Hmmm... that depends a lot on how you use your library.Would you not agree that if you have come up with "alternative" bunkai to the kata that we all practice,that these would be your "library of waza" should you be attacked?
When I was an undergrad intending to do graduate work in biomedical engineering, I had to take a lot of "killer" pre-med courses with other pre-med students. Now and then the classes were pretty worthless, and these students could do very well. But every once in a while, we'd hit a great course like Organic Chem or P-Chem. Now some (but not all) of the pre-med students would study by memorizing everything. Funny thing was, the test would be "different" than anything in the chapter or the notes. How could the instructor do that to them?? Meanwhile, I was the first to leave the classroom on test day and would ace the thing. Now...what did I do differently? Well for one, I just scanned the chapter. Then I would work every problem (EVERY problem) in the back of the chapter. It's getting down deep and dirty with the information where the real learning happens. Then I would review my notes - briefly. Did I spend much time memorizing things? No - the experience helped me assimilate everything I needed. More importantly, the teacher could come up with a new problem based on the same principles taught in the chapter, and I would be capable of dealing with it (and the rote memorizers would not).
I see a similar phenomenon in martial arts. There are those that spend lots of time memorizing lots of forms, and doing lots and lots of bunkai. But unless you play with the darned things, you never really "get" it. On judgement day, the bad guy is going to jump out of the bushes and do something very different than what your cooperative partner was doing all those years. Will you be able to respond? Only if you have internalized the underlying principles of movement (and/or you were a bit lucky).
A junior high student might go to the library and plagiarize large sections out of books and encyclopedias when writing a paper. A good researcher reads lots of material, assimilates, and then produces something that is a unique amalgam of what was read. Both people have the library, but only the latter individual knows how to use it.
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>When one gets into the deeper phases of kata, one begins to understand, on a physiological level, below thought, how karate works. It becomes motion without thought, but never thoughtless motion.
IMHO, it is the attainment of this Mu-Shin mind state that allows us freedom from the chemical cocktail.
I'm not there yet, but, in a few street encounters, I have had flashes of it. Anybody else had this experience?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Life has treated me well (either that, or I am a very wise man...
). I've had few really scary encounters. But I have noted a sudden eerie calm come forth when the s*** hits the fan, even though I may be experiencing a classic symptom of "the chemical cocktail" (e.g. tachypsychia). Funny...all my psychological breakdowns happen when the event is over. I found that as long as I was engaged and doing something, that I was fine. Contemplating it later on proved to be the totally knee-rattling, fruit-o-the-loom-wetting experience.Nature or nurture? Probably a bit of both. It's the nurture part that we all want to understand and "bottle."
- Bill
