Orbis non sufficit
Monday, August 28, 2006
Untrusting Artists
Well I went out and found a picture of the poster I was rambling about in my last post to save me using my camera (since I've misplaced the cable to connect it to the compy). It was surprisingly easy to find, but the artist has overlayed some stupid texture and her web address probably to stop people stealing it. I also had to enlarge it a bit, so it loses something after all this. Also my poster has a blue tinge, not green. When I find my cable I'll take a picture of it, but for now this will give you an idea at least.
The artist is Anna Ignatieva, webpage http://www.magnetica.ru/. I had a look at some of her other art, it's all pretty cool (some is a bit creepy) but I didn't see anything I liked better than that picture. To see the full picture at it's original size (still with overlayed crap) click the image below.
On another note, does anyone know how I can stop my falling flowers from being visible when they're outside the actual area of the flash animation, but still inside the area allocated by the browser? I assume it has something to do with the embedding code, note that I want to keep the size self-adjusting (the problem is fixed if I fix the embedded animation to the appropriate size).
Well I went out and found a picture of the poster I was rambling about in my last post to save me using my camera (since I've misplaced the cable to connect it to the compy). It was surprisingly easy to find, but the artist has overlayed some stupid texture and her web address probably to stop people stealing it. I also had to enlarge it a bit, so it loses something after all this. Also my poster has a blue tinge, not green. When I find my cable I'll take a picture of it, but for now this will give you an idea at least.
The artist is Anna Ignatieva, webpage http://www.magnetica.ru/. I had a look at some of her other art, it's all pretty cool (some is a bit creepy) but I didn't see anything I liked better than that picture. To see the full picture at it's original size (still with overlayed crap) click the image below.
On another note, does anyone know how I can stop my falling flowers from being visible when they're outside the actual area of the flash animation, but still inside the area allocated by the browser? I assume it has something to do with the embedding code, note that I want to keep the size self-adjusting (the problem is fixed if I fix the embedded animation to the appropriate size).
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Beauty
It's been rather a busy weekend for me, off shooting and going to band camp and such. That's not really what has been most interesting to me though, not directly at least.
There have been a few things that have deeply affected me recently, which has been interesting because that doesn't happen all that often. I'm not talking about in a psychological way or anything. It's difficult to explain.
Anyway, it started with me looking around at a poster sale at uni. Usually I don't buy any because I'm poor and there's nothing worth paying for, but this time I bought a couple of posters. First one was a print of a traditional japanese painting, portraying high mountains, snow and a small figure walking through it all. It had elegance and I liked it so I bought it, but it didn't exactly move me deeply. On the other hand, there was a poster of a fantasy scene, done almost entirely in blues, that portrayed a fairy sitting on a mushroom in the middle of a forest. It wasn't as simple as the japanese painting, but neither was it as busy as fantasy pictures often are. I didn't buy it at first, but after sitting around for a while I had to go back and look at it again. The fairy has a face that I find it difficult to look away from. I decided that that was what good artwork should do to you so I bought it. It might just be crap to anyone else, I don't know, but I guess that's what makes appreciation of artwork such an individual thing. Anyway, I have it up on my wall now, and after a few days I still find it difficult to look away from and find that it captures my attention every time I go into my room.
Next interesting thing was my shooting on the ranges. We had a bit of a practice before doing the real qualification test, firing off 10 rounds (note: live rounds make a hell of a louder bang than blanks, with a decent amount more recoil). Even just getting the hang of it here I still shot two groups under 150 (150mm between widest shots at 100m, in a group of 5 shots, 150mm being the qualifying spread for infantry). When I went back up for the actual shoot I knew what I was doing more and was less disturbed by the sounds of the other guys gunshots nearby. My techique still wasn't perfect, but having got the hang of the breathing I found that I was able to hold my aim almost perfectly still for a short time. It reminded me of karate quite a lot actually, I had the feeling of there being a ki factor to shooting straight. Anyway, I shot 43 in my calibration group of 3 shots, then 42 and 41 for my first two real groups. After the first group I heard the warrant officer saying that my screen must be broken (I didn't actually get to see any of my scores until after all 4 groups were fired). After my second group there seemed to be a keen interested in my shooting. By this time my arms were starting to fatigue though and I found it a lot harder to remain still, probably due to my technique, and I shot 180 for my 3rd group. After this the warrant officer was asking me what I found harder about that group and I told him about my fatiguing arms. He then stuck around and gave me some pointers for my final group, which made it a bit easier on my arms, and I shot 110 or so for the last group, not as good as 41 but still pretty decent. Bit of a random spread of groupings, but 41 was the top score for the day, (the warrant officer shot 44) which was kind of cool. It'll be interesting to see if I can pull it off again. Sitting there shooting I was rather wishing for a higher magnification scope, the target is just a little dot in the centre of the sight and you can't see where on the target the shots land. You just have to aim for same spot all the time and hope for the best.
Anyway, next interesting thing was at band camp. One of the pieces we're playing is Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture, its a very beautiful piece of music, even when we play it :p. On sunday though our conductor had a cd for us so we could listen to it played by a professional orchestra, to teach us the huge emotional content the piece has and he felt we were missing in places. With classical music the emotion doesn't just come out and smack you in the face, you have to be in the right frame of mind and give the music your full attention, with as little other sound around as possible. That's when the subtlties and true beauty of these pieces can be heard. It wasn't the recording that was the interesting part though, beautiful as it was; it was when the full orchestra next played along with the cd. The music gained an amazing power, the cd provided a strong guidance for us so we could all hone our intonation and follow the dynamic contrasts, and it provided extra bass sound (they surely had 10 or so cellos to our 3). However, we provided the true resonance in the room and the fullness of sound that is the difference between a recording and a live performance. The energy in the room was quite amazing. I would even go as far to say there is a certain ki quality to playing music also.
I highly recommend going and downloading that piece of music, and listening to it with as close to silence in the background as you can get. Remembering the story of Romeo and Juliet while the music plays adds something too, it helps you understand the emotion that tchaikovsky has put into the music. You have to let it wash over and captivate you.
I guess I'm just saying that I feel that I have experienced true beauty in several forms over this weekend. It's interesting the places you find it and the different forms it can take.
Yet they all seem fundamentally connected in some way.
It's been rather a busy weekend for me, off shooting and going to band camp and such. That's not really what has been most interesting to me though, not directly at least.
There have been a few things that have deeply affected me recently, which has been interesting because that doesn't happen all that often. I'm not talking about in a psychological way or anything. It's difficult to explain.
Anyway, it started with me looking around at a poster sale at uni. Usually I don't buy any because I'm poor and there's nothing worth paying for, but this time I bought a couple of posters. First one was a print of a traditional japanese painting, portraying high mountains, snow and a small figure walking through it all. It had elegance and I liked it so I bought it, but it didn't exactly move me deeply. On the other hand, there was a poster of a fantasy scene, done almost entirely in blues, that portrayed a fairy sitting on a mushroom in the middle of a forest. It wasn't as simple as the japanese painting, but neither was it as busy as fantasy pictures often are. I didn't buy it at first, but after sitting around for a while I had to go back and look at it again. The fairy has a face that I find it difficult to look away from. I decided that that was what good artwork should do to you so I bought it. It might just be crap to anyone else, I don't know, but I guess that's what makes appreciation of artwork such an individual thing. Anyway, I have it up on my wall now, and after a few days I still find it difficult to look away from and find that it captures my attention every time I go into my room.
