How to Study and Practise

[RobertJasiek]

Quotation reference:
http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 39#p183739

I do not suppose that there is much THEORY available on "pruning leaves".

There is much such theory.

What do you need ?

Your interesting question is relevant for everybody's study and practise.

-- Study the result of someone more experienced than you pruning your arrangement, especially compare the pictures before, and after.
-- Practise pruning your arrangements on your own.

What do you mean by "arrangement" and "pictures"?

-- Accept that the more experienced person's judgement (that "after" has more harmony than "before") will be true in the overwhelming majority of cases.

If you mean "positional judgement", I disagree. Many "more experienced persons" might offer their opinion, but too often without explanation. Such opinion is not better than looking through pro games with the expectation that most positions must be "good". However, maybe you mean a different kind of judgement, if so which?

-- Ask a third party for their opinion. [...] Accept this party's opinion in 90 per cent of cases without thinking.

I guess again you presume the third party to be a "more experienced person" (in the meaning of "more skillful"). My experience with third party opinions has been: Their statements without reasoning are of very little use (even if I presume their 90+% correctness) while their statements with careful reasoning or justification are very valuable. Unfortunately, such statements are rare.

-- For walking on the last few per cent of your path, ask the more experienced person for advice again.

As consequence of the above, I find myself walking my own path for 90+%.

If external advice were as good as you hope, I would agree with you. However, it is not as good. Apart from the rare really helpful advice, I benefit more by doing my own study or research using pro games, my games or inventions.

If you know better sources, share them.

[Uberdude]

Pretty sure he was talking about flower arranging...

[RobertJasiek]

Possible, but nevertheless his thoughts can also be used for go, and this is how I perceive them.

[Cassandra]

Possible, but nevertheless his thoughts can also be used for go, and this is how I perceive them.

Definitely, I wrote about "Ikebana", and I am afraid that you did not really grasp the analogy. I'll answer your initial posting later ...


As a matter of course, there are some textbooks, especially designed for beginners. But I have never seen a textbook for "masters" that would explain explicitely the more advanced "theory".

Certainly, some "laws of harmony" are written down, e.g. telling you that the proportions of the three main lines of an arrangement should be like 1 : 1.5 : 2. Please note that 1 : 1.5 is near to the "Golden Ratio" of 1.618... As is e.g. "extend three spaces from a two-stone wall".

However, while the beginner has to "measure" in every single case, holding two branches side by side, the more advanced is able to cut a branch "blindfolded", and gets the proportion right.

My wife is a beginner at Go, may be around 20k, but (applying "our" levelling) about 4d, or 5d amateur in Ikebana. She often told me that a game of Go between professionals, or very strong amateurs, looks like a good Ikebana. Games between weaker amateurs usually do not.

Despite she has no deeper insights into the "theory" of Go, she is able to give an (mostly accurate) assumption, who is ahead on the board. Just by looking at the whole picture.

The same is true the other way round. Having no deeper insights into how to create an Ikebana arrangment, I have a good feeling, which arrangements are "good" (i.e. full of harmony), and which ones are not. It is very impolite to give such an "unprofessional" judgement in public (especially, when a master's arrangement is concerned), but later on, my wife often verifies that the Ikebana-Lady in question had done better arrangements earlier.

[Cassandra]

Quotation reference:
http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... 39#p183739

I do not suppose that there is much THEORY available on "pruning leaves".

There is much such theory.

I have not seen any. You simply have to be well aware of "kori-gatachi".

-- Study the result of someone more experienced than you pruning your arrangement, especially compare the pictures before, and after.
-- Practise pruning your arrangements on your own.

What do you mean by "arrangement" and "pictures"?

"Arrangement" is the final Ikebana, and "pictures" are the impressions given to the spectator.

-- Accept that the more experienced person's judgement (that "after" has more harmony than "before") will be true in the overwhelming majority of cases.

If you mean "positional judgement", I disagree. Many "more experienced persons" might offer their opinion, but too often without explanation. Such opinion is not better than looking through pro games with the expectation that most positions must be "good". However, maybe you mean a different kind of judgement, if so which?

It's simply the judgement on "kori-gatachi".
Everything that is superfluous can be cut out.

About multiple opinions (which will be identical) without explanation:
There is no such an explanation that you are looking for. Just a question like "Do you also think that the second picture is "better" than the first one ?"

If you do not grasp the underlying "principle" on your own, you will be unable to integrate it in your designing your next Ikebana.

-- Ask a third party for their opinion. [...] Accept this party's opinion in 90 per cent of cases without thinking.

I guess again you presume the third party to be a "more experienced person" (in the meaning of "more skillful"). My experience with third party opinions has been: Their statements without reasoning are of very little use (even if I presume their 90+% correctness) while their statements with careful reasoning or justification are very valuable. Unfortunately, such statements are rare.

I wrote very intentinally that the third party must NOT be a specialist in Ikebana. Nearly every "amateurish" spectator is able to distinguish between an Ikebana that is full of harmony, and an Ikebana that is not. A "professional" will see (and also give the appropriate advice, if asked) that you might turn your "95 per cent" Ikebana into a "100 per cent" Ikebana, if you slightly adjust the orientation of that single branch on the left side, and additionally remove one of the several blossoms, but this is nothing that affects the judgement of the general public.

-- For walking on the last few per cent of your path, ask the more experienced person for advice again.

As consequence of the above, I find myself walking my own path for 90+%.
If external advice were as good as you hope, I would agree with you. However, it is not as good. Apart from the rare really helpful advice, I benefit more by doing my own study or research using pro games, my games or inventions.
If you know better sources, share them.

You cannot pass the immense threshold that hinders you to access the last few per cent of your path without feedback from the "outside". The same might be true for any threshold that you encountered before.

This is simply because you are unable to "see" where YOUR obstacles are. As well as you are unaware of the areas, from which you do not "know" that you perform better that the average, and for which you do need encouragement to foster these more strongly.

[RobertJasiek]

You cannot pass the immense threshold that hinders you to access the last few per cent of your path without feedback from the "outside". [...]

This is simply because you are unable to "see" where YOUR obstacles are.

Partly I agree because I have had such obstacles, which I had simply overlooked completely. Partly I disagree because there have been only a few such obstacles and there are some chances that I might have rediscovered the underlying concepts some time later on my own.

However, if I had been born on a remote island without any access to the literature or verbal external input, surely I could not have surpassed, say, 10 kyu level because, for a beginner, there are so many essential concepts to be discovered that reinvention in one's lifetime is essentially impossible.

As usual, universal information sharing is an advantage for everybody, especially in written form in a lingua franca because then everybody has a good chance to learn everything he needs or wants to learn.

[Cassandra]

As usual, universal information sharing is an advantage for everybody, especially in written form in a lingua franca because then everybody has a good chance to learn everything he needs or wants to learn.

At the end of the 19th century, hadn't the Japanese learned German, to ease the adoption of the highest standard of medical care that they identified to be that of the German Empire ?

Do you really think that it benefits your work that you still cannot access either Japanese, Chinese, or Korean sources ?

[RobertJasiek]

Do you really think that it benefits your work that you still cannot access either Japanese, Chinese, or Korean sources ?

1) I can access the diagrams and most variations in the text.

2) Yes, because I have heard about too little relevant, of which much is hard to find and I think it is faster for me to reinvent things. In particular, I study and research very much while I do not waste time on learning more foreign languages.

3) I have no indication so far that the things I need the most I would find in the Asian literature.