end of the ornery

I've been not just ornery but ARnery the last five days or so, as my body tackled that nasty cold going around along with the braces finding an opportunity to yank my neck and back every which way all in time for the lovely weather weekend. It really is enough to make someone go from ornery to arnery.

I hate being sick. As much as I like sleeping in and relaxing, I hate being sick. Plus my body has a way of delaying sickness in time for the weekend where there are no excuses but be sick. I'm not much for sitting still.

Anyway, I got to Tuesday night and I just didn't want to go to class, still being sick and all, but I went anyway. I teach the class, so I can teach without actively contaminating the students. Being in the agitated state I was in, decided to explore the recent lessons of restriction and repression, how rules, objects, locations, words, both guide us as restriction but sometimes fight against us as repression. When and how does a weapon feel so awkward that you can't do what you want to do, how sometimes you give yourself alot of restrictions to force you in a different direction than you're used to, and how somewhere between being restrained and restricted there's an avenue of wondrous freedom.

It was an interesting exploration of what holds us back and how much weight we give to the context in which we learned something. For instance, all the students started out frustrated since they were stuck with the pair of weapons I asked them to use and really only learned a couple of really basic techniques to use them that didn't really work in a fighting situation. Then I gave them a different technique to use, but a technique they were used to doing in another context at another distance. This too was difficult for them to get their bodies to do and it took a while for them to adjust, but once one of them did he said the things that he thought held him back disappeared. They didn't matter.

I can see how sometimes being in the mode of studying can be the greatest restriction. When studying something we create in our minds alot of parameters about the way something should be done in order to create a repeatable event. The parameters let us study the affect of a certain trait, say speed or force. We do a form or repeat a technique over and over, changing speed, observing what happens. But to jump from this, the technique to actually using it and applying it, the parameters we set up for ourselves to execute the technique become a hindrance. In our minds we think the same rules should apply but they don't.

I came out of class lighter, the pain in my neck from my body resisting the adjustments had gone away, I had a surge of energy that I hadn't felt in a week. There is so much more to learn!