Next interesting thing was my shooting on the ranges. We had a bit of a practice before doing the real qualification test, firing off 10 rounds (note: live rounds make a hell of a louder bang than blanks, with a decent amount more recoil). Even just getting the hang of it here I still shot two groups under 150 (150mm between widest shots at 100m, in a group of 5 shots, 150mm being the qualifying spread for infantry). When I went back up for the actual shoot I knew what I was doing more and was less disturbed by the sounds of the other guys gunshots nearby. My techique still wasn't perfect, but having got the hang of the breathing I found that I was able to hold my aim almost perfectly still for a short time. It reminded me of karate quite a lot actually, I had the feeling of there being a ki factor to shooting straight. Anyway, I shot 43 in my calibration group of 3 shots, then 42 and 41 for my first two real groups. After the first group I heard the warrant officer saying that my screen must be broken (I didn't actually get to see any of my scores until after all 4 groups were fired). After my second group there seemed to be a keen interested in my shooting. By this time my arms were starting to fatigue though and I found it a lot harder to remain still, probably due to my technique, and I shot 180 for my 3rd group. After this the warrant officer was asking me what I found harder about that group and I told him about my fatiguing arms. He then stuck around and gave me some pointers for my final group, which made it a bit easier on my arms, and I shot 110 or so for the last group, not as good as 41 but still pretty decent. Bit of a random spread of groupings, but 41 was the top score for the day, (the warrant officer shot 44) which was kind of cool. It'll be interesting to see if I can pull it off again. Sitting there shooting I was rather wishing for a higher magnification scope, the target is just a little dot in the centre of the sight and you can't see where on the target the shots land. You just have to aim for same spot all the time and hope for the best.
Anyway, next interesting thing was at band camp. One of the pieces we're playing is Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture, its a very beautiful piece of music, even when we play it :p. On sunday though our conductor had a cd for us so we could listen to it played by a professional orchestra, to teach us the huge emotional content the piece has and he felt we were missing in places. With classical music the emotion doesn't just come out and smack you in the face, you have to be in the right frame of mind and give the music your full attention, with as little other sound around as possible. That's when the subtlties and true beauty of these pieces can be heard. It wasn't the recording that was the interesting part though, beautiful as it was; it was when the full orchestra next played along with the cd. The music gained an amazing power, the cd provided a strong guidance for us so we could all hone our intonation and follow the dynamic contrasts, and it provided extra bass sound (they surely had 10 or so cellos to our 3). However, we provided the true resonance in the room and the fullness of sound that is the difference between a recording and a live performance. The energy in the room was quite amazing. I would even go as far to say there is a certain ki quality to playing music also.
I highly recommend going and downloading that piece of music, and listening to it with as close to silence in the background as you can get. Remembering the story of Romeo and Juliet while the music plays adds something too, it helps you understand the emotion that tchaikovsky has put into the music. You have to let it wash over and captivate you.
I guess I'm just saying that I feel that I have experienced true beauty in several forms over this weekend. It's interesting the places you find it and the different forms it can take.
Yet they all seem fundamentally connected in some way.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Feynman Quotes
Just found a few Richard Feynman quotes (famous physicist for those of you who don't know), they're pretty cool:
"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
"To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in."
Also: Perpetual Motion Machines.
I've been reading up on these since my thermodynamics lecturer told us about the "Feynman Ratchet", a perpetual motion machine that uses the random collisions of gas molecules on a paddle wheel to turn a shaft, which is allowed to turn only in one direction by a ratchet. Of course it doesn't work, because no perpetual motion machine works, but it's rather tricky to understand why. It took physicists quite a long time to figure out why Feynman's device wouldn't work. From what I've read it mostly involves the ratchet slipping just as frequently as it turns forward.
Its actually quite funny how many people out there on the internet bag out physicists and the academic community for not believing that perpetual motion machines are possible. I suppose it's understandable though, unless you actually understand something about thermodynamics and various other aspects of physics (like the tricky little ways in which energy can be lost from a system) it's kind of hard to see why one can't be clever enough to make such a thing.
Actually I think a lot of the confusion arises from people not understanding the definition of a perpetual motion machine. There are essentially two types; PMM1's, which violate the first law of thermodynamics, and PMM2's, which violate the second. Some violate both :p. It's not a perpetual motion machine if it doesn't violate these laws, by definition.
*aside*
1st Law of Thermodynamics - Essentially conservation of energy, cannot be created or destroyed. Machines which claim to produce more energy than they consume are the most clearly impossible types of perpetual motion machines. Many of the "perpetual motion machines" proposed by people actually claim to draw energy from assorted strange sources, which if they in fact do such a thing means they aren't a perpetual motion machine. Usually they don't though.
2nd Law of Thermodynamics - The entropy of the universe is always increasing. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system, ie gases are more disordered than solids and so have higher entropy, hotter things are more disordered than colder things, but also note that more spread out things are more disordered than things all packed in close. This doesn't imply things try to become hotter to increase their entropy, quite the opposite actually. It's a little complicated. Anyway it's basically the law that says heat flows from hotter places to colder places (increases the overall disorder of the system, even if it decreases the disorder of the hotter part) and that solutions don't spontaneously unmix themselves. Such things are perfectly allowed by the 1st law.
The important thing to note for the perpetual motion machines is this: You can transform work (highly ordered energy) to heat (highly disordered energy) with 100% efficiency, no problem (in theory). Electric heaters pretty much do this, they are extremely efficient (though note they produce 1kJ of heat for 1kJ of electrical work, while a heat pump style heater can suck in 10kJ of heat from an external cold place as long as you provide 1kJ of work, giving you a total of 11kJ - wastage of heat for your house. It's not as "efficient" in it's energy conversion but in actual fact you get a lot more energy per joule of electricity you burn. Electric heaters are one of the biggest entropy creators we have in society, even though they are almost 100% energy efficient in their conversion of work to heat.
Anyway, the point is you can't go the other way with 100% efficient, ie you can't turn heat energy into work energy without wasting some of it. The feynman perpetual motion machine is a machine that claims to do this, if it's perfectly insulated it seems that the heat input will speed up the gas molecules, which won't lose energy unless they manage to turn the shaft and create work, with 100% conversion. This therefore violates the second law and is a PMM2.
It's worth noting that pretty much all the laws of thermodynamics can be violated on the quantum scale, since they are classical laws after all. However as you increase the length and time scales then everything tends back to the laws of thermodynamics, so don't think your PMM's are off the hook. Even on the quantum scale you can't violate thermodynamics for very long. The second law is easier to violate than the first since it basically boils down to probabilities that a system will be in a certain configuration. There's always the probability that something stupid like all the water jumping out of your glass will happen, but it's very tiny and the probability of it happening continuously is even more vanishingly tiny. So respect the laws of thermodynamics.
