"One Problem! You Got a Stance!"
Heard a funny story the other day about a friend of mine. I'll call him Jack. Way back in the mid 1990s, Jack made a trip to the then Mecca of Martial Arts Training - Southern california - for a week-long, private lesson with thee, then semi-famous pair of a modern fighting, progressive "Bobsey-Twins," of a conceptual lean. Both spent as much time training as they did dodging criminal charges and abusing drugs. About 3/4s through the week Jack wanted to know how he was doing. After all, this was costing him thousands of dollars. Ralph and Tim Bobsey said,
"Jack, you are doing really fine. Fine. But you still have one problem. You still...have a stance."
A..a...a stance? This apparently really freaked my friend Jack out. A stance. The rest of the week he was distracted and preoccupied with this suggestion. Captured in a stance. How should he stand himself when doing all the moves and drills and not look like he had a stance. I guess you would have to know the fastidious Jack to appreciate his reaction.
In my oldest of training outlines I taught the "stance of no stance" and I do understand the overall concept and message. But the very idea of this heavy Zen message passed to Jack via Bobsey, especially after several snorts of Bobsey Twin cocaine, I just have to laugh and picture the mind-binding problem.
It probably went like this...
"The stance of no stance (sniffle) has no stance but to stand there in a stance of no stance and not have a stance. Yeah, dude. (sniffle) That's the stance. None. No. Don't just stand there! You just ...stand there. (sniffle) Come on! That's a stance! No...Yes"
Stance on! Errr, off, dude!
Hock
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Topic: "One Problem! You Got a Stance!" (Read 3034 times)