Understanding Context

I recently had a conversation with Gavin Cornelius, founder of the Young Entrepreneurs Society (international is in there too at the end) and we ended up discussing context at length, and just how important it truly is.

Gavin is a fan of the Myers Briggs personality test, and so are many business people. It seems great, it was developed based on psychology, measures multiple dimensions of personality and I find it almost completely useless.

Here's the problem, it ignores context. So let's examine why that could possibly matter when it comes to personality types, since surely we are who we are no matter what right? 

Actually no. The Stanford Prison Experiment  is possibly the most well known example of this, essentially concluding that the behaviors of an individual have more to do with their situation  than their personal characteristics. This is also the same with the Milgram Experiment. 

The important thing to get is that what we would normally think of as a self contained identity, the behaviors and concepts of 'who we are' are in a constant state of flux depending on our situation. In other words, our personalities are a emergent manifestation of our context, the way that lighting is simply the discharge of electricity, a wave is a movement in a medium, and wind is the equalization of pressure in the air. Looking at it another way, our context is inseparable from us, we are it and it is us, the way that there is no wind without air,  the two are interconnected.

This is really important for mastery of self and mastery of others. Sure each individual has different dispositions, which is to say they require different specific situations to register differently on the 'dimensions of personality' but there is almost always some conceivable way for someone to get seemingly contradictory traits to manifest in the same individual.

I can use myself as an example. In many circumstances people find me to be introverted, even to the point of anti social hostility, and others know me as an outgoing assertive person. The main factor is to whom I am talking. I find some people fun to talk to, and conversation flows easily, others I can hardly relate to at all, and as such I feel no need to try and force a conversation. 

If you are running an organization it is key to understand and use this to your advantage. Find out the dispositions of your team, and place them in such a way as to encourage the characteristics you deem most desirable.

Learn to feel the context as an extension of yourself and those around you. Feel it extending invisibly around you and learn to move it, alter it to the most useful configuration until what you want comes about of it's own volition, like a sailboat being pulled by the wind.

This goes the same for yourself as well. If circumstance dictates our persona and behavior then the only thing left is to master circumstance.

Game Theory in Combat

Game theory is useful for figuring out the best options in situations where your options are dependent on what someone else does, so it's only natural for me to think about applying it to combat. Here are some of the more generally useful concepts I use in swordsmanship to determine if an action is successful or unsuccessful. Think of game theory as a tool designed to solve a scenario in a way that forces either victory or a draw.

To be able to apply this first we have to figure out our goals to determine if we are moving towards them or not, and to understand our goals we have to understand the essence of our art.

As warriors, our role in society is to protect other people, to run towards the danger that threatens the ones we love, and neutralize the threat. However if we simply rush towards danger and die, then we have accomplished nothing. So we must have the skill required to deal with threats without becoming a victim ourselves. This is what originally lead to the development of the art of combat, that is a method of making speed and strength irrelevant in a conflict, or we'd be helpless against a stronger, larger opponent. This is also why weapons were developed.

The core of this becomes two main directives that inform all else we do.

1.  We must survive.
2. We must neutralize the threat.

In other words cut without being cut ourselves in swordsmanship. From these values we can begin to judge an action as enacting those ideals, or going against them.

Here's where we can begin using game theory to help us. There are four main aspects we need to cover, they're known as PAPI, or people, actions, payoffs, and information.

First I'll start with information since it's the simplest to discuss alone. This simply means that you understand what is going on in the game, which moves matter and which ones are irrelevant. In swordsmanship this is essentially the ability to judge timing, distance, and use of perception to determine what your opponent is actually doing rather than guessing. In terms of rock paper scissors, it would be as if your opponent chose their action first and you could see what they had chosen. It is unlikely to know what your opponent does before you act however, or we wouldn't need game theory to deal with the situation, but we'll get to that shortly.

Next let's look at actions and payoffs. Understanding this simply means that we know what to do in a simple situation to get the result we want. So in rock paper scissors we know that if our opponent plays scissors, we can play paper and lose, we can play scissors and draw, or we can play rock and win. It is also important to note when actions don't affect the payoffs in terms of our goals. So whether we decide to count to 3 or 50 before we choose doesn't really affect the game much. Whether we are breathing in or out when we reveal our choice is also irrelevant. By the rules of the game the only determining factor is which action we've chosen.

