Revelry in the Dark
My training space at home is currently being occupied, not enough space in my room, and can't be stomping around in the living room, leaves me with my only option to do forms … outside? Not a problem, Fall is the perfect time to do forms, no bugs, not too hot, beautiful fall foliage. Except it's 8pm in mid October. Which means it's darker than a raven in a black hole outside. So dark in fact that I can barely tell I'm holding my sword except for the weight in my hand and the sound of the blade swishing past my ears. Here's what I discovered while doing my forms in the dark:
1) My balance got super out of whack
I'm not sure if this is due to the darkness or the uneven lumps in the ground tipping me off balance, but I'm very interested in trying to do some of my forms with my eyes closed (during open training so that I don't bump into any one, and there's a significantly smaller group of people that would see me splat onto the mats). I know we should be able to stay in a straight line while slide stepping, even if our eyes are closed, so the same should apply to forms right? I really want to try it and see how it will change how I'm perceiving my centering through the form, and how I receive feedback from my extremities, because it felt like my limbs were flying around and my center became a Beyblade.
2) My techniques were incredibly sloppy
I think the fact that I felt "hidden" from everything, including myself, flipped on this switch in my brain that was saying "no one is watching, no one will know if you cut a few corners here and there". Since I couldn't see my limbs it was harder to asses if my angles were correct, or the vectors in my transitions were clean. -> This made me realize I need to pay more attention to how something is feeling, rather than always looking for feedback in the mirrors.
3) I was very distracted and even though I became aware of my lack of focus, that didn't mean I could stop it
Being out in the country, near the forest, at night, my monkey brain activated and I was listening for rustles in the bushes, looking for shapes moving between the trees, and feeling adrenaline dump into my blood whenever sounds came a bit too close for comfort. This made it very hard to focus on my intent and techniques, and even though sometimes I would become aware that my brain was moving into "get ready to fight this potential predator"-mode rather than "fight this invisible opponent"-mode I couldn't get a grip back on the reins and refocus onto the present. -> This made me realize I still have to work on staying in the moment during my forms, and practice re-focusing once I have lost that thread, as quickly as possible.
4) I now have a great reference for what a good "head snap" should be
See point 3) for monkey brain activation, one sound in particular was very loud and very close and unconsciously my head whipped around to look at it as I felt my body tense to get ready for … something. Little scary in the moment, but excellent reference for the future anytime I feel like a "snap" is not fast enough, or doesn't connect/initiate into the next technique.
So although the reps I got in probably didn't help me improve my techniques, I don't feel like they were wasted, or I was just going through the motions to get my numbers up for the day, because I think I learned a lot by putting my training into a weird circumstance tonight.
Kayley Burke
