Go Back, It's a Trap!

Here's an excerpt from an interesting article. Kendo is the Japanese counterpart to classical fencing. Unfortunately, we have had no counterpart to the Japanese iaido. 

But I'm working on that. 

Thanks to Maitre Ric Alvarez for sending this along.

aac

For many sports, the ultimate goal would be to go one step further and make it onto the Olympic schedule. But not in the case of kendo. Many in the sport’s global community are set against that, saying it would spell the end of kendo as they know it.

Kendo, which means “way of the sword,” is a Japanese martial art that uses a bamboo sword and involves rigorous training geared toward developing both combat technique and character by instilling virtues like courage, honor and etiquette.

If kendo were a straightforward contest like table tennis or archery, making it conform to International Olympic Committee standards would not be difficult. The sport, however, has a highly subjective scoring system that values form and execution as much as the result.

Unlike Olympic fencing, which keeps score with electronic sensors that light up when the target is hit, a game-winning perfect strike in kendo, known as ippon, cannot be measured electronically; instead, it is a judgment call made by at least two out of the three referees.

The ingredients of that perfection are so nebulous that referees are notorious for bad calls. Nevertheless, for many kendoka, a referee’s call is preferable to the flash of a light; for them, the technology would degrade the beauty of victory.

A judo victory also used to be determined solely by ippon, a “perfect throw.” But now, following I.O.C. intervention, judo competitors can score points in a variety of ways that along with the introduction of weight classes and other changes, compromise its essence, some purists say.

“For kendo to become an Olympic sport, it would have to be simplified considerably,” said Alexander Bennett, editor in chief of the Kendo World Journal and an associate professor of Japanese studies at Kansai University in Osaka, Japan. “The really important part of scoring is the process of initiating the attack, identifying a target, striking that target with correct posture and full spirit and then showing continued physical and mental alertness.”

If the scoring were simplified, Bennett said, kendo would lose “its aesthetic value, and as a result, its value as a means for personal cultivation, replaced by a winning-at-all-costs mentality, which is pretty much what is considered to have happened to Olympic judo.”

READ THE REST AT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/sports/24iht-kendo24.html?_r=1&smid=fb-share 

Grok THIS...

 

One of my favorite books is Robert Heinlein’s 1961 science fiction classic, Stranger in a Strange Land.

One of the reasons I like this book so much is Heinlein’s introduction of the “Fair Witness.” A Fair Witness is a professional who is specially trained to observe events and to report back those observations. The Fair Witness only reports exactly what he or she sees and hears. They make no assumptions, extrapolations, or inferences. No emotions, biases or prejudices. Nor do they draw any conclusions from what they observe. (As Joe Friday would say, “The facts, Ma’am. Just the facts.”)

In one scene, a Fair Witness is asked the color of a house. The witness responds, “It’s white on this side,” referring to the side that she can see. The Fair Witness makes no assumptions about the color of the house on the sides she cannot see. Further, after observing a different side of the house, the Fair Witness does not assume that the previously viewed side was still the same color it was when previously viewed – even if that previous viewing was mere moments ago.

Unfortunately, this profession is still a fictional one.

However, you may note that the role of the “judge” in a fencing match is EXACTLY the same as the role of the Fair Witness. Judging requires that you report only what you see. Not what you think happened, not what “must” have happened.

Only what you see and nothing else.

This is one reason why I don’t use the electrical scoring apparatus. It deprives students of the opportunity to develop their ability to observe objectively. The ability to observe objectively is an essential component of critical thinking.  You must first become aware of your biases -- personal and cultural – and then practice eliminating them.

The practice part is important.

You get physically stronger by consciously, regularly and progressively challenging your body to do more than it has done before. Run faster. Jump higher. Lift more weight.

You get mentally stronger, and morally stronger in the same way: by consciously, regularly and progressively engaging in observation and analysis at a more demanding level than you have previously done.