The aspect of people is the most challenging since it is the main variable. As I wrote earlier, it's uncommon to know what an opponent is going to do before they do it, so we need to get as much of an edge in this area as possible. Fortunately for us though, humans aren't unpredictable, but they are random. By that I mean that we can't predict any specific action that someone will choose, but we can determine trends and assign a probability to them. So in a 100 games of rock paper scissors we may find that one opponent throws scissors 80% of the time, rock 19% of the time, and paper 1%. We don't know what they will throw in any specific game, but there is a clear pattern that usually only becomes more accurate the more information we gather.

In that case we can start to look at how we should defeat this opponent, something like a plan to play rock 80%, paper 19% and scissors 1%. Now this won't ensure victory in every game, but it will greatly increase your odds of winning compared to playing each 1/3 of the time. An even better strategy may be to play rock 99% of the time and paper and scissors 1%, since there's only a 1 in 100 chance that paper will be played, but a 99% chance that either rock or scissors will be played, where playing rock against either results in a draw or win.

To gather this information you usually have to review footage of your opponent, or fight against them directly with the mentality of gathering information to build a better plan. Note though, that this shouldn't simply be a series of abortive attacks, but should be carried through with the intention of success. 

The part that makes figuring out your opponents trends tricky is that they will be attempting to recognize your patterns and adapt to them as well. The key is success adapting to them faster. If they realize you are always playing rock, and begin to play paper repeatedly, then change to scissors. The key is to predicting at what point your opponent will actually change their strategy, and this is something that takes judgement that can only come with experience.

The interesting thing about the Kunst des Fechtens is that we don't play in a way that only defeats one action. It would be like playing both rock and paper on one turn, so that the only option to avoid losing is to play paper. Forcing their hand is what is meant by obtaining the Vor, or initiative. They are in our control and we are dictating which moves will allow them to simply not lose. Then if they chose only to defend, the equivalent of choosing paper, we immediately play scissors to defeat them.

However a skilled opponent will also be attempting to get momentum back, and playing paper may be a trap, since they are waiting to reveal that that they've also chosen a rock. This of course is quite metaphorical for choosing one action that will succeed in a variety of situations, either from a defensive position or an offensive one so that you have a series of moves to deal with whatever your opponent does. As you hold the initiative longer, it decreases the options your opponent has until eventually they have none, and you win.

So at a high enough level, once you understand the situation, actions, and payoffs all that's really left is to play against the person. At this point it requires another person with a similar skill level to pose a challenge, since a lack of understanding in the lower levels of play will leave you with an incredible advantage. If you realize that your opponent doesn't know what to do in some situation you should  put them into it as often as possible. This is abusing a gap in their understanding of action and payoff, however we should also be prepared for the moment when they finally figure out what to do. This is often what scrubs complain about when they say something isn't balanced. Either they don't know how to deal with the situation, or they are so used to abusing it themselves that when they come across an opponent who renders the tactic useless they assume the game has become broken.

Here's a video that demonstrates brilliant use of game theory to force a mutual victory.

How to Improve

I've always been fascinated by the fact that some people, no matter how much they seem to be practicing something, fail to improve their skills.

I first really noticed this while playing fighting games. Games are a good place to look at learning patterns since you can have many repetitions in a fairly short period of time. This means you can easily watch the growth of successful people in comparison to the ones that plateau and then stagnate.

The biggest difference that I noticed between the successful crowd and everyone else was their mentality. The ones that continued to lose and got stuck in a rut usually got frustrated easily, blamed other people for being 'cheap', and complained that the game itself was unbalanced or broken. By comparison the successful people usually recognized the mistakes they made, took responsibility for when they lost, and whenever there was something that they didn't know how to deal with, they figured out ways to adapt.

We have a name in the fighting game community for the first kind of people who merely blame the game and don't take responsibility for their actions, expecting to use the same tactics repeatedly to win against every opponent. We call them 'scrubs'. A scrub can actually be a skilled player as well, however at some point they stop  honing their skill, usually far, far before they've reached the upper levels of play. Somewhere along the line they decided that they just want to win, now they're good enough that they should just be able to defeat anyone they come across without much effort and so they stop working.

