The Dialed-In Perspective

Deltas see nothing but applied skill

Every delta instructor I’ve had will tell a story how someone who thought they were a big shot and more credentialed than them were proven wrong by their superior skill. Every time. And then the the deltas who think that their superior shouldn’t lead then will quiz them on what they know and get them in a GOTCHYA Corner. Or try to.

This observation is generally true in my personal experience of six years in the martial arts. Deltas are instinctively anti-credentialist, which tends to serve them very well in today’s feminized world of inflated and meaningless credentials, and they are usually quite skeptical of a big shot until he demonstrates his superior skill to their satisfaction.

It’s not always wrong to expect the leader, the instructor, the Alpha, the master to be superior in skill to the student. But it’s nevertheless a category error. The fact that the student might be more natively talented than the master doesn’t change the fact that the master has more knowledge, more experience, and is fundamentally better at everything than the student.

As an NCAA Division 1 sprinter, I was extraordinarily fast. Not just in terms of running from point A to point B as long as it wasn’t more than 180 meters, but in terms of initial burst and striking speed. And while my fifth-gear has been gone for 24 years, just last week I trained with my old Italian club’s current team, and surprised the much-younger players by repeatedly being the first off the mark and among the first to reach the line 10 meters away in one of the practice drills.

But speed is only one factor among many in the martial arts. Once, while sparring with my sensei, I threw the best sidekick of my life, a skipping front-leg rocket that somehow barely grazed his chin instead of connecting solidly with it as I was certain it would. He laughed, shook his head, and said I was the fastest fighter he’d ever seen, even faster than a two-time national karate champion who taught at a school down in Bloomington.

On a side note, I later sparred that champion at his school when my sensei was off in Hollywood choreographing fight scenes in movies. He beat me, of course, but he paid a much heavier price than he’d anticipated, as he hit me more, but I hit him harder. And it was two rounds of pure speed vs speed; some of the black belts even stopped to watch the second one and applauded after it was done. The funny thing was that although the champion didn’t know who I was, he correctly identified my sensei based purely on my style.

I pointed out the obvious to my sensei: if I was so fast, then why was it so difficult for me to ever hit or kick him cleanly. He just smiled and said: “Because I trained you. I know what you’re going to do before you do it.”

It was maddening, but it was true. No matter how fast I was, no matter how skilled I became, his ability to read my body language and intentions rendered all of my natural advantages irrelevant.

Skill is important. Competence is important. But the challenge of the Delta is similar to the challenge of the fighter. Don’t overestimate the importance of your own strengths simply because that is where you are strong. Other elements always apply, and sometimes they are more important.