To learn, to grow, to achieve excellence, kiss your “comfort zone” good-bye.

 aac

On the Reinvention of the Wheel

There’s a persistent myth in history about the “Lost Colony” of Roanoake that disappeared, the story goes, without a trace -- and a shiver goes up the spine...

The thing is, there’s no mystery at all.

The colonists didn’t “disappear.” They simply went back to Croatoan and, indeed, left a message that that’s where they had gone. The “mystery” was contrived a couple hundred years later, for reasons of the contrivers’ own.  The “lost” colony was never really lost at all. (Don’t take my word for it; look it up.)

One of the most persistent myths about swordplay is that there has been no “line of succession” from the fencing masters of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries to the fencing masters of the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.  That is, some would have you believe that the knowledge of how to handle a rapier effectively had been “lost,” and had to be “rediscovered” by modern researchers who then had to reconstitute the meaning of it all by poring over ancient texts with a sword in one hand and a dictionary in the other, by the light of the midnight oil.

That’s incredibly silly and more than a little dishonest.

It reminds me very much of impudent adolescents who think they’ve “discovered” sex, and attempt to keep it all secret because their parents would never understand.  It never dawns on these upstarts that their parent too have had sex – or these kiddies wouldn’t be here to “discover” it in the first place. These are children who deny their forebears’ sexuality in order to keep it for themselves, who would be “traumatized” at accidentally witnessing their parents having sex, and no doubt completely astounded by the width, depth and breadth of their parents’ sexual knowledge and experience.

Because they cannot comprehend their parents’ sexuality, instead of simply asking their parents about sexual things, they become researchers who pore over ancient texts do “rediscover”  “lost” knowledge of fellatio, frottage and other earthy delights. I can see them now, book in one hand ---- no, belay that.

Recently, I re-read Ridolfo Capo Ferro’s  “Gran Simulacro….”  as translated by

Mr. Tom Leoni. Now, I don’t have any quibble with Mr. Leoni    I don’t know the gentleman, and I’m not suggesting that he is one of those misguided persons who believes the “lost fencing colony” myth. I think his translation is as good as any, (indeed, I just ordered a copy of his translation of Giganti) and I think he had some worthwhile ideas on structuring the text, adding notes, etc. I’d say he did a nice job, overall – at least it all makes perfect fencing sense.

How do I know it all makes perfect fencing sense?

Because I’ve been teaching the very same things for several decades.

You see, I had the privilege and pleasure of learning my craft from Maitre Jean-Jacques Gillet, back when fencing still resembled swordplay, back before the “sport” of fencing departed so completely from the combat logic and verisimilitude on which fencing practice was once based.

I also had the wonderful opportunity to spend time with my very esteemed colleague, the late Dr. William Gaugler, and compare notes with his Italian method.

There’s utterly nothing in Capo Ferro that Maitre Gillet didn’t teach routinely, nor is there anything that Maestro Gaugler didn’t also incorporate into his teaching.

This should come as no surprise – but I know, to some, it does.

A sword is a sword is a sword.

That tool hasn’t changed all that much over the centuries, because the job it was created to do remains the same.

It’s all still there.

A bit more refined. A little tweak here and a little tweak there.

But, fundamentally, it’s the same old same old.

So why do some people think fencing had to be “rediscovered?”

When you listen to Bach, or Brubeck, what do you hear?

Me, I hear scales. Patterns. Infinitely varied, but very recognizable, scales and patterns.

I didn’t always hear them. I had to become a better educated musician before I could hear those connections, appreciate the similarities.

Likewise, you have to be a relatively educated swordsman before you can appreciate that you are doing in 2012, fundamentally the same actions they were doing in 1612.

The same scales and patterns.

Maybe in a different key.

If you want to be a doctor, you don’t pore over ancient texts to rediscover “lost” knowledge of medicine.

You go to medical school where they can teach you.

If you want to learn to wield a sword effectively, you don’t pore over ancient texts to rediscover “lost” knowledge of fencing.

You go to a fencing master who can teach you.

But you’d better hurry. It’s a dying breed.

aac

What is Good Teaching?