Even the planets orbiting the sun aren't a perpetual motion machine. It's a pretty freakin efficient machine, but still not 100%. There are energy loses due to tidal forces, friction with interstellar dust and gas particles and possibly even gravitational waves.
People should really go and learn about these things before they go and get all upset about the academic community giving them crap for "inventing" a perpetual motion machine. You'd have to have pretty convincing evidence if you want to overthrow thermodynamics. Apparantly the US patent office no longer even accepts patent applications for any kind of perpetual motion machine :p.
One other thing:
Just found a few Richard Feynman quotes (famous physicist for those of you who don't know), they're pretty cool:
"Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
"To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in."
Also: Perpetual Motion Machines.
I've been reading up on these since my thermodynamics lecturer told us about the "Feynman Ratchet", a perpetual motion machine that uses the random collisions of gas molecules on a paddle wheel to turn a shaft, which is allowed to turn only in one direction by a ratchet. Of course it doesn't work, because no perpetual motion machine works, but it's rather tricky to understand why. It took physicists quite a long time to figure out why Feynman's device wouldn't work. From what I've read it mostly involves the ratchet slipping just as frequently as it turns forward.
Its actually quite funny how many people out there on the internet bag out physicists and the academic community for not believing that perpetual motion machines are possible. I suppose it's understandable though, unless you actually understand something about thermodynamics and various other aspects of physics (like the tricky little ways in which energy can be lost from a system) it's kind of hard to see why one can't be clever enough to make such a thing.
Actually I think a lot of the confusion arises from people not understanding the definition of a perpetual motion machine. There are essentially two types; PMM1's, which violate the first law of thermodynamics, and PMM2's, which violate the second. Some violate both :p. It's not a perpetual motion machine if it doesn't violate these laws, by definition.
*aside*
1st Law of Thermodynamics - Essentially conservation of energy, cannot be created or destroyed. Machines which claim to produce more energy than they consume are the most clearly impossible types of perpetual motion machines. Many of the "perpetual motion machines" proposed by people actually claim to draw energy from assorted strange sources, which if they in fact do such a thing means they aren't a perpetual motion machine. Usually they don't though.
2nd Law of Thermodynamics - The entropy of the universe is always increasing. Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system, ie gases are more disordered than solids and so have higher entropy, hotter things are more disordered than colder things, but also note that more spread out things are more disordered than things all packed in close. This doesn't imply things try to become hotter to increase their entropy, quite the opposite actually. It's a little complicated. Anyway it's basically the law that says heat flows from hotter places to colder places (increases the overall disorder of the system, even if it decreases the disorder of the hotter part) and that solutions don't spontaneously unmix themselves. Such things are perfectly allowed by the 1st law.
The important thing to note for the perpetual motion machines is this: You can transform work (highly ordered energy) to heat (highly disordered energy) with 100% efficiency, no problem (in theory). Electric heaters pretty much do this, they are extremely efficient (though note they produce 1kJ of heat for 1kJ of electrical work, while a heat pump style heater can suck in 10kJ of heat from an external cold place as long as you provide 1kJ of work, giving you a total of 11kJ - wastage of heat for your house. It's not as "efficient" in it's energy conversion but in actual fact you get a lot more energy per joule of electricity you burn. Electric heaters are one of the biggest entropy creators we have in society, even though they are almost 100% energy efficient in their conversion of work to heat.
Anyway, the point is you can't go the other way with 100% efficient, ie you can't turn heat energy into work energy without wasting some of it. The feynman perpetual motion machine is a machine that claims to do this, if it's perfectly insulated it seems that the heat input will speed up the gas molecules, which won't lose energy unless they manage to turn the shaft and create work, with 100% conversion. This therefore violates the second law and is a PMM2.
It's worth noting that pretty much all the laws of thermodynamics can be violated on the quantum scale, since they are classical laws after all. However as you increase the length and time scales then everything tends back to the laws of thermodynamics, so don't think your PMM's are off the hook. Even on the quantum scale you can't violate thermodynamics for very long. The second law is easier to violate than the first since it basically boils down to probabilities that a system will be in a certain configuration. There's always the probability that something stupid like all the water jumping out of your glass will happen, but it's very tiny and the probability of it happening continuously is even more vanishingly tiny. So respect the laws of thermodynamics.
Even the planets orbiting the sun aren't a perpetual motion machine. It's a pretty freakin efficient machine, but still not 100%. There are energy loses due to tidal forces, friction with interstellar dust and gas particles and possibly even gravitational waves.
People should really go and learn about these things before they go and get all upset about the academic community giving them crap for "inventing" a perpetual motion machine. You'd have to have pretty convincing evidence if you want to overthrow thermodynamics. Apparantly the US patent office no longer even accepts patent applications for any kind of perpetual motion machine :p.
One other thing:
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Oh the pain/f'ing cool
I hurt in all sorts of strange places. Finger tips, bruises and stratches all over. Those aren't really a worry though, they're just a little sore. Mostly I'm just tired and assorted muscles hate me.
So I'm back from my weekend out with my unit. Our "mission" was to defend a hill out in the middle of nowhere in Puckapunyal from those damn Mazurians, who are quite sneaky buggers.
Friday Evening - Saturday Morning:
Before we left we distributed supplies and section weapons; each section had 2 GLA's, 2 F89 Minimi's, 2 Claymores, of course all our F88 Austeyrs and I think we had an illumination round for the GLA right from the start. Either that or the platoon commander had them all and handed us one at some point. We loads of other crap too but that was the cool stuff. Our claymores were pretty shit and busted looking though, not that it matters since they were full of rocks. I was just given my steyr and rations and shit while I tried to make sure all my gear was in order.
So we hopped on the bus, cammed up on the way out to puckapunyal and deployed at gate 7 to the puckapunyal military area (see map below, numeral 1)
Will continue later
Ok I'm back, a couple of days later. Turns out I actually got a lot worse, the pains and tiredness were nothing, my whole digestive system started to hate me and other weird sickness crap struck me down pretty good yesterday - I ended up lying on the couch for hours. I blame the ration packs, especially the chocolate and cheese.
Anyway I seem to be recovering now so I shall continue with my little story.
So, gate 7 is numeral 1 on my little diagram of the AO. It was dark when we arrived, as we got off the bus we went into all-round defence, taking it in turns to load up on ammo. Once we were all bombed up we headed out along the red route on the map. It was dark and the puckapunyal night is very quiet so we had to be quite stealthy, the sound of any branches snapping or anything like that carries a long way. We could have been attacked at any time after we got off the bus in theory, though the guys playing the enemy probably wouldn't bother. I imagine we're not supposed to consider such "meta-gaming" elements though :p.
The site we were to set up our defence, the knoll just north of the 265 feature (figures 3 and 2 respectively). It was only about 800m from gate 7 but it took us quite a bit longer than it should have to get there due to some poor navigation (note that the red route is excessively long (may be exaggerated). The plan was to head north along the road then due east to the position, but there were "issues"). We ended up finding the steepest route up that hill, rather a tough climb. Once there we set out to find our fighting pits, which had been marked out by our platoon commander earlier in the day. Some of them were pre dug and we just had to uncover them, but the depth section pits weren't dug at all. Fortunately my section's pits were pre dug so we didn't have to dig that night. I'm not sure if the depth section actually started that night, might have waited till morning.
