The Line of Three

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Three in numerology comes into play a lot, you see it everywhere but unless you are attuned to seeing in three’s you miss it - mostly. In my personal life the number three presents itself to me in situations and circumstances that I took as, “Signs,” of good fortune and a tiny bit of luck. In karate and martial arts studies some of us make reference to several philosophical sources such as the ancient Chinese classic, i.e., Tao Te Ching, I Ching and others. Numerology is prominent in Asian cultural belief systems.

Karate, as well as martial arts, utilize, “Three’s.” In kata, many of them, are executed in sets of threes. There are many reasons for this and some of those will appear at the end of this article in case you become curious. I have a theory toward the sets of three, they are like executing combinations. It is not of any concern as to the exact techniques involved but rather as a principle where three sets becomes a line. 

I am trying to hypothesize and theorize from a karate self-defense model. If attacked either socially or asocially you will find, more often than not, that it takes a minimum of three applications of any methodology appropriate to get ahead of the situation. But one must NOT assume that all it takes is a set of three. It is about an awareness to the ongoing situation from moment to moment. You have to feel things, hear things and then see things in a kind of unconscious instinctive way so that you can judge on the fly when force is no longer needed.

When you apply the set of three as a minimum you have to discern if the adversary is unable to continue so you can back off according to the legal systems but you also have to realize that you may need to take it further then a set of three and/or you may have to change methodologies to get-r-done. It is this balancing act while under the influence of the chemical dump, the adrenal stress-conditioned effects that make the job - difficult, but not impossible. 

You also cannot take the set of three in kata practice as a set of three identical but applied on opposite sides of our bodies because that would be ineffective and just stupid. You have to learn the set of three principle then practice and train using a set of three out of all the defensive multiple methodologies to get-r-done. 

Just thinking out loud with my keyboard and in practice don’t ya know!

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