The point

Le point c'est tout.

The point is everything.

Fencing often presents the student with conundrums, and with paradoxes.

Things are not always what they seem.
This is true because what they SEEM is always colored by the perceptions, the conceptions, and the limitations of the person who is doing the seeing.

If one hopes to see the truth, one must remove the "self" from the equation. Remove the biases, the misperceptions, the slants, remove the emotions that cloud vision or that focus everything in an unbalanced way.


I've known this for a while now.
Learning to control emotions, not to allow them to get in the way of perception, is one of the most valuable things about the sword, most easily harnessed in everyday life to great benefit.

But it wasn't until yesterday that I truly grasped the other part of this, the physical part.

In order to see truth, and to act in truth, one must remove the PHYSICAL self, as well.

But this is clearly not possible. The physical self is, well... physical, right? Solid. How can you BE, if you have no physical self?

A lovely paradox.

I have long enjoyed that in fencing, there are a large number of pairs of things that must be balanced. I have often told students that one of the most challenging things is not so much what you must do, what must move, but what you must NOT do, what must NOT move.

Action/inaction
tension/relaxation
hard/soft
forceful/yielding
Or, if you wish, yang/yin.

These are what fencing really is, the balance between these things, in each moment, in each muscle, each thought, each movement, each intent.

But how do you know which to do, to be, at any given moment? And how do you move between them?

The simplest answer is that you do so by feel.

But how do you know WHAT you should feel?

This is what came up in my lesson yesterday, that the concept, the understanding, can only come AFTER the physical ability exists. You must be able to do something, to feel something, before you can understand it. You train the mind by training the body FIRST, not the other way around. This is counter to almost all education- because almost all education is cognitive based, not psycho-motor based.


But let's back up a bit, to how I got there, and why it was yesterday that I reached a point I had not felt before.


There have been changes in my understanding of fencing, for all the years that I've been doing this. Some things come quickly, others not so much, and still others change as I change.

Recently, I've been considering the difference between the point PULLING the rest of the body into a lunge, and the feeling of PUSHING the point with the thrust, much like a punch. The interesting part is that almost everyone, almost all the time, equates intent with force, equates intense focus with tension, and these things are not necessarily connected in the way that most people connect them.

In fact, with the sword, it is important that these connections are NOT assumed.
It is not about forcing things to happen, it is about allowing them to happen.

Again, I've known this for a long time. But as words, as thoughts. As mental constructs.

Yesterday, I realized, incorporated, something important.

It is that while fencing, I exist only in two "places."
The point.
And my center.

The point pulls me to action.
My center provides the energy for that action.

The less anything else is consciously involved, the better.

In other words:
I do not move the sword with my hand, but with my center.
EVERYTHING I do originates there.

It is not I, not my body, nor the sword, that moves towards the target, it is the point.

The point is everything, moved by the energy of my center.

And when that happens, when it really is that way, in perfect focus, perfect relaxation, in the moment, the point pulls me into the lunge, of its own accord.

I do not lunge.
The lunge, lunges me.

It is as if time and space open, and create the possibility, and therefore, the inevitability, of the lunge, and the lunge creates itself to fill that opening.

Like lightning. The path for the lightning comes into existence, and the lightning fills it.

Between my center and the point... is the space in which I simultaneously do and do not exist.

That is how the physical self is removed from the action.

It is difficult to put this all into words that anyone else might understand at all.

That's okay.
I need to understand it, and I do. At least a little, and at least from the perspective I have right now.

All I ask of anyone reading this is to understand that there is more to fencing than meets the eye, literally and figuratively. And that it is this, the tangible intangible, that I find so compelling.

Evaluation time

It's the end of the college semester. That means evaluation time.

We always read the evaluation forms. Most of the comments are fairly similar, but sometimes, there are a few that stand out. I thought I'd share a few.

We see a wide range, from the ones who find something they didn't even know they were looking for, to the few who really don't get it at all. From those who appreciate the structure and discipline, to those who really just wanted to grab a sword and have at it.

Sometimes, the interesting part is the pairs of comments we get from the same class.

Like these:

Student #1: "I would not recommend it because it isn't much exercise."
Student #2: "I expected to have sore legs and arms and my butt too. Oh yeah, they were definitely met."

Student #1: "No, fencing is not as physical as I thought it would be. You don't even get a sweat."
Student #2: "I would recommend it based on the physical demands (good exercise)."

So what is up with that? Remember, these are two students from the exact same class, same semester.

You might assume that the first student is in better shape than the second student, that what is easy for one, is difficult for the other.
You would be wrong.

We can easily predict which students, if any, will make a comment about the class not being physically demanding enough, not being a good workout.

It's simple.
It's the ones who don't DO the workout. The ones who show up late, phone it in, and/or stumble through the moves without any actual effort or attention. The students who, at the end of the semester, look about the same as they did on the first day.

