Those were the words my Grand Master spoke.
I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I kept my mouth shut. I was in no position to speak.
The student in front of us was displaying his technique, and the Grand Master was not pleased.
I was a new shifu. Baby black belt is what the senior shifu’s called us new Shifus. Despite the fact that I had worked incredibly hard for a solid decade to attain my esteemed rank, I was nothing to the senior Shifus. And they let me know it, constantly.
I had the privilege of sitting at the table with the Grand Master because I was his favorite. He had taken me under his wing. The ranking Shifus hated me for this. So I watched my step, or I would have to pay later, and payment would be painful.
So I sat quietly and wondered what he was talking about.
Two students were testing in front of us. To me, they both looked very similar. Both had obviously practiced hard. Both moved with speed and grace. Both, to me, fought hard. But he liked one and not the other. I could not discern why.
It wasn’t until years later that I knew. Not until I developed the ability to see it for myself. The skill one had and the other did not was invisible to me. Now it is blatantly obvious.
What my Grand Master was seeing was a very subtle difference in timing and placement of weapons. Yet as subtle as the physical difference was, it revealed a major difference that was going on in one student's brain and not the other.
Visualization
That difference was visualization.
And, as it turns out, without that visualization skill the student's martial arts skills would be rendered useless. he could train hours per day to no avail. If the time came that he needed to defend himself he would not be able to. And that was why my Grand Master was displeased.
That student's teacher had failed him.
In the ancient forms of martial arts, the mind is trained as much, or more than the body. We learn to understand our own brain and we learn to condition it. We learn to quiet the mind. We learn to focus the mind. And then we teach our subconscious mind to react to a threat long before our conscious mind is even aware of it.
And the only effective method of doing this is telling it a story.
My Grand Master called it, “Painting a picture”.
He would stand in front of the class and describe the scene. His voice would slow and draw you into his story. His arms would draw out the scene as he would cautiously look around as if he was seeing the characters himself. Ready for the imminent attack.
A master storyteller at work.
Once we were all enthralled in his story he would then walk us through each movement we would use to defend ourselves from the imaginary attacker. Alternating between keeping us involved through his story and detailing out our technique. Storytell, teach, storytell, teach...
Not only was he using story to teach, he was also developing our visualization skills. And it is these visualization skills that were the ingredient that made it all work. These skills developed our minds and gave us the fighting skills he was trying to embed in us.
The brain is an odd thing. The brain doesn’t know the difference between imagination and reality. Numerous brain mapping studies have shown this. Subjects brains light up in the same way whether they are seeing an object or imagining that same object. For the brain there is no difference.
In the martial arts, we use this fact to train our subconscious minds. The art of storytelling is used to embed skills deep within the subconscious. And it is this embedded visualization skill that my Grand Master was referring to when he said “He has no fight”. The student was not seeing it in his mind. He was only mimicking the movements of the techniques but it was nothing more than a dance. It had none of the mental training embedded. And to him it was obvious.
The ancient arts have used advanced visualization through storytelling for millennia. They have advanced it, well, to an art. It is critical to training. And these simple techniques are a key to training the mind.
And evidence shows that it is the lack of these same skills that are the root of many learning difficulties in children today.
Kinesthetic Storytelling
Storytelling in its best form involves a strong kinesthetic element.
In martial arts, we have fighting forms that re-enact very long fight sequences. They require a highly developed memory to perform.
What is really unique in these is the spatial element. Not only must the practitioner be aware of his own bodies positioning but also his imaginary opponent. All of this changing constantly. It is a complex mental training. All of it using visual and spatial skills. Deeply developing the mind.
Back in these early days, before we knew much about learning challenges, we noticed many of our martial arts students began excelling in academics. It is these forms and the teaching techniques that was eliminating the learning difficulties in our students. And this was long before we realized any of this was happening. We were simply teaching our kung fu. As we did it children and adults alike very obviously developed their minds. Their learning difficulties faded away.
Much more understanding of why this was happening was to come later, but this was the start.