As an herbalist I’m not usually fond of reduction. We like the complexity of naturally occurring chemicals in plants. “There is safety in complexity” (thank you Kerry Bone). There is synergy. To say that it is better, safer, and easier to dose, by reducing things down to individual chemicals is like saying cake is better to eat if you reduce it down to its “active” constituent; that it's better and tastier to eat just the flour (or sugar, or whatever) than cake. I would rather eat the synergy that is cake!
Yet there is a place for reductionism. We can use it to gain greater understanding of the whole. In this case (the drawings pictured here) I was drawing details of individual parts of the face of tigers in order to better understand the whole.
In Kung Fu we are repeatedly encouraged to “develop an eye for detail” and to improve our forms by breaking down our forms into individual parts. By improving the parts we can improve the whole.
The other night it was suggested that we could try things like doing our forms backwards, or blindfolded. All these individual things for creating better synergy of the whole.
I have done the Strike Form of Cane for nearly two years in IHC and it is still terrible. I keep forgetting parts of it when I should be able to do it without even thinking about it. I chose to do it for a second year thinking I could improve it. I will keep trying these ideas to see if anything improves.
I feel like… I haven’t been able to develop a… relationship (?)… with cane. It feels like something is missing. In a discussion with my dad, we talked about how the other forms have both offensive and defensive components. Maybe that’s part of my problem with Cane? Something IS missing (block form and tip form). It feels out of balance to me and I struggle to establish a fluidity with it. I’m really only learning a part of a whole.
With this understanding someday, maybe, I’ll achieve a reasonable level of synergy with the Cane.
Notes:
These drawings were all done using Bic ballpoint pens (blue and black) and a white Gelly Roll pen.
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