So anyway, had picket in the middle of the night, that sucked as it does. Fortunately we had good weather all weekend, no rain or even wind really. Made for some cold nights though, no cloud cover to keep in the heat. We didn't bother putting up our hoochies, just slept on the ground.
Saturday Morning - Saturday Evening:
Revelli was at 6.30 I believe, possibly sooner (I didn't actually have a watch, something I'll have to fix for next time). It was just before first light in any case. Revelli actually makes a lot more sense to me now, previously I had only experienced it on annual camp with cadets and it was more just a time to get us up then. We actually went through the useful routine of revelli this time; a couple of minutes to jam away as much sleeping crap as possible and then straight into the fighting pits keeping watch over the area as the sun rose. Everyone had to stay there until the clearing patrols had made sure that no enemy soldiers had managed to sneak up on us during the night. I actually went on the clearing patrol for my section, basically three of us just formed an extended line leading away from our position and then just swept across the front of the position.
After that was general morning routine; cleaning ones weapon, quick shave, reapply cam cream, making sure the rest of the sleeping crap is packed away THEN breakfast. I never actually had time for breakfast at all. Managed to drink some hot chocolate (made from hot water and powder) on sunday morning but somebody else had made it.
After all that we pretty much got straight to the digging. Damn puckapunyal ground is hard. We spend a fair bit of the time breaking rocks with picks and our entrenching tools. In the whole weekend our holes only got 50cm deep or so max, and that's with 3 or 4 people digging for many hours. I saw several picks snapped in half and the shovel ends of several entrenching tools broken or sheared horribly.
I managed to get out of digging for a number of hours by doing LP duty (Listening Post), which basically consisted of me lying prone behind some bushes keeping forward watch over the area in front of our position. Gave me time to rest and eat breakfast too.
The other two sections were sent out on patrols throughout the day, I think they had some enemy contact but we didn't hear anything back at the main position. Actually now that I think about it I did hear some minimi fire but it wasn't for very long and didn't sound like too much of a battle. Just had other random tasks to do around the place for the rest of the day also.
Shortly before dark 3-section (my section) was sent out on standing patrol to provide early warning for the rest of the platoon should the enemy decide to attack during the night. We set up on the hill just northeast of the main position (figure 4 on the map) and took up positions looking out over the surrounding area (lying prone, having pulled some branches and the like into position for better camoflage).
So, we lay there for quite a while (I was facing pretty much north). After some time I happened to spot some guys in auscam wandering east along the road, wasn't too sure if they were ours or the enemy's. I managed to communicate what I had seen to the guy nearest me via some loud whispers and he more effectively used some field signals to try and communicate to our section commander, though I'm not sure if he actually did or not. An hour or maybe even two passed and darkness fell. I was starting to fall asleep when I heard someone yell out "BANG!" and rifle fire erupt. Later I was told that the guys on the east side of the feature (where the fighting began) had heard a whole bunch of rifles being cocked moments before being shot at, which is pretty slack of the enemy. We'd all had our rifles at action (ie with a round in the chamber, no need to cock it to fire) since we loaded up on ammo on friday, cocking your rifle in the dead of the night is extremely unstealthy.
So anyway I hadn't fired a shot by this point and was rather at a loss of what to do next, so I crawled my way over to my neighbor in search of some instructions. We crawled to the top of the hill to try and get a line of sight on the enemy. Once there we could see muzzle flashes all over the place but it was pretty freaking dark and there was zero chance of actually seeing the enemy. It was about the time that our section commander yelled out for us to withdraw, and so the rest of the section started to run back while the assault group (my group, there was also the gun group and the command group) provided cover fire. This was when I first got to actually shoot my rifle, which was fun. Was pretty much just aiming at the enemy muzzle flashes, fighting in the night is hard. I had a stoppage pretty quickly actually, that sucked but I managed to fix it after fiddling around a bit. My rifle crapped up quite a few times over the weekend actually. Stupid thing.
Anyway, we started to leapfrog our way back to the main defensive position. The enemy stopped on the hill we'd been sitting on and just shot at us from there, after a while we were far enough away to just patrol back to camp the regular way.
Back at camp we occupied the depth pits since the other two sections were in the forward postions. Basically we sat there for a while, ate some food and prepared for bed. An hour or two after we got back the enemy started probing our position, trying to find out where our guns were. A fair bit of shooting went on, not from those of us in the depth section though since that would involve shooting over the heads of our mates, and also their muzzles flashes look a lot like enemy muzzle flashes. After this stopped I headed down to the forward pits to get some of my stuff which I'd left there. I'd misunderstood one of my orders so I ended up sleeping down there for a while until the 2-section commander came and told us to stand to. I ended up in one of the pits with two other guys saying "what the crap are you doing here chook? You're meant to be in the depth pits." It took them a while to actually get into the pit though and I was there by myself for quite a while, hearing weird noises coming from the south. I felt sure I we were going to get attacked from the south with just me in the southmost pit. I'm pretty sure it was the enemy, but some of them were heading back to their camp, which was on top of the 265 feature. That wasn't the "enemy" camp though, just where they camped for convinience, so they were never actually going to attack from that direction.
We were attacked a few times during that night, it even got pretty intense a few times at which point one of the guys with a GLA would launch a lume into the sky. Those things were one of the coolest things I saw that weekend. Basically they're just big orange flares, but in the dark of the night they lit up the whole area like day, sending the enemy who'd been sneaking about on the open field scurring for cover lest they be mowed down. They pretty much withdrew shortly after the luminenscent rounds were fired. They only last about 10 seconds or so though.
Again, picket sucked, but we weren't attacked during mine. Actually the attacks stopped before midnight, I'm sure the enemy (who are actually the OR's from our unit) didn't want to stay up all night either. Keep in mind that dusk is around 6.30 or so so that's still quite a few hours of darkness and being attacked.
Ok I'm back to finish this off, a week later.
Sunday Morning - Sunday Evening:
I slept with my contact lenses in that night because it was too much of a pain putting them in fast with dirty hands. Doing that on saturday had caused me a whole lot of discomfort throughout the day, and having eventually gotten them comfortable I wasn't about to go through the whole process again.
I didn't go on the clearing patrol at revelli thar morning since I was in the depth section, so me and my pit buddy sat there in our pits for a while while the forward sections did their clearing patrols. After this was all done we packed up our crap, had a shave and managed to have some hot chocolate (made from warm water and chocolate powder) before the days duties began. I'm not too sure what we did first thing, I believe I ended up back on listening post duty for a while. Our section commander set me looking up towards the 265 feature since that's where we believed the actual enemy camp was (not just the pretend one) and he thought they might try and get someone into a position to observe us so they'd know when we were leaving, and then bring their whole section in behind us and shoot us up. He figured they'd be too lazy to actually walk all the way over to where their camp was supposed to be. I didn't see anyone though, and in the end we were attacked from a different direction.
