Chapter 170: Simplistically Atomistic

It is about the why and how people train in any discipline with emphasis in this writing toward, "karate and martial disciplines." In a recent research effort, on my part, of another subject about our minds and how we deal with certain aspects of life, I came across the following quote.

"If you want to compel people to act, you whittle down overwhelming goals into smaller goalsthat are concrete and easier to manage. Humans are drivenby a sense of progress, and progress is easier to perceive when the finish line is in sight."

This speaks to the way karate, and other disciplines, are taught. Small bites, small chunks that allow our minds to easily perceive, understand and apply. Therefore we break things down to how we place the thumb on top of our fist, how we curl the fingers to make a tight fist, and how we use the two knuckles as the surface that makes contact with a target with force and power. It is the atomistic simplicity of things that when accumulated and later collated into one wholehearted holistic methodology, etc., that makes karate for self-protection work. 

This further explains why people naturally and instinctively-like gravitated toward the dan-i, belt ranking, system. It was a method to break down what is perceived as an overwhelming objective and goal into smaller chunks or goals easier, not easy, to achieve. It is also how our minds, brain, works to manage in chunks that make for smaller chunks of independent memories or conditioned memories that are triggered by certain stimuli to do what we want. 

Think of the atomistic simplicity of manageable chucks that build our pathways toward chunks of progress that build conditioned memories that are stand-alone while easily interconnected dependent on triggers of stimulus so that we can act without the freeze or failure, at least minimizing failure. 

The dan-i system let novices and intermediates perceive things that are manageable and achievable leading up to an accumulation of conditional memories, actions and deeds, that suddenly become the wholehearted one of karate and other disciplines. When I use the concepts of “shu-ha-ri and shin-gi-tai, etc.,” this is the ultimate goal, to bring the overall training and practices down to manageable and achievable progressive goals that build a totality of a wholehearted system. Systems being a compilation of many smaller chunks that make the holistic whole. 

What does this mean to people? It provides yet another small chunk expressed in a way that supports and translates concepts and traits to a form easily understood and absorbed.  This is another research that supports the concepts and traits that, for the martial communities, support and validate the direction and methods used to teach, train, practice and apply our disciplines.