Sasya Training

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The term "Sasya" has an ancient heritage and a new meaning here. The meaning was perceived from ancient sources, and defined, newly, here, as:

The general current meaning, and one origin of the word is "grain," but there is an early reference to "that which is not only usable (edible) NOW, but provides the source for the future (as a seed) and that which follows the pattern of the seed into the grain, and continues, from grain/seed to grain/seed to grain/seed, bringing perfection at each step and duplication from the past into the future -- survival of the "thing" as being a material object such as a seed or being an idea such as a martial art.

Thus, Sasya can now be understood to mean a PERSON who is a devotee, or disciple of a Master, and who carries the teachings of the Master, as he, himself, becomes a Master, to the Sasya's who follow -- always bringing forth "perfection" and duplication of the original. (source)

Sasya is far more than a student who excels, but a student who teaches those who follow and who, then, produces more Sasya's, not merely practioners of the art but teachers of the form in purity as a legacy into infinite survival -- thus achieving the immortality of idea through a succession of forms, in the person of Sasya's.

A very good friend of mine in India, first suggested this word to me and, after reading these pages, wrote back his comments (found here in full):

Sasya --- means many things as you have seen, including grains. But the originating sound of this word (sa-aa-sya) in Sanskrit is --- "Dormant Principle that Perfectly Replicates when it materially Manifests."

My own further comments are: It is a postulate == never dimmed with time, always either a "potential" or an "actuality." While never dimmed with mere time, a postulate can be and is dimmed with self-created counter-postulates -- thus the task of the Guru to observe and correct in this non-physical plane.

My own teachings include these pages, to take on into the future these very concepts and inspiration.

I may be the first, and may be the only, "Sasya with an attitude." By that I mean that I intend to do what I think is needed, not necessarily what is wanted! That is a bold claim to MY position as Sasya and I offer myself for Sasya only since I have expressed this difference between "need" and "want" to my Grandmaster -- she finds it acceptable. There needs to be trust on both sides of this relationship.

Mimicry Of Motion

The ancient heritage of Kung Fu is NOT learned from written sources, nor even from spoken words, but from mimicry of motion.

The words "mime" and "mimicry" are very much related. How would you "teach" a mime, other than through "mimicry."

The image on the right is of a "mime" -- whose presentations use no sound, no words, just the visual. (Click for source.) Kung Fu is taught, basically, through mimicry. The Master will use words and other devices, but the LEARNING is through mimicry.

That is the revolutionary new thought bursting onto the current scene -- a means of "teaching" that bypasses the modern cultural and societal aberrations of schooling, drugs and lack of dedication and interest.

The subject of "mimicry" is central to the teaching of Kung Fu. "Mimicry," itself, has an ancient and fine heritage, as in:

The understanding of mimicry seems to me to have developed in a particularly jumpy manner. Mimicry is arguably the oldest Darwinian theory not attributable to Darwin. (Source)

In the second reference, same source, the research showed that predators LEARNED that "fake snakes" were dangerous because they LOOKED LIKE the real snakes that WERE dangerous.

The researchers created 1,200 life-size models of coral and scarlet king snakes out of plasticine, a mixture of wax and modeling clay and placed the copies in the wild, both within the coral snake's natural range in the southeastern United States and north of that range in central North Carolina, where they are absent. The biologists reasoned that if mimicry were causing the king snake to resemble the coral snake, predators would be more likely to attack the former where coral snakes are not found.

Coral snake
note black head Scarlet King snake
note red head

And that's just what their experiments showed. Because the plasticine models retained bite and scratch marks, they became a clear record of how often predators grabbed them.

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"Attacks were much more frequent on our ringed models in central North Carolina than they were in southern North Carolina and South Carolina, about 50 percent vs. about 6 percent," Pfennig said. "Various predators readily attacked our model scarlet king snakes but only where no coral snakes lived." Source

There is a less formidable reference to "mimicry" in the teaching of music, even though the simplicity of pure mimicry is not even sought in this example. This method of teaching uses SOME of the "science of mimicry" and it is described HERE.

You will be able to see the Master on your screen and listen either with your computer's speakers or via a headset. You will also be able to type questions via a chat function. If you would like the ability to speak and/or be seen by the Master and other students, you can optionally use a microphone and a webcam. See the FAQ's for the minimum requirements.(source)

The central concept of mimicry is visual -- the second concept is of motion -- thus the phrase, "mimicry of motion." One excellent example of mimicry in motion is the art and theater of "mime."

The [mime] training involves warm-up exercises Stefan has created, including his popular Plastyka , an hour long sequence of isolated and whole body movement that combines breath and specialized movements integral to his vision of the art. (source)

One guiding principle of the experience of a Sasya is that the training is "personal," it is not done through intermediary instructors, books, videos or other media. The above examples obviously fall from this standard for the ease of multiplying the effect through the internet and verbal instruction.

A Sasya at THIS School is taught personally by the Master, whether in a private or group class -- and may even allow another to teach so as to observe or get a report on the Sasya's response to other sources of teaching.

The attention is personal and direct.

The Master is working to achieve immortality of concept, not body, and mimicry of motion is the technology.

There is another break-through concept here. WHAT or WHO is doing the learning through mimicry?

Learning Kung Fu is NOT an intellectual exercise of UNDERSTANDING the forms, but a duplication of motion without going through the intermediary of understanding that form or motion.

