Two Creatures ...

Rigan was talking to a few of us this morning - about how we are composed of 'two creatures' - the mind - and the body. The mind - may fully remember a technique; it may understand how it works; the underlying mechanics and leverage of it, etc - but that doesn't mean much when we lack the physical experience of the technique. That's where the other 'creature' comes into play - the body (muscle memory). This creature needs to feel the success of the technique; because if it has a bad or negative experience - say by trying the new technique against a larger, stronger or more experienced grappler - then it's natural tendency is to want to discard it as an ineffective survival strategy. Rigan says we need to 'trick' the physical creature into accepting the new technique as being effective - and the best way to do this is to try it with beginners - ideally, lighter and smaller novice students, until we get the 'taste of success'. The mental creature is the easy one to convince; it is the physical creature that we need to trick - we do this by repetition, drilling and easy and progressive trials against opponents who present little or no difficulty. JBW