Look Left, Gaze Right

[Chris McKinley]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI

[Chris McKinley]

Confucian cultures, and neo-Confucian cultures like we have in CIMA today are collectivist cultures. They tend toward left-hemisphere dominance to varying degrees. Collectivist cultures in general do not celebrate individual thought or dissent from the status quo, and Confucian values in particular both intensify and enshrine this sentiment as preferred doctrine. Individual, dissenting, objective and/or exploratory thought are indirectly marginalized in collectivist cutures in general, and are actively discouraged in Confucian cultures in particular. I put this out there as a little something for mixjourneyman who's recently been asking about the rigid collective resistance and sometimes even hostility toward any kind of thought that doesn't lockstep with the current status quo in IMA.

[BruceP]

Chris, do you still have the PMs I sent you last year (around nov 30)?

There was some miscommunication on my part that I didn't bother to rectify at the time. Before I asked you if you knew of anyone else was working on those ideas, the preceeding lines were my own outline of my work - not SS's

Anyway, you're letting a big ol cat outta the bag and I had to jump in before this thread takes off

[Chris McKinley]

Yessir, shore do! But I would suggest let's just keep that aside for a few pages first. Get some honest first impressions from some, and give certain folks a chance to tell us the whole story on it. Whaddya think?

[BruceP]

ok, cool

[DeusTrismegistus]

That is an awesome video. It actually makes a lot of sense regarding what my teacher does.

[Darthwing Teorist]

Thanks for posting, it helps explain some of my insights.

[Chris McKinley]

You're welcome! That's part of why, as a martial artist, it was so cool to get into neurophysiology as a discipline. That field is where the new insights to training are happening, not the typical martial arts studio. It can be a tough subject, but it's got a gold mine of real information for those curious as to how things could be done even more effectively.

[Bhassler]

Confucian cultures, and neo-Confucian cultures like we have in CIMA today are collectivist cultures. They tend toward left-hemisphere dominance to varying degrees. Collectivist cultures in general do not celebrate individual thought or dissent from the status quo, and Confucian values in particular both intensify and enshrine this sentiment as preferred doctrine. Individual, dissenting, objective and/or exploratory thought are indirectly marginalized in collectivist cutures in general, and are actively discouraged in Confucian cultures in particular. I put this out there as a little something for mixjourneyman who's recently been asking about the rigid collective resistance and sometimes even hostility toward any kind of thought that doesn't lockstep with the current status quo in IMA.

Isn't all culture inherently collectivist in the sense that it is the common acceptance of certain base assumptions and social contracts that forms the culture itself? I wonder if as a culture or subculture becomes more narrowly focused and advanced within a specialty it is not inevitable that it becomes more collectivist. Since the group is defined by increasingly specific parameters, any threat to established beliefs is likely to be intuited as a threat to the group itself as an identifiable subset of the broader culture, and since identification with a group is fairly essential to human survival (it could be considered one of our few strongly active instincts), then it's not surprising that the defense of the group tends to be somewhat reflexive and emphatic. In the case of RSF, I think it's safe to say there's been a pretty significant cultural shift with regards to the "on topic" portion of the list over the last 10 years or so, although the social complexion has remained largely the same.

I'm not sure I'll agree with everything I just wrote tomorrow, but for today I'm avoiding other work I should be doing. I have some ideas about how the video relates to "Look left, gaze right" in heuristic terms and relative to IMA in particular, but I need some time to develop it (and see if I can find a discussion that Shooter started on a similar topic back in the day which at the time passed me by completely).

[Chris McKinley]

Brian,

Isn't all culture inherently collectivist in the sense that it is the common acceptance of certain base assumptions and social contracts that forms the culture itself?

Simple answer? "No". The term itself refers to a culture in which the focus of the balance between individual autonomy and the power of the state to regulate that autonomy is weighted toward the collective. The term becomes meaningless if we remove the context and expand the definition to mean all forms of culture or governance everywhere.

I wonder if as a culture or subculture becomes more narrowly focused and advanced within a specialty it is not inevitable that it becomes more collectivist.

That conclusion is not borne out by history. Both Greek and Roman cultures experienced swings both away and toward collectivism during their 'narrowing of focus' as cultures and their advancement within the specialties of architecture and engineering, for example. China and India, the two strongest examples of collectivist cultures, have each experienced swings toward and away that do not sync in lockstep with periods of drift toward monolithic or diversifying culture.

Since the group is defined by increasingly specific parameters, any threat to established beliefs is likely to be intuited as a threat to the group itself as an identifiable subset of the broader culture, and since identification with a group is fairly essential to human survival (it could be considered one of our few strongly active instincts), then it's not surprising that the defense of the group tends to be somewhat reflexive and emphatic.

Aha! Now you've hit upon the driving factor in creating collectivist environments: identity. No matter the scale, increasing speciation of identity is the most powerful factor in collectivism. IOW, the more strongly the members of the group tie their identities to the group, and the more strongly that group is differentiated from other groups, the more powerful the drive toward collectivism.

In the case of RSF, I think it's safe to say there's been a pretty significant cultural shift with regards to the "on topic" portion of the list over the last 10 years or so, although the social complexion has remained largely the same.

The change you speak of is still almost purely dependent upon and tied to certain individual posters though. If a certain group of fairly identifiable posters do not initiate topics that represent that cultural shift you referenced, those topics do not get brought up.....with insignificant deviation from the pattern.

