Ummm. Eep?

[draconis]

I'm over here alternating between feeling immensely proud, and going, "Eep!"

Many many moons ago, the head of the martial arts organization I belong to (George Dillman) was one of Muhammed Ali's sparring partners. Ali built himself a training camp up in the Pennsylvania hills, near a town called Deer Lake, and he used to train there with Dillman and his other partners. When he retired, he sold the camp to Dillman. In addition to periodically renting it out for boxers to come up there and train for upcoming matches, Dillman also runs a couple of weekend-long martial arts training camps there each year. The way these camps are set up, you'll spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour with one of the high-ranking instructors from all across the country and all around the world (including Dillman, obviously), then he'll yield the floor to the next instructor who'll teach something else, and so on.

The next one of these camps is Memorial Day weekend, and I'll be attending. I've attended a couple of them, and I have to say, the place is GREAT for training. It has fantastic atmosphere (both figuratively and literally), a wonderful sense of history (almost everything is the way Ali kept it when he and his family were living there), and it's one of those places that just seems to energize you.

I heard "through the grapevine" this morning that so far, this is going to be a very small camp -- only about two dozen people are signed up so far. I guess the economy is still biting people in the wallet pretty hard.

But that's not the part that made me go, "Eep!"

Apparently, when Dillman found out that I was going to be there, his reaction was, "Oh, he's coming!! I may have to have him teach something - he's ready!"

I didn't really even think in terms of being on his "radar screen," much less in such a positive fashion!

Okay, now to figure out WTF I'm going to teach, if he DOES ask! LOL

Comments

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! congratulations!

Perhaps something related to moving energy with thought?

[jcbdragon.livejournal.com]

Actually, for quite a few folks in that crowd -- that wouldn't be anything new!

Plus, it is chronically hard to verify whether you're getting "real" results or false positives.

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

Do they ever do those energy "hits" from behind a screen? (no touch take-down) Flip a coin to determine if you do or don't do the "hit". The "recipient" doesn't know which it will be. That way you can screen out the ones who respond purely from expectation. Repeat at 30 second intervals, 10 trials of go, no go.

If you want to make it double blind, have the recipients selected without the wielder seeing who they are for that particular trial.

[jcbdragon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've thought of some ways to do legitimate scientific experimentation with it... but that really doesn't lend itself well to "teaching a topic"

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

Depends on how you define "teaching", or what it is you want to teach. Doesn't work as a way of imparting a specific data set, no. On the other hand, if you are interested in teaching people how to critically evaluate what they are learning? Kind of a meta topic. "How do you know how to tell when something is bogus or 'real'?" Alternatively as a way for people to test what is really going on when they learn to do that no-touch technique. And if some of it IS expectation set, that doesn't mean it's invalid, by the way. It just leads to the question, "how do you keep creating that expectation(that what I do, WHATEVER I do, will bring you (the uke) down)?"