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The body must be inside the mind. Do not put the mind inside the body!

– Scott Phillips

“The motor skill involved in even a very simple and monotonous movement cannot be a motor formula or a motor cliche, as it was wrongly thought by many, including those who equated motor skill and conditioned reflex.  Therefore, it is wrong to consider a motors skill as an imprint or a trace somewhere in the brain’s motor areas.

“On the other hand, the brain’s sensory areas, which take care of sensory corrections, also do not elaborate some unchangeable cliches of corrections.  External forces and perturbations are volatile, and so corrections, which reflect the influence of these factors, likewise cannot be permanent.

“Finally, the movements of a skill must also have in reserve a degree of adaptive variability, which increases from the lower to the higher levels.  Therefore, the brain sensory systems also accumlate and store, not a permanent cliche, but a peculiar, specific maneuverability.  The brain sensory systems gradually learn to be more and more skillful in making an instantaneous translation from the language of incoming sensations and perceptions reflecting the movement process into the language of corrective motor impulses that need to be sent to one or another muscle.  We shall call this translation from the language of sensations to the language of corrections reciphering of neural impulses.

“…We can observe how a craftsman performs seemingly clear and simple movements, but we cannot see from outside the concealed corrections and recipherings that take place in his brain. The difference [is that] the novice decides how the movements involved in a motor skill look from the outside; [later] the novice learns how these movements and their sensory corrections feel inside.”

from Dexterity and Its Development

The first movements in the Northern Shaolin I teach are superbly designed for responding to the way actual bad guys attack, especially considering that Northern Shaolin is traditionally taught to children. In fact I would say it is the greatest self-defense system ever invented. I know that sounds pompous or something but I was surprised, I mean, I didn’t show up to Rory Miller’s workshop on real world violence thinking or believing that…

Rather than try to get this all in a writing, here is a video I just made!

North Star Martial Arts

OK, so Scott’s pretty stoked here, but pay attention to what he says about the common ways in which women and children are attacked. Everybody should learn to defend these. From what I’ve heard, adult men are more likely to be assaulted by multiple attackers, often with a blunt weapon, so guys, you have a different set of challenges, but still you should learn to defend against these.

Martial arts or self-defense or what-have-you may or may not be something you do for the dangerous parts of the world. It might just be fun. But at very minimum, in my mind, it must be something that you do with and in the world. Otherwise it is fantasy and separation. At best masturbation. At the worst, unpleasant sweaty addictive masturbation that you believe is exactly the same as real sex.

So it’s critical when learning this (whatever this is that I teach) that you play in and with the world. That you study the world. And because you are part of it, that you study yourself. Not the imaginary self that is constant and true and good. The fluid self that changes when you are hungry. The one that you become when you are afraid or elated. The self bleeding on the edge of consciousness and the self in the cold dark places.

Learn to see. Learn your own mental plasticity and how much you can control that: how much you can choose, moment to moment, who you wish to be.

Touch the world, taste it, smell it. If you ever need to break somebody, it will be one of the most real moments of your life.

–Rory Miller

WHAT.

“ward off, rollback, pull and press

don’t forget to tuck in and hollow your chest

they say an ounce moves a thousand pounds, weight classes are obsolete

when you’re well rooted in your feet

rise up, it’s too late: meet your fate

hug the tree more, this will develop your core

this is why they tell you to stand in postures”

Robert “Upyu” John of the Aunkai demonstrates some of its “body cross” principles:

Wish it was subtitled.