Notation: Statement Of Functional Requirements

Someone is paying attention after all, which means I should take up the subject of notation from where its been sitting, collecting dust, for the better part of a year and a half¹. My last activity in this regard was to start thinking about Jesse Crouch's comment regarding the need to be specific about the target of a strike. This led to a series of posts (1, 2, 3, 4) investigating potential targets on the human body, also incomplete due to time having its way with me. A secondary aim was to see whether there was any evidence supporting the existence of critical/pressure/vital points i.e. targets which have effects above and beyond what can be explained by simple mechanics/physiology (short answer: "no").

So, what does that mean for the development of a notation system? My main takeaway from that line of inquiry is that its important to be able to indicate the target of a strike, but that specific targets are going to be a matter of debate/preference. So, rather than prescribing a specific list of targets, a useful system of MA notation will provide the means for unambiguously specifiying a target while allowing the user to fill in definitions for emself.

I have the feeling that my previous attempts to date have fatal shortcomings, so now is a good time to review the requirements that have been unearthed to date:

• The fundamental problem which needs to be solved is how to represent a MA performance in 3-space in a compact, readable format.
• The focus (for the time being) should be strictly on atemi waza; locks and throws are different enough that they might need another system entirely.
• A notation system should be art-agnostic. There seems to be enough commonality among the various arts (at least with respect to atemi waza) that a single notation system can accommodate the needs of all without getting bogged down in specifics.
• Individual strikes should be considered atomic; it's proven too cumbersome to try to describe the mechanics of a single strike in detail. If such description proves necessary there are pre-existing systems (notably Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation) which can be pressed into service.
• A performance can (tentatively) be broken down into a sequence of postures, strikes, and acts of attention. Thus a notation system needs to answer:
  • What is the posture of the body?
  • What strikes are delivered?
  • What are the targets?
  • What is the relative timing of the strikes?
  • Where is the performer's attention directed?
  • How is the transition made from one posture to the next?

The focus, I believe, should be on answering those questions subject to the constraints outlined above. While it make take a little bit of doing to come up with a workable system I see no red flags at this point to make me think that such an endeavor is fundamentally impossible.

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1 Funny how having a kid can really suck up all your spare cycles.