Learning, perhaps?
2009.11.05 (Thu)
Fighters these days have the pleasure of learning backwards. In the day, people would learn by just doing things. Eventually they would find more and more efficient or more and more powerful forms for specific situations, and add that to their pool of abilities. Those powerful forms became techniques. One who could find an extremely effective technique would become feared. Those fearful techniques would be passed on to the next generation, and to the next. We don’t have to spend our time figuring out what the strongest of strikes are, nor would we risk fighting all day to learn it.
Now, we have the current system. People start out learning how to do those specific strong techniques, and start out trying to defend themselves from those strong techniques, before they even know how to move around to get anything at all working. Instead of dealing with "What's something I can hit them with here?", they deal with "This hits them here, how do I make it happen?". Even sillier folk even think "I can do this, so I'm invincible" without batting an eye at the prospect of getting there. Some even think of things systematically, like "If this happens then this will happen and then they'll do this and I'll do that" and all that fun stuff. So, what most people are missing nowadays are the basics of the basics. We know the movements, but we do not understand them. We use them, but we do not know why we use them. We slice through the air with our forms, not knowing what it is truly meant for. We are blind. With this, an art becomes just that, an art; a simple pile of nice moves to deal with other nice moves. Specific answers to specific situations. A natural fighter would learn flow then form; now, we learn form then have to figure out the flow. The art is a weapon to supplement your natural strengths.
This is probably due to the nature of passing things down. Example, perhaps one person is very good at throwing extremely strong hits. Someone else gets good at blocking, evading and countering to respond. A response to this could be to start using quick light shots to avoid being countered or blocked, while throwing a quickly moving person trying to evade off balance. Eventually the style passed down will be that of the quick light hits in their "perfect" form, after being made to respond to evasion in their greatest forms and so on.
The result is a multitude of styles that nobody knows the reason behind. Instead of learning what to do, we know what to do but have to find the reason for them, or when to use them.
We know how to move, but not how to fight. We end up head butting with our hardest hitting attacks. Or even worse, we merely wait for something specific we can take advantage of, and don't understand how to force the advantage ourselves.
When Lee Hsiao Lung came in, nobody knew how to deal with him. Everyone had believed in specific styles, he preached "style with no style" and attacked in a very streamlined manner that was seemingly impossible to deal with. He would do things people would not think of. He was feared not because he knew the strongest forms, but because he had an understanding of them, and was not limited to them. He understood how far he could deviate from them and still be effective. He took control of the fight instead of waiting for the opponent, yet did not blindly charge in. The crowning piece was that he built himself a fantastic body.
Then you have the modern prize fighter, they fight in an extremely streamlined manner and will often win by sheer force. The methods of dealing with such a manner have fallen out of favor due to the lack of understanding behind it, and it becomes "useless fancy fluff", so it becomes a contest of head butting with strong techniques, and the winner is the one with better body and reaction. Well, understanding will come eventually perhaps. Eventually it will all run full circle. Let's try hard to push shall we?
Now, we have the current system. People start out learning how to do those specific strong techniques, and start out trying to defend themselves from those strong techniques, before they even know how to move around to get anything at all working. Instead of dealing with "What's something I can hit them with here?", they deal with "This hits them here, how do I make it happen?". Even sillier folk even think "I can do this, so I'm invincible" without batting an eye at the prospect of getting there. Some even think of things systematically, like "If this happens then this will happen and then they'll do this and I'll do that" and all that fun stuff. So, what most people are missing nowadays are the basics of the basics. We know the movements, but we do not understand them. We use them, but we do not know why we use them. We slice through the air with our forms, not knowing what it is truly meant for. We are blind. With this, an art becomes just that, an art; a simple pile of nice moves to deal with other nice moves. Specific answers to specific situations. A natural fighter would learn flow then form; now, we learn form then have to figure out the flow. The art is a weapon to supplement your natural strengths.
This is probably due to the nature of passing things down. Example, perhaps one person is very good at throwing extremely strong hits. Someone else gets good at blocking, evading and countering to respond. A response to this could be to start using quick light shots to avoid being countered or blocked, while throwing a quickly moving person trying to evade off balance. Eventually the style passed down will be that of the quick light hits in their "perfect" form, after being made to respond to evasion in their greatest forms and so on.
The result is a multitude of styles that nobody knows the reason behind. Instead of learning what to do, we know what to do but have to find the reason for them, or when to use them.
We know how to move, but not how to fight. We end up head butting with our hardest hitting attacks. Or even worse, we merely wait for something specific we can take advantage of, and don't understand how to force the advantage ourselves.
When Lee Hsiao Lung came in, nobody knew how to deal with him. Everyone had believed in specific styles, he preached "style with no style" and attacked in a very streamlined manner that was seemingly impossible to deal with. He would do things people would not think of. He was feared not because he knew the strongest forms, but because he had an understanding of them, and was not limited to them. He understood how far he could deviate from them and still be effective. He took control of the fight instead of waiting for the opponent, yet did not blindly charge in. The crowning piece was that he built himself a fantastic body.