Contrast that with those who are putting in physical and mental effort, who are trying to gain some level of skill, who pay attention to details as best they can, and really try to get it right. They never complain about it not being difficult enough.

Likewise, we often have pairs where one person says there is too much discussion, and another says that's the best part. Pairs where one says the class moved too slowly, and another who says it should slow down. I don't believe we have ever had a class where we got only one comment from the usual pairs.

Some of the more fun comments, mostly from the newly converted, highly enthusiastic students:

"Yes, it is amazing, take it now."
"You would be a crazy fool not to take this course!"
"It is a class out of the ordinary."
"I learned so much and built strength both in a new physical field and mentally."
"Where else could you unleash your desire to be a chivalrous knight without seeming immature?"
"Not something you're likely to find anywhere else."
"Yes, because the instructor is insane, but it's a good insane."
"Make it once a day, not once a week, dammit! It hurts to wait for this class!"

My all-time favorite comment: "Workout with happiness!"

And some of the puzzling comments:

"I would suggest introducing the actual olympic game of fencing and allowing students to duel one another."

Wow. What class did they think they were in?!?
1. This isn't olympic fencing. Period.
2. Allowing students to get killed would be frowned on, I believe.

"It focuses more on technique than I expected."

Hmm. So what DID you expect it to focus on?

"I would recommend it, but only if they really wanted to learn to fence."

And you needed to point this out why, exactly?

In the recommendations for improvement section:
"A little less fencing instruction."

And what should we do instead? Go bowling?

"Be less concerned about safety."

?!!



From the rapier class:
"Lighter swords."

Uh... sorry. If you want to work with lighter swords, don't take the class with the heavy ones. It's that simple. If you want to learn to use a rapier, you pretty much have to use... a rapier. Who knew?


These are a few of the comments from the past couple of years. Stay tuned next semester. I'm sure there will be more.

The Mother Letter Project

It's not often that I come across something that I'm impressed with enough that I want to immediately share it with everyone I know, but this has done it.

The Mother Letter Project.

It was started by a guy who is compiling these letters as a gift for his wife, as part of an effort to put more meaning into Christmas by spending more on relationships, and less on material gifts.

That, in and of itself, is worthwhile. And a creative way to do it, I might add.

But he's also offering to send the compilation to everyone who participates.

A "Mother Letter" is a letter from a mother, to a mother, about whatever motherly thoughts or advice or concerns that the writer wants to express. In a culture where we often lack that mother-to-mother support, the possibility of this compilation becoming something truly valuable is quite high, I believe.

Maybe this touches me so because I can't ask my own mother for advice, can't share with her any concerns I have, and since she died, it is that conversation that I have missed the most.

Anyway. Go check out their blog. Write a letter.

And click on the "Are you a conspirator?" link.

That's what she said...

Had a call the other day where there were multiple lacerations, and a lot of blood.
Scrubbed the entire rescue with bleach, a lot of blood, I mean.
Blood is like smoke- it gets everywhere. Places you didn't even know existed until you see that red ooze coming out from under them.

A few days later, back at the station after another call, one of the firefighters asked if anyone had been at the call "where the guy cut his finger."

Wow.
I had to laugh.
Not at any of the people involved, mind you, but at the discrepancy between how he had interpreted what dispatch said, what dispatch actually said, and what actually happened.

Some of you reading this are likely familiar with how often what dispatch says is happening, and what is actually happening, are two different things. Sometimes, it's because of a misunderstanding. Sometimes, it's the similarity of road or street names that are confusing. Sometimes, the caller doesn't KNOW what is going on, or where they are. And sometimes, the situation has changed by the time you get there.

In the limited time I've been doing this, I've learned to keep an open mind. "Elderly female, fell from standing" might mean that there's no real problem, she just needs help getting back up- or it might mean a cardiac event. "One car MVA, unknown injuries" might mean someone slid into the ditch and is uninjured, or it might mean calling the helicopter- or it might be a car that has been sitting off the road for a week, and someone driving by called it in but "couldn't stop." "Abdominal pain" could be a big lunch, or appendicitis, or trauma that the patient didn't want to tell anyone about. An "alarm activation" might be just that, burned toast... or a working structure fire.

My point here... if I have one... is that everything is like that. Whatever you hear, you don't really know what is going on until/unless you are there. And sometimes, not even then. Whether it's an emergency call, or office gossip, or anything in between. People see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and jump to conclusions. All the time. It's not a vindictive thing, necessarily. It's a human thing.

The human brain excels at making connections.
Sometimes, it makes the wrong ones.

Getting older

Somehow, I've gotten old.

Although my kids constantly tell me I'm ancient, it didn't really hit me until a couple of days ago.