At some point we began packing up the camp, filling in the holes we'd spent hours digging and re-burying the pre-dug pits we'd occupied. I ended up minding the minimi for a while, which was good fun, even though I wasn't actually allowed to fire it if we were attacked since I'm not qualified. When I finished that I was relieved by someone with a GLA so I got to carry that around for a while, which was cool. Actually I went pretty much straight to another pit after minding the gun and sat around behind some bushes looking out across the killing field with my GLA on hand. I remember sitting there thinking "Come out you sneaky Mazurian fuckers so I can shoot you!" or something along those lines.
During all my sitting around our section was given our orders for the withdrawal, someone had to be at each pit (We'd buried them by this time so I was just sitting next to a camoflagued pit) at all times though which is why I wasn't there. I was given the orders second hand and given a bit more of a detailed run-down on what was likely to happen, and given a bit of a crash course on finding cover and moving under fire. That was good fun.
We waited around a while because there was some issue with a radio, we didn't have one or the officers lost it or gave it to someone who hadn't come back or something. In any case the platoon eventually gathered up its gear and headed out. Oh yes, before this I'd had my turn at helping fill in the depth section pits, which gave me the opportunity to find my entrenching tool, which I'd left lying around up there someplace all night.
So, the platoon marched off to the top of the feature and then headed south along the ridge towards the 265 feature. My section was in the rear of the formation, with me at the rear of the section. As we headed down the south side of the feature I looked back and noticed a bunch of guys in auscam walking around on the top of the feature. I didn't think too much of it, they were walking fairly casually so I thought they were probably just some of the officers who'd been camping up there. I was about to tell somebody about it (difficult to do from the rear of the formation without shouting out) when they started shooting at us. In hindsight I should have checked if they were carrying weapons, I'm pretty sure the officers weren't. In a real situation the officers wouldn't have been then so I would have known instantly they were enemy, so it's a bit crap having them wandering about sometimes.
In any case I dived to the ground and found some cover and tried to return fire (It's extremely difficult to fire when lying prone with a pack on your back, I could barely lift my head to look through the scope. I need to do something to fix that a bit before next weekend).
The guy who'd been watching my back the whole weekend then came running over and took cover nearby, he pretty much told me what I needed to do and when. Quite useful that, stopped me doing anything crazy.
Next began the most intense physical work I've ever done, known as a "fighting withdrawal" I believe. It consisted of us shooting at the enemy a bit, waiting for our turn to move then jumping up, running about 3 - 5 steps while the rest of the platoon covered us then diving to the ground again behind whatever cover could be found. Repeat about 20 or maybe more times. With a 15kg or so pack on your back this takes the piss out of you extremely quickly. Especially with the aforementioned difficulty of the pack sliding up and pushing your head into the ground. Then throw in one of the shoulder straps of your pack slipping out of the buckle so you have to drag this heavy pack over one shoulder while you run. Then throw in a great big mother of a hill you have to climb up. Thankfully we'd withdrawn a fair distance by the time we reached the hill so we could kind of climb it without too much harassment. The enemy were still coming though so we took cover on top of the hill and those of us with any ammo left took a few shots at them. I had numerous stoppages throughout this battle too, several were my fault (one time I managed to jam two rounds half in the chamber, really wedged in tight. Had to take the barrel off to fix that one, and pull one of the rounds out of the chamber using the lip of another round.)
We continued up and over the hill with the enemy in pursuit. On the far side of this hill was a bit of a plain, then some trees and the main road. We took cover in the trees as the enemy descended the hill after us, they even threw a smoke grenade so we couldn't see them while they descended. We were almost entirely out of ammo by this stage so there wasn't an awful lot of shooting going on still. We withdrew along the fenceline towards the buses, making our final stand there. We took cover behind the various trees and the enemy followed, ending up rather close, within 20 metres of us. They weren't really shooting either by then, so our platoon commander ordered us to affix bayonets and charge (he actually had a bayonet (he was scolded for it later) the rest of us just pretended, except one of the gunners who pulled out his entrenching tool). We then ran screaming at the enemy and pretended to stab them, they didn't fight back because they were rather buggered also.
We were pretty much done then, walked back to the bus pickup point, did our range clearances (to make sure none of us took any ammunition or anything out of the military area) and the rest of the ammo was expended (kind of cool to watch).
Hopped back on the bus, slept, woke up near the regiment where we proceeded to clean our weapons rather thoroughly. After a while we were dismissed, around 4.30 or so I think. Headed to hungry jacks down the road for some real food.
Phew, there, thats good enough. Took so long to finish that that I have my next field weekend in a week and a half. It's a platoon attack weekend so there won't be digging, most likely a lot more walking though. We'll see how that goes.
I hurt in all sorts of strange places. Finger tips, bruises and stratches all over. Those aren't really a worry though, they're just a little sore. Mostly I'm just tired and assorted muscles hate me.
So I'm back from my weekend out with my unit. Our "mission" was to defend a hill out in the middle of nowhere in Puckapunyal from those damn Mazurians, who are quite sneaky buggers.
Friday Evening - Saturday Morning:
Before we left we distributed supplies and section weapons; each section had 2 GLA's, 2 F89 Minimi's, 2 Claymores, of course all our F88 Austeyrs and I think we had an illumination round for the GLA right from the start. Either that or the platoon commander had them all and handed us one at some point. We loads of other crap too but that was the cool stuff. Our claymores were pretty shit and busted looking though, not that it matters since they were full of rocks. I was just given my steyr and rations and shit while I tried to make sure all my gear was in order.
So we hopped on the bus, cammed up on the way out to puckapunyal and deployed at gate 7 to the puckapunyal military area (see map below, numeral 1)
Will continue later
Ok I'm back, a couple of days later. Turns out I actually got a lot worse, the pains and tiredness were nothing, my whole digestive system started to hate me and other weird sickness crap struck me down pretty good yesterday - I ended up lying on the couch for hours. I blame the ration packs, especially the chocolate and cheese.
Anyway I seem to be recovering now so I shall continue with my little story.
So, gate 7 is numeral 1 on my little diagram of the AO. It was dark when we arrived, as we got off the bus we went into all-round defence, taking it in turns to load up on ammo. Once we were all bombed up we headed out along the red route on the map. It was dark and the puckapunyal night is very quiet so we had to be quite stealthy, the sound of any branches snapping or anything like that carries a long way. We could have been attacked at any time after we got off the bus in theory, though the guys playing the enemy probably wouldn't bother. I imagine we're not supposed to consider such "meta-gaming" elements though :p.
The site we were to set up our defence, the knoll just north of the 265 feature (figures 3 and 2 respectively). It was only about 800m from gate 7 but it took us quite a bit longer than it should have to get there due to some poor navigation (note that the red route is excessively long (may be exaggerated). The plan was to head north along the road then due east to the position, but there were "issues"). We ended up finding the steepest route up that hill, rather a tough climb. Once there we set out to find our fighting pits, which had been marked out by our platoon commander earlier in the day. Some of them were pre dug and we just had to uncover them, but the depth section pits weren't dug at all. Fortunately my section's pits were pre dug so we didn't have to dig that night. I'm not sure if the depth section actually started that night, might have waited till morning.
