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So, Pearlman makes the point in this chapter that we are trying to make some set of skills or actions reflexive - so deeply ingrained that the proper stimulus is automatically and immediately met with the appropriate response. An additional related thought is that we must avoid ingraining skills that we will have to un-learn and replace with different skills later.
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I agree with all of that - particularly the part about avoiding un-learning.
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But, what I think is more important to concern yourself with is not so much which skills (techniques) to work toward ingraining. Rather, what attributes or qualities do you want to ingrain? Not so much what do you want to be able to do, but what do want to end up becoming?
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Consider, you're going to have to learn some basic techniques that are not as good or useful as later stuff, and you will want to use those basic techniques as a vehicle to develop yourself so that you can get to the real learning of later stuff. But you can start from day #1 working on the qualities and attributes - the spirit or energy of what you want to become.
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So, what is the spirit of the thing that you want to eventually become as a martial artist? How do you work to avoid practicing in other modes, developing other qualities that will have to be un-learned later?
[photo courtesy of etee]
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Patrick Parker
www.mokurendojo.com