I didn't have a particularly difficult day, wasn't pulling out gray hair (I like gray hair!), didn't have a geritol moment.

What happened?


My little sister turned 40.

Somehow, that made me a whole lot older than my turning 50 will.
Go figure.

During that day, I saw or heard numerous references to aging, and nearly all of them were negative.

One was a suggestion that a man would no longer be interested in a woman as she got older. And vice versa.
There were several ads portraying elderly people as sick or with limited mobility. Or with dementia. As if these things are inevitable.
A lament about losing hair.
And on and on.


Here's the thing.

If you don't die young, you get old.
Invariably.

Why does this culture have such an anti-age bias?
Whatever happened to cultures who honor their elders, and appreciate the years of experience, and perhaps wisdom, accumulated by those people?

I sure as hell know more now than I did when I was in my twenties.
I'm a better person, too. More committed, more focused. More able to navigate interpersonal difficulties. Kinder. More patient. Better able to discern what is important from what is not.

But yes, I have some gray hair, some aches and pains, and I am reaching the point of being all too aware of my mortality.

One of the interesting things about being an EMT is that I meet a lot of older people. They are often the ones who call for medical assistance, partly because they have more medical issues, but also, often, because they have no one to drive them to the hospital.

So far, in this little town, all of those people have been wonderful folks. I wish I could meet them in a less stressful way, and spend time talking- or mostly, spend time listening. Some of them have lived here forever, I think, and have a wide variety of interesting stories.

This is a largely unappreciated resource.

I'm certain that they have no idea how positively they have affected me, giving me living proof that contrary to popular belief, cultural bias, and common fears, "old age" just might be an okay place to get to some day.

Failure

I've been thinking again.

About choices.
About decisions.
About mistakes.

We live in a culture that doesn't like mistakes. Most of the time, they are either ignored completely (no, really, it's fine), denied, (who, me?)(it was like that when I got here) or they are seen as a terrible thing (failure! idiot!).

None of these views is particularly useful.

It's not that I think mistakes, in and of themselves, are good. If they were, they wouldn't be mistakes, right? But they certainly are useful.

My kids are becoming adults. Not the easiest transition in the world, if I recall correctly. The thing is, when you are a child, your parents fix your mistakes. When you are an adult... nobody fixes them.

Maybe.

When my kids were little, they were, shall we say... stubborn. Hardheaded. Annoying. And they had very strong opinions about things. A whole lot like their parents, in other words. :-)

I used to tell people that I want my kids to grow into adults who can stand up for what is right, who can resist peer pressure, who can make good choices and good decisions. The trouble is, in order for them to be able to do that, they have to LEARN to do that, which means they need to practice it from an early age. And having children who stand up for what they believe, instead of always caving to pressure, from YOU, can be a pain in the butt.

In other words, in order to have strong adults, you must allow them to be strong children. In order for them to make good decisions as adults, they must be allowed to make decisions as a child.

It's a whole lot easier to learn to make good decisions by making bad SMALL decisions, than by making bad BIG decisions. Easier on them and easier on me. So it's important to let them make choices, even if you wouldn't make the same one.

Piled those blocks too high and they fell over? Try again.
Picked something you didn't like for lunch? No big deal.
Didn't wear a warm enough jacket, and got cold? Add a layer next time.
Left food on the counter and the cat ate it? Put it away.
Left a toy on the floor, then stepped on it and hurt your foot? Owie.

Or even: said something that got your friend really mad at you, and now they don't want to be your friend? Learn how to treat people respectfully, and/or learn how to move on.

I'd much prefer those sorts of mistakes than not coming all the way to a stop at a stop sign and causing an "accident," or an unplanned pregnancy, or going out alone in the wrong part of town and getting mugged (or worse), or any number of more serious mistakes.

Little mistakes can usually be fixed, or avoided in the future.
Big mistakes can mess you up for life.

So my theory is this: fail early, and fail often. Let your mistakes guide you to making better choices, better decisions. Help those in your life to be better decision makers by allowing them to make errors when the results won't be dangerous and then help them learn how to deal with those mistakes.

It may be the biggest favor you ever do them, and yourself.

Let me ask you a question

I need to ask you something...
Why do you...?


It almost doesn't matter what the rest of the question is.

People in this culture (and maybe in others, but I'm not IN others, so I don't know) frequently do not like being asked questions, at all. For some reason, they tend to interpret questions as an attack.

I did not always know this.

I am a very curious person, as a rule, and often ask a lot of questions.
When I ask a question, I am most often looking for information.
The trouble is, people get very defensive, and I don't end up getting the information I was hoping for.
Amusingly, the very same people will often, later, say "You could have asked."

Clearly, there is an issue here.