Then you have the modern prize fighter, they fight in an extremely streamlined manner and will often win by sheer force. The methods of dealing with such a manner have fallen out of favor due to the lack of understanding behind it, and it becomes "useless fancy fluff", so it becomes a contest of head butting with strong techniques, and the winner is the one with better body and reaction. Well, understanding will come eventually perhaps. Eventually it will all run full circle. Let's try hard to push shall we?
-Misu Mikasi
Layers of thought
2009.07.24 (Fri)
Somehow I got into a conversation on play styles and ended up making my own(At least I think it is) model of layers of thought. There are four levels to this.
On layer zero, we have headbutters. They just want to do something and go for it all day due to the potential reward. There is no thought going on here, just plain laid out desire. It poses no threat to anything other than itself.
On layer one, we have people that optimize their play and run the game according to odds.
Running an optimal game in which they get maximum effect for the most likely to win answers to situations. A simple system that carries over well in most situations, and will win out in the long term statistically. Problem being that in a single match, the long term is not very long. They do not have the resources to slowly bleed out their opponent, it loses its effectiveness when the players both have limited lifelines and a generally even playing field.
On layer two, we have people that form winning habits just by doing things and seeing what sticks. These people have the advantage of being able to take something that the other player would answer to 1/4 of the time and running it all of the time and getting their 3/4 payout until it stops working. A layer of thought that is comparable to a mouse going through a maze and stepping on a tile to get pellets. Weakness being that it does not decide whether or not it gets reward or punishment, it does something and watches the result unfold.
On layer three we find people who wait outside of the line of fire for a while and get to know the players habits, trap their habits, then cut them down. This layer is the scientist that watches over the mouse and decides its reward and punishment as he pleases. This also means he can potentially even create and extinguish habits as he pleases. As long as he can set the pace, he can maintain control of the player completely.
The fun part here though, is that layer one does not have a clear cut advantage over layer three. Playing the odds does not necessarily equate to winning, and people have habits whether they know it or not; there is always a hole that can be poked at. Layer one avoids being completely controlled, but still maintains a slight disadvantage. Layer three has the disadvantage of being one step behind, because of the hesitation caused by waiting and seeing actions; however, this is only if the layer three player is in layer one's line of instantaneous preemptive fire.
Layer two is made up of habits, and thus can be controlled by layer three. Layer two changes its habits according to the reward and punishment dealt by layer three, but it is always a step behind, because there was a point where it was doing something while layer three would be doing nothing but sitting out safely; there was something for layer three to latch on to and pull along at its pace.
On top of this, there are no draws.There is a certain amount of skill that goes into each one, so every player in each layer of thought can very well be better than another at it, and one may just be better at controlling the pace of the match or even executing their game plan. There is no clear win or lose, just advantages and disadvantages piled onto each other, though the advantages of layer three seem a bit heavier than the others, because unlike Sirlin's model, zero thought sequence mashing does not overtake well thought out play.
On layer zero, we have headbutters. They just want to do something and go for it all day due to the potential reward. There is no thought going on here, just plain laid out desire. It poses no threat to anything other than itself.
On layer one, we have people that optimize their play and run the game according to odds.
Running an optimal game in which they get maximum effect for the most likely to win answers to situations. A simple system that carries over well in most situations, and will win out in the long term statistically. Problem being that in a single match, the long term is not very long. They do not have the resources to slowly bleed out their opponent, it loses its effectiveness when the players both have limited lifelines and a generally even playing field.
On layer two, we have people that form winning habits just by doing things and seeing what sticks. These people have the advantage of being able to take something that the other player would answer to 1/4 of the time and running it all of the time and getting their 3/4 payout until it stops working. A layer of thought that is comparable to a mouse going through a maze and stepping on a tile to get pellets. Weakness being that it does not decide whether or not it gets reward or punishment, it does something and watches the result unfold.
On layer three we find people who wait outside of the line of fire for a while and get to know the players habits, trap their habits, then cut them down. This layer is the scientist that watches over the mouse and decides its reward and punishment as he pleases. This also means he can potentially even create and extinguish habits as he pleases. As long as he can set the pace, he can maintain control of the player completely.
The fun part here though, is that layer one does not have a clear cut advantage over layer three. Playing the odds does not necessarily equate to winning, and people have habits whether they know it or not; there is always a hole that can be poked at. Layer one avoids being completely controlled, but still maintains a slight disadvantage. Layer three has the disadvantage of being one step behind, because of the hesitation caused by waiting and seeing actions; however, this is only if the layer three player is in layer one's line of instantaneous preemptive fire.
Layer two is made up of habits, and thus can be controlled by layer three. Layer two changes its habits according to the reward and punishment dealt by layer three, but it is always a step behind, because there was a point where it was doing something while layer three would be doing nothing but sitting out safely; there was something for layer three to latch on to and pull along at its pace.
On top of this, there are no draws.There is a certain amount of skill that goes into each one, so every player in each layer of thought can very well be better than another at it, and one may just be better at controlling the pace of the match or even executing their game plan. There is no clear win or lose, just advantages and disadvantages piled onto each other, though the advantages of layer three seem a bit heavier than the others, because unlike Sirlin's model, zero thought sequence mashing does not overtake well thought out play.
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