Sensei of Shambala. Anastasia Novykh

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СКАЧАТЬ wanted to examine my muscles and joints in order to understand why and how we move. How do muscles take part in our exercises, and how are they reflected on our internal organs? What happens during the blow? What is pain from the physiological point of view? Why do people suffer at all? And finally, what is going on in my own brain? Perhaps, the last thought was the most important because subconsciously it had been tormenting me.

      The guys commented on what we had seen during the training just as passionately, but they were motivated by their own reasons. We agreed unanimously that we didn’t know anything in this sphere and that we should fill this gap together. In order to do that, we spontaneously created a special card game. We drew separate cards for bones, muscles, blood and nerve vessels, the lymphatic system, organs, and the brain. Then we made attempts to put that puzzle together, one by one, trying to identify them not just by name, but also by the corresponding functions. At first, of course, it was hard. But all this was accompanied by such jokes, such a passion that, whether you wanted to or not, you’d remember.

      Before the next training session, we formulated a couple of questions on biomechanics of the blow and decided to ask Sensei after the training in order to find a reason to stay longer. But that day, life itself gave us an opportunity to do this without our secret conspiracy plan.

      At the end of the training, Sensei organized free fights. People sat down on the floor, creating a big circle, and fighters were selected and invited by Sensei two by two into its center. Andrew was chosen, and his opponent was a novice, also brawny and athletically built, chosen by Sensei. Having made a traditional bow to each other, the guys started the fight. For some time, they fought as equals. But Andrew turned out to be faster and nimbler, and that let him win. The approving clap of Sensei meant the end of the fight. Our guy helped his competitor stand up. Bowing to each other and to the Teacher, they took their places.

      And when more serious fighters began to walk out to the improvised ring, Andrew couldn’t stand watching. Inspired by his recent victory, he volunteered to fight again. He lost almost immediately. This circumstance greatly fanned his dissatisfaction with himself. Infected by his emotional mood, our company screwed up all its courage and asked Sensei to stay for additional training. The Teacher answered smiling, without objections, “You know the law of this dojo: If you want to train, you stay and train.”

      That day, fortune was on our side because Dump ling was not present at the training to irritate us with his importunity. Access to Sensei was free, and we could ask him about all aspects of the training that interested us.

      While the majority of the crowd was leaving, all the rest were perfecting their blows’ weak sides. The ones we named “speedy guys” worked on their own level, and the rest of us on our own. But Sensei was closely watching all and correcting the mistakes he noticed. In the already deserted building, he showed us new kata (shadowboxing), which united the speed of undercuts, blows, overturns, and sharp withdrawals. When I started to practice them, Sensei suddenly came up to me from behind and, putting his hand on my shoulder, said “You’d better not do this.”

      I turned to him in surprise: “Why?”

      At this moment our eyes met at a close distance. I had such a drilling feeling as if someone were looking through me from head to toes with an X-ray. I’ve never seen such a gaze. It was very unusual, piercing, and strange.

      “Because.”

      That answer puzzled me a little. I was standing quite confused, not knowing what to say.

      Keeping silent for a while, he finally added: “It would be better for you to do these kata.”

      Sensei showed me movements that smoothly changed one into another, with deep breathing following them. All that time I was repeating after him almost automatically. And when he went to help others, endless questions started to flash in my head: “What did he mean? Can it be that he knows about my diagnosis? But how?! I didn’t tell any of my friends, and so far I didn’t show it in any way during training.” And during this process of thinking, I made an unbelievable discovery. At school, home, at ballroom dances, I had sometimes a sudden, throbbing, continuous headache, but here, no matter how much I tortured my body, this headache had never appeared. “Why? What is the reason for that?”

      Being deep in my thoughts while working on new techniques, I didn’t notice how people crowded around Sensei, having interrupted their exercises. And when I finally realized that, I joined the listeners in order not to miss something important.

      “Can you tell us how we can learn a technique of the real blow, just by training our muscles?” Andrew asked.

      “No. First of all, by training your mind,” Sensei replied.

      “And what does it look like?”

      “Well, to be clearer, let’s say it this way… A muscle is like a mechanism that executes its function. It has certain programs coming from the brain in the form of neuron impulses. As a result of the work of such programs, signals arise in the brain that cause contractions of a group of muscles. Thus it results not only in movements of extremities but also in complex moving acts. It means that our training leads to a purposeful perfection of our brain and therefore of our muscles. The better and faster the trained brain works, the faster and better the muscles work.”

      “And what about the highest mastery of martial arts fighters?” Kostya asked, joining the discussion. “I’ve read somewhere that masters can deliver a blow before they even think of it. How does it happen and why?”

      “Well, guys. You touch upon such a serious subject. But I’ll try to explain in a few words… The whole trick is not just to simply train your muscles but to imagine a concrete situation, or your opponent. And the most important is to know exactly where you hit, into which tissue, and what is happening inside of that body, what’s the power level of the blow, and so forth. If a man strikes thoughtlessly, just to practice, then all his efforts are in vain! A true fighter, while practicing on a maki-vara, first of all works with image. He imagines how the opponent opens up, and at that moment he delivers a blow, being conscious of all possible consequences. In other words, he trains his brain.”

      “And what is happening in the brain during that?” one of the senior guys asked.

      “The brain evaluates the situation through visual perception, analyzes it and makes a decision. Then it sends that command to the cerebellum or, in other words, to the motion center. And from there, through the nerves, the corresponding signal arrives into the muscles. All that activity is being fixed in the memory. Then, during the fight, this memory unconsciously returns but without a complex chain of analysis and commands in the brain. In other words, when an opponent just opens up, a master has already counteracted automatically. Let’s say it’s a different frame of mind, a different innervation, and different workings of the brain.”

      “Does it happen on a subconscious level, from the physiological point of view?” asked Kostya, showing off his erudition.

      “You are absolutely right. Complex reflex motion reactions proceed now on the level of unconditional reflex,” said Sensei smiling. He added, “in the school anatomy program such things are described as conditional and unconditional reflexes. The unconditional are genetic by nature. They determine the regulation of the internal medium of the body and preservation of the species. And to the conditional belong the acquired reflexes arising as a result of accumulated experience and new skills. But even they are based on unconditional reflexes. Human beings have a lot of unconditional reflexes, connections, reactions regulating the spinal brain, the after brain, and the middle brain, the subcortical sections of cortexes of the cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres…”

      “And is ‘the Highest Art’ what you told us at the beginning?” Andrew asked with excitement.

      “No, СКАЧАТЬ