by Elisabeth NationsIn Chapter 7 of The Encultured Brain, Dr. Pettinen presents a case study on Taijutsu, a form of Japanese martial arts that is explicitly focused on perception rather than bodily movement and muscle memory. Taijutsu emphasizes the synchronization of the body and mind so that a person moves in relation to another person in the most efficient and seamless way possible. Taijutsu is based on an epistemology of the body that is very different from the general epistemological understanding of the body in North America, and this is best illustrated by the practice of sakki, an activity tests the practitioner’s ability to stay concentrated and relaxed while judging a very small amount of physical stimulus to determine when to react. Overall, sakki proves Taijutsu’s emphasis on feeling rather than doing or seeing. This is very different from our North American reliance on visual cues and muscle memory – while muscle memory might help the practitioner roll out from under the sword cut, sakki is much more about being able to perceive the movement of the sword.
Taijutsu practitioners do practice repetitive movements as a way of learning the sport, but this is not the focus. Instead, the person being attacked must maintain the most focus on perceiving their environment. As one advanced Taijutsu practitioner described, “It’s not about the repetition. You have to learn the feeling of it” (Pettinen 206). Pettinen argues that because Taijutsu is so much about perception, an fMRI might reveal that expert Taijutsu practitioners actually have a reduction in brain activity compared to novice practitioners because they may have less neural scaffolding than in a novice focused on obtaining muscle memory. I very much disagree with this, as it seems to me that there is far more brain activity involved in observing, measuring, and evaluating a hundred minute aspects of one’s environment and then picking the correct form of muscle memory than in just relying on muscle memory based on the observation of less stimuli. In her conclusion, Pettinen suggests that sensation is much more important in having physical skill than in muscle memory and motor skills. She argues that motor skills are only useful when there are used as an extension of what we perceive. I think her assertions are true in part. In certain activities, like martial arts, perception is much more important than just repetition because one is engaging with another person and responding to their actions. In other scenarios, I believe motor skills may be much more important than sensation, like when weight-lifting. Picking up a bar and engaging your muscles to lift it doesn’t require much perception at all, but it still demonstrates a great depth of physical skill. I think that most of the time people must maintain a balance between muscle memory and perception when engaging in physical activity. In ballet, a dancer must perform the movements she’s spent hours committing to memory, but she must also vary her movements to complement the music and the other dancers. In a much more basic example, when we walk every day, the act of walking is based on muscle memory, but we must adapt that movement according to changes in our environment, like a steep hill, an incoming crowd of people, etc. Pettinen presents a very interesting example of how our understanding of the body affects movement, how movement relates to perception, and how the balance between the two can be seen neurologically. While I don’t agree with some of her statements about how Taijutsu affects the brain, I appreciate how she analyzes and compares the cultural aspects of people’s understanding of the body, even if her evidence for how these epistemologies come into place are somewhat unsubstantiated.
6 Comments
Kaitlyn May
2/12/2019 09:55:29 am
Thank you for such a well written review! I appreciate the examples you provide to support your arguments, like walking every day and how we must adapt our muscle memory in accordance to the environment.
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Madi Moore
2/26/2019 08:35:21 pm
I agree with your comment for the most part. After having this lecture, which was about embodying culture, I only disagree with you with the fact of why the author went so in depth about the specific skills of Taijutsu. After writing a blog post for chapter 6, which was very similar to chapter 7, I have a better understanding of why both authors went so into depth about the specifics of each sport/martial art/dance form. I feel like the specific skills needed for these sporting art forms are in fact implications for neuroanthropology. By learning and using these skills that are necessary for these incredible tasks, we can see in different cultural contexts how the nervous system is the basis of communication and thus see how culture is spread.
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Brian Rivera
2/13/2019 08:01:07 am
I think that a description of the inner world of Taijutsu should be placed in the context of other martial arts. I am not sure the description of Western adapted modes or practicing ("muscle memory and"automaticity") are representative of the martial arts most popular in the West. Capoeira and Jiujitsu, both having origins in Brazil, are quite different the traditional ring based combat sports. As we learned about Capoeira, these martial arts have a unique set bodily interaction with the environment and the opponent (unique when compared with boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, etc.). Perhaps to lesser of a degree, other martial arts also foster the emphasis on the kinetic elements of the context. Jiu-Jitsu practitioners sometimes train blindfolded. Karate trainees are also encouraged to do drills with their eyes close to foster equilibrium and to concentrate in movement, timing, and precision. In the broader context of martial arts, the habits of doing and feeling highlighted by Taijutsu are also present, although not as foundational.
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Sam Scopel
2/20/2019 08:07:54 am
Thank you for the review Elisabeth. I confess myself profoundly unimpressed with this chapter of the book. I suspect I may just not be getting the point the author is trying to make. Going through the introductory pages outlining Taijutsu, my understanding is that the author is trying to support what is, in my estimation, an entirely semantic point (ie the approach to movement learning in Japan via perception is somehow fundamentally different than repetition-based muscle memory style learning favored in the West). From my point of view, this is a distinction entirely without a difference. Yes, the Western style has a much heavier focus on visual cues. However, both approaches still emphasize, as a guiding principle, the use of one's senses to respond to a a given stimulus as quickly and efficiently as possible to generate the appropriate response. To be perfectly honest I don't know understand the relevance of this example within the context of field of neuroanthropology, and I welcome further discussion from someone who has a better understanding to enlighten me on this matter.
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Elisabeth Nations
2/26/2019 09:14:09 pm
Although I thought this chapter was very interesting, perhaps because the art of Taijutsu is so unique and unfamiliar to me, after our in-class discussion I definitely feel as though Pettinen's description of embodiment is lacking in this case study. She doesn't have any neurological data to back up her claims of how the brain might change as a person becomes more skilled at Taijutsu. Her arguments as to the cultural basis behind Taijutsu are even more far-out; I remain thoroughly unconvinced that a cultural history of having to walk on rugged terrain created the practice of focusing more on the feet when moving. It's possible, of course, but the concept is really unsupported in this article. In our in-class discussions, quite a few people mentioned that the ways of thinking and moving that Pettinen touts as being unique to Taijutsu can be found throughout various other sports, especially in other forms of martial arts. Taijutsu is still an interesting case study on embodiment, but Pettinen seems to want to highlight the art as being unique in the world, especially because of its emphasis on perception. As several of us discussed in class, most sports we can think of rely on both perception and practiced movements. Taijutsu is perhaps not as unique as Pettinen would like us to believe, but it was beneficial to learn how another culture thinks about and uses the body.
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Moe Prince
2/27/2019 09:20:14 pm
This chapter was extremely interesting. It never occurred to me before that cultural differences could even include how someone walks. On top of that, the way someone walks could have so much impact on their difficulty in learning and performing martial arts.
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AuthorThis blog is group authored by Dr. DeCaro and the students in his ANT 474/574: Neuroanthropology. Archives
April 2019
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