This is an excerpt from the article "What is Good Teaching?  A Reflection" by Robert Freeman.
Just too good not to share.


aac

As a public school teacher, I've come to believe that good teaching comes down to six essential practices. I call them Inducement, Conveyance, Meta-Learning, Empowerment, Modeling, and Application. Just as when all eight amino acids must be present for a protein to form, all six of these activities must be present for Good Teaching (and Good Learning) to occur.

Let's look at what each of these tasks entails and how they add up to Good Teaching.

The Inducement is the teacher's solicitation to the student, the seduction to come and learn.  It can take a thousand forms, from asking the student what she's interested in to showing her what you're interested in. The first art of good teaching lies in knowing the student well enough to know which form of Inducement will entice her to want to learn. For, until this occurs, there is simply talking and resistance.

And Inducement doesn't end once the student shows interest and begins to learn. Far from it.  Inducement is needed for even the highest performing students — to push them to still greater heights, to stretch themselves to do things they had never believed they might be able to do. And it is needed for every new lesson and for every new assignment until the student becomes self-starting.

After Inducement comes Conveyance. An impoverished version of Conveyance is what

passes for most teaching today.  Seven times five equals thirty-five. Sentences must begin

with a capital letter. In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Artful Conveyance is, in fact, much more challenging than this admitted caricature might suggest. Few people learn by simply listening or reading and reciting.

Good Conveyance means devising a hundred different ways for the students to engage the material. They need multi-sensory stimuli — pictures, songs, poems, riddles, models, posters, dances, skits, debates, lectures, and more.  They need emotional connections with the materials, connections to past learnings, associations with other knowledge they're developing. And they need all of this for all of their subjects!

By engaging the whole student, good Conveyance not only develops solid understanding of individual subjects, it brings out the deep connections between subjects. How proportion in math is related to harmony in music. How science, by reducing dependence on authority, gave rise to individualism. How cadence and rhyme and symbols serve not only poetry but demagoguery. Good conveyance makes learning come alive by helping the student make new connections — find relevance — as he encounters his learning.

After Conveyance comes Meta-Learning. This means teaching the student to be aware of

how he is learning and to develop specific learning strategies for different learning situations.  This sounds abstract but all of us do this as adults, whether we know it or not.

When I encounter a difficult passage in reading I say, "OK, let's take this one step at a time.  What is the subject of this sentence? What is the verb? Ok, now what's the object?" And eventually, I decipher the complex (or more likely, poorly written) passage. This is Meta-Learning:  using explicit strategies to learn how to learn. It is indispensable if life-long learning is to develop.

Teaching Meta-Learning requires not only a deep understanding of the subject itself, but of the learning process as well, and how the student can apply one to master the other. Once started, the meta-enabled student can begin bootstrapping himself to higher and higher levels of knowledge and mastery. The best readers are skilled meta-readers. The best math students are skilled meta-mathematicians. Those students who enjoy learning the most, who stay with it longest, and go with it farthest are good Meta-Learners.

After Meta-Learning comes Empowerment. Empowerment means constructing the

environment where the student can successfully affirm to herself her competence with what she's learned. A first grader might paint recognizable human figures and then clean up the finger paints afterwards. An eighth grader might write a book review analyzing plot, character, and theme while using the proper form of an essay, grammar, and spelling. A twelfth grader might describe the reversal between America's role in its Revolutionary War and the Vietnam War, and then use this understanding to explain our failure in Vietnam and our enduring perplexity and angst about it.

By providing the venue for demonstrating competence, Empowerment allows for the coming of maturity as a learner and, ultimately, as a person. Such maturity flows from “ownership" in the outcome of one's efforts, responsibility for one's fruits. Done well, Empowerment is the midwifeing into autonomy for each stage of accomplishment that the student has mastered.

Next, there is Modeling. Through all of the prior stages, the teacher acts as a model of the desired outcome. She is the incarnation of the curiosity, composure, persistence, intelligence, integrity and patience and all the other deep character virtues which are the true ends — and the true evidence — of a good education.

