Paralysis By Analysis and Casual Analysis Paralysis are two related concepts that I feel I need to take a firm hold of at the moment.
Paralysis By Analysis is a state where you get so overwhelmed by the amount of options available to you and the sheer amount of things to do contained by those options (the decision tree) that you just stumble around and don’t actually start anything!
Casual Analysis Paralysis occurs when you are researching a topic and get so wrapped up in the sub topics (especially the minutiae) to the point where the goal is no longer in sight and get lost; then you start stumbling around again trying to get back on track.
I really think that these are major problems in Qi Gong / Chi Kung and Martial Arts. These days there is a shed load of books and DVDs available and it’s only natural to try to sift through them to try to find the good, solid information. (and there’s a colossal amount of complete and utter bollocks out there it has to be said). This is where Casual Analysis Paralysis hits you; you get so involved in researching the qigong forms, differences between this and that movement, the instructor/master’s history, the student’s personalities and achievements etc. that you basically fuck yourself and end up under a pile of books / web pages.
After this stage, when you settle on a style/master/etc you then begin to learn about all the training methods and end points of the style This is when Paralysis By Analysis bites you: you become overwhelmed by the sheer amount of exercises, meditations, visualisations, mantras etc that are contained in the style/teachings and the belief that you need to do them all now or in some as yet unknown order, that you freeze and don’t practice / start practising until some vague point in the future when you think you might have this whole mess sorted in you head and have this magical roadmap to the final goal….
This is not all bad. Obviously researching is good and so is learning about the style you choose. If you didn’t… well… If you don’t know what you want, you end up with what someone else decides to give you… Nosce te Ipsum
But, floundering around is all too easy to do.
I think this affects us all. You cannot solve it by being closed minded and ignoring every other style/method just because it’s different to yours (see what happened when stand up fighters ignored the ground game back in the day). But you cannot solve it by being some like kind of butterfly and throwing yourself around to everything just because it catches your eye.
For me at least, I have tried to face this by having a set of criteria that I keep in mind when I’m researching other methods / systems. These criteria are pretty unbending (is it practical, is it effective, will it add to my skill set enough to justify the expense in gaining it etc). Also I have a set of goals or outcomes that I require anything I study / train in to fulfil. One caveat though; even these criteria and goals must be subject to evolution.
These are just my thoughts though. To be honest, a lot of people just put the blinders on and they seem to do ok!
Everyone knows the saying, “Jack of all trades, master of none” however, the full phrase is “Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one.”
Regardless though, all this pontificating about training will come to bugger all if you don’t actually train.
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