A note on negative feedback loops in training motivation

I've been in a real trap as far as my training goes lately. I've been keeping up with it, but it's been forced, and it's been weak. There are a variety of reasons this negative feedback loop--and that's exactly what it is--got started, and unravelling it by studying some classic motivation theory seems to have done the trick to get me back on track.

A Testament to Incorrect

Since I've been back from London, I've been doing what little turning I've been doing in places other than on my increasingly famous circle, which is worn into my yard and has been consistently muddy since I got home. I got on it tonight after a long day of not doing much of training value and decided to put into action some of the things that I learned about turning while in London, particularly involving the role of the waist in the process. I quickly noticed that my circle, which takes about seven steps to get around, is too big.

I've never put the proper amount of emphasis into turning my legs using the waist, mostly because I don't think I had the faintest idea of how to do it. Now that I'm more able to do it, I am keenly aware of the fact that my circle is about a foot's width too large in diameter, a problem not particularly helped by the fact that while I was gone, the very vigorous grass in my yard seemed to encroach further than ever into the annulus that I've walked, suffering, so far upon... incorrectly, if only a little.

This is a reality of seriously training an art that requires constant refinement: over time patterns in our training may become quite evident and then become evidence of the mistakes that we've been making or the attention that we've been lacking. I have to admit, though, that I didn't really expect to find this lesson so palpably underfoot.

Attachment and Change

All things change. That is a primary lesson of the Yijing and a primary (philosophical) lesson of bagua. As a result of this uncomfortable truth, attachment is to be let go of or never formed, which is an easier feat to accomplish academically than in reality, like so many other things. Today, fortune has brought to me a change and the opportunity to feel an attachment in a real way, and so I should be grateful. I think I'm sad, though.

We have a couple of trees in our yard that have needed to come down for a while... these not accessible to my sawing powers. In fact, the one I sawed down last summer by hand has decided to mutiny and is growing back as a vibrant and eager bush, so that needs dealing with too. That brought the tree people. Money convinced them to take the trees down. Doing that job the way they do things led to the destruction of something I am apparently quite attached to.

This story doesn't start properly with trees, though. It's starts with rain, lots of rain. It has rained here at least five out of seven days for a month, usually hard. Late last week, for instance, it varied between raining steadily and pouring heavily for around thirty hours straight, followed by some drizzle for half a day and more rain that next night. The river, viewed on my drive to work, which is lowered (via the dams) in the winter was full to its banks. It's rained so much that despite the years-long drought we've been suffering, almost everyone I know wishes it would just stop raining. Rain has consequences less dire than flooding, which due to our mountainish terrain hasn't been a serious problem for the most part. One of those consequences is mud.

I've talked about mud before and how mud ruins my circle. It becomes slippery and dangerous to walk on, besides being an utter mess, our soil being essentially 121% red clay. As everyone knows, clay of any sort, when it gets wet, gets soft and pliant. Pliant enough so that when a big, heavy truck drives across your well-tended, hard-earned circle, it FUCKS IT UP BIG TIME.

So that's that... the circle is in bumpy ruins with tire-tracks all through. What can be done? Dunno... I probably should turn more and think about it.