Grappling

Last week I started Judo classes. I’d been antsy for some kind of physical activity since I got to France, and I wanted experience with a new martial art too. Perfect. The knuckles on a couple of my fingers got skinned – not sure if it was from rolling on the mat or gripping someone’s gi. I got a couple of bruises on my chest too. My body’s sore, but in a satisfying way.

So far I have basically no idea what I’m doing, and from what I gather Judo’s a technical sport. The main thing I’m trying to work on in these early days is staying relaxed. Fluid. It’s something I strived for in boxing too. Keeping loose, while moving with speed and strength when the timing’s right. Fighting the instinct to tense up. Or rewiring the instincts. Mentally I understand what I need to do, but then it’s transferring that to the physical.

That state of relaxation with speed and strength – speed and strength coming from relaxation, even – transfers beyond boxing and judo. It’s the same as being “cool under fire.” Keeping the mind open to all possibilities and solutions even when the stress of the situation makes us want to shut down. Talking about it as liquid reminds me of the Tao, too. Or good teachers who have that intangible “presence” in the classroom – poised while passionate.

When I started learning classical guitar my teacher would often remind me to relax. If the hands are tense they move slower. And when I would practice sheet reading I’d enter tunnel vision if I started to stress. Thinking about it, though, didn’t seem to make the difference. In all of these examples, the main solution is experience. Practice. But is that the only means to this presence of mind? Or does some of it come a priori?

Spread Out the Speed

One day, as I read Scientific American while eating a bowl of macaroni and cheese, I thought of creating a new version of chess. Since the current version only uses x and y axes, two dimensions, why not add a z axis? You know, like up and down. I started thinking of plastic cubes and intricate magnet wands to move the pieces.

Turns out my idea for 3D chess didn’t break any ground. Mathematicians have already gone beyond 3D and 4D versions of the game, or at least that’s what I hear. Still, I came upon the idea on my own. That makes me an original imitator. And really, accounting for time as a dimension, my chess would be 4D.

Now hold on. If I think of time as a dimension, don’t we imagine only one axis on which motion occurs in one direction? Obviously we can think of going back in time, as Michael J. Fox brilliantly portrayed, but what about going up or down in time? Side to side?

Nevermind. What’s important is that I learned something new last night. Reading Briane Greene’s explanation of Special Relativity, it turns out all objects move at a fixed speed – the speed of light – but that motion divides into the four dimensions. Like, right now I’m going at a certain speed through time while also moving at certain speeds in the spatial dimensions.

If I managed to move at something close to light speed in one of the spatial dimensions, the speed at which I move through time would decrease proportionally. The total speed remains constant. That’s theoretical physics’ time travel: go super fast and you will live eight years while others live sixty. Jump into their future.

But does this connect with the motion of our minds? Do all people have a fixed speed that their consciousness moves at, which is then divided into varying “directions”? Or do we start at different speeds? Can we level up?

I’m thinking of the “Create a Character” mode in video games. You get a certain amount of points – say, twenty – which you divide into the character’s different abilities. I put ten into speed, three into balance, five into strength, and two into stamina. Or ten into processing, three into communication, five into confidence, and two into focus.