breathe in, breathe out

As an atheist, rationalist and all-around humorless asshole, I don’t go in for a lot of Eastern mysticism. I don’t think much of reiki. I don’t believe in the healing power of crystals, or cranio-sacral touch, or reflexology. I think ear candling’s a dangerous fraud. I don’t trust acupuncturists or chiropractors.

So you wouldn’t think I’d be big on ki.

Watching Vlad promote to black belt at jiu-jitsu this past Saturday, I took a moment to revisit my thoughts on ki. Vlad’s built like a linebacker – big but fit, in full control of his mass. But he moves with a fluidity that speaks to incredible control over his own body. When Vlad throws you, you don’t feel the tension of exertion behind it. You feel a smooth, continuous projection, like a roller coaster cresting a hill. That’s the kind of energy it takes to toss someone to the ground using only your hands, or to break through a stack of boards with a single chop while kneeling in front of them.

The human body is a pretty efficient machine for directing force into one fine point. Think about it: your body has enough fine control to turn a deadbolt, enough raw power to lift a box of books, enough coordination to ride a bicycle and enough balance to descend a staircase. That’s a remarkable variety of tasks. But too often, if we’re using our body without training, we dissipate that force. We lift heavy boxes by bending at the back instead of the knees, or we try to turn a deadbolt while holding four bags of groceries. Instead of directing our muscles to their most precise use, we let them run wild.

It gets even worse in a fight, when adrenaline ramps up our reflexes. Our arms flail in crazy windmills. We hold our breath, filling our body with tension, and lean forward on our toes as if to spring. We swarm and crush, but we don’t fight effectively. How much better to dispel that tension – forcing your body to relax, directing energy from where it’s wasted (keeping the entire body rigid) to where it’s needed (the hand, the leg, the arm, etc).

Think of the incredible coordination required for Dwight Howard to dunk a ball from nearly the free throw line. Every muscle must be working in unison to that goal alone – legs, torso, arms, hands. He couldn’t pull that off if he just had a powerful jump, or merely had good ball control. It takes athleticism, coordination and practice.

That’s ki. Strip it of the mysticism, and ki is shorthand for the control and awareness of one’s own body that comes with years of practice at a given task. It’s what lets me push away an opponent half again my weight when I couldn’t bench that much, even on steroids. It’s what lets the world’s greatest athletes perform in the clutch. And it’s what carried my friend and fellow instructor Vlad through his black belt test this past Saturday.

Call it what you’ve like, but I’ve seen it. It’s real.

I said whoa no, William and Mary won’t do now

I had a rare Friday with a choice of four simultaneous engagements to go to. I honored two of them: watching Game 6 of the Celtics / Pistons series at a bar in Watertown with some friends from jiu-jitsu, then catching up with Kate G. for a drink at Bukowski’s. The former involved sliders, talk about Baltimore and two Guinness; the latter, a surprise visit from Dana J. and Orit, the soundtrack to Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and two PBR.

Melissa and Fraley had their engagement party on Saturday, so I dressed reasonably well and helped toast their upcoming marriage. Dave Green had unearthed the infamous “Reality Bites” photo of Mel, Fraley and I on the night of their first date, way back in … March of ’04? Holy hell … and framed it for the two of them. Now I want a copy. Fraley and Mel ordered catering, so we ate tasty steak tips and exotic cheeses while sipping champagne and toasting the happy couple. Christine and I held court in a small corner with Edward Tufte horror stories. PowerPoint is evil, people! Learn it and fear it!

I excused myself early to stop in on the BC reunion which, as I speculated, did not turn out to be awesome fun. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed seeing Lindsay M. (now Lindsay D., and I approve of her husband), and hanging out with Aaron and Tim H. always means a good time, but all of those people live in the Commonwealth. I can do that any weekend – and not in a humid gymnasium that I didn’t need to pay $45 to get into, since I had to write my name on a badge anyway. I saw a roomful of people I took one class with or lived across from, tried to place the names of girls I hadn’t had the courage to talk to as a college student and couldn’t, and drank cheap beer. I left early.

More updates to come re: Sunday.