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"Grok-entry" is both the beginning and both the end. This will be an illustration through ping-pong/table-tennis(TT).pic.twitter.com/Y0jaXCaqqa
The "grok" is like the Christmas tree. The super-saturated environment of Christmas fervor and ornaments suddenly crystallizes onto the "seed", creating a tempting attacking target. For TT, grokking suddenly coalesces all the meaningless muscle movements you were parroting.
You may spend hours holding your wrist with a certain tension, elbow at a certain angle, feet at a certain width apart, etc... but it never feels "right" or "real".https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1350349270642159616?s=20 …
Technology can complicate this. Modern TT rubbers impart significantly more topspin to a ball. This is "good" because all shots now have more arc and potential to hit the table. However, it also blurs the distinction between the forehand drive and the forehand loop.
Because of the reliance on technology, this can lead to "equipment porn". Because the equipment is doing the majority of the work it makes SENSE to focus on improving the equipment. There's no point improving kung-fu if you can just buy a better gun.
However, equipment improvements have diminishing returns. At the end of the day, the bullets go pew pew. Intention, situational awareness, flow state control, and mentality under pressure are far more important. All the things that Cobra... er... Miyagi-do teach.
Once it becomes a tool instead of a crutch there's a sudden feeling of empowerment. "Now I get it!" In anime this can be the magic sword "Awakening" or the individual entering a "Final Form". This is "grok-entry", a suddenly coalescing crystallization of all previous efforts.
Once grok entry is achieved everything starts to make "sense". You start to see what was "right" and "wrong" in what your coach or that internet article was trying to say.
"Feet shoulder width apart" is about lowering your stroke plane to the most effective angle. The specific width doesn't matter because you knee bend also affects your stroke height. The stroke height is what's important!
"Wrist held tight but not too tight" is about the right wrist action to "snap" but without the racket flying out or so loose that energy transfer is weakened. The contradictory "Hold wrist tight!" advice was b/c the issue at the time was energy transfer, not topspin.
To get to "right" you have to go through a lot of "wrong". To build a skyscraper that touches the sky you ironically start by digging a very deep hole!
The forehand loop is the primary attack stroke in TT. Even after grokking, there is still a 10,000 hr ceiling. "grok-entry" doesn't suddenly make you GOOD at the thing. It just makes it make SENSE. You stop tripping over yourself or running in circles.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1350349271510392836?s=20 …
It's purely about linear improvement. Once you "grok" how to decorate a christmas tree you can decorate it over and over again in different ways producing different effects. Same for cooking. Grok salt/acid/heat.. and you can make tasty meals. It's not about "winning".
The initial grok also isn't the final grok. In a complicated domain you may have to grok other things like the backhand loop/block/etc.. or "opposite" movements like the forehand chop. Or perhaps the forehand loop has higher tiers of grok that need to be "unlocked".
For the latter, these subsequent expert level groks have diminishing returns. Not everyone wants to spend the time to unlock what is a minor difference to most people.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1311582438905110528 …
Going up a level, you have "grokking grok-entry" which has alternative advice forms in: "Don't pretend to understand what you don't" or "Follow your heart" or "Follow your passion" or "Be yourself". If you're not grokking you're head-nodding.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1347234301088157696 …
An interesting question to ponder is "Can you force grok?" In one sense "there are no bad students" and a good teacher can transmit amazing amounts of information and intuition.https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYO_jab_esuFRV4b17AJtAw …
In another sense, often times it feels like we are called to play certain "roles" and rejection of that role to play another game like the money or status game creates ingrained "fakeness". We forget that we never wanted to play in the first place.https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1324749586439696385?s=20 …
This is the double-edged Sword of Insight. The same "AHA" moment that you get seeing Euler's Identity explained without magic math hand waving is the same "AHA" moment the desperate beaten-down German citizen feels when offered the insight "The Jews are to blame!"
Insight is the transmission of one soul to another. Across the dark lonely sea that divides individual identity, two people can, for a moment, have the same "Understanding".
Ok I lost the plot. TPR: grokking table tennis and Christmas trees
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