So anyway, had picket in the middle of the night, that sucked as it does. Fortunately we had good weather all weekend, no rain or even wind really. Made for some cold nights though, no cloud cover to keep in the heat. We didn't bother putting up our hoochies, just slept on the ground.
Saturday Morning - Saturday Evening:
Revelli was at 6.30 I believe, possibly sooner (I didn't actually have a watch, something I'll have to fix for next time). It was just before first light in any case. Revelli actually makes a lot more sense to me now, previously I had only experienced it on annual camp with cadets and it was more just a time to get us up then. We actually went through the useful routine of revelli this time; a couple of minutes to jam away as much sleeping crap as possible and then straight into the fighting pits keeping watch over the area as the sun rose. Everyone had to stay there until the clearing patrols had made sure that no enemy soldiers had managed to sneak up on us during the night. I actually went on the clearing patrol for my section, basically three of us just formed an extended line leading away from our position and then just swept across the front of the position.
After that was general morning routine; cleaning ones weapon, quick shave, reapply cam cream, making sure the rest of the sleeping crap is packed away THEN breakfast. I never actually had time for breakfast at all. Managed to drink some hot chocolate (made from hot water and powder) on sunday morning but somebody else had made it.
After all that we pretty much got straight to the digging. Damn puckapunyal ground is hard. We spend a fair bit of the time breaking rocks with picks and our entrenching tools. In the whole weekend our holes only got 50cm deep or so max, and that's with 3 or 4 people digging for many hours. I saw several picks snapped in half and the shovel ends of several entrenching tools broken or sheared horribly.
I managed to get out of digging for a number of hours by doing LP duty (Listening Post), which basically consisted of me lying prone behind some bushes keeping forward watch over the area in front of our position. Gave me time to rest and eat breakfast too.
The other two sections were sent out on patrols throughout the day, I think they had some enemy contact but we didn't hear anything back at the main position. Actually now that I think about it I did hear some minimi fire but it wasn't for very long and didn't sound like too much of a battle. Just had other random tasks to do around the place for the rest of the day also.
Shortly before dark 3-section (my section) was sent out on standing patrol to provide early warning for the rest of the platoon should the enemy decide to attack during the night. We set up on the hill just northeast of the main position (figure 4 on the map) and took up positions looking out over the surrounding area (lying prone, having pulled some branches and the like into position for better camoflage).
So, we lay there for quite a while (I was facing pretty much north). After some time I happened to spot some guys in auscam wandering east along the road, wasn't too sure if they were ours or the enemy's. I managed to communicate what I had seen to the guy nearest me via some loud whispers and he more effectively used some field signals to try and communicate to our section commander, though I'm not sure if he actually did or not. An hour or maybe even two passed and darkness fell. I was starting to fall asleep when I heard someone yell out "BANG!" and rifle fire erupt. Later I was told that the guys on the east side of the feature (where the fighting began) had heard a whole bunch of rifles being cocked moments before being shot at, which is pretty slack of the enemy. We'd all had our rifles at action (ie with a round in the chamber, no need to cock it to fire) since we loaded up on ammo on friday, cocking your rifle in the dead of the night is extremely unstealthy.
So anyway I hadn't fired a shot by this point and was rather at a loss of what to do next, so I crawled my way over to my neighbor in search of some instructions. We crawled to the top of the hill to try and get a line of sight on the enemy. Once there we could see muzzle flashes all over the place but it was pretty freaking dark and there was zero chance of actually seeing the enemy. It was about the time that our section commander yelled out for us to withdraw, and so the rest of the section started to run back while the assault group (my group, there was also the gun group and the command group) provided cover fire. This was when I first got to actually shoot my rifle, which was fun. Was pretty much just aiming at the enemy muzzle flashes, fighting in the night is hard. I had a stoppage pretty quickly actually, that sucked but I managed to fix it after fiddling around a bit. My rifle crapped up quite a few times over the weekend actually. Stupid thing.
Anyway, we started to leapfrog our way back to the main defensive position. The enemy stopped on the hill we'd been sitting on and just shot at us from there, after a while we were far enough away to just patrol back to camp the regular way.
Back at camp we occupied the depth pits since the other two sections were in the forward postions. Basically we sat there for a while, ate some food and prepared for bed. An hour or two after we got back the enemy started probing our position, trying to find out where our guns were. A fair bit of shooting went on, not from those of us in the depth section though since that would involve shooting over the heads of our mates, and also their muzzles flashes look a lot like enemy muzzle flashes. After this stopped I headed down to the forward pits to get some of my stuff which I'd left there. I'd misunderstood one of my orders so I ended up sleeping down there for a while until the 2-section commander came and told us to stand to. I ended up in one of the pits with two other guys saying "what the crap are you doing here chook? You're meant to be in the depth pits." It took them a while to actually get into the pit though and I was there by myself for quite a while, hearing weird noises coming from the south. I felt sure I we were going to get attacked from the south with just me in the southmost pit. I'm pretty sure it was the enemy, but some of them were heading back to their camp, which was on top of the 265 feature. That wasn't the "enemy" camp though, just where they camped for convinience, so they were never actually going to attack from that direction.
We were attacked a few times during that night, it even got pretty intense a few times at which point one of the guys with a GLA would launch a lume into the sky. Those things were one of the coolest things I saw that weekend. Basically they're just big orange flares, but in the dark of the night they lit up the whole area like day, sending the enemy who'd been sneaking about on the open field scurring for cover lest they be mowed down. They pretty much withdrew shortly after the luminenscent rounds were fired. They only last about 10 seconds or so though.
Again, picket sucked, but we weren't attacked during mine. Actually the attacks stopped before midnight, I'm sure the enemy (who are actually the OR's from our unit) didn't want to stay up all night either. Keep in mind that dusk is around 6.30 or so so that's still quite a few hours of darkness and being attacked.
Ok I'm back to finish this off, a week later.
Sunday Morning - Sunday Evening:
I slept with my contact lenses in that night because it was too much of a pain putting them in fast with dirty hands. Doing that on saturday had caused me a whole lot of discomfort throughout the day, and having eventually gotten them comfortable I wasn't about to go through the whole process again.
I didn't go on the clearing patrol at revelli thar morning since I was in the depth section, so me and my pit buddy sat there in our pits for a while while the forward sections did their clearing patrols. After this was all done we packed up our crap, had a shave and managed to have some hot chocolate (made from warm water and chocolate powder) before the days duties began. I'm not too sure what we did first thing, I believe I ended up back on listening post duty for a while. Our section commander set me looking up towards the 265 feature since that's where we believed the actual enemy camp was (not just the pretend one) and he thought they might try and get someone into a position to observe us so they'd know when we were leaving, and then bring their whole section in behind us and shoot us up. He figured they'd be too lazy to actually walk all the way over to where their camp was supposed to be. I didn't see anyone though, and in the end we were attacked from a different direction.
