8/13/2021 What is highest form of technique?

- Emergence

What is highest form of technique?

by Admin | Sep 14, 2020 | Sport Movement | 0 comments

What is the highest form of technique that an athlete should strive to achieve? We have
always assumed the answer to that question to be perfect technique. Today, I’d like to
challenge that notion by exploring the words of Bruce Lee that emerged out of his
dedication to honing his craft as a martial artist.

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8/13/2021 What is highest form of technique? - Emergence

“The highest technique is to have no technique. My technique is a result of your technique;

my movement is a result of your movement.” – Bruce Lee

The sporting world has seemingly ever been enamored with technique, biomechanics,
optimal form, and maxims on how one must move for success, future health, and
longevity. Yet Bruce Lee, through all his training and study, drew the opposite conclusion. If
we focus on the latter part of his comment, “my technique is a result of your technique; my
movement is a result of your movement,” gives an inclination to how he concluded that it is
better to be “…formless like water” (Bruce Lee, 1971).

Bruce Lee is touching on something vital. Our movement occurs through our connection to
the environment. Technique for the sake of technique apart from its reciprocal context
misses the mark. It’s equivalent to a conversation where two people are talking past each
other. Even if one or both people are executing perfectly articulated thoughts, are they
actually having a real conversation with one another? A heavy focus on technique is like
thinking the key to being a successful communicator is all about the words we use.
However, we as coaches know in order to be effective communicators with our athletes we
need to do more than just listen with our ears. To fully understand them we need to pick
up on the non-verbal information. Therefore, just like good communication results from
being able to pick up and connect with the information from others to form your response
the same thing is true about good technique. Being able to pick up and connect with the
relevant information in the task environment results in good technique.

Since technique is the result of connecting to relevant information, it is the byproduct not
the cause of the movement. Far too often I think we look at technique or biomechanics as
the driver or cause of movement and its outcome. As a result, as coaches, we tend to have
our athletes chase our idealized technique rather than focusing on how the athlete was
connecting to and interacting with the problem. This then brings up the question: what
information within that problem’s environment shaped the mechanics and the technique
we saw?

To describe it another way, the connection to the information in the task environment
coupled with the athlete’s intentions shaped their perception of the task and the
subsequent interaction. An athlete’s perception of the task directly shapes the mechanics
of their action. A simple example of this would be throwing a ball at varying distances. The
athlete’s depth perception along with their intention dictates the mechanics they produce
such as their arm slot, torso orientation, back leg flexion, etc. which will all vary to some
extent based upon the target distance.

 One small way coaches could implement this concept is with their pitchers during their
plyoball work. Coaches should have pitchers vary rep to rep or set to set how close they
stand to the plyowall. Far too often players stand in the same spot while being too close to
the wall which can limit the transferability to other throwing contexts. 

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That’s not to say that biomechanics doesn’t have explanatory power. Biomechanics are
descriptive in nature. They describe how the body moves but not why the human
movement system moves the way it does. There is value in that but far too often we lose
the forest through the trees when it comes to mechanics missing the context, the
environment, and the interactions therein, out of which the mechanics emerged. An
overemphasis on technique is like looking at a boiling pot of water on the stove and giving
a highly scientifically detailed explanation of why the water is boiling due to the heat and
energy exchange going on. Yet that explanation misses why the water was on the stove
boiling in the first place which was for example because someone wanted mac & cheese.

While a highly repeatable technique is great for tasks that are very controlled and
predictable it is not as useful for dynamic tasks. When you’re dealing with a task that is
dynamic (evolving) involving complex systems such as ourselves, the technique needs to
be able to adjust to those changes within as well as without it. This implies that the highest
technique isn’t some stored motor pattern that has been burned into muscle memory.
Rather, it is an adaptable and robust process that allows an athlete to pick up and connect
their movements to the nuances of the situation “just as a key that fits a lock” as Bernstein,
1996 would say. Is our goal to create athletes that are keys to only one set of locks or a lock
pick that is able to crack a myriad of locks? I would argue the latter.

So, what shapes movement and their corresponding mechanics? We would argue that the
constraints placed upon the human movement system produce the technique an athlete
displays. When an athlete is able to couple their movement to the specifying information in
the task environment the human movement system is constrained, which channels the
self-organization process of the movement solution out of which the technique or
mechanics emerges to successfully meet the task constraints. By coupling their movement
to key information in the task this allows them to become a more adaptable dexterous
problem-solver come game time.

When Bruce Lee is talking about the “highest technique is to have no technique,” it is
because his technique is the result of the specifying information that he is coupling his
movement to. Too often we see technique as this thing that sits outside of the context in
which it emerges. 

What Bruce Lee is referring to here in this statement is about artificially limiting one’s self
through styles, techniques, and systems. An individual’s technique must have the freedom
to adapt and adjust to whatever situation they find themselves in. To do this consistently
and successfully, one must have the freedom to break and or contradict ideals or dogmas
of how one ought to behave (i.e. move). This embodies Bruce Lee’s notion of being
“formless like water” or “[having] no technique” frees up the athlete to be in the moment,
to more directly connect and interact with the rich information within the movement
problem before them. 

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8/13/2021 What is highest form of technique? - Emergence

In practice, we want to break away from the notion of burning into muscle memory an
idealized motor pattern as Nikolai Bernstein (1967) put it, “repeating the means of a
solution… but in the process of solving this problem again and again” (p. 134). This
problem Bernstein refers to is the breadth and width of the problem(s) that exist and
emerge within the competitive context. 

So, then the highest form technique is when one is able to connect their movement to the
specifying information in the problem. Therefore, we believe that it’s imperative we keep
perception and action coupled in our practice environments. Train them to “keep ’em
coupled,” as Rob Gray of the Perception and Action Podcast would say so that they become
attuned, adaptable, and dexterous. 

Hopefully, this discussion has caused you to think more deeply about technique and
biomechanics when it comes to training and developing your athletes.

To learn more about these ideas and concepts check out one of our offerings such as The
Movement Academy or the Sports Movement Skill Conference 2020.

Garrett Boyum

References
1.
Bernstein, N.A. (1967). The coordination and regulation of movements. Pergamon Press
Ltd.
2.
Bernstein, N. A. (1996). Resources for ecological psychology. Dexterity and its development
(M. L. Latash & M. T. Turvey, Eds.). Hillsdale, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
3.
Lee, B. (December 9, 1971). The Pierre Berton Show [TV series]. CHCH TV.

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