I've seen this scrub attitude in martial practices as well, where someone decides that there's nothing new to learn and they stop working to improve. When this happens it's your job to break out of this, or if you are a coach/instructor to break your student out of this mindset. 

The keys to working through this problem are first to realize what is giving you trouble. This is best done with a video replay, be it in tennis or street fighter. Watch the plays that you fail at, and break down what happened and where you made a mistake, what kind of mistake it was, and come up with alternative actions to address the situation in the future.

Then go and practice it. You have to drill the areas that you are bad at the most until you get comfortable with them, practicing your predetermined actions to see what works and what doesn't. Eventually  you should be able to come up with spontaneous creative solutions in the moment that address the situation perfectly.

It is common that one of your basic skills is lacking if you are having difficulty in a more complex situation. If this is the case you need to go back and work on your fundamentals. This can be anything that you fail to execute competently, in the correct moment, at the correct distance. You have to go back and drill these skills in a more simplistic environment until you can do them at their basic level, then begin to add more variables until you consistently use that skill in an isolated manner. Then go back to the more difficult situation and learn to apply that skill as a part of the greater game. Often this can be very difficult, simply having the ability to execute something in one environment, say a spike in volleyball practice, doesn't mean you can execute that same spike in the stress of a game as the opportunity spontaneously arises. This is why you have to practice applying the new skill to your game in a training scenario, since temporarily your overall ability will be decreased as you focus on integrating your new ability into your game as a whole.

This temporary dip is worth it however, since it usually indicates growth, and is necessary for you to break through plateaus.

The Subtle Art of Psychological Combat

Often times I'm asked what practical value studying weapons based combat has. Quite honestly, in physical confrontation terms, very little. However the things that become ingrained in your mind have nearly infinite applications, just as Miyamoto Musashi said:

"The spirit of defeating a man is the same for ten million men... The principle of strategy is having one thing, to know ten thousand things."

Here are a few rough outlines on applying the philosophy, the values and decision making process, of combat to the issue of interpersonal conflict. 

With the application of the mental aspects of this you get a series of actions that affect the mind of your opponent rather than their body, yet still retain the same goal: "Avoid death, eliminate the threat", or "strike without being stricken", and we can begin to see why dealing with things like our ego and identity are fundamental to becoming competent as warriors.

The most simple concept is to attack the opponent when they are unprepared and keep them on the defensive with a series of planned actions. The idea is to force them to act in one of several predictable ways which do not threaten us and simply ward off our initial probing actions. These are easy to put together. In the simplest format, find something that you know they hold dear, and attack that in such a way that you control their out. "You aren't a real man unless you pay for the date". "You will suffer eternal damnation unless you believe in Steve, the great and mighty penguin." Essentially you attack a form of their identity, or stoke some sort of fear unless they follow whatever action you prescribe. "Only fascists eat pickles." You can get really creative with this one. Essentially you're selling snake oil by creating some problem that doesn't exist outside of someone's mind and then offering them the one solution, which just happens to come with several other stipulations (more attacks) designed to constrain and control them.

This is why it's essential not to cling to an identity blindly. Normally accepting alabel due to one aspect of it, say being a vegetarian, which is stipulated by the choice not to eat meat, will have several other attributes associated with it that you may not believe in. You can try to defend the label, but really that's a waste of time and energy, and something that your opponents will wear you out with. Or you can simply take the actions you would anyways and ignore the label. This is essentially the way that a voodoo doll works. You create something that the person identifies with such as a doll (or label), then you attack that thing, which is not them, and yet because they are identifying with that thing (idea, ideology, object etc.) they will feel pain.

In the Kunst des fechtens the most iconic type of action is the single time counter with opposition, that is a counter attack that simultaneously defends and attacks by displacing the attack of an opponent. This is an effective way to deal with an opponent who relies on the previous method of attack. Simply deflect their attack as you attack them. "Only a sexist would say something so outdated." "Vague immaterial threats are the tools of irrational religious zealots." You get the idea. This amounts to a type of advancing front under the cover of a counter attack.