Of all of the six practices, Modeling is perhaps the most demanding. Every minute, the student senses in the teacher whether she is authentic to her words, whether she walks her talk or whether she is simply mouthing facts and containing the chaos. The students cannot articulate what they are sensing in this process but, as with the Judge and obscenity, they know it when they see it. And when it's there, more than anything else, they want to be like it.

They want to be like it. The attraction to authenticity is inescapable.  Surely, it is one of the most powerful compulsions in all of human development. Authenticity comes when teachers are true to their own natures and embody their own highest standards — both as teachers and as human beings. It comes when we treat with profound respect the uniqueness and the dignity of every student. For surely, each of them are as unique and worthy of respect as we are.

When students see that their teachers are like this, no matter what the grade or subject, they will perform heroically for them (which calls back Inducement). For they want to be

acknowledged, they want to be esteemed by that which they know as true.  It is the first step to becoming true once again themselves.

The final practice in Good Teaching is Application.  Up until now, everything has occurred in the classroom.  But here, students take what they have learned and put it into practice in the real world.  Only there do they learn whether what they’ve done in the classroom has real-world value.  As the old Chinese adage says, “Knowledge that comes from a book stays in the book.”  But if it works, if what the students have learned makes a difference, they become bigger people, right in front of your eyes.

A practical example is illustrative.  Five years ago, my students were studying poverty in the developing world.  They were frustrated at their own impotence to address it.  So we decided to ask every student in our school to give just one dollar so we could build a school in the developing world.  Well, it took more dollars than our school had, but with the help of four other schools we raised $9,000 and built a classroom in a remote Kenyan village.

Since then, with 70 other schools joining us, we’ve built 12 classrooms, in Kenya, Nicaragua, Indonesia, and Nepal.  In the process, the students have learned not only the academics of world poverty, but the character traits of compassion, cooperation, and creativity.  And they feel a competence, an efficacy in the world, unlike anything they will ever learn in the classroom.

The genius of Good Teaching is when all six of these practices — Inducement, Conveyance, Meta-Learning, Empowerment, Modeling, and Application — all occur at precisely the right time, over and over again throughout the lesson, throughout the day, throughout the year, throughout the student's educational career. Every student is addressed with exactly the right touch they need at exactly the right moment in time, and all at the same time!

It is this right-touch, right-timing, inclusion-for-all, and engagement-with-the-world challenge that makes Good Teaching the incomparable art form that it really is. It is what makes Good Teaching so difficult to master but such an ennobling act (for both the student and the teacher) when it actually does occur.  And it doesn’t come from shallow experience, superficial commitment, or a focus on profits.

To be sure, every good teacher will have a different name for these acts. Each will perform them differently, with different emphases at different times. But as with Shakespeare's rose, by any other name they are just as sweet.

It is through such Good Teaching that students develop not just potent academic or vocational competencies but unshakable conviction of their fundamental worthiness for whatever great challenges they ultimately choose to take up in life. That is the true objective, the true proof, and the true reward of Good Teaching.

from What is Good Teaching? A Reflection

by Robert Freeman

Published on Sunday, May 6, 2012 by Common Dreams

TEACHING WORKSHOP

There aren’t many fencing masters around, anymore.

Lots of fencing coaches, if that’s your taste.

But fencing masters?

Few and far between.

Very few people have access to a bona fide fencing master who can teach them the swordmasters’ craft,  and very few are in a position to uproot and relocate to apprentice with a fencing master, even if they could find one.

So how do you learn to be a fencing teacher?

Typically, we see the erroneous assumption that a skillful performer is automatically a skillful teacher, and the most “advanced” fencer in a given group assumes “teaching” responsibilities for the newcomers.

Big mistake.

I know this because I "taught" myself to play the guitar and in so doing acquired some very bad habits. I could have avoided these errors if I had taken lessons from a good teacher to begin with. There's just some things about the guitar I needed to know that a good guitar teacher could have taught me, right up front.  For example, did you know that you don't have to blow into it?

