groking

[anotheranon]

I think it was Confucius who said "the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names" or something similar. I agree with this; words have power and having a common vocabulary is important for conveying crucial concepts.

I am having some difficulty finding the language coach wants me to use to discuss strategy. I tend to zoom in on what specific actions to take in a given situation, and completely miss the glaringly obvious. V. wants me to think in 4 broad terms: offense, defense, preparation, and feint. Knowing I work with computers, he even suggested fake coding to better unravel the logic:

If Action=Offense
	If Offense.Real	
		Defense
		Counteroffense
	Elseif Offense.Feint OR Offense.Preparation
		Defense
		Feint
		Preparation
      Elseif Action=Defense
	If Defense.Real
		Counteroffense
		Feint
		Preparation
	Elseif Defense.Feint OR Defense.Preparation
		Offense
		Preparation
		Feint
 Loop

Sunday's lesson was frustrating because of my inflexible inability to see the forest for the trees, so to speak. V. pushed repeatedly that I MUST understand the bigger picture to move up to the next level and implement strategy effectively. He is not wrong, but I'm really struggling to get my head around it.

I'll be working on this more of this on Sunday, and I'll experiment tonight at practice to see if I can think in these broader terms and leave the technical aspects to experience.

This is part of what keeps fencing so endlessly fascinating for me - I think I'll always be trying to see a bit more of the iceberg. That doesn't make it any less maddening!

Comments

[skill-grl.livejournal.com]

Have you read Joel Rosenberg's Hidden Ways Trilogy? It is about a foil fencer and an epee fencer ending up in fantasy land w/ life-and-death fencing. I think you'll enjoy it, and perhaps find some language in it.