problem will be assessed to be profit mongering on the part of the caterer. And the issue will persist. Unsolved. This is a case where much good can be done. Good vendors could be supported leading to all sorts of good things. The employees could get healthier food. The caterer could make a little better profit for taking the extra effort to ensure higher quality. But none of this will happen. Everyone will be at each other’s throats, allaying blame where it does not belong. And the true problem, the pilfering, will persist. This is just a small example. These problems can be cited all day long. And if we dig into the weeds we will always find the true problem to be with the individual. This is why I: 1) Never get involved in these macro-arguments that dismiss the true issue due to oversimplification 2) Work very hard to help the individuals under my influence to develop into better individuals. 3) Support the Sheng Chi Foundation Maybe the next time you find yourself in an oversimplified macro-argument which misses the real problem and will solve nothing, you can instead remove yourself and do something that will do good. Imagine if that happened even ten percent of the time. How better off would we all be? Don’t argue. Do something good. Study Shou’ Shu’, it’s the best personal development tool there is.
Some time ago I did this little experiment. The idea was to put a “BIG” Shou’ Shu’ video out into the wild and then make sure it was seen by those who had never seen Shou’ Shu’ before. Then to try to decipher what they were seeing based upon the comments. When I say big I mean a technique that has large motions so it is easy to see. This technique is big but admittedly there are some subtleties, that just made it fun. I was able to reveal (in the comments) what was in plain sight before. The first guy to jump into the comments was a perfect victim. An experienced martial artist in an art which has at least some similarities to ours (minus the magic). Some people even claim we are an offshoot of Kempo. I think from the comments it is obvious we are not. He completely missed all of the subtleties of the technique that made it work. Additionally, we had a number of people jump in and say they could practice it and get it down and it was good. This is highly unlikely. It’s possible that these people have alien brains that can detect all that info and absorb it, then transfer it to their bodies. However, it is much more likely that they are suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect. The Dunning Kruger effect is why we have to protect this information. It’s not that we don’t want to give the information out. We certainly do. But if we give it to those people it will be watered down and lost like all other arts. That is the biggest challenge. To make the info freely available to those who will value it and strive to understand it to it’s fullest while at the same time protecting it from those that think they understand it but have no clue. We need a new form of creative commons license with a mechanism to make it work. In other words, governance (Vitalek please make this possible) And thirdly we have a few people trying to understand what they see. These are the ones we want. These are future (or present) Shou’ Shu’ students. These we must gather up and teach. How they responded is a clear signal that they desire to learn. And that is all that is needed to be a good Shou’ Shu’ student. Xue Sheng. Click through and read the comments. It is enlightening /
Ever had a conversation on a cell phone and wonder if the person on the other end is still there? You can’t decide if the call has been interrupted or they are formulating their thoughts so you wait and wonder. That is a recent phenomenon that the phone companies have intentionally staved off for a few decades. Early telephones had white noise. A constant static caused by electrical interference. By the time technology had sufficiently advanced to rid the devices of the nuisance the brains of the users had become accustomed to it and associated it with an active connection. When it was removed they became confused and endlessly asked, “Are you still there?”. So the phone companies brought it back. They artificially produced the nuisance. But in my observation they have stopped the practice and left us with dead air, confounding our brains and sense of politeness. That is unless you are young and your brain never grew to expect the white noise. This is not the only instance in which digital technology has matured at a faster rate than our brains can accept the change. It has happened in video as well. Early cameras could only focus on a short depth of field. So our eyes came to expect to see only what the producer intended clearly, the rest was a blur. And because film had a slower exposure time each frame was left with a little motion blur. And as the adaptive creatures that we are our brains came to accept these things as normal. They expected them. So when both problems were fixed with digital technology movies suddenly didn’t look right. Endless arguments ensued about how film looked better than video. But what was “better” was the flaws that old brains had become accustomed to. These flaws became “art”. A lesser rendition of reality. We do not see blurred backgrounds or motion blurs in real life but many older brains expect them in video. If they don’t get it the video doesn’t look “real”. Of course, this is not a problem with younger brains. They didn’t grow up with phone static or blurred video being so predominant. So they actually hear and see it differently. Unfortunately, and to my extreme dismay, when seeing martial arts on video a similar phenomenon has occurred. I just finished up doing the fight scene choreography for a movie. The actress did not have any martial skills to start with but over the course of a few months, we built some basics into her. Enough to pull off a few techniques at a reasonable enough skill level that enough takes and camera angles and we could pull off a pretty impressive fight scene. We filmed for two nights. On the first night, things were looking pretty good. She had some nice fluid motions that hit hard. The bad guy wasn’t liking it but that was his problem. Not a concern for me. Overall I was liking what I saw. On the second night, things went downhill. The producer reshot most of the scenes and systematically removed the skills we had taught her. Inserting mistake after mistake and completely changing the dynamics of the fight. Even now, as I write this, it produces a sinking feeling in my gut. Like watching a beautiful piece of art destroyed. The motion was too fluid. The weapons were too efficient. The actor’s faces couldn’t be seen. There was no emotion. All of this had to be “corrected”. There is no place for emotion in a skillful fighter. True martial skill comes only from deep within the primal brain, never. Fluidity enables a fighter to skillfully use energy (chi). They do not regenerate the power for each strike, they use the energy that is already in motion. We call this flowing focussed chi. Speed comes mainly through efficiency of motion. More skill means more results for a given amount of effort. All of this had to be removed. The producer asked for things