That ancient Kernel ...

All great ideas - (martial arts systems/themes) - begin with a single idea. This idea - if it is a good one - may survive the test of time and become part of the tapestry of art and history. If it’s a bad one - it will probably fail and fade into obscurity - only to be ‘rediscovered’ (and re-discarded) but countless others as time does it’s thing. But those truly great ideas … they become the bedrock upon which future ideas are laid - and thus our world is constructed.

These ‘foundational’ ideas function like a kernel that inevitably grows into something bigger. And once it has grown, it is very easy to lose sight of the that kernel - and start focussing on only that which has ‘grown/blossomed’ from it. Digging deep and re-discovering that original ‘kernel’ of an idea is a very rewarding process - one that can re-affirm direction and deepen understanding. I am sure that most people who have developed expertise and understanding have at some point realised this to be a truth. I encourage everyone to ‘re-connect’ with that kernel of truth that lies beneath the thing that is important to you.

If ever I make it to Egypt - one of the rings I would like to do is to visit a famous tomb at Beni Hassan, where there are some beautiful wrestling scenes carved into the rock faces … depicting techniques such as ‘arm drag’ - ‘snatch single’, ‘two on one arm control’, ‘underhook’, etc. If I am privileged to stand in front of that stone relief, I can guarantee that my mind will take me back in time, and wonder at those ancient souls who worked those techniques, who sweated in practise, who tested and developed those very same techniques that we all enjoy today. And I will wonder still, at who before they, first tried those ideas - that person or persons who struggled, who prevailed and shaped that kernel of an idea that has survived and blossomed through the centuries - to be still employed (and enjoyed) by we who walk the path they walked.

JBW