【Continued】Local Gurgle [112]The body always grasps things before the mind does.
For over twenty years since graduating college, I'd just sort of kept playing tennis. But suddenly, at this age, it's become incredibly fun. It all started at a tennis club in Takamatsu City. When visiting my wife's family home, I didn't have much to do besides morning udon and evening local fish & sake, so I took private lessons to pass the time.
When I started spouting nonsense like, "Shouldn't I hold the racket more upright for the backhand take-back?" or "I want to hit using the double pendulum principle—stopping my core rotation mid-swing and accelerating only from the elbow down...", the coach's first exercise was: "I'll hit the ball. Chase it, but at the last moment, don't hit it with your racket—just watch it pass." "How does it feel? When you let it go without hitting, doesn't your chest get all... buzzing, buzzing? That's the exact timing to hit the ball."
When I asked about the purpose of this seemingly spiritual (laugh) training, he said, "Mr. Yamada, you're too eager to hit. You're too focused on your own form. But really, you should make the ball the main character. Observe the incoming ball carefully, observe it. Your body already knows how to hit it."
It's true, our brains can't process multiple things simultaneously. Yet, we can execute complex movements like aiming and hitting an irregularly flying ball to an unguarded spot. This isn't because our brains instantly understand and judge all the information—it's the power of the body.
The body possesses the ability for "physical thinking," exemplified by the "intuition" of athletes and craftsmen. However, modern people, who have less direct experience in nature and are expected to be rational, objective, and productive by controlling their desires, seem to be losing that sense of "the body knows."
Professor Takashi Saito of Meiji University points to the "loss of the culture of the lower back and belly." Traditionally, Japanese people acquired a sense of "settling the lower back" and "making up one's mind" through their culture. However, he argues that this transmission was severed after the war. Carefully avoiding ideological arguments, he contends that Japanese culture should reevaluate traditional methods for training bodily awareness.
I myself am a weakling who has never done a single weight training exercise in my life, but sports are a good opportunity to learn what "the body knows" (or perhaps "the limits of the brain"). According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology's website, the purpose of physical education subjects is to learn "physical abilities" like endurance, concentration, and flexibility; "attitudes" such as a spirit of challenge and fair play; and "knowledge, thinking, and judgment" related to movement. However, training bodily awareness through sports experience holds value equal to, if not surpassing, the other "purposes" listed here. With the Olympics coming to Tokyo in 2020, now is the time to discuss the meaning of sports once again.
Amidst this heat, I keep playing tennis so often that people around me worry, "Sō-chan, have you lost weight?" Unfortunately, the precision of my shots – which my body should "know" – hasn't improved at all. The sole purpose of endlessly sweating buckets is that ice-cold beer after tennis. That devilishly delicious taste!!
I feel like I'm living an even less healthy life than before, but that's life too. For now, I'll be living and breathing tennis.
Enjoy!
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Author
Sōo Yamada
Dentsu Inc.
Meiji Gakuin University Part-time Lecturer (Business Administration) Using "concept quality management" as its core technique, this approach addresses everything from advertising campaigns and TV program production to new product/business development and revitalizing existing businesses and organizations—all through a unique "indwelling" style that immerses itself in the client's environment. Founder of the consulting service "Indwelling Creators." Served as a juror at the 2009 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity (Media category), among other roles. Recipient of numerous awards. His books, "The Textbook of Ideas: Dentsu Inc.'s Circular Thinking" and "How to Create Concepts: Dentsu Inc.'s Ideation Methods Useful for Product Development" (both published by Asahi Shimbun Publications), have been translated and published overseas (in English, Thai, and the former also in Korean).