At some point we began packing up the camp, filling in the holes we'd spent hours digging and re-burying the pre-dug pits we'd occupied. I ended up minding the minimi for a while, which was good fun, even though I wasn't actually allowed to fire it if we were attacked since I'm not qualified. When I finished that I was relieved by someone with a GLA so I got to carry that around for a while, which was cool. Actually I went pretty much straight to another pit after minding the gun and sat around behind some bushes looking out across the killing field with my GLA on hand. I remember sitting there thinking "Come out you sneaky Mazurian fuckers so I can shoot you!" or something along those lines.
During all my sitting around our section was given our orders for the withdrawal, someone had to be at each pit (We'd buried them by this time so I was just sitting next to a camoflagued pit) at all times though which is why I wasn't there. I was given the orders second hand and given a bit more of a detailed run-down on what was likely to happen, and given a bit of a crash course on finding cover and moving under fire. That was good fun.
We waited around a while because there was some issue with a radio, we didn't have one or the officers lost it or gave it to someone who hadn't come back or something. In any case the platoon eventually gathered up its gear and headed out. Oh yes, before this I'd had my turn at helping fill in the depth section pits, which gave me the opportunity to find my entrenching tool, which I'd left lying around up there someplace all night.
So, the platoon marched off to the top of the feature and then headed south along the ridge towards the 265 feature. My section was in the rear of the formation, with me at the rear of the section. As we headed down the south side of the feature I looked back and noticed a bunch of guys in auscam walking around on the top of the feature. I didn't think too much of it, they were walking fairly casually so I thought they were probably just some of the officers who'd been camping up there. I was about to tell somebody about it (difficult to do from the rear of the formation without shouting out) when they started shooting at us. In hindsight I should have checked if they were carrying weapons, I'm pretty sure the officers weren't. In a real situation the officers wouldn't have been then so I would have known instantly they were enemy, so it's a bit crap having them wandering about sometimes.
In any case I dived to the ground and found some cover and tried to return fire (It's extremely difficult to fire when lying prone with a pack on your back, I could barely lift my head to look through the scope. I need to do something to fix that a bit before next weekend).
The guy who'd been watching my back the whole weekend then came running over and took cover nearby, he pretty much told me what I needed to do and when. Quite useful that, stopped me doing anything crazy.
Next began the most intense physical work I've ever done, known as a "fighting withdrawal" I believe. It consisted of us shooting at the enemy a bit, waiting for our turn to move then jumping up, running about 3 - 5 steps while the rest of the platoon covered us then diving to the ground again behind whatever cover could be found. Repeat about 20 or maybe more times. With a 15kg or so pack on your back this takes the piss out of you extremely quickly. Especially with the aforementioned difficulty of the pack sliding up and pushing your head into the ground. Then throw in one of the shoulder straps of your pack slipping out of the buckle so you have to drag this heavy pack over one shoulder while you run. Then throw in a great big mother of a hill you have to climb up. Thankfully we'd withdrawn a fair distance by the time we reached the hill so we could kind of climb it without too much harassment. The enemy were still coming though so we took cover on top of the hill and those of us with any ammo left took a few shots at them. I had numerous stoppages throughout this battle too, several were my fault (one time I managed to jam two rounds half in the chamber, really wedged in tight. Had to take the barrel off to fix that one, and pull one of the rounds out of the chamber using the lip of another round.)
We continued up and over the hill with the enemy in pursuit. On the far side of this hill was a bit of a plain, then some trees and the main road. We took cover in the trees as the enemy descended the hill after us, they even threw a smoke grenade so we couldn't see them while they descended. We were almost entirely out of ammo by this stage so there wasn't an awful lot of shooting going on still. We withdrew along the fenceline towards the buses, making our final stand there. We took cover behind the various trees and the enemy followed, ending up rather close, within 20 metres of us. They weren't really shooting either by then, so our platoon commander ordered us to affix bayonets and charge (he actually had a bayonet (he was scolded for it later) the rest of us just pretended, except one of the gunners who pulled out his entrenching tool). We then ran screaming at the enemy and pretended to stab them, they didn't fight back because they were rather buggered also.
We were pretty much done then, walked back to the bus pickup point, did our range clearances (to make sure none of us took any ammunition or anything out of the military area) and the rest of the ammo was expended (kind of cool to watch).
Hopped back on the bus, slept, woke up near the regiment where we proceeded to clean our weapons rather thoroughly. After a while we were dismissed, around 4.30 or so I think. Headed to hungry jacks down the road for some real food.
Phew, there, thats good enough. Took so long to finish that that I have my next field weekend in a week and a half. It's a platoon attack weekend so there won't be digging, most likely a lot more walking though. We'll see how that goes.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Zanshin
Zanshin is quite a difficult concept to convey to someone, even if they are a native speaker of Japanese. It literally means "remaining mind", though this translation captures little of it's essence. The pursuit of true zanshin is one of my goals, and one of the most difficult at that. The wikipedia explanation is quite decent, but to me it is too clinical and doesn't truly convey the spirit of zanshin.
For zanshin is about more than just having a constant alertness, focus and clarity of mind. Certainly these things are important, but there is another aspect to zanshin, at least to my understanding. It may fall more under the category of fighting spirit, but the two are so closely related that I don't think I could separate them very well.
What I am talking about is the "personal force", if you will, aspect of zanshin. It is that quality that allows a true master to defeat an opponent without ever moving or even speaking. It is the aspect that scares you if you look into the eyes of someone who truly possesses it, if they decide not to hold it back. It is the aspect that Yamaguchi Gogen Sensei possessed; the way he was described when he unleashed it, even if he didn't move a muscle, was that he was like a tiger. I have witnessed it, nay felt it myself in my previous sensei, Bernadette Brogan, and seen it developing in my current instructors. I would hope I even have it already to a certain extent, though clearly there is a long way to go.
Currently I am able to demonstrate this aspect in karate, during forms and even free sparring and the like, but it is nothing compared to the force I have felt from my seniors. The Japanese may even say there is a ki energy factor here, those with strong ki may easily defeat those who have weak ki. In this context the two things may be one and the same.
I sometimes wonder though whether one can truly develop strong zanshin just by training. Actually that's not true, I believe one could develop excellent zanshin just by training if they do it properly and put in enough hours. I more wonder whether *I* can develop such a thing just by training given the fact that I can't train full time. Perhaps one day I will be able to but not right now. I wonder if there is a "trial by fire" aspect to zanshin. This has sort of come as a result of my recent incident getting attacked in my car. I was caught quite unprepared, which is clearly not good zanshin, but even had I been ready I get the feeling that the glass flying in my face as well as getting punched in the face would probably have broken my "kimai" (sorry for the Japanese, kimai is another closely related term meaning focus but also relates to the personal force/ki aspect I have been discussing). This is partially why I'm not terribly upset about the incident, it demonstrated a weakness for me, on which I can now work. In addition, I think that the very incident itself has served to strengthen my zanshin. This is sort of the trial by fire I was referring to previously. I wonder if it is possible to develop this aspect without enduring true attack on ones self, without being engaged in true combat. We try to emulate this experience in the dojo so that we needn't ever have to experience such things, but it's hard to say how far that can go. Certainly the real deal accelerates the process.
