Life In 19x19

I have spent a lot of time in the past trying to point up the difference between static and dynamic shapes - on other words, between katachi and suji. I think a lot of progress has been made in that most players now accept there is a difference, even if the boundaries are still a little fuzzy.

But I came across something yesterday that may help those who are still in the fuzzy wuzzy camp.

I went to see the ballet Don Quixote last night. I had a nice surprise in that the principals were Marianela Nuñez and Vadim Muntagirov (both in at least the world's top three). It was the first time I had seen Nela live but I have been a big fan because I noticed something about her dancing that makes her stand out from even other famous ballerinas. It is that her hands and head move onto the final position at the same rate and so same time as her feet. It creates a very nice effect. I have also noticed that Natalia Osipova achieves the same final position but the hands start slightly late and reach the final position at the same time as her feet. That creates a punchy effect which works well with her overtly expressive style. Other dancers sort their feet out first and then put the arms out almost as an afterthought.

These were just my own impressions, based on absolutely no ballet skills. But when I got home, I called up on Youtube on the tv and among the recommended videos was one on the "top three ballerinas" and why they are top. This was by two professional dancers. Naturally I took a peek. I was rather astonished, though pleased, that they confirmed by impressions. Of course they talked about it in different terms. For Nela they spoke of "coordination" and for Natasha they described her style as "powerful."

But the real gem I found in what they said was that they talked of ordinary dancers being concerned with just the final "line" (the overall shape) and are willing (or need) to compromise on how they reach it. But, through her totally coordinated movement, Nela's final position, the two experts said, is not "shape" but "shaped." They summed it up as "shape(d)". Energy seems to come out of Nela's fingers rather than stopping t the fingertips.

I found that very insightful. You may find it a helpful way to view katachi. In the case of go, you can perhaps think of the extra (d) in shape(d) as standing for "dynamic." But, one way or another, you need to grasp that your stones are not just holding hands with each other. They are reaching out to other stones, and it makes sense for them to reach out to areas where they can link up with friendly, groping fingers.

I learned this dynamic thinking first when you, I think, pointed to the phrase "making miai" rather than miai as being the result of having two equivalent options.

Another example is a ponnuki, which we all know by know is the result of a capture, not the resulting diamond shape. I also find a "hane" to be a very dynamic move, where the act of playing a hane, blocking the opponent's development and most of the time forcing a response, has more "power" than the result, sometimes the result is even so good for the opponent that the hane's power was misleading.

It's not always the case: a peeping forcing move keeps showing the forced shape, even if the stone has become disposable. A "double sente" hane-connect in the endgame remains visible as an obtained gain. (To me, that is)

It's an interesting idea to explore which mental constructs are more or less dynamic and where extra dynamism can breathe new life into their application.

There are two ways I'll state here that help one to be abnormally skilled, one is the Cho Chikun/Nakamura Sumire Style

But then there is the dancing royalty, Takemiya Masaki, 최정 can recite the entire 10 years of BTS catalogue and at one point practiced everyday, and I'd count Ueno Asami since saying skips before games doesn't really tell the real story when she skips 777 times before a game against the almighty and formidable . . . Thailand. It seems in fact that the way a person moves they're body 100% correlates with their playing style. Some people claim that personality and playing style often opposite each other but I refute that. Basing it on attacking players having nice personalities is off since many of the nicest people become powerful personality if they feel they need to fight for something right, indeed from that perspective their personality makes sense.

Shock, I'm actually now watching Produce 48, at episode 4, late onset lockdown syndrome, perhaps? However it indeed it's the exact same 'harmonic thinking' that seems to explain Koreans proficiency in mathematics, dancing and baduk so my approach to the three is barely different. Initially Japanese artists expectedly were overall graded quite atrociously compared to just Korean artists being mostly grade F below A, B, C, D, but coaches confirmed that they would likely pick improve very rapidly compared to Korean students. In addition, actual stage experience prevented stopping mid performance in a panic attack compared to Korean students. It just made me wonder more about whether when us outside of Asia even have a clue really about. Perhaps most intriguing of all and very much analogous to what Michael Redmond has mentioned with regards to player in Korea and Japan, those from Japan often develop a more distinct personality and style early on, compared to those brought up in the Koran factories. You know quite early on what the charms of a Japanese player might be before they go onstage or play improve matches, and indeed even the practice of a tendency of group training versus individual training is the same, so these are general cultural differences beyond the specific fields. We're very good at finding things we may be doing wrong, but I now feel perhaps the Eastern professionals know which things we're doing wrong that are most important for how we are at that moment in time.