The Way of Least Resistance

A common criticism of traditional eastern fighting arts is the emphasis those arts place on solo practice - often at the expense of 2 person practise. Indeed, many traditional fighting arts are so steeped in solo forms that they have barely no partner application at all. When they do, it is often stilted, stylised and unrealistic. This criticism has led many martial artists who are interested in pragmatism to abandon solo forms - be they full kata/xing/patterns or shorter drills such as "deflect/strike" combinations - in favour of going straight into 2 person application. I can see the issues - however I still think that, depending on the technique being taught, some level of "solo" training is essential if you want to hone correct, efficient form. In my experience, the need for any "delay" in moving to 2 person drills is a function of just how sophisticated (ie. complex, but for the purposes of gaining greater efficiency) the movement is that you want to...

π is of course the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. It is an irrational number – which is to say it cannot be expressed as a ratio of 2 integers. Yes, we commonly see it rendered as the fraction 22/7. But that is an approximation only. π is a number that has unlimited decimal places; its decimal expansion never ends or repeats. I always found the term “irrational” to be wholly fitting. Here is a universal constant that we cannot even express as a fraction. It defies our everyday “logic”. Yet its existence is a matter of fact. So how was π discovered? How does one stumble across a constant that is “irrational” in this way? The answer is, through experience ; you take a circle, measure the circumference and its diameter and go from there. If you do it accurately enough, you will always have the same result: π – a constant that defies our everyday “rationality”; one that is derived experientially. This got me thinking about the brouhaha surrounding Lyoto M...