That said, and perhaps more interestingly, a consideration of how the information in the clip relates to the concept of Look Left, Gaze Right from neijia now takes on a certain increased validity as bolstered by actual science rather than colloquial expression. I'm hoping the conversation will start off in that direction soon.

[Ralteria]

Well whats interesting is a that this whole subject is sort of a dichotomy inside of a dichotomy.

On the one hand you have a the cultural aspect that's being spoken of, what one might consider to be almost a necessary sacrifice to get to the other hand, which is extremely important for more than half of the skills in IMA.

Culturally speaking, a left brained mind set has the advantage being able to preserve things that might otherwise be lost. The language of martial arts that all of us use on a daily basis whether using terms from Chinese or English are of use to convey principles and ideas that aren't easily graspable, or even truly explainable, b/c they are right brained concepts. You can't pin down an experience, energetic or otherwise. It carries a weight that can't be truly passed down by anything other than experience. But it also serves as a hindrance to the same set of ideas that it attempts to convey, as those ideas and experience aren't in the words, can't be explained by them, nor can they impart any sort of skill whatsoever. A logical understanding can actually diminishes and makes the experiences shallow and hollow. One can preserve fruit and make jam...or one can make a mummy. At what point does something help something, and at what point does something hinder it.

In regards to IMA specifically, though it seems as if one cannot specifically try to put a label on work that one might consider to internal. You can classify technique and break things down into nifty little boxes, but it's merely a shadow of the whole. That's why almost all the internal work crap is in poetry. It can't actually be grasped in logical words to really convey properly. I could go into detail (not really, but as an example) about the physical workings of aspects of internal movement, but it's still not it, and you can't *make* it happen from that specific physical knowledge. It's un"graspable". And doesn't work from that specific an aspect. It has to be felt to be grasped. And that same function which could be considered right brained would essentially fall in line with ting jin dong jin, etc.

To a certain extent, there is a leap of faith that needs to be met in order to actually cross the gap to those skills. One that means giving up on being able to understand it in conventional terms because there is a huge danger in missing the mark completely.

Also something that needs to be taken into consideration during all this is 99% of the time we are/were told exactly where to "look" when performing something.

[marqs]

This seems to relate a bit to the systems-thinking video linked to the Steve Morris seminar thread, even though it's presented in that video as quite a rational model.

From training I've noticed the analytical, more structured training benefits a lot from the moments of free "don't have a clue what I'm doing but something tells me this is worth playing around with". They seem to complement each other very well, the focused, thought out practice and the free play, and I thing both need each other. Also conscious training of unconscious reacting seems to work wonders also..

[NoSword]

Good video and a good thread. Let me just add one thing:

Living in Asia, I don't particularly disagree with your evaluation of 'collectivist,' 'Confucian' culture. It can be maddening in a number of ways, some petty, others more serious. But I do think it's only one side of the story. There are a number of ways in which non-Western cultures are substantially more right-brained than Western culture, especially behind closed doors. 'Confucianism' is only the public culture in Asia, and people can behave quite differently one you get to know them well. Nisbett and Wilson's research (http://www.amazon.com/Geography-Thought ... 0743216466) has some interesting (and controversial) things to say on the subject.

Also, living here and studying the language/culture gives you a good perspective on just how rigid, absolutist, inflexible, and rule-bound Western thinking can seem once you get outside of that system.

So I'm not saying that anyone's wrong, just that we have to be careful about making these sorts of generalizations, because things can get complicated if you take a more nuanced view of the situation.

AK

[bailewen]

During my studies of Chinese history, one of the early themes was that China developed on (relatively) more collectivist lines, in part, due to pressure from natural threats. Central China has been a collective agrarian culture longer than most European countries. In the west there was a longer and more persistent nomadic influence and the agrarian shift happened on a smaller scale than in China. What I mean by that is that, even when the shift to agrarian culture happened, the farming was never on the same scale as in China where there was a vastly larger central government managing the whole thing but, far more importantly, the threats from natural disaster that required collective action has always been a more frequent them in Chinese history.

East or west there has always been droughts or plagues or whatnot but massive large scale flooding has been a standard in the Chinese central plains for as long as they have been growing wheat. Even the pre-histories, those "histories" that are largely based in myth, talk about legendary heroes of flood control. It's mainly because the Yellow River, much like the southern end of the Mississippi, when left to its own devices, jumps around a lot. The silt build up can cause it to just jump out of its bed and change it's course fairly suddenly.

It's a very different sort of challenge when compared to, to take and extreme, the challenge of early American's trying to make it out on the frontier.

For many centuries the essential military conflict of China boiled down to a conflict between sedentary subsistence agriculture and the nomadic culture of central Asia. Even the line of The Great Wall is almost identical to the isothermic divide between where you can and can not grow winter wheat. The dividing line between certain crops that allowed the Han Chinese to better withstand military siege ended up being the diving line of The Great Wall. A relatively more collectivist culture developed in an environment where survival meant fighting larges scale floods and withstanding sieges, quintessentially community endeavors.

[DeusTrismegistus]

What this subject brings to my mind is the principle vs technique debate. The analysis by technique involves breaking things down into their component parts and looking at the movements individually. When you approach through the principle idea you are looking at a broader picture that cannot be easily explained. There are many ways that a principle can map onto a technique.