We’ve gotten a few requests for something like this, so I thought we’d give it a try.

We’re going to host a weekend workshop for fencing instructors and aspiring fencing instructors who want to improve their teaching knowledge and skills.

If it goes well, we’ll hold additional workshops more frequently on a regular schedule.

No doubt about it, the best way to learn how to teach is to apprentice yourself to a master or attend an intensive program at an academy of arms, the way I did. There’s no real substitute for that.  But if that’s impossible for you, what can you do? Attending workshops like this one seems like a workable alternative.

Right now, we have two workshop dates scheduled:  Saturday August 11 & Sunday August 12, 2012,  and Saturday December 29 & Sunday December 30^,  2012

The Saturday sessions will run 10am-6pm. Sunday sessions will be 8am -4pm

These will be here in our Salle d’Lion, in beautiful, sunny Ithaca, NY

Our tentative list of topics includes:

• Structure of the individual lesson – (this is the backbone of what we’ll do)
• Structure of the group lesson – (this is the other principle focus)
• Structure and function of the Etude – (we’re the only ones who do this; I’ll show you how we do it and why)
• Stages of Learning
• Learning Domains
• Early Pattern Recognition
• Sensitizing and De-sensitizing
• Technique, Tactics and Strategy
• Chivalry and the Heroic Ideal

The workshop will include lecture/discussion, but the primary focus is hands-on practice of specific teaching skills that you can put to work for yourself and your students immediately.

We figure $200 tuition per person per weekend sounds about right, but we’re talking about “discounts” for those who attend succeeding workshops so the more often you come to learn, the cheaper it gets.

To apply, please send me an email or an application letter detailing your relevant training and experience along with a deposit of $100 by July 1^st 2012.  If we accept you, the deposit is non-refundable; if we don’t accept you, we’ll return your deposit and tell you why. If we don’t get enough qualified applicants, we’ll cancel and return all deposits, no harm, no foul.

You’re on your own for food and lodgings, but Ithaca is full of good places to stay and places to eat.

I’d be very interested in your thoughts, questions, comments -- including any particular topics you’d like to have us cover.

aac

Teacher or Coach?

Maitre Charles Selberg is, I think, about as good a fencing master as you’re likely to find. His 1976 book, FOIL, is one of my favorites, and he wrote it back when the “sport” of fencing still had some relationship to the use of a sword. He has a video-clip in which he defines the difference between a teacher and a coach, and I strongly recommend that, if you have an intention of being either one, you watch this little video. More than once.

Probably more than twice.

When you try to be all things to all people, you generally wind up being nothing to anyone.  Being a good coach requires a certain philosophy, skill set, and body of knowledge. Being a good teacher also requires a certain philosophy, skill set, and body of knowledge

They are not, however, the same philosophy, skill set, and body of knowledge.

In many ways, those two philosophies, skill sets and bodies of knowledge are contradictory.

Never try to ride more than one horse at a time.

You can be a good coach or you can be a good teacher.

Very few people can do both.

Most of the people who think they can do both are really not doing either one very well.

Of those few people who actually can do both, almost none can do both at the same time, and almost certainly not with the same student. I say “almost” because it is possible. But  I’ve only personally seen it done successfully once.

I never had much interest in being a “coach.”

And that interest was limited to demonstrating that a properly designed training program, once established and religiously followed, would unavoidably result in self-perpetuating excellence.

But the actually winning of athletic contests?

Meh, not so much.

Victory over others is transient; victory over oneself is permanent.

It’s always been hard for me to take “sports” very seriously, and this was the cause of no small amount of consternation when I was a kid and was playing them. I did the training, did my best, because that’s what I do, and I knew the other kids on the team were counting on me to do my part.

Playing was fun. It meant I didn’t have to go home. It meant I often got to skip last period. It meant I had a little advantage when it came to picking up chicks.

But that was about it.

