Lost In Translation by Rob Jacob
|
 |
|
Most of the people reading this article are likely to be English speakers. We grew up speaking English, and most of us don't speak another language, or at least very well. We are used to hearing English, and our ears are tuned to hearing the sounds that the English language uses. If someone from Japan were to try to teach us some phrases, we might have a difficult time. They could sound out the words, and we could try to repeat them, and to the Japanese, our pronunciation could be absolutely horrible. We could even be saying something completely different. To us it might sound like we are repeating the words exactly the same. But to the Japanese, we could be light-years off, because as I said, our ears are tuned to hear the sounds of the English language. The Japanese language may have sounds that to a Japanese person would make a difference in meaning, but when used in English wouldn't make any difference at all. Our English hearing ears would not hear these differences.
Martial arts are like a language. The teacher shows us a series of moves, and we try to repeat them. We may think that we are repeating the moves exactly how the teacher is, but to the teacher we are light-years away. We may be copying the major stuff, but missing the subtleties. The teacher may even demonstrate the right and wrong way, yet we cannot see the differences. Our subconscious filters these differences out as insignificant. But as we continue training, and we see the movements over and over, our eyes learn to see the difference. We begin to learn the language of the movements.
Sometimes in mimicking the teacher, you may copy movements that are unnecessary without knowing it. This reminds me of a story:
A mother is preparing a holiday ham. She slices the ends off before putting the ham into the pot. Her young daughter asks her why. The mother tells her that that was the way her own mother had done it. The daughter asks why. But the mother doesn't know why. So they call the little girl's grandmother and ask her. She says that was the way her mother had always done it. So they call the great grandmother and ask her. She says that was the only way it would fit in the small pot she had.
So try to learn what the moves are, and what is important and what isn't.
In other cases you might mimic movements that are significant, but you don't know the reason. You have ideas what they are for, but you really don't know. My doctor told me a story during a check up while he was telling me to turn my head and cough. He said that when he was a young doctor he was trying to figure out why you turn your head when they have you cough. He had always done it because that was what the other doctors had always done. He was looking at the muscles, and how they tighten or pull when you turn your head. But he wasn't finding any connection. So he asked one of his seniors. His senior explained that if the patient didn't turn their head, they would be coughing in the doctor's face. So explore! Try to find the meaning behind the martial arts language you are studying!
Rob Jacob is the author of: Martial Arts Biographies - An Annotated Bibliography.
Back to Isshinryu Ramblings main page
|
