I just read an article posted by James Clear (he’s a business blogger with some good stuff on psychology and habit formation). This was actually all about finding meaningful work. The story he related was from a photographer that was giving a speech to graduates. I don’t want to go into all the details but the theory put forward was called the Helsinki Bus Station Theory.

Essentially it goes like this, the bus station in Helsinki has a number of stands, the buses are all numbered with different destinations but all the buses go out of the station and follow the same road for a while before branching off and going toward their respective destinations. The metaphor was that most photography graduates get on a bus and follow the road for a while e.g. take photos of nudes for a few years and then try to show their photos in a museum or gallery and are told that someone’s already done that. So the graduate gets off the bus gets a cab back to the station and gets on another bus, taking photos of people on the beach from a cherry picker and the same thing happens. They go back to the station and get on another bus, they could do this their entire lives!

Martial artists can be the same, and this can be either a stylistic or intra-style phenomena. Stylistic being that the martial artist is looking to become the ultimate fighter or some such and starts in say Karate, after a few years they find out they are pretty good but there are loads of other people the same as them or they get beaten by someone from a different style. So they go do Wing Chun and start again. And then Tai Chi. Then BJJ and Xing Yi and Bagua and Tongbei and on and on, reaching a competent level and understanding but not taking it further. Or even within a style I’ve seen people stop and start again, try one thing and then another, want to do the next form or animal or weapon.

STAY ON THE FUCKING BUS!

With time, with focus, with dedication you will move away from the rigidity of the art, the core, the fundamentals. You will no longer be just another karateka or Xing Yi practitioner, you will own your own art, your style, based upon that core framework.  You may emulate your teacher or your class mates but at some point you develop your individuality, how you move and respond and fight.

The thing James Clear also points out about this theory is not that you just stay on the bus (you are consistent and move forwards) but that you must also work and rework.

He says that the average college student learns an idea once, the best ones relearn ideas again and again. An employee may write an email once and even though they may write thousands of emails it doesn’t make them a novelist, novelists write and rewrite single chapters again and again, as well as writing thousands of different chapters. Gym goers do reps again and again, elite athletes re-evaluate and critique each rep aiming for improvement each time.

This connects back to my last blog post on going back to basics. The average martial artist will go to class once a week and do their form or applications for an hour or so without full concentration or awareness, they’ll pay their money and go.  The best martial artists reassess their form every day and every time they perform it. They hone in on detail each time they make a movement, they analyse the response of their opponents (in various ways but they analyse them). They re-work the old ideas again and again, rather than look for the novel ideas (new style, new form, new weapon).

Those that jump around are doing new work. Let’s say we buy into the idea from the famous book “Outliers” and you need 10,000 hours to become an elite in your field. And lets say over 3 years you do 2 hours a day you’ll have 2,184 hours. Now if you hop off your bus and start a new art or new form you start again. In another 3 years you have 2,184 hours in your new art. The guy that stuck at it now has 4,368 hours and is closer to realising the unique aspects of their own way of using their art.

What James Clear say is, “a lot of people put in 10,000 hours, not many put in 10,000 hours of revision”, of deliberate rework or reassessment of ideas, of meditation on the same areas. Not many people stay on the fucking bus! (I’m imagining Samuel L Jackson shouting “Stay on the fucking bus” for some reason!)

I’ve been riding the Xing Yi bus for quite some time and seen people hop off it and back on, do something new each week. I practice Yan Yi everyday, Yan Yi is essentially an exploratory movement practice based on Xing Yi’s own movement principles. So each day I’m reworking the core foundational ways of moving in Xing Yi over and over again. Sometimes I’ll even spend hours on the same movement or movement pattern. I’m working and reworking the principles. If you want to get anywhere with your practice of Xing Yi or any martial art…Stay on the fucking bus.