Part Four: Cry Dry Your Eye Sweet Bess (TBH)
<p>because i think that splitting these parts up (due to the why8k? bug) makes them ugly and confusing, i’m going to <span class="caps">TRY</span> to write smaller parts if i can, which means, of course, more parts to waste your life reading. hey, at least you’re not paying to waste your life like at school. so, while keeping your patience meters in the red, onward we trudge.</p>
<p>part three introduced sanda and <span class="caps">SAM</span> and the fact that the <span class="caps">LRC</span> in fighting may approach a meditative state. part four is a linking section hopefully clarifying why being in china is necessary, and why i must have the kind of involvement that i do in order to accomplish essential components of the study, while at the same time satiating the crucial requirement of authenticity. </p>
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<p>it should be said right off here that searching for <span class="caps">SAM</span> didn’t just coincidentally land me in china. as mentioned earlier, the principle has been written about, studied, and practiced much more in the far east than in the near west. it is, in fact, a quality not limited to the realm of combat or sport here, but is actually pervasive throughout asian culture itself, perhaps less so in recent times, but present nonetheless. this is probably because the various philosophical doctrines typically had a way of ending up in some sort of governing or guidepost roll here. </p>
<p>admittedly, my <span class="caps">SAM</span> infatuation probably has its origins in a samurai movie or something. but, whatever it was that started things turning, soon i was funneled into thinking about the aimless baseball pitch of yesteryear, and from there it has evolved into a more comprehensive curiosity encompassing the territories of philosophy, history, and the very important cultural grounds from which both develop. <span class="caps">LRC</span> can’t be relegated into the restricted Occidental senses of biodynamics, or psychology, or physiology. in my estimation it can’t be seen as anything less than somewhat of a union of the three. unity or ‘oneness’ or whatever you want to call it has historically been an almost strictly asian philosophical principle (as you all know). </p>
<p>if we accept the above, that the <span class="caps">LRC</span> has a more involved history and emerges more noticeably in asia and in various asian things than in their western counterparts, then it naturally follows that our investigations should utilize the compiled knowledges which our eastern brethren have been housing for centuries. there’s a virtual database of <span class="caps">SAM</span>-related philosophical and physical discoveries and teachings which have been stockpiled over hundreds of years and is now at our disposal. this is where tucker’s superhuman parental unit has problems: “why can’t you just read more books? why can’t you train here? for the cost of your plane ticket, you could have an entire library of this stuff!” well, it is my estimation that such a library would be virtually useless. it comes down to the fact that we, as westerners, are unfamiliar with asian ways of thinking. we can read about chinese-this and chinese-that in a fervent attempt at coming to understanding. but the very words we read are western; these asian things, when described through western convention, become westernized things. the difficulty is not necessarily in the asian ideas themselves, but from realizing (let alone adapting) the very modes of thought from which these ideas need to be understood through. if the methods of thinking we use differ from those under which these foreign ideas originated, then we’re immediately distanced from understanding, no matter how much care and scrutiny we use. anything we try to investigate and gain insight into is immediately tainted by our own examination lens. merely looking, in this case, distances us from actually seeing. we relate and derive meanings out of new learnings by using principles obtained in our own environment, through a brain which was developed to use these principles as its filter for understanding. we explain all new knowledge to ourselves through understandings which we already have. in our case, our filter for understanding is entirely western. and, because words can only be communicative between those who share similar experiences (thank you <span class="caps">GEB</span>, yet again) we have no hope of understanding asian ideas through western means, no matter how scholarly, precise, active, or beautifully written they are. we can’t take interesting new ideas, describe them in western ways, call them by chinese names, and say we understand these “chinese” things. </p>
<p>this is an area where experience simply can’t be replaced; this is the smell-of-smeared-grass. </p>
<p>Part 4 has introduced the asiatic factor into all of this, which is a required component when you consider that <span class="caps">SAM</span> seems to be, essentially, asian. actually, no— that isn’t right, and i wish i’d stop saying that. <span class="caps">SAM</span> is human, and has merely been more heavily contemplated upon and used in asia over the years than anywhere else that i’m aware of. Part 4 also introduced this study as one in which experience can’t be substituted for, and also that this experience should be an ‘asian’ one as one goal is to access the well of knowledge already existing here in an authentic and unfiltered way.</p>
<p>so far i’ve discussed personal motivations for training, my personal history of training, the interest in <span class="caps">SAM</span>, the benefits of the <span class="caps">LRC</span>, and just now how and why china is an important factor in all of this. next, in part five: “Please Make Him Stop Writing!” i want to spell out the components of my particular study which make it worthwhile and special (or so i’d like to think). hold your respective lunches in your respective bellies people, it’s almost over, i promise, and then we can just get on with our lives.</p>