It's really more important to recognize that at this stage you are not aiming to convince your opponent directly by confronting them, often this will actually double their resolve, however that isn't the goal. The goal is to come off better to anyone listening. You need to seem more composed, reasonable or untouchable than your opponent. You are appealing to whatever values your audience has, those are the avenues of maneuver that you must control to be successful in the long term. Normally the people you are dealing with are simply repeating the thoughts of others, usually the most popular, so the only way to alter their behavior is by changing what the popular social opinion is, and the best way to do that is to appeal to them as you appear to be debating with one of the mouth pieces. 

Then when you are confronted with someone using the strategy of the counterattack your best option is to either bait them out, or to out read their actions. Baiting them out is usually the most straightforward in most circumstances. Simply use hypothetical questions to draw them into a position where they make themselves bad. In other words, become an agent provocateur. If you create a smokescreen of possible beliefs or possible circumstances which you do not hold (ideally they are absurd, and the audience will understand this) and construct them in such a way as to cause the counter attacker to drastically overuse force on a seemingly innocuous problem. It is never popular to see someone abuse their power. "How do you think we should deal with religious zealots?" ... "you think we should burn simple peaceful penguin lovers at the steak simply because they hold a different viewpoint?"

If you can out read your opponents actions, that is you know what they will use as their counter attack, what areas they will target, then you can make this even more devastating by leading them into an even bigger trap. "How would you punish a sexist?" ... "No criminal trial? that's pretty harsh, but maybe they deserve it"... (let them go as far as possible without committing yourself to any position) ... "So what you're saying is that if a guy pays for a date he should be sent to a unlisted prison without a criminal hearing indefinitely without any notice?" and then if they backtrack simply attack them as changing their story, or being inconsistent.

The whole point is to force the opponent to make bad choices and attack the openings. If someone is too diplomatic and they don't create openings with their statements, then create situations where their diplomacy begins to work against them. While using this the point is to use this mental technology effectively, so it's up to the user to apply it in an intelligent and responsible manner.

Dealing with 'Self'

I've been thinking about this a lot recently, and Matt talked about something that I found interesting in one of his recent podcasts, so I decided to give my thoughts on this situation.

There is a common attitude these days that you should cultivate a personality that will lead to success as some form of self improvement. I quite disagree with this, though probably not for the reasons you'd expect. Quite simply it doesn't work.

This attitude focuses on trying to achieve the result by mimicry of the symptom, it's as effective as becoming a professional athlete by wearing some brand clothes. 

The word persona comes from the Greek word for mask, which is quite appropriate. Simply put it is a pattern of behavior designed to give others an impression of who we are, to seem consistent and so we build an identity around this. In reality this is more akin to the way an actor plays a role, only we have several roles that we play as part of our personae, swapping between them usually without recognizing it. I might play the teacher, brother, son, friend and several others all in one day. The important distinction between an actor and a regular person is that an actor is aware of their performance, and the average person is entirely oblivious to theirs.

This is important because in recognizing the roles we are playing we can play them better if we let go of the obsession to seem one way or another. The first step in this is simply to recognize that we are not our personalities, since they change and yet we do not cease to exist. The way that you are not your possessions, your clothes, your political preference, or your job, you are not your actions. 

This can seem terrifying to most people at first, letting go of the thing you identify as can seem like a form of death, but going through it will allow you to realize that you will survive such an ordeal and when you learn to stop constantly confusing things with the act of being, then you'll find inner peace.

For me this came through several moments in my life where the identity I had formed was utterly and irrevocably destroyed. Loss of jobs, relationships ending, moving, all kinds of different things can happen to end the whatever it is you base your identity on, and the only sensible solution I've found is to simply stop identifying as that thing, until eventually there wasn't anything really left. Life goes on.

In terms of martial training clinging to an identity can cause useless fear. Healthy fear is generally limited to a respect for what your opponent can do to you, more a recognition of consequence than anything. Most fear amounts to some form of identity crisis. Worry over humiliation, or failure doesn't help you accomplish your goals, and cause a form of hesitation that will manifest the very thing that is feared. With proper training these things become irrelevant, and only the desire to apply your art remain, you are freed up to solve the problem at hand rather than build anxiety over something that could happen.

In many ways, the heart of martial discipline relies on answering the question 'who am I?'. The problem is that it's become too common to answer this question. Just as a sword can cut, but cannot cut itself you experience, but you cannot experience yourself. That's why asking this question and leaving space to not know is important. Learning that not knowing doesn't mean non existence is a powerful place.

