The Master, The Expert, The Programmer
The Master, The Expert, The Programmer:
After reading books on martial arts history for years, and studying everything I can, I started to see a commonly understood pattern. Almost all people considered masters of their art finally come to such a deep knowledge that they can do more with less. Rather than a flurry of complicated leaping and jumping, the master will simply step to the side and make one calculated strike. Every story about old masters is the same in that, even though they were frail and near death, their knowledge and abilities were so deep and clear that their simplest motions had the greatest power. For a master, the pompous and flowery motions were just wastes of energy.
Just Chillin ... 
This is true in acupuncture as well. I can’t remember who the physician in question was, but one of my teachers was talking about a doctor who cured pretty much every patient that walked through the door just by needling LI-4. When asked what his secret was he said, “Well first you must love the patient.”
lgs
November 18, 2006 at 1:02 am
Hey LGS, great story and thanks for sharing!
wujimon
November 18, 2006 at 8:44 am
hey wujimon, thanks for sharing the link. it’s interesting to note how master vs expert on any subjects share the same fate, from high tech programming to low tech martial arts!
Shang Lee
November 19, 2006 at 11:41 am
Hi Shang. Since both of these fields overlap my own life (programming, martial arts) I found it to be a delightful read.
I’m gonna cheese myself out here, but it reminds me of a quote from Memoirs of a Geisha where the business man asks the geisha why she cares about sumo.
“What is sumo but a dance between giants.
What is business but a dance between companies.
I’d like to know about every kind of dance”
wujimon
November 19, 2006 at 5:08 pm