{"id":3813,"date":"2011-06-10T07:49:20","date_gmt":"2011-06-10T12:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/?p=3813"},"modified":"2011-06-10T07:56:53","modified_gmt":"2011-06-10T12:56:53","slug":"variables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/variables\/","title":{"rendered":"Variables"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Carl Frederick<\/span>
\n\"Carl\"<\/a> Here\u2019s a scenario for you: You’re in class, either learning a new technique or practicing an old one. And maybe the instructor tells you to \u201cplay around with it,\u201d perhaps throw an atemi, or a counter, or this, or that. So you work at it with your partner. And then, the inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, what if I do this?\u201d your partner begins. \u201cFine,\u201d you boast. \u201cI’ll just do this.” <\/em>Back and forth you go, and then, just as you think you’ve reached that pinnacle of transcendent awesomeness, <\/em>your partner executes that ONE atemi, that ONE counter, or that ONE irimi.<\/p>\n

And you freeze.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I do now?\u201d you wonder. Of course at this point you’re technically dead.<\/p>\n

Game over. Thanks for playing.<\/p>\n

You begin to question everything. You replay the encounter again in your mind, looking for the correct response. \u00a0\u201cWhat if,” you wonder, “I had just moved there<\/em>, right before he did that<\/em>.\u201d For some, the tendency is to become depressed, believing their entire technique is flawed. They may even look at other activities to fill their time. Knitting perhaps?<\/p>\n

I’m exaggerating, of course, but there is purpose to what I am saying. Throughout my martial arts career, I have personally seen the foregoing play out, time and time again, either in myself or my fellow students.<\/p>\n

Given my chosen career, for me \u201cfailure\u201d means \u201cdeath.\u201d But as I have learned, and have tried to teach others, the martial arts are always\u00a0variable. Always. No matter how hard you train, there will always be something that comes along, some surprise, that will inevitably screw everything up. You can mull over a technique for days, looking for perfection, but in the end someone always comes along to set aside your best laid plans.<\/p>\n

A mistake I sometimes see is believing that some foolproof, perfect technique exists. I am at fault for this as well. But we simply cannot achieve this. There\u2019s no one way to do something — sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to make it work. I believe fully that the best martial artists are not the ones who are \u201cperfect\u201d in some abstract sense, or, say, have a playbook of everything that may<\/em> happen in an encounter, or even those who create detailed backup plans in case their first backup plan fails.<\/p>\n

For me, the most impressive martial artists are those who can adjust to new situations, and prevail. Even if it’s messy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carl Frederick Here\u2019s a scenario for you: You’re in class, either learning a new technique or practicing an old one. And maybe the instructor tells you to \u201cplay around with it,\u201d perhaps throw an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4976,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-carl","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3813"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3838,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813\/revisions\/3838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aikidocenterofjacksonville.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}