So, "Who is learning the motion?"

The answer is that the cells, and the muscles learn. They are parts of the body which are alive and which, contrary to some belief, have minds of a sort -- minds that can duplicate even if they do not understand in our accepted sense.

How else, pray tell, does the pianist learn a scale? Or, a golfer learn a swing?

For definition purposes I say learning, or muscle memory, occurs when a conscious effort to put the body in a particular position, or to move it in a certain way, is transformed from a conscious action to an automatic action requiring no thought. Many of you would call a learned motion muscle memory, and I do too, just for the sake of simplicity. For all intents and purposes, it's as if the muscles do have a mind of their ownâthey can perform amazingly complex motions without the person having to think about them.(source)

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As a young boy I, Karl Loren, took piano lessons. My teacher did NOT ever mention the word "mimicry" and in fact took the (what I believe is less useful) form of my learning the symbols for music on a sheet of paper -- and an intellectual understanding that the symbol on the piece of paper "was the same as" some particular key on the piano.

I would study musical scores -- even if they were much more simple than the image on the below right.

As a beginning [piano] student I imagined that music learning would go just as it is depicted by music teachers: begin with simple pieces, learn the names of the notes, practice scales and exercises, memorize, play in student recitals, then move on (shakily or steadily) to more and more difficult music. Source

This may be how the great majority of people "learn" piano, but a pure mimicry approach to teaching piano would have the teacher sitting at the piano and touching some key -- say the note "C" on the piano.

The teacher then gets up and invites the student to press the same key -- to mimic the teacher.

There could then be an infinite number of "drills" where the teacher plays two or three notes, with no rhythm at first, then with rhythm, and each time asks the student to mimic.

Chopin was noted as a great "mimic."

"The story is about how he brings the piano to life," Felder explains, "and he talks about his soul and how it relates to his music."

Chopin was a notorious mimic, and Felder has his character bring to life a variety of unseen guests, such as Franz Liszt. (source)

It appears possible that the great musicians may have SEEMED to study music theory, but they LEARNED by mimicking their teachers and idols.

Young student artists would often learn how to paint by "copying" the master's work, or you could say "mimicking it." An image that contains a mimicry would not be the same as "mimicking" a piece of art to produce "another" that was a copy or mimic.

This is a oft-used technique of teaching, even if seldom-labeled as mimicry.

The piano student can quickly observe that "playing random notes on the piano will not attract much applause -- because "people are familiar with familiar music" which flows in scales and chords which have been used for centuries and longer.

So, the student must force himself into the mold of "learning the scales" but that is an easy intellectual subject -- if you start with the C Major Scale and don't worry about learning the other scales, at first, but play the C Major Scale with the right hand, then the left -- realize, one way or another, that fingering has a great deal to do with "good music" and LEARN the proper fingering for various scales.

Then practice playing both hands at the same time -- then one going up and the other going down -- then one "out of phase" with the other. You would actually be practicing small segments of what can and does become the vital core of some great piece of music.

Then, practice that C Major Scale up and down, left and right, one octave and two, playing in "doubles" or "triples" (where two keys are played with the accent on the first one) and changing accents and finally changing rhythms. (source)

Now we are onto the concept of "mimicry of motion BY A MUSCLE!"

That's rather far out, not so?

There is an explanation.

There is no claim here that "muscles have the ability to perceive sound" or "perceive visual images," but there is a claim that "intention" communicates outside the realm of perception.

If the master INTENDS for your muscles to perform in a certain way,
if the Master commands your muscles to perform in a certain way,

both you and the master may "fall back on" the easy explanation that it is YOUR ears that hear, or YOUR eyes that see, that there is then a mechanism by which what you hear and see and these perceptions are, somehow, translated into something -- call it an "intention" for the muscles to move/perform in a certain way.

When you can "give yourself to the experience" you have nothing to do with the motion of your muscles -- but rather it is the Master who commands while you can watch -- distantly.

I can assure you of this: "The muscles will 'learn" from a poor instructor much more slowly, regardless of perfection of his form/motion, than the muscles will 'learn' from a Master who INTENDS them to learn even if the Master's form/motion IS NOT PERFECT."

The final chapter in this written text about learning that uses no text, is that YOU do not have to understand what it is that your muscles will do! It is the intention of the Master that creates the practioner, and the dedication and commitment that creates the Sasya.

Understanding is NOT a part of this learning process.

DUPLICATION is central to the learning, but understanding is not.

Why? Because it is the cells in the muscles that are "learning" and they do not depend on the "logic of symbols, such as words" but "learn" by impressions which can be duplicated in the cell, in the muscle, and therefore on the piano!

Dedication and commitment are NOT learned by the Muscles -- but are learned, rather accepted, on a spiritual level by the being, not because of or through the eyes or ears or muscles.

A being is capable of "sensing" and in this usage the word "sensing" is far beyond human perception -- and affects the cells of the body as well as the being him or herself. What is "sensed" is a joint result of the person who INTENDS (and where that intention is aimed) and the person who RECEIVES (and how receptive he is to the flow of intention).

You "offer" to be a Sasya, the Master will usually wait and watch for a year of your training -- and MAY accept your offer.

This page then describes your beingness, your state, of "Sasya."

It is a noble cause and worthy of your honor to the legacy which you serve.

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