The best ways to memorize information, facts, names and such use visual imagery. Imagination is key to thorough memorization and knowledge integration, despite what most American public schools teach to the contrary.
Except when it comes to physical movement. Physical movement works best with both imagination and repetition.
Remember, the spirit leads the mind which leads the body. The body obeys our thoughts and decisions, but sometimes it needs to learn through extended repetition. Christians call it “beating the body into submission”. It doesn’t mean that we pull out whips and physically beat ourselves (though some take that passage very literally and do beat themselves).
“Beating the body into submission” is something weight lifters do a lot. Weight lifters like to increase their muscle size, their overall strength, and tone their bodies. They do this by lifting a heavy weight over and over until they can’t do it anymore. But here’s the interesting part. Just lifting a weight over and over will make you stronger, but the biggest gains come during the final lift, at the moment when they can barely push against the weight and the focus all their might, all their energy, all their strength to just move the weight. The final lift requires a spotter, someone to lift the weight when you can’t. A good spotter will keep you lifting until he does almost the entire lift for you. That’s the final lift. That’s where the biggest gains happen. I could go into a sermon on faith and how Jesus spots for us during our trials–but that’s way off topic.
During a summer between college classes I worked for Dad’s general contracting company. He built decks and remodeled houses and such. I remember learning how to really hold a drill. You’ think that all you need to do is grab the drill and have at the screw you’re driving into the deck–you’d be right, but only partially right.
The aikido term for “grabbing the drill and having at the deck” would be holding the drill with strength. It works, at least for awhile. The beams the decking sit on have to be screwed into place. Every hangar has 8 screws. Let’s just say that by lunch time my hand could barely hold the drill. After lunch I couldn’t hold the drill very tightly. My hand refused to for more than ten seconds–but I still had the rest of the joist hangars to drill down. I kept drilling them and suddenly it became easy. My arm still ached. The developing blisters were still forming. But now I could move twice as fast. I remember Dad touching my arm to tell me something and the drill fell out of my hand. It was funny. I couldn’t hold onto the drill if my life depended on it but I could use it better than when I could grip it.
That’s the difference between holding something with strength and holding it with ki. When you hold something with strength over time it will wear you down until you can’t hold it anymore. When you hold it with ki it becomes a part of you. You don’t hold onto your arm or finger. They’re just there.
Extended Repetition is a tool that lets you move past strength into ki.
Think I’m just blowing smoke? How about this. My buddy was Special Forces in Afghanistan. One of the things he trained was shooting while drawing his side arm. He could group his first two shots within a fist sized area he intended to hit. The third shot would be aimed. The key to being able to perform this gunslinger styled feat was practice and tens of thousands of rounds fired.
