Shana was giving me the positives and negatives of the thread, her understanding of what I was trying to convey, etc. Understand that she has been a student of mine and knows first hand how I take complex things and strip them down to fundamental elements that we drill, and then slowly build the pieces back up again - sometimes in myriad directions. She "gets" first hand what I'm talking about.
As I was explaining to Shana, these threads are my proving ground for ideas and my ability to convey them. You think you have something down pat. Do you?
Try presenting brand new research at a scientific meeting where your jealous competitors are in the audience - waiting to find a flaw so that they can rip you to shreds in front of your peers. In grad school we were required to give one seminar a year in front of students, faculty, and guests. Often the professors would present new research at these seminars. And the grad students? Fresh meat for the profs who wanted them to learn what it's like to go out there in the real world with your ideas.
Do you know what I did? I made myself present not once, but twice a year. Every year. Some sessions went really well. And some... Oye! But I got the experience. In the words of Covey, I sharpened my saw.
As I told Shana, going up against a peanut gallery of folks with unknown agendas and motivations is a good way to see how well your ideas and thoughts are crystallized.
Scientific meetings are what you do before you submit that paper to a peer-reviewed journal. And even then it's often ripped apart by your peers until/when/if it gets accepted for publication.
These threads are great practice for that book...
Is this part of my training? Or should I know it all in 3 to 5 years like some of my associates here?
Have you paid your dues in tournaments when a younger lad (or lassie)?
Do you teach? Actively? Continuously?
Do you write?
Do you think you know it all now?
And after years of putting your knowledge to good use, do you think it might be useful to reorganize that knowledge in a way that is easier to access in your brain?
Are you content with the way things are, or do you want to take martial information and leave your mark? What is the difference between the former individual and the latter?
Is what we do fixed and static, or is it fluid and constantly evolving? To what degree?
Is there just one way, or is martial information expressed at an individual level?
But there I go again...
- Bill