I tried to fake it, just to get along, but I couldn’t summon up the life-or-death feeling for it that makes you tear you hair out, wail, and gnash your teeth if you lose. I just never could get excited about any activity that requires a ball. My dog could catch a ball.  To me it always seemed like if you need a ball, it’s because you don’t have any of your own.

Anyway, “coach” was a title that never appealed to me. Maybe I just never had an inspirational coach as a role model.

But I did have one terrific teacher.

An English teacher.

She profoundly influenced my life.

She treated me with respect, when I wasn’t respected by anyone else.

She treated me as if I were worth something, when everyone else was telling me I wasn’t. She acted like I mattered, when everyone else acted like I didn’t.

She talked to me. More, she listened to me.

And she knew how to listen between the lines, too.

One day, when things had been particularly bad for me at home, she asked me to stay after class a moment. When everyone else had gone, she hugged me, and said, “Don’t give up. Don’t you give up.”  I thought I was going to shatter into a zillion tiny shards.  She was the glue that held me together.  I suppose today if a teacher hugged a student, they’d throw her in jail.

She encouraged me – and she also challenged me. She would cross-examine me in class, put me on the spot in a way she didn’t with anyone else, and some kids thought she was picking on me.

She wasn’t.

She was teaching me how to dance. The dance is called excellence.

It’s not exaggerating one little bit to say she saved my life.

So I have a debt of honor to pay. And I know just how she’d like me to pay it, too.

Maybe I can do for somebody else a little bit of what she did for me.

Maybe I can’t.

But I’d sure like to try.

That’s my personal reason for being a teacher.

I also have a philosophical reason for teaching.

I teach because I don’t know how to build bombs.

(You guys from Homeland Security who are unconstitutionally eaves-dropping can just relax and stand down. I’m only using exaggeration to make a point.)

I believe that ignorant, weak, cowardly, greedy people are easy to enslave -- and they make good slaves, too. Unquestioningly obedient.  Hell, some even like being slaves. No decisions to make, and no personal responsibility to take for any of the hurt or harm you may do. You just do what you’re told to do, in mindless bliss. Just “doing your job. Just “following orders.”

On the other hand, people who value Truth and know how to find it, people who are

physically and morally courageous, people who care about others as much as they care about themselves – those people don’t make very good slaves at all. In fact, they are almost impossible to enslave -- and it’s a real chore to keep them enslaved, if you do.

You can’t get unquestioning obedience from them.

Sometimes you can’t get obedience at all.

All you can do is kill them.

And that may not prove to be such an easy task, either.

You could say I teach as a “subversive activity.”

Good teaching challenges students to think critically, to question the way things are and why they’re that way, to imagine and consider other possibilities. It encourages students to think beyond the conventional wisdom of popular culture, and to critically examine the “official story,” the mythologized version of history that they are spoon-fed by the mainstream media that is owned and controlled by the power elite to serve their own ends.

That’s about as subversive as you can get, daddy-o.

When I teach, I’m interested not only in enabling you to hold your sword up, but also to hold your head up. I want you explore and embrace excellence, truthfulness, loyalty and benevolence because those things are the roots of freedom and justice.

Freedom and justice.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

aac

You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

 

If there’s one way that my teaching differs from others’ it’s that our practice is integrative.  We don’t study fencing and nothing else. We study fencing and everything else. We explore the connections between the sword and diverse other arts, sciences and disciplines, and the ways in which foundational principles and lessons learned from sword practice, manifest in a wide variety of other fields. 

In my opinion, it is only the ability to apply what you have learned from fencing to non-fencing situations that gives fencing relevance, even importance. 

After all, we don’t fight duels anymore, do we?

Back in around 1964, Bill Medley & Bobby Hatfield (The Righteous Brothers) had a huge hit with a song, penned by the team of Barry Mann, Phil Spector and Cynthia Weil, called “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin.”  Here are some lines from the lyrics:

You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips.

And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips….

Now there's no welcome look in your eyes when I reach for you.

