Take the practice
with you.

Goals, blockers, measurement

Develop measurable, reproducible capabilities under resistance and changing conditions. Investigate unnecessary physical tension and unnecessary mental certainty. Measure capability, not repetition or loyalty to a method.

The troubleshooting cycle

1. Attempt. Try to produce a specific physical result.
2. Measure. Determine whether the result occurred.
3. Diagnose. Identify what prevented success.
4. Correct. Change a specific tension, compensation, or organisational problem.
5. Retest. Repeat the task and observe the difference.
6. Reinforce. Repeat the successful organisation until it becomes reliable.
7. Verify. Test independent retention and transfer across partners and conditions.

Immediate coached improvement is not necessarily durable learning. Verify independent reproduction and later retention.

Three physical challenges

Rising from a chair

Stand against controlled resistance without unnecessary bracing. Identify one area of unnecessary tension. Release what is not needed while maintaining posture and support. Repeat with comparable resistance. Verify: Reproduce the change without prompting, then check again later and with a different partner.

Walking through resistance

Maintain continuous movement as resistance changes. Investigate the point where movement breaks down. Change one compensation or organisational problem, then retest at the same resistance. Verify: Check whether the movement remains coherent when the partner or direction of gentle resistance changes.

Rising from the floor

Investigate movement under carefully controlled upper-torso pressure. The partner supports their own weight and releases immediately on request. Investigate a small change in organisation; reduce pressure whenever needed. Verify: Check independent movement at a safe, agreed level. Never increase weight to prove a result. Stop for pain, discomfort or breathing difficulty.

Safety: Qualified hands-on supervision, explicit consent, controlled resistance, padded mats for floor work. Protect neck, spine, chest and joints. Stop for pain, discomfort, dizziness or breathing difficulty. Never force a result. Illustrations and text do not replace hands-on instruction.

Over the Wall, Together

The goal is a self-correcting community of peers who repeatedly help one another surpass their limits. The best teacher doesn’t create a pedestal. The best teacher creates peers.

Skill attenuation is the risk that vocabulary and demonstrations survive while practical capability becomes less reliable. This is not inevitable in traditional lineages: reliable transmission, independent testing and innovation can keep them vital.

Use Attempt → Measure → Diagnose → Correct → Retest → Reinforce → Verify to distribute the capacity to learn. Test whether students can reproduce results independently, help each other improve, challenge the instructor’s explanations and teach new capabilities onward. These are aspirations to test, not guaranteed outcomes.

Six statements to remember

1. Being better than everyone around you doesn’t mean you’re approaching the limits of what’s possible.
2. The moment you decide you’ve already understood something, you may have eliminated your opportunity to learn it.
3. Emptying your cup doesn’t mean throwing away your knowledge. It means releasing your attachment to being right.
4. Don’t measure how much you’ve practiced. Measure what your practice has made you capable of doing.
5. Don’t leave impressed with your teacher. Leave more capable than when you walked in.
6. The best teacher doesn’t create a pedestal. The best teacher creates peers.

Before & after: practice record

Keep task and resistance comparable. Revisit the result without coaching and again later.