Mastery vs. Sophistication

[Dana Sheets]

A good buddy of mine, Tom Meylan offers an amazing service of looking at corporate culture through the eyes of evolutionary psychology. And he's even a rocket scientist to boot!

http://evolvingsuccess.com/

He sends out little newsletters from time to time with wonderful nuggets on perspective, leadership, teaming, etc. Below is one I thought particularly relevant for training.

Happy reading,
Dana

Mastery vs. Sophistication
The following appeared in Weekly Thoughts for March 6, 2006

I recently met with a group of young professionals to plan a training session. Their complaint about most leadership or management training they’d experienced was that it was too basic.

I’m looking at these young people and wondering what they could possibly need with “advanced” leadership training since they weren’t actually leading anything at all. They were well educated, to be sure. But they didn’t have enough experience to know that there aren’t any intricacies to understanding and managing people. The basics of human existence are the only guides anyone has for managing the behaviors of another.

Religious traditions and kung fu movies are filled with stories of young bucks wanting to learn under the master, only to be disappointed that the master deals strictly in “the basics.” Can the old master whip the young buck? Sure, because the master can build a totally novel approach to fighting in real time by joining basic steps into a multitude of completely unpredictable attacks. Similarly, the master jazz musician only has twelve notes to play with in Western music, but the variations in melody and progression are endless.

Mastery can lead to complicated sophistication, but it is rarely the goal. A master wants things to be easy to do, even to the point of being automatic reflexes. A master wants the flexibility that comes from knowing how to do one, or two, or maybe as many as five things extremely well. Just those few skills would take a life time to master, and the habits built up will pay off handsomely. Combining those few mastered skills, like a gifted poet combines words, can create endless advantages for any person at the helm of an organization.

Weekly Thoughts at EvolvingSuccess.com

And one more time in case you missed it:

...because the master can build a totally novel approach to fighting in real time by joining basic steps into a multitude of completely unpredictable attacks.

[Stryke]

and then masters add to the system .

Interesting thoughts Dana thanks .

[Dana Sheets]

There are two important dynamics to remember about the additions to Uechi made in the 50's, 60's, and even today that include money and politics. People gotta eat ya know? The only way to have people live doing only their martial arts (if they are not part of the military) is for them to be paid. Mr. McCarthy has written extensively on how the moment martial arts leave the military and enter into civilian life there is a financial motivation to retain whatever students have the will to train. This is different from the nature of the military which is much more elitist and places people in roles they can fulfill - which may or may not be what they want to do.

In addition, we don't know what political maneuvering had to happen to get Uechi recognized as a ryu-ha in Okinawa. Thus far nobody's found a source for it that I know of and neither have I heard how it officially came to pass.

hmmmm...there's a quote I see from time to time someplace that seems relevant...
“Contempt, prior to complete investigation, enslaves men to ignorance.”
- Dr. John Whitman Ray

Of course that should apply to people of any gender, not just men. And I'm not saying that what Stryke wrote was contemptuous either. I'm saying that without the full story, we just don't know.

Like the young student and the old teacher - there is always a tension between what one wants to know and what one has the capacity to master.

[Stryke]

Just provoking thoughts Dana , contempt or not it matters little . The implications loud and clear despite the wording



Do you not see the contradiction ?

Uechi is far better in this regard than a lot of styles , it is commonly known what the core material is , It is a true strength of the system .

As for ignorance , always a student , I pose questions not answers , though it is hard to get information quite often .

“Contempt, prior to complete investigation, enslaves men to ignorance.”

many approaches .

[2Green]

The student: "Master, you have shown me all that you know. Can you not show me any more?"

The Master: "First, why don't you show me what you have done with what I HAVE shown you?"

That to me is the point of Dana's post about the young bucks always thinking there is some further "ultimate secret", only to find out that the "secret" is perfecting the basics: which, OF COURSE: "they already know!"

I always love to learn a new Kata or whatever, but I am CONSTANTLY amazed at what can be learned by what I call "picking the bones" which refers to going back to your plate of eaten meat, and finding that you actually left a lot behind, without noticing.
In our training this equates to going back to many "basic" techniques or concepts, and turning them into reality-based applications.
We do this by looking at the form and asking ourselves "would that really work?" If so, how? If not, why not? What is that technique REALLY for, and what exactly is the BEST way to make it work?

Usually we discover that the easiest way to do it is not the best (most effective) way, and so some harder work is required to make it effective!

One example (I don't want to get caught up in a details-debate) that I've seen, and we can all relate to, is the "leaning-forward stance" in Seisan where the student, in a right stance, falls forward into an elongated right stance while blocking with the left and performing an elbow strike with the right.

My teacher showed me a way to make this a "piking" attack where the elbow is driven STRAIGHT in, not sweeping or raking.
But there is a major catch: The body dynamics required to make it effective are insanely hard to get right. Not only the timing, but the whole concept of full-body power delivery driven forward in such a stance.
It's like delivering a straight punch, but with the elbow.

It's a basic, but it is very difficult to "master" (there's that word again!)

NM

[f.Channell]

Last night I went to see a rock band which I saw at sold out stadiums in the late 70's and early eighties, they even had their own 747 tour plane. Out of the many big bands I have seen I never saw a finer guitar player.
Funny thing is years later they couldn't sell out a 1,000 seat theater. I sat wondering if he would play half heartedly or cancel the show but out they came and were better than ever. He exhibited incredible mastery of the instrument.
So obviously he is no longer driven by financial needs or perhaps they never existed to begin with. He must play for the love and enjoyment of it.
The moment of time which connects his soul or spirit with that of the instrument.

Isn't that something to aspire to in the performance of a Kata.

To me that is mastery.

But just as so many fans don't go to see that bands act anymore, perhaps mastery is not always so readily visible. Or easily forgotten once witnessed.

F.

[Stryke]

Good posts

Neil I tend to agree it`s not the amount your taught but what you can do with it . That to me is mastery