Kihon

I like to draw from my experiences of living and training in martial arts in Japan.  What I loved most about when I found true masters to train with is that there was complete congruence between intellectual concept and physical interpretation.  In martial arts Kihon is the word that applies to basics, fundamentals.  This is not unlike learning to walk before you can run.

The Kihon is that fundamental knowledge that often comes before the technique – to take it to an extreme before you can walk you must understand balance, depth perception, how to adapt, change pace etc.  This learning process is not always conscious, and frequently people will create a reasonably successful approach to something from deductive logic, and most people will figure out how to run at some point.

Just like a sprinter would break down his movement, looking backwards to his balance and his weight distribution, a martial artist will constantly explore balance points, weight, timing, distance and directions, and with each level of self realization a strong final product is created.

This refinement process for a true artist or athlete will go right down to the fundamentals, and at other times will tweak things at a very high level.  There is a great danger that exists in the novice observer, they may look onward and seek to copy what they see, but they are missing fundamental knowledge, they see a person doing a throw, but don’t know that the person wasn’t allowed to try that until they had 200 hours of learning how to receive the throw as Uke.

I see this existing within the personal finance space too, and I am guilty of playing with very esoteric concepts for money and travel.  I feel that perhaps we should have a new disclaimer “professional driver on a closed course” just to make sure that people don’t recklessly emulate.

In martial arts and sports, there are no shortcuts.  During my current training every now and then I get to go up against a few Olympians, these guys work on the basics every single day and that is why they become champions, they certainly also refine at the highest level, but they got through all of the basic, boring steps because if they do not drill the boring stuff gaps in their knowledge will emerge when under extreme pressure.  When you train against them you know that there is something fundamentally different, and even the most mundane technique becomes a serious risk.

As an example, I like the idea of talking about using a ROTH IRA as an emergency fund, but this isn’t for everyone. In fact it is hard to know exactly who it is for… if you look at the people with the least savings who would benefit most, they often don’t have the fortitude to keep their ROTH funds liquid, rather chasing yields, if you look at people at the top end of the spectrum who have enough wealth to not need to do this, it is worthless.

Another might be DCbroker and his method, are people going to skip past the slow and steady approach to earning some miles from a normal spend and go all in from the start? I certainly hope not.

There are some people who fit in the middle ground of knowledge who can do really well from strategies like this, but I think it might be wise if you think you fit into this slice of demographic that you first do things the boring, ineffective way, the ‘proper’ way.  It won’t be flashy, you will lose a little upside in the opportunity, but you will learn your Kihon.  Once you have internalized the concepts, then refine them.

Jumping straight from nothing and no knowledge to extremely sophisticated might well cause you more problems that it is worth, remember, nobody becomes a champion, financial or capturing snazzy deals or otherwise by cutting corners before they know how the corner works.

For more ramblings on Martial Arts, and some pics of someone trying to kick my backside, check out this post on Traveling as a Martial Artist.