ZOOM IN, Zoom out.

My eyesight only allows me to see so much.  So, when facing a situation or dilemma, I imagine a set of binoculars around my neck and raise them to my eyes.  Binoculars give me superior vision, allowing me to zoom in very closely on my problem and zoom out and see far and wide around it.  The ability to zoom in and out is built into the binoculars and can be adjusted instantly.  When you are training, cultivate your skills and abilities to zoom them in and out quickly to aid you in your journey through martial arts (or life).

The moment I begin to work with someone, I don’t know what will come of it, so I take a wide lens.  I zoom out.  I consider not just them but me.  Zooming out enables me to ask questions of myself like:

Why am i doing this?  

Am I being aggressive?  Why?  

What are my responses like?

Am I rushing?  

Overreacting, under-reacting?  

And to gain deeper awareness of myself:  

Oh, I feel scared right now.  

I need to get more comfortable being grabbed. 

Zooming out allows me to see the big picture of what’s happening here.  

Then, as I continue to work with the person and accumulate data, I narrow my focus and zoom in.  From here, I can see the placement of the person’s knee, posture, hand and finger placement, spine alignment, and leg and hip rotations.   I discover their shoulders are tense or very rigid, they aren’t moving fluidly.  Then I continue to zoom in, touching these areas, their shoulders, head, and hips, trying to get more information.  All of this detail enables me to determine the best response to the situation.   

Training in this way allows you to witness your detailed response plus zoom out and see the bigger picture from an outsider’s perspective.  This is very helpful in real life situations when often-times the person right in front of you isn’t the only threat of which you need to be aware.  He may have 5 friends coming toward you from another direction, or the situation might be about to blow up into a larger conflict.  If you only zoom in, you will miss this broader perspective often at your own peril.  

If I’m in a forest and someone tells me there’s a big elm tree to the west, I zoom out with my binoculars to find the tree.  Then, I zoom in to get the details of the tree.  It’s just like that for me in training.  The moment I work with someone, it’s wide lens, wide angle.  Then as I work with the person, I pick up detail that allows me to determine where I need to focus.  

If you’re lost in a forest, zooming out gives you the widest view so you can figure out the right direction to go.  Once you are moving in the right direction, zooming in can provide information that is important to your escape.  But if you zoom in right away, you won’t see the way out.  At best, you will be guessing.  Zooming in when you are lost will not help. Just as zooming out when you know your direction will not help.

In training, as in life, if you don’t have a definite goal, it's best to zoom out and get perspective:

Why are you training?  

Do you just want to fight?  

Are you blaming others? 

You get narrow as you have a purpose and reason for your work.  Zooming in provides specific information.  Zooming out provides broader perspective.  Neither is good or bad, it just depends on what you want to accomplish.  

In the process of looking at a situation with a wide lens you gain detail that helps you determine where you want to focus, ie. where to zoom in.  The key is to do this quickly, in the time it takes to change the dial on binoculars.

Emmanuel Manolakakis