And now you're starting to criticize little things I do.

It makes me just feel like crying, (baby).

'Cause baby, something in you is dying…..

As you can tell, this is a plaintive and poignant song about love and heartbreak.

It’s also a song about Early Pattern Recognition.

As I’ve noted elsewhere Early Pattern Recognition – EPR, for short – is the fighter’s stock in trade.  Let’s define those terms.

For our purposes, a “pattern” is an inextricably-linked sequence of events which must occur in a particular – and therefore predictable – order.  There may be many events in the sequence, or there may be only a few. There must be at least two.

To “recognize” the pattern means to know what the individual events are that make up the sequence and in what order they occur.

By “early,” we mean being able to accurately predict the final event in the sequence from recognizing the preceding ones. How early is early? It depends. If there are 10 events in a sequence, recognizing the pattern after event number 5 is earlier than recognizing the pattern at event 9, but later than recognizing the pattern at event 3.

Ideally, the pattern includes a sine qua non event. That is, some event that indicates the nature of the pattern, always indicates the nature of the pattern and never indicates anything else. If X, then Y and always Y; and if Y, then X and always X.  In practice, all patterns are not perfectly clear or perfectly reliable. Nor is the race always to the swift or the battle to the strong, as Damon Runyon noted, but that’s the way to bet.

The earlier you recognize the pattern, the more time you have to respond. That is, with “advance warning,” you can select, prepare and execute your preferred response from among a wide range of possible responses, and act appropriately and adequately.

Without advance warning, you are re-acting to your opponent’s action, always playing “catch-up,”and forever allowing your opponent to be the locus of control of your behavior, rather than the other way around.  “Catch-up” means relying on the speed of your startle reflex.

If one runner starts the race before a second runner, that second runner will have to be much faster than the first in order to compensate for the first runner’s head-start and get to the finish line before him.  It isn’t impossible. Drawing one card to fill and inside straight isn’t impossible, either. It’s just not something you bet the ranch on.

Early pattern recognition is a specific type of  situational awareness which M.R. Endsley defines as "the perception of elements in the environment within a volume of time and space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their status in the near future."  EPR simply means that the perception, comprehension and projection occur at or near the beginning of a sequence of environmental changes. Or you might say that situational awareness is what allows early pattern recognition.

Here’s an example from music:

I bring in a new song for the band to play.

The first guy I show it to looks at, walking through it as he talks through it. “Let’s see…,” he says, “The first measure is C;  second measure is C, too; third measure is C; and then the fourth measure, that’s also C; fifth measure is an F; sixth measure is F; then the seventh measure is a C and the eighth measure, that’s C; the ninth measure goes to G; the tenth measure is F; the eleventh measure is C again and the twelfth measure goes d minor to G.”

He’s absolutely right. He plays it through correctly playing concentrating on each measure in turn, eyes on the page.

The second cat I show it to says, “Four measures of C, two measures of F, 2 measures of C; one measure of G; one measure of F; one measure of C and one measure two beats of d minor and 2 beats of G.”

He’s absolutely right, too. He plays the tune through only occasionally glancing at the page for reference.

The third player I show it to says, “Standard 12-bar blues in C with a II-V-I turn around. Cool.”  After that he plays the piece flawlessly without referring to the page at all, concentrating instead on the more important issue of getting the brunette seated at the bar to buy him a drink.

All these musicians had pattern recognition. But only the last player had the early pattern recognition that I’m talking about.  And you can see the obvious benefit in this context.

I suppose I should use a fencing example next.

Every sword cut has two phases: the preparation phase and the execution phase. A cut cannot be executed without a preparation phase. The preparation phase must precede the execution phase. By recognizing the first event in the pattern (the preparation) you can accurately predict the second event in the pattern (the execution) and thereby select an adequate and appropriate response.

But there’s more.

Perhaps, in order to prepare and execute the cut, your opponent must adopt a particular posture or position. To the extent that this posture or position is inextricably linked to the preparation and cut to follow, it also becomes a part of the pattern, an event which you can recognize and from which you can accurately predict the subsequent events in the pattern.

