The Proof of the Pudding: theory vs practice

Let us imagine a pilot, and assume that he had passed every examination with distinction, but that he had not as yet been at sea. Imagine him in a storm; he knows everything he ought to do, but he has not known before how terror grips the seafarer when the stars are lost in the blackness of night; he has not known the sense of impotence that comes when the pilot sees the wheel in his hand become a plaything for the waves; he has not known how the blood rushes to the head when one tries to make calculations at such a moment; in short, he has had no conception of the change that takes place in the knower when he has to apply his knowledge.

          ~ Soren Kierkegaard ("The Storm" in "The Parables of Kierkegaard")


The first time I sparred in my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class, it became immediately clear that there is a huge difference between the cleanness and neatness of applying a technique in class while you are learning it and when your partner isn't resisting much versus trying to apply a technique in the 'heat of battle' were everything seems to be happening at once and you are trying to defend against your opponent's attacks, counter your opponent's defenses and initiate attacks of your own. Out of a dozen or so 'fights' I 'won' two: one with an arm bar and the other with a figure-four lock (Americana) (which is my favorite lock in terms of level of pain.)

So what did I learn?

Firstly, I learned that the fitness required for a class and the fitness required for a fight are two different things; in a fight you tire quickly so it is important to both conserve energy and to end the fight as quickly as possible. The next day, delayed onset muscle soreness taught me that I needed to strengthen by inner thigh and latissimus muscles.

Secondly, I learned the importance of drilling technique until its correct performance becomes automatic; otherwise self-defence becomes just flailing about with all thought of effective technique flying out the window.

Thirdly, I learned that I needed to become more aware of what was happening in the moment, of openings my opponent was leaving that I could exploit, and of the imminence of a particular kind of attack that I would need to defend against to avoid being beaten.

Most of all, like the pilot in Kierkegaard's parable, I learned that all the theory you learn on land doesn't prepare you for the reality of being at sea.

Honor the process, trust the process

A farmer worried that his seedlings were not growing fast enough. So one day, he pulled up the seedlings to make them look taller. Returning home looking very tired, the farmer told his family what he did. His son ran immediately to the field to find all the seedlings had withered.
~ Mencius (Meng Zi)

One day Mullah Nasruddin wished to learn playing zurna (a kind off shrill pipe) and visited a zurna player. "How much does it cost to learn playing zurna?" asked Mullah Nasruddin.
- Three hundred akche (coin) for the first lesson and one hundred akche for the next lessons, asked zurna player.
- It sounds good, replied Mullah Nasruddin. We may start with second lesson. I was a shepherd when I was a young boy, so I already had some whistle experiences. It must be good enough for first lesson, isn't it?
~ Traditional folktale

It is very easy to become impatient when learning a new skill. It may seem that we are taking forever to get anywhere as we continue to clumsily perform the rudimentary elements of the skill. However, it is important to honor the process. Th properly develop a skill, we need to lay a proper foundation for building our skills further and this takes time and focused practice targeted to the elements of the skill that we currently struggle with. If instead, we try and short cut the process, like Mencius's farmer, we may short circuit it instead.

This also means not assuming that we already know the basics and so skipping over bedding down the basics. Maybe we do have some experience that is relevant. But if we assume, like Nasruddin, that our experience in playing a whistle years before provides a sound basis for learning to play the zurna now, we may fail to notice critical differences, subtleties and complexities in the new skill. Instead, we need to have the humility to understand that we may not yet know enough to know what it is we do not know. We need to pay attention even to what we think we already know if we are to be fully open to genuine learning. In the spirit of the Zen story, we cannot pour tea into our teacup if it is already full of preconceptions.

The flipside of honoring the process is trusting the process.

We need to have confidence that if we do the work then we will reap the rewards. So even when we seem to have plateaued and are struggling to make progress at all (and may even feel that we are going backwards), we need to remain confident that beneath the surface we are building connections that will ultimately bloom as improvements in our skills.

This shouldn't degenerate into a blind faith. If we put the right causes in place then the desired effects must occur, but we still need to be alert to the possibility that we are not practicing correctly or not frequently enough or with the right focus or that we are practising the wrong things. If so, we must adjust our approach accordingly.

We only reap what we sow, so it is important to sow the right seeds and to do so in the right way. If we focus on getting the process right, results will follow. The key metaskills to hone are patience and persistence in the face of difficulty. Results will then follow as a matter of course.

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"Patience Helps New Words Grow" (China Daily 11/18/2006 page10)