This is probably one of my main reasons for joining the reserves, they also try to emulate the intensity of combat and though the methods of combat may be completely different, I hope that I can still glean some of the benefits with respect to my fighting spirit. That made the interviews tricky actually, it's quite difficult to explain that to someone who's never practiced a martial art; or even if they have most people don't even think about these things until they've been training for a few years at least.
This was what I liked about kendo, kendo is very good for zanshin building, probably because the strikes during sparring aren't held back at all and you get your brain knocked about a bit. I must practice that more in the future.
Hopefully this has enlightened some of you who have never practiced a martial art as to some of the deeper reasons for practicing. "It's not all just about punching and kicking" as they say.
Zanshin is quite a difficult concept to convey to someone, even if they are a native speaker of Japanese. It literally means "remaining mind", though this translation captures little of it's essence. The pursuit of true zanshin is one of my goals, and one of the most difficult at that. The wikipedia explanation is quite decent, but to me it is too clinical and doesn't truly convey the spirit of zanshin.
For zanshin is about more than just having a constant alertness, focus and clarity of mind. Certainly these things are important, but there is another aspect to zanshin, at least to my understanding. It may fall more under the category of fighting spirit, but the two are so closely related that I don't think I could separate them very well.
What I am talking about is the "personal force", if you will, aspect of zanshin. It is that quality that allows a true master to defeat an opponent without ever moving or even speaking. It is the aspect that scares you if you look into the eyes of someone who truly possesses it, if they decide not to hold it back. It is the aspect that Yamaguchi Gogen Sensei possessed; the way he was described when he unleashed it, even if he didn't move a muscle, was that he was like a tiger. I have witnessed it, nay felt it myself in my previous sensei, Bernadette Brogan, and seen it developing in my current instructors. I would hope I even have it already to a certain extent, though clearly there is a long way to go.
Currently I am able to demonstrate this aspect in karate, during forms and even free sparring and the like, but it is nothing compared to the force I have felt from my seniors. The Japanese may even say there is a ki energy factor here, those with strong ki may easily defeat those who have weak ki. In this context the two things may be one and the same.
I sometimes wonder though whether one can truly develop strong zanshin just by training. Actually that's not true, I believe one could develop excellent zanshin just by training if they do it properly and put in enough hours. I more wonder whether *I* can develop such a thing just by training given the fact that I can't train full time. Perhaps one day I will be able to but not right now. I wonder if there is a "trial by fire" aspect to zanshin. This has sort of come as a result of my recent incident getting attacked in my car. I was caught quite unprepared, which is clearly not good zanshin, but even had I been ready I get the feeling that the glass flying in my face as well as getting punched in the face would probably have broken my "kimai" (sorry for the Japanese, kimai is another closely related term meaning focus but also relates to the personal force/ki aspect I have been discussing). This is partially why I'm not terribly upset about the incident, it demonstrated a weakness for me, on which I can now work. In addition, I think that the very incident itself has served to strengthen my zanshin. This is sort of the trial by fire I was referring to previously. I wonder if it is possible to develop this aspect without enduring true attack on ones self, without being engaged in true combat. We try to emulate this experience in the dojo so that we needn't ever have to experience such things, but it's hard to say how far that can go. Certainly the real deal accelerates the process.
This is probably one of my main reasons for joining the reserves, they also try to emulate the intensity of combat and though the methods of combat may be completely different, I hope that I can still glean some of the benefits with respect to my fighting spirit. That made the interviews tricky actually, it's quite difficult to explain that to someone who's never practiced a martial art; or even if they have most people don't even think about these things until they've been training for a few years at least.
This was what I liked about kendo, kendo is very good for zanshin building, probably because the strikes during sparring aren't held back at all and you get your brain knocked about a bit. I must practice that more in the future.
Hopefully this has enlightened some of you who have never practiced a martial art as to some of the deeper reasons for practicing. "It's not all just about punching and kicking" as they say.
Friday, August 04, 2006
Snuh!
"...and only by learning to pick up the sword,
can we gain the wisdom to put it down again."
I believe that was part of a saying/poem in the front of a book on kendo I have. I like it. The rest was pretty good too but I can't remember it.
*whistles Peter's theme, from "Peter and the Wolf" by Tchaikovsky*
You've all heard it you just never knew what it was. Except for Jason probably.
We're playing very cool music in the Monash Philharmonic Orchestra this concert season:
"Romeo and Juliet" by Tchaikovsky
"Sechte", by Beethoven, a symphony I believe. Not sure about the title, but I couldn't check it very well because typing that in google only gets me pages in German, and the translator translates that word also. This piece featured in the simpsons one time, in the episode "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge".
Aha! I figured it out, "Sechs" is 6 in German, so we're playing Beethoven's 6th Symphony. Wikipedia also helped.
We're also playing some crazy hungarian thing, but it's not as cool so I can't remember what it's called.
Ahh, class!
"...and only by learning to pick up the sword,
can we gain the wisdom to put it down again."
I believe that was part of a saying/poem in the front of a book on kendo I have. I like it. The rest was pretty good too but I can't remember it.
*whistles Peter's theme, from "Peter and the Wolf" by Tchaikovsky*
You've all heard it you just never knew what it was. Except for Jason probably.
We're playing very cool music in the Monash Philharmonic Orchestra this concert season:
"Romeo and Juliet" by Tchaikovsky
"Sechte", by Beethoven, a symphony I believe. Not sure about the title, but I couldn't check it very well because typing that in google only gets me pages in German, and the translator translates that word also. This piece featured in the simpsons one time, in the episode "Itchy & Scratchy & Marge".
Aha! I figured it out, "Sechs" is 6 in German, so we're playing Beethoven's 6th Symphony. Wikipedia also helped.
We're also playing some crazy hungarian thing, but it's not as cool so I can't remember what it's called.
Ahh, class!
Thursday, August 03, 2006
I. HATE. STICKYKEYS!!!
It's by far the WORST idea microsoft has ever had. I don't even know what the intended use of the thing is! All it does is ANNOY the crap out of me when I happen to pause to think while holding down the shift key. *shudders*.
Death to stickykeys!
Oh yeah, and in other news I have an army field weekend coming up, should be fun. I'm "qualified" on the steyr now so they're allowed to bomb me up and let me make some noise. Hopefully I don't hurt myself or get myself charged for an unauthorised discharge or something. The point of the weekend is for us to practise staging a defence, so we're going to have to do some digging, but oh well.
It's by far the WORST idea microsoft has ever had. I don't even know what the intended use of the thing is! All it does is ANNOY the crap out of me when I happen to pause to think while holding down the shift key. *shudders*.
Death to stickykeys!
Oh yeah, and in other news I have an army field weekend coming up, should be fun. I'm "qualified" on the steyr now so they're allowed to bomb me up and let me make some noise. Hopefully I don't hurt myself or get myself charged for an unauthorised discharge or something. The point of the weekend is for us to practise staging a defence, so we're going to have to do some digging, but oh well.