Here’s an example dedicated to the guys in my old neighborhood, in my ex-hometown.

1. A man faces you on the street, his brow knitted, mouth down-curled in a scowl. Teeth set. There is a bulge under his jacket just to the right of center of the waistband of his trousers.

2. He suddenly assumes a crouched stance with his left hand grabbing and lifting up the bottom edge of his jacket.

3. With his right hand, he reaches under his jacket and grasps the grip of a handgun that is tucked into the waistband of his trousers.

4. He pulls the handgun free.

5. He aims it at you.

6. He pulls the trigger.

7. The bullet hits you.

Where in this chain of events might you like to respond adequately and appropriately?

Is it necessary to wait until the bullet hits you before you understand what’s happening?

That’s possible.

There are people who have been shot while standing frozen in fear or disbelief while it happened (deer-in-the-headlights response). To be sure the “this can’t possibly be happening” response is not at all uncommon.

But an alert, well-trained person would respond by event number 2 in the sequence.

The sudden crouch of a man drawing a gun is a very reliable predictor of subsequent events. No one goes for a wallet that way, or a comb, or parking change. Not everyone going for a gun crouches that way, but everyone who crouches that way is going for a gun. 

An even better-trained person might respond at event number 1 in the sequence, recognizing the emotional arousal, aggressive expression and tell-tale bulge above the waistband that means, no, he’s not just happy to see you.

Here’s an example from another kind of fighting: fire-fighting.

A backdraft is very dangerous event which has injured or even killed firefighters.

It’s an explosion which occurs when oxygen-starved combustible gasses, heated to above the ignition point,  are suddenly provided with oxygen – usually by someone opening a door or breaking a window.

There are characteristic signs that backdraft conditions exist: Yellow or brown smoke, and especially smoke which exits small holes in puffs which are drawn back in again giving the appearance of “breathing;” and windows which appear brown or black from the outside. 

A well-trained firefighter constantly monitors the changes in the environment so that when the first tiny “puffs” of smoke appear at the edges of a door or window, that firefighter immediately recognizes the backdraft pattern and responds with adequate and appropriate action.

Now allow me to get the dramatic conclusion of this little discourse with one more example of early pattern recognition, and, in my opinion, a critical one. It’s an example that some of my students find very disturbing, and so they should.

Dr. Lawrence Britt compared the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), and found that they had 14 elements in common. Among these are:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military

Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

7. Obsession with National Security

Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

9. Corporate Power is Protected

The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Using Dr. Britt’s checklist it’s possible to compare and contrast a given country – let’s say, the United States of America – with one of the fascist models, such as Hitler’s Germany.

Some Americans might bristle at such a comparison. “But we’re not herding thousands of citizens into cattle cars to take them off to concentration camps!” they protest.

No. Indeed, we’re not.

At least, not yet.

And neither was Adolf Hitler  --  in 1938.

We are, at the moment, at an earlier point in the event sequence. Hitler’s death camps were the final event in the sequence.

It isn’t necessary to wait until the bullet strikes you to recognize the pattern of a threat and take appropriate action to prevent it, and neither is it necessary to wait until mass imprisonments and/or mass “extrajudicial killings” are occurring in America before taking adequate and appropriate action to prevent it.

“Absolute proof” that your pattern recognition is 100% accurate can only come with the unfolding of the final event in the sequence – and then it’s too late to act.

It isn’t just “pattern recognition” that we’re interested in, but early pattern recognition.

The earlier, the better.

History teaches us that early pattern recognition could have saved many millions of innocent lives from the predations of psychopathic tyrants, had the populace responded adequately and appropriately at the first sign of trouble.

I submit that one of the most valuable things about the sword is that it cultivates your sensitivity to patterns, thereby enhancing your capacity for early pattern recognition. It also, I hope, promotes early pattern recognition as a general “habit.”

You never know when that may save your life.

aac