Sep 27 The Human Supercomputer

The human body is the most advanced machine ever created and housed inside it is the most powerful supercomputer in existence – the human brain.   This super computer is capable of sending and receiving messages to and from the farthest corners of the body at speeds in excess of 180mph and has over 100 billion neurons (brain cells) just waiting to fire up to compute and guide our body through all the functions it needs to carry out.  Every aspect of our existence including our martial arts, is the end result of a computation made by the ‘human super computer’.

Unlike man-made computers, the human brain is ‘self-aware’ allowing it to reprogram itself in response to things it learns and experiences.  Self-awareness is the holy grail of computing and it is a process that martial artists have continually refined for hundreds of years creating a more efficient software program to run the body.  Understanding this ‘reprogramming’ process is truly what makes a great martial arts instructor and is also the key to becoming a great student.

Programming the human mind is an interesting task.  Unlike a computer you can’t just input a few instructions and expect a result – unfortunately there is no ‘Matrix’ style ‘I know Kung Fu’ program we can upload into the brain.  The human mind learns through direct experience – it will be put into a situation, process the information, respond appropriately and will then remember the outcome of that response.   Our mind learns by ‘observing’ the things that it experiences.  Take for example learning to throw a front kick our first attempt may cause us to wobble off balance and our brain will then remember this and will slightly adjust our posture, weight distribution and other factors to attempt to rectify this issue for our next attempt.  It really is exactly the same process your instructor takes you through correction and allows the mind to learn from past experiences and base future actions on those memories.

Over time, learning through experience allows us to refine the commands the mind issues to the body making our actions smoother and more efficient, it stores these refined commands for the latter use.  This means that in order to improve and evolve, our body needs to experience new situations from which it can gather the data it requires to keep its programming fresh and up to date.  If it isn’t introduced to new situations regularly it is forced to continue to use ‘old’ programming over and over again and the inherent danger here is that we become stuck in a rut and our mind merely runs the same outdated commands over and over again.  It is here that we become aware of the ‘loops’ that can occur in the programming which cause the body to repeat actions and patterns that can actually be harmful to it.  Knowing how to break free of the ‘loops’ becomes an essential skill necessary for progress in our martial studies and to resolve any trauma we may experience.

‘Loops’ in the programming can occur through trauma and habit and these cause the mind stop observing and reflecting on events and to switch to autopilot.  A common example of this that I see regularly is how people react after an injury.  When a part of the body is injured the body will take measures to protect it – if you hurt your shoulder your body will armour up and tighten the muscles around the shoulder to restrict any movement that may damage it further.  This is a ‘reflective learning’ process in action.  Alarm signals were sent to the brain informing it of an injury to the shoulder, it reflects on this and responds by locking down to prevent further damage.  Obviously this ‘lock down’ reaction is important because if something is injured we want to rest it and allow it to recover.  The danger is that the shoulder will now be fixed and not able to move.  Without movement the brain will not experience anything to keep its program up to date so it will ‘remember’ that when the shoulder moves it hurts.  The only way to take an injured area out of ‘lock down’ mode is through the mindful application of ‘reflective learning’ that sometimes requires us to pay a visit to a therapist, but with intelligent and sensitive rehabilitation training, is something we can usually achieve ourselves.

When I’m treating someone with an injury I first find out the extent of the damage to the effected area and how ‘locked down’ it is.  I do this by slowly exploring the injury using both movement and pressure – through gently applying pressure and small movements I can gauge the severity of the damage by observing the body’s reaction to the stimulus.  This gives me the limits in which I can work without causing the mind to panic and this dictates the extent to which I can challenge my client.  My goal with any client is to change the parameters of their mind by allowing their body to experience something new.  Pushing too far will shock the mind and confirm what it already knows, however carefully raising an injured arm in very tiny increments lets it experience that there is a little scope for movement before it panics.  The quality of the experience we give the mind has a direct correlation to the wisdom it will glean from it and this is the fundamental concept behind ‘reflective learning’.

The saying ‘variety is the spice of life’ is very true but as a martial artists the type of experience we put the mind through dramatically effects the ‘learning’ it will reap from it.  Shocking the mind will cause it to remember trauma and it will protect itself by restricting and inhibiting movement.  It is very easy to overload the mind causing it to violently fallback on previous programming.  To make a meaningful change in the mind and body the learning experience must be gradual and progressive.

In Japanese martial arts there is the concept of shoshin or ‘beginners mind’, this is a mindset where a student leaves behind conceptions from the past allowing them to totally immerse themselves in the present.  In order ensure that our super computer is kept up to date we must constantly supply it with fresh data, but like any computer it will crash if overloaded.  Immersing the mind in the martial arts provides it with the perfect stimulus to evolve, but like a parachute, it only works when open!

© Can Stock Photo

Gavin King

Gavin King is a Shiatsu practitioner, writer and Martial Arts instructor from Essex in the United Kingdom. He runs a full time Martial Arts centre in Hockley, Essex teaching Tai Chi and Kung Fu. You can contact him via Facebook or Twitter!

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