Awareness + Retention + Intent

I like three's! It appears in so many of the ancient classics as well as many of Nature's ways. In the martial systems as originate from Asian sources there are three distinct traits that must be combined in a symbiotic way to achieve proficiency. They are:

1 - Awareness.
2 - Retention.
3 - Intent.

AWARENESS: one cannot be or become aware if the knowledge is not encoded in the brain. Simply to become aware of something is knowledge but to make good use of it the brain must encode it so it can be retrieved when needed. What happens with some is they acquire the knowledge then "assume" that because they became "aware" of it, it will be there when they need it - not true.

RETENTION: is where the brain/mind retains the information and then encodes it - stores it in either or short-term/long-term memory. It then is retrieved when the proper stimulus is encountered. Retention must be of the kind that makes this particular memory available. It you become aware of it, then you practice it for a period, it will be retained yet as to retrieval - that is another issue that complicates things a bit.

INTENT: to become aware and to retain it readily available is our intent when we first acquire the knowledge then the intent of the practice and training that will encode it so a stimulus will retrieve it along with other actions, etc. to properly respond to said stimulus. This part comes up a lot where one feels the need to learn SD, the attend a three day seminar guaranteed to give you what you need and desire, and then it is assumed that those three days will encode the process so when you need it years down the road it will be there for you - NOT!

Even when we implement all three in our training and practice we may find that for it to be available takes a considerable bit more work and effort. Our intent in this part is to realize that nothing comes easy and if we intend to keep it a viable and available action it must be practiced. Here is another crux to the situation, that practice cannot be static. If it becomes static then it falls prey to a very specific and narrow stimulus and when you encounter any variation you will freeze.

Kata is a ritualized and patterned practice that if not taken past the fundamental stage promotes this very stagnate and unreliable intent. Even the drills used fundamentally if not taken outside that narrow corridor of practice/training train the mind to work only in that one narrow view and anything that appears outside that narrow corridor will cause a freeze. Why it is so important to take kata and its practice beyond the limited teaching method of gross movement into much more.

Another issue in this trilogy is to allow our minds to close off to anything outside the tribes belief system so they remain ineffective. In order to see and hear more than what the doctrine of the tribe prescribes one must allow for all data to have possibilities and that it takes more than the initial exposure to the new knowledge to find it value or lack thereof.

The ability to change and to allow for inaccuracies and insufficient data is critical for any and all of martial principles, etc. to achieve its intended goals. The ability to allow for error and correction is difficult yet the benefits will be enormous.

Retention and Intent could be replaced by "encoding and refreshing." Awareness is to open the mind to the possibilities; retention is encoding the data to the brain; refreshing is to practice and train with an awareness to change things accordingly to remain proficient.