Principle, energy & technique

Principle comes before – generates – energy. Technique comes after – is the expression of – energy. The usual approach to most practice is to concentrate on technique in the hope that it will work backwards, develop energy, and guide you to the principles of that energy. In fact for many arts that possess no well defined or thought out principles, this is the only approach open to the sincere student. However, having either discovered or been given principles it is far better to work from them to generate energy from which a large array of techniques and an infinite number of postures can take expression. If there is no clear and elegant path from the principles through the energy to the formal body then the principles are either incorrect, inconsistent, incomplete or – as is often the case – not really principles at all, just half-baked or half-way techniques on the way to the more specific and solid artifacts we know as techniques. The good student is constantly striving for the principles of the principles and beyond them to the fundamental principle – the secret or meaning of life – which underpins everything. It is this delving – this process of internalization – that keeps the practice always alive and exciting, and brings us eventually to essence.