Skiing versus fighting
This is a guest editorial by my late mentor Prof. Horst Tiwald. It comes from our voluminous and extensive email correspondence, whose content would normally have been material for discussion for many, many years in other circumstances.
31.1. 22:58
Hello Mr Kernspecht,
I have just reread the table of contents in Combatlogic.
In doing so I tried to find out what you differently when fighting with and against people than I do when fighting against the ski-slope and gravity.
When a beginner first encounters the sport of skiing, it is fundamental to my teaching approach to get him to first of all listen to the different challenges posed by the ski-slope, and become aware of the possible variations in his own movements.
The purpose here is already to be aware of the difference between specific sensual input (tactile sense, kinaesthetics) and movements arising from attentiveness.
Right from the start, several "bank accounts" (as I call them for the beginner) are opened for further development.
During the course of learning, "payments" are made with the emphasis on individual accounts or several at once.
There are also exercises on skis where various tasks are performed while blindfolded.
Two people carry out the exercise. The "blind" person skis in front and carries out the tasks, while another person, who can see, skis behind and calls out "Stop!" in good time if danger threatens.
I can imagine something similar in fight training, where one or both partners carry out specific exercises while blindfolded.
The purpose of such exercises, in which attention is given to timing, is to develop the kinaesthetic sense and above all space-expanding attentiveness and slow down subjectively perceived time.
This makes it possible to directly experience how I can receive sensual information by "touch" on the one hand and be in direct attentive "contact" with other places on the other, without receiving any ongoing sensual input.
In other words, how I can split my attentiveness and "becoming one with it", arrive at a differentiating spatial image.
Do you also carry out such exercises, and if so, do you already do it with beginners or only later, with advanced students?
Or do you do something similar in isolation from combat, in a more meditational form?
Best wishes
Horst Tiwald
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