I first became aware of the defensiveness when I had a partner who could not deal with questions at all. He responded to "Why did you...?" as if I had said "How on earth could you do such a stupid thing, you moron?" The problem was that I really wanted to know why he made the choice he made, so I could think about it, address the issue, and/or explain my side. Then, perhaps, with both of us having more information, we could make a better plan, or come to a better agreement. Instead he would just get pissed off, and accuse me of nagging him. He could not listen long enough to even find out whether I agreed with him, or not. "Why?" to him, ALWAYS meant I thought he was wrong.

I am absolutely sure I am not alone in this.
For a while, I thought it was men who interpreted questions from women as nagging, but that's not the entire story.

Sometimes, it's when someone is asked about something they don't really have an answer for.
Sometimes, it's being questioned about something for which they feel guilty.
Those situations, as annoying as they might be, at least make some sort of sense. People get defensive and evasive when they perceive themselves to be at a disadvantage, or somehow in the wrong.

But it isn't only that, either.

Take this example:

I once knew a student who could not deal with questions of any kind. She clammed up. Got upset. Got emotional. Couldn't answer. And it didn't matter what the question was about, at all. ANY question would do that. Even something as simple as "Did you eat breakfast this morning?"

She would overinterpret.
Why are you asking about breakfast? Are you saying I'm fat? Are you going to criticize what I ate? Is there some particular reason I was supposed to eat... or not eat...or...?
And then, she would overanalyze her answers.

She was, as people often are, trying to find the "right" answer. Trying desperately to give the answer she believed the asker to be trying to get. Not the TRUE answer mind you, but the RIGHT answer. There is a world of difference.

This difficulty with questions, I believe, comes from faults in the public education system. Lots of questions there, many of which don't matter, and most of which are used to "grade" someone, to decide their value, their importance, how popular they are. People are HIGHLY motivated to figure out what they are supposed to say, what they are supposed to think, what they are supposed to do. Again, it isn't about what is RIGHT to say, or think, or do, it isn't about what they actually think or believe, it's about trying to play this match game with the person in authority who is asking the questions.

This is a dangerous precedent to create for nearly all of our adult citizens.
People who grow up in an environment that is hostile to asking questions, and surrounded by questions they are supposed to already know the answers to and regurgitate on command, don't learn to really question things, and don't learn how to give AND SUPPORT their own answers rather than whatever has been fed to them.

Back to my experience with this student I knew.

When I was first learning to teach, one of the master's primary tools for teaching was questions. Lots of questions. Some leading questions, some not. Some genuine requests for information, some to see what I knew. Some- probably most- to get me to think, to evaluate, to understand, and then be able to explain my position well enough to teach it to another person, who would ALSO be able to understand and explain it.

Fortunately for me, I love questions.

Not so much, this other student.

I can recall many instances where, after much discussion and such, I would be asked a question. After I gave my answer, the master would ask "Are you sure?" or some variation thereof, like "Do you want to think about that further?"

Here is where my unusual education has been a great help to me.
I could answer the question. Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes with more questions.

But what happened to this other student was instant paralysis. She invariably interpreted "Are you sure?" as MOST people with highly schooled backgrounds interpret it- the teacher's attempt to let you know that your answer was WRONG, and you need to change it. So change it, she would. And then, when asked to defend that answer... she had no idea what to do. She had backed herself into a corner. She behaved as if she felt guilty, when she had done nothing wrong, because the QUESTION ITSELF, but its very nature of being a question, made her ASSUME she must be guilty, of something.

It was... uncomfortable.

I remember being asked this many, many times. Sometimes, the answer was "yes, I'm sure." Sometimes, it was "...uh... no, not really," and that would lead to more discussion and clarification, which was the purpose of the question in the first place. And a few times, it was "yes, I'm absolutely sure," and upon further discussion, I would come across information that changed my perspective, and then, I would realize that I was BOTH absolutely sure, and WRONG.

Being sure, and being right, are not the same thing.
Being sure, and refusing to question, to constantly re-evaluate and clarify and think it through more, means that you might miss that bit of information that lets you find out that you were wrong, and you'll go on believing you were right. Not a good thing.

The other thing that becomes clear with being comfortable with being asked questions, is the distinction between fact and opinion. Some things are opinions, what I think. Some things are facts, what I know. And some things- this might be the largest category- are things I think I know.

Those things are always up for re-evaluation.

I'm big on "as far as I can tell with the information I have right now..." I have no problem with differentiating between what I really know, and what I think, and what I'm not even sure what I think about. If I'm asked a question I don't know the answer to, that's okay. If I'm asked a question that is critical of my position, that's okay, too. I can state my position, and defend it- and if I can't, then I need to get more information so that I can. That's not being wrong, it's simply not knowing. I know I don't know everything, so it doesn't embarrass me. I can say "I don't know." Or I'm not sure, or I hadn't thought about it, or I need more information, and be comfortable with that.



So let me ask you something...

Why are you afraid of questions?