From here genuine action becomes possible. It's not guaranteed, but it opens the door a crack. The ultimate goal of classical training is always to create the possibility for intelligent appropriate decisions to be made in context, and classical martial training is no different.

Simply changing one form of persona with another doesn't solve the root problem of not knowing who you are, only facing that and accepting it can do that. Afterwards, the desire to practice and apply your art will become the focus, and other people may or may not recognize what you are capable of, but that becomes irrelevant, simply a label that they use to quickly identify and sort you, the same as 'son', or 'teacher'. However you will remain free to act appropriately to your situation without worry for those labels.

Relaxation and cutting

Initially I was going to write about something else, then I saw this video which sparked a fresh topic.

This is a test video by Thrand working with a concept that one of my favorite researchers, Roland Warzecha, has been developing. Interestingly enough this is something that I have been talking about for a long time now as well.

I suppose it's my background with Russian Martial Arts, but to me this was something that seemed so obvious that I never really gave it much thought other than trying to explain it to students. The general idea is that instead of tensing up or trying to strike fiercely, you simply give the weapon an impulse and allow it to do the cut for you. Once it is in motion you maintain only enough of a grip to steer it to the target.

This works for cuts and thrusts with a variety of weapons, and there appears to be significant evidence that it was known to warriors well versed with melee weapons. I've often demonstrated the difference to new students by striking their waster in a variety of ways that appear to be similar, but have very different results.

So since I believe that there is very clear evidence that this is a beneficial tactic, the problem comes down to the method of training this until it becomes second nature. My approach is to begin slow, and develop a good sense of feeling for it. We now do a drill that I call the 'relaxation drill' where we go through some basic cutting motions very slowly and without any footwork focusing only on when to tense and when to relax. I'd say this is very similar in some ways to developing a golf swing, since you must initially add momentum then relax and steer it at the proper moment. As a general rule, if the sword is being lifted into a vertical position, you should give it an impulse to get there, and once it's reached that point, or slightly before if you've gotten the hang of it, you relax your grip and arms. This should allow the blade to swing into position fluidly and under a very soft guiding hand, more of a brace than a grip.

As you do this more and  more at a slower speed, the slower you can go and keep the natural rhythm, the better, the easier it will become and the more you will develop the ability to feel what is happening. That is you develop a sense of Fuhlen necessary for adaptation to your opponents actions. Eventually with enough practice you should get to the point where you do this naturally under stress without thinking. I've taken this idea from musicians who learn music by going slowly as long as the timing is kept proportional, and then eventually they get the new piece down, and eventually can improvise on the original work. From my teaching it would appear that this method also works with swordsmanship and martial arts in general, so as I see it, why reinvent what you can steal and repurpose something that's already great?

Here's another video demonstrating another application of these mechanics in a way that is more familiar to me, explained by my friend Matt Powell of Pramek. He has a really great style of teaching the core mechanics and how they mesh together and create the overall style of movement I've attempted to describe.

Interview with my friend Matt Powell of Pramek

I recently did an interview with Matt Powell of Pramek, whose work I've found extremely insightful and helpful on my journey in martial arts.

I hope you enjoy our conversation on edged weapons, the role of a warrior in society, and  many other things.

Matt's work is excellent and I hope you take time to look at the works he has to offer, and that they serve you as much as they have served me.

Site Launch!

After much hard work and preparation I'm glad to announce the launch of Winnipeg Knightly Arts online presence.

I plan to write about different aspects of training both external and internal, discussions about current culture as it relates to warrior mentality, and physical and  mental health. I'm excited to share the ideas that come to me with you.

If you are new to Winnipeg Knightly Arts allow me to explain who we are, why we train, and what we do.

Primarily we are a group of people who want to follow their passions and share them with others, we just happen to love European swordsmanship, and the culture surrounding it. There are many reasons we begin training, but the people we train with are the reason we continue. 

Our group focuses on the German Longsword tradition of Liechtenauer, but we also work on other aspects of the traditional knightly training including dagger, wrestling, langes messer, and eventually we will expand into pollarms.

If you are interested in European swordsmanship, or swordsmanship in general I encourage you to find me, or another local group in your area and become a part of the community.