that simply defied physics. In one instance he was actually asking that the actress “slow down but speed up”. My interpretation of this was “remove efficiency and add effort and struggle”. When a woman moves with extreme martial skill I find this to be one of the most beautiful things I can experience. Grace, fluidity, power, and the amazing workings of the subconscious mind transform the chaos and danger of an attack into order and safety. There can be nothing more awe-inspiring. This was the original scene. At this point I do not know what will happen in editing but I suspect that this beauty will be transformed into a weak, unskilled woman fighting for her life against a stronger man who easily overpowers her and she simply gets off lucky. Not at all what I designed in the choreography. This is not what a skilled female fighter is. It is not what any skilled fighter is. Yet, I think, just like the digital technology trained our brains to expect distortion of reality, the movies, MMA, and other martial sports have completely distorted what we expect to see when watching martial arts. Reality is far from perception. So far that they no longer bear much relationship at all. This is a sad state for the fighting arts. These arts have such a gift for humanity yet most humans would not recognize them if they saw them. Despite the fact that martial arts has been a daily part of my life for 30 years I have never been a fan of martial arts movies. I’ve never even been able to bring myself to watch the classic Bruce Lee movies. I now have a much better understanding of why.
In explaining what Shou’ Shu’ is I typically use the three rules. It is a fighting art that: Coordinates the body in such a way that it generates flowing focussed chi Takes the opponents centerline in the first motion Blocks all possibilities Typically when I hear other people explain what it is I hear them say that it is a Beast Art. But truly that is the how not the what. The fact that we come to the three rules through the motions of the seven beasts is immaterial. Could we discover an effective 8th beast who’s motions fit into the three rules? Certainly, it already exists in the Leopard. We have a touch of leapard used in Shou’ Shu’ but it is not developed out as a complete system. Simply because doing so would not bring enough gains to be worth the effort. So we just take a few bits here and there where they are useful. So truly, the beasts are the how, not the what. So how does the how work? Well, it is quite simply a beast synthesis. Combining seven disparate fighting systems into one. And like a symphony synthesizes the sounds of instruments into one beautiful whole, as a Shou’ Shu’ practitioner we synthesize seven fighting systems into one beautiful whole. The difference is that we play every instrument. That means that to truly create the beauty of Shou’ Shu’ we must play each instrument well. We practice each instrument individually and master that instrument as if it were the only instrument we were going to play. That is what Shifu’s do.
My wife is a huge fan of Darren Hardy. And for good reason. He’s awesome! Yesterday she sent me this video and asked that I share it with our students. https://dd.darrenhardy.com/a-team-attributes-7 It’s a great video and I’d suggest you watch it but the basic message is that to succeed you must look at everything in your life as your doing. Back in the day, my Grand Master continually fed me this same exact message. I was in my 20’s and of course as most 20 somethings do, I mostly rejected this message. It’s a hard pill to swallow for anyone. Especially an arrogant 20 something (the old me). But swallow it I did. Just in tiny bits over 25 years (and still going) Yuck! Yet an empowering pill it is. I’ll leave the discussion about the advice for the video. It does a good job and there is little reason to talk about it more. Instead, I will examine how it was taught/accepted in physical form in the evenings training session. It may seem odd to extend a life rule to fighting, but it’s not. It’s normal for our lessons. And it’s been going on for millennia. I was actually reminded of this just before the lesson. I was digging through a box of important stuff (junk) and stumbled upon a long lost copy of The Art of War. A book of instructions that work in life just as well as in war. The lesson started off in the way they commonly do. I picked a technique to work on, asked the students to perform it, and quickly recognized that there was a fundamental problem even before the first motion. As it always does this led me off on a tangent of teaching principle rather than technique. I always have a plan. I never follow it. We ended up working on the principle of taking advantage of openings. Of only attacking weakness. And how effortlessly and naturally this happens. I put my students in stances and had them defend themselves against me. Then I picked them apart. Hitting them relentlessly. They simply could not react. Sometimes I used illusion but mostly not. I just exposed the weakness. Each time I hit them I asked why they got hit. They replied “M’Own Damn Fault” What they quickly recognized is that each mistake was nothing of epic proportion. Each opening was created by not having mastered a very simple principle. And each of these principles had been taught AT FREAKIN WHITE BELT LEVEL!!! They had been given these principles over a decade ago. After the embarrassment we set to correcting them. We used the exercise of slow motion sparring to expose each mistake and then work on correcting it. Each time they got hit they laughed and exclaimed, “M’Own Damn Fault”. Pretty soon they had fixed many of the mistakes. I showed them how to speed up their hands and soften their footwork. They listened and learned. Then the remarkable thing happened. They naturally started speeding up. As their skills quickly increased so did their pace. They relished being hit because it then, instead of being a hit to the ego, became an opportunity for change. An opportunity to increase their skill level. They laughed and echoed the mantra each time. Then set to improve themselves. In that two hours they improved upon skills that had been left in a sloppy state for years. Very important skills that when brought to a high level become magic. They had hit upon that state which we call coopetition. It is an amazing, egoless skill building state. A state that Shifu Miller and I have tried to explain to them for years. Why? Simply by understanding and implementing the lesson in that video. We had discussed it prior to the lesson so it easily became the lesson. A hard to grasp abstract concept put into physical form. And this is one of the magical things about Shou’ Shu’ training. It can take these age-old life lessons and put them to practice. It happens in lesson after lesson. More often than not. And every time it amazes me. It is profound! This morning I got a message from a student who had watched the video but not attended class. Since those that did attend saw the message as well, they probably got a good laugh. It’s not uncommon to see the Dunning Kruger effect played out like this. The one person proclaiming a full understanding who in actuality completely missed the mark. It’s, “His Own Damn Fault!”
Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity of observing groups of people at their craft/work (Not Kraftwerks, remember them?) And I learned a lot that I already knew 🙂 Two disparate groups which acted very much in the same way. They acted with focussed hustle. The first group was a group of young actors. I’ve been doing some fight scene choreography for a small film. The second group is a tree trimming company that is presently in my backyard getting an amazing amount of work done in short order. Let’s take the second group first: I was told they would start work at 7:30. At 7:10 the trucks pulled in. Some guys were riding on the back firefighter style, hanging onto the rail with one hand. Long sleeve shirts ready to protect their arms. Scarves around their necks and hats in their free hand. As the trucks rolled to a stop they lept from the truck and quickly spread out. Like a well trained military force, they prepped the area. They did not walk to each task, they ran. They did not get off the truck looking for how they could waste a little time before work. They attacked the job. They didn’t “go to work”, they attacked the job. Focussed hustle. Now I have hired crews before. And what I saw did not compare to this. The local kids hired did not move like this. Instead, they found every excuse not to work. Needed a drink of water, Needed a snack. Needed a bathroom break. Or worst of all, didn’t know what to do next. They robbed me of output a few minutes at a time. In my estimate, their output was maybe 10% of this crew. But of course, the pay scale was likely similar. At least on the same order of magnitude. I could digress on this point but that’s not what the article is about, so let’s move on. The tree trimming crew is Mexican. Some speak English, others don’t. One looks like he’s about 16. And in fact, most are young. Very young to have the work ethic that they have. It’s wildly impressive. Watching them work I instantly thought, “That’s it, I’m moving to Mexico. I’m never teaching lazy Americans again” But then I remembered the actors. Working on set has allowed me to observe a lot of young actors. Each day is a different group with just the main characters being consistently there. Despite the fact that it was a different crew every day I recognized the same thing. Focussed hustle. Each actor, when not needed, made sure they were not an impediment. They found a place to be out of the way and quiet. And they scanned for anything that was needed. There wasn’t a lot to do most of the time but I noticed that they looked for anything that could save the producer even a few minutes. It was remarkable. Why? Well, that’s why. It’s the why. For the tree trimmers, I can make some assumptions. I could be wrong but I need a hypothesis. Maybe they have family back in Mexico. A mother, a sister, who knows. Maybe that family will have no food if they don’t send money. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Maybe they were taught to work hard was part of being a man and they don’t want to disappoint. Maybe it’s both of these things. I don’t know but regardless they seem to have a very strong why. And they are willing to suffer for that why. Had it not been for the actors I might have assumed that this strong motivation could have only been caused by culture and economics. Had it not been for the actors I would be booking my flight right now. But the actors did not have that economic drive. One, a kid of all of about 20, drove up in a brand new Porsche. The others also seemed to have ample means. Instead, I will assume, they must have the strong why of being successful actors. Or at least to be good at their craft. By close observance, I found out that they were all from the same acting “culture”. Attending the same acting schools. Working together on various projects. So we could say that both groups: 1) Had a culture that they learned from. In other words, good teachers. 2) Had a strong why. 3) Are willing to suffer for their why and to remain a part of their respective cultures. And there is the magic key. I know many that have a strong want. They don’t necessarily do well. They perform at 10% of potential. They have a want not a why. I think that I am extremely good at giving them the culture of martial arts. I work hard at it because I have a very strong why. Yet some respond and work at full potential and others don’t. Some limp along barely alive. Showing up last minute for lessons, and not prepared to work when they get there. Others amaze me every day. Excelling beyond my expectations. Each has the same resources. Namely me. The difference is the why and the willingness to do what it takes for that why. And that leaves me with a very big question. Do I make the why a requirement for training under me? Is it better to sharpen a sword or nurture a seedling that may never grow? Before writing this article I did not know the answer to that. But as I write this last line I now do. Thank you for helping me think it through. Buenos Dias Shun Shi Fu
