How do we learn martial arts? We learn by practicing, by repeating? Every time we perform an action, we learn from the action outcome. The outcome is not just the end result of the action. It’s all the information that our brain receives and processes during the performance of the action and after the performance of the action.
This information also includes our intent. It is against this intent that the information gathered from our senses is compared, and the action is corrected to fit more and more closely to the intent. Based on that information our bodies and in particular our nervous system and our brain are physically reshaped. New neurons are created to help gather and process the information necessary for controlling the action, new muscle and connective tissue fibers are created to allow our bodies to perform the action. The more we repeat the action, the more our bodies get changed by it. Here Michael Merzenich explains how that happens. But if there is no intent present during the action performance, a crucial element of this learning mechanism is missing, and learning becomes difficult and sometimes impossible. This is why in internal martial arts there is so much insistence on performing actions with intent. Clear intent alone, as Bruce Frantzis explains i this video, even without any physical movement, causes the process of body mind reshaping to start taking place. With clear intent, the mind will act on the body. Without clear intent, the mind will react to the body. There is a huge difference here. The intent is like a blueprint that our body uses to reshape itself. In order to have a clear blueprint, we need to have a clear and powerful intent. To have a clear and powerful intent we need to have a clear mind. Thoughts and emotions not only distort the intent, but interfere with our senses and the way the information that comes from our senses is processed. Our thoughts and our emotions get jumbled together with our intent and all the information that comes from our senses, and that informational mess is used to reshape your body. Imagine what that does to you. If you practice angry, you will hardwire that anger into your body. That is bad for your health. It will not make you stronger or more powerful. It will just make you sick. This is where “Practice internal kung fu happy.” advice becomes very important.
Another reason why intent is so important in practicing internal kung fu, is that if you don’t have a clear picture of what you want to achieve, how will you ever be able to achieve it? This is where communication between you and your teacher, and your teacher’s ability to explain exactly what he wants you to practice becomes extremely important. What if the action you were performing was not what your teacher was trying to teach you, but what you thought your teacher was trying to teach you? What if the intent is wrong? Then you are on a wrong path, and the harder you practice the wronger things get. This is where advice: “Practice internal kung fu smart.” becomes very important.
When does this hardwiring development stop? It stops when we reach a particular “satisfactory” level of performance. This level is arbitrary and is determined by a conscience decision that we have now acquired a required skill. Most times it is determined by our teacher telling us that we have acquired a satisfactory level of skill. Some people even call it “perfect” level of skill. From that moment on, we repeat the same action in exactly the same way, automatically, and most of the time unconsciously. The action becomes “hardwired”. But this is wrong on so many levels.
There is no “perfect” level of skill. One of the Bagua teachers was once asked if he has ever performed his Bagua perfectly. And he said “O yes. And then the next day I did it better.” Every internal martial arts practice can be done better, with deeper understanding, with more awareness; smoother, easier, stronger, more connected, with smaller gaps… there is no end to it.
Hardwiring is actually desired in external martial arts. People believe that being hardwired means being fast and being responsive. What they don’t realize is that being hardwired means becoming unconscious, means becoming automated, robot like, and thus unable to respond to changed circumstances. It means learning dozens of specific blocks, each specifically “designed” to protect from a specific strike, not realizing that all the “different” blocks and strikes are just the same one block and one strike just performed with different body alignment and from a different angle on a common abstract movement curve. There are actually no blocks and strikes. They are all just generic moves that become blocks or strikes depending on circumstance. Or they can be both blocks and strikes at the same time. Or they can morph from being a block to being a strike and back. Here are 3 videos (video-1, video-2, video-3) by Erle Montaigue explaining the difference between the hardwired and abstract martial skills. In order to acquire these abstract movement skills, you need to practice in an abstract fashion. You need to practice mindfully. One thing that scientists have noticed is that kids are a lot better at learning new skills than adults are. The reason why children are so much better at learning than adults is because children don’t observe the world in the same way as adults. Adults use focused observation which can be compared to a flash light that only illuminates one spot and leaves everything else in the darkness. Everything else is filtered out by frontal lobe logical processing engine, which ignores everything that it cannot understand. Children and especially babies don’t have this filtering. They observe and absorb everything. Their awareness is full, dispersed and can be compared to a lantern, which shines its light equally everywhere around. The way babies learn is much faster and generates more complex and more abstract neural systems. Here is an article that explains how babies observe, learn and think. We can all learn like babies. All we need to do is to switch the frontal lobe off, and you can do it through meditation. This is where “Practice internal kung fu like chi kung.” becomes very important.
