by Nick Lowry
As we enter Randori (literally chaos practice) it is easy to be overwhelmed and feel lost. We are wandering through unknown territory.
Kata and Kihon (including randori sequence exercises, chains, renkzoku waza, etc) indeed all structured exercises that comprise a martial arts form or style, from the informal ad hoc type to the time honored and traditional, offer us a sense of direction and a comfort in “knowing where we are at” in relation to the practice. In relation to offense and defense, in relation to right and wrong, in relation theory and projection; they serve as maps to the territory.
Some maps are better than others, depending on your purposes and your paradigms. The variety of perspectives demand that many maps contradict each other — some presuppose an attacker with superior speed, strength, skill, and good luck. Others are working out details for overcoming resistance and scoring a competitive point. Still others have theories that are far more esoteric or idiosyncratic than I have been able to fathom (this is either because they are indeed unfathomable to anyone other than their inventor or because my own approach to them has been too cursory and shallow– time will tell). Some forms specialize in breaking all the rules that others hold inviolable. That doesn’t make them worse or wrong, just different– rather than focus on normative curves they concentrate on outliers– both are “true” but both are different. In all this radical variety, one thing is certain, each formal practice specializes in perpetuating their own version of “reality,” and each functions as its own standard for verification and correctness.
Because we spend so much of our time in studying martial arts working within these structures, going on guided tours, maps in hand, sight seeing so to speak; we can begin to mistake the map for the territory and herein lies some of what can feel so uncomfortable.
Please understand, that no matter how complete, detailed, elegant, or well thought out (according to whatever standards of “well thought out” you are using) a Map you are using; the Map by definition cannot be the Territory it describes. However you try to pin down randori and its inherent chaos, and make it a predictable, manageable object that you can understand and reference on your map of kata; no matter how much exhaustive detail or cogent analysis you give to it, the chaos itself , the territory will trump your hand– it is only a matter of time and probability in action.
This doesn’t make the map useless or pointless as some immature advocates of the JKD world might argue– it just recognizes the limitations inherent in the map as a map.
Bottom line is that the discomfort of chaos tends to be proportional to the level of fixation with the orderly map– If you let the map become a crutch for you, a place to hide behind, or a “measure of all things true and correct” then chaos (which after all is completely inevitable on planet earth) will seem truly frightening.
In my experience, the way forward with chaos, the way out of the frightening dilemma is to practice and cultivate a sort of freedom of mind more in line with the zen school of psychological conditioning than with any of the rationalist agendas– who all seek to find comfort in the bigger better kata, the sharper keener weapon, the better way to nail down chaos and feel cozy again. Zen invites us to practice turning toward chaos, lean into the scary places and methodically cultivate the centered, calm, moment to moment activity of perception without indulging in much neo-cortex level brain function, a sort of awake quietness, what has been called Mushin (no-mind) in traditional circles — and then acting and reacting from that internal stance, that kokoro no kame (posture of the heart). This is Musashi’s “no concept or design” and some describe this as “moving with heavenly Ki “or “staying centered in the moment.” Language does not really do it justice (another map/territory problem there) All I can say for sure is that it works if you work it. And that after awhile you might find that from the mushin mode of operating, far from being a scary and uncomfortable experience, it turns out that chaos is very good news.
