Let Your Hands Go
I love sports – I especially love the great team sports like pro football and college basketball. Unfortunately, if you’re a bit of a late bloomer physically, as I was, it’s often too late to get involved in any of those sports at the varsity level and see playing time much less any real success. However, there are individual sports that remain viable alternatives for the aspiring athlete. As it happened, I found boxing.
I freely admit to never amounting to much as a boxer. In fact I hardly stayed with the sport long enough to leave any mark at all. But I did box with my University for a time and even trained for a summer with a professional, earning some memorable bruises and several really spectacular bloody noses for my efforts. Those wounds would have been the sum total legacy of my boxing saga were it not for one phrase, one lesson, that stuck with throughout the years that followed. To this day I can remember Doc Ginter, our coach, yelling it to me from the ropes as another fighter’s fists pelted my face: “You gotta let your hands go, kid!”
“Let your hands go.” It’s an odd phrase if you think about it - an idiom that means nothing outside the proper context. So to make it easy on me and you, here is the definition from urbandictionary.com:
“Let Your Hands Go”
1. Typically a term for professional fighting, but can be used in any fighting situation. Occurs when an individual literally "let's their hands go" and throws punches without thinking about any of them.
2. Going off pure punching instinct.
You see, my problem as a boxer wasn’t that I was afraid of fighting (I was, after all, bravely standing there taking a beating.) My problem was the same one that I face from time to time even now, in writing, in working, in relationships – in living. My problem was, as Doc Ginter (who really was a doctor) so elegantly put it: “You think too much.”
There are only four punches in boxing: a jab, a hook, a straight, and an upper cut. It sound simple enough, yet there are endless ways to string those four moves together and coordinate them with your defense to create an effective style of boxing. Athletes have committed lifetimes to developing such styles and cataloging their techniques. But according to Doc, to be a good boxer, the most important thing was not just to learn those lessons, but to learn them so well that the mind could foget them while the body remembered and acted them out all on its own – nearly without thought.
That is letting your hands go, and I believe the same idea applies to countless other facets of life, especially the creative life.
There are so many rules in writing: character arcs, syntax, plotting, form, narrative structure, proper punctuation, diction, symbolism, etc. We could go on forever with just that sort before getting to the ones that really stymie us: What’s hot? What’s not? What are Agents repping? What are houses buying? Please don’t believe that for a moment I’m saying those rules or questions aren’t important. They are (especially those in the first list.) But sometimes, sitting in front of our blank pages with those same rules screaming loudly in our heads at every word we type, our confidence and passion for storytelling taking a savage beating, we need someone in our corner to remind us to let our hands go.
It goes beyond writing. We could apply the same maxim almost anywhere. My friend and teacher, Mark Hamrock, bent nearly same proverb Doc gave about boxing toward music. “You need to learn the theory,” Mark told me. “But usually, when you’re writing the song, you should forget it all and just play.”
It seems contradictory at first, doesn’t it? Do we need the knowledge or don’t we? I believe wholeheartedly we do need the knowledge; and lots of it – when something works we need to know why it works, so that we can do it again. When we revise and perfect we need to apply our hard-won knowledge and experience to shape our rough-hewn image into a smoothly polished picture. But before then, in the beginning – when the page is blank and the possibilities are endless, sometimes we need to forget all we know or think we know, trust our instincts, and just let our hands go.
Right now I’m writing the sequel to the book I love more than anything else I’ve ever written: JIM MORGAN AND THE KING OF THIEVES. I don’t even know if audiences will enjoy the first one half as much as I enjoyed writing it, much less demand a sequel (hell, the book may not even find an audience!) But I love that little story and I found myself absolutely terrified to continue the tale. First, the questions and self-doubt set in: What if it doesn’t read like the first one? What if it isn’t as funny? What if the adventure isn’t as exciting or the heart of the story fails to ring true? Then, after the questions were really buzzing, the rules sounded off, criticizing my every move until I was sitting there with an overstuffed mind and a blank piece of paper for the better part of an afternoon. I needed Doc’s words come back to me, like a whisper from the ropes:
Let your hands go, kid.
I remember the day it happened in the boxing ring at the University like it was yesterday. I was sparring, getting my butt handed to me as usual, when something unbelievable happened. I slipped a punch, and without thinking I launched into a combination that sent my opponent sprawling into a corner. I heard Doc from the ropes, cheering me on. For a nineteen year-old kid, it was glorious.
That same unbelievable moment happened again, years after that sparring session, in a coffee shop just down the street from where I live.
I was staring at a blank piece of paper, my mind clouded with those loud and obnoxious questions, until I slipped one of those rules and just started typing - one word after the other. I forgot the first book after a few minutes. This was its own story. I forgot the rules after a few moments more. This is my story.
I heard Doc again from the ropes, cheering for me.
Thanks for the lesson, Doc. I still remember. Let your hands go ... Let your hands go and just write.
I freely admit to never amounting to much as a boxer. In fact I hardly stayed with the sport long enough to leave any mark at all. But I did box with my University for a time and even trained for a summer with a professional, earning some memorable bruises and several really spectacular bloody noses for my efforts. Those wounds would have been the sum total legacy of my boxing saga were it not for one phrase, one lesson, that stuck with throughout the years that followed. To this day I can remember Doc Ginter, our coach, yelling it to me from the ropes as another fighter’s fists pelted my face: “You gotta let your hands go, kid!”
“Let your hands go.” It’s an odd phrase if you think about it - an idiom that means nothing outside the proper context. So to make it easy on me and you, here is the definition from urbandictionary.com:
“Let Your Hands Go”
1. Typically a term for professional fighting, but can be used in any fighting situation. Occurs when an individual literally "let's their hands go" and throws punches without thinking about any of them.
2. Going off pure punching instinct.
You see, my problem as a boxer wasn’t that I was afraid of fighting (I was, after all, bravely standing there taking a beating.) My problem was the same one that I face from time to time even now, in writing, in working, in relationships – in living. My problem was, as Doc Ginter (who really was a doctor) so elegantly put it: “You think too much.”
There are only four punches in boxing: a jab, a hook, a straight, and an upper cut. It sound simple enough, yet there are endless ways to string those four moves together and coordinate them with your defense to create an effective style of boxing. Athletes have committed lifetimes to developing such styles and cataloging their techniques. But according to Doc, to be a good boxer, the most important thing was not just to learn those lessons, but to learn them so well that the mind could foget them while the body remembered and acted them out all on its own – nearly without thought.
That is letting your hands go, and I believe the same idea applies to countless other facets of life, especially the creative life.
There are so many rules in writing: character arcs, syntax, plotting, form, narrative structure, proper punctuation, diction, symbolism, etc. We could go on forever with just that sort before getting to the ones that really stymie us: What’s hot? What’s not? What are Agents repping? What are houses buying? Please don’t believe that for a moment I’m saying those rules or questions aren’t important. They are (especially those in the first list.) But sometimes, sitting in front of our blank pages with those same rules screaming loudly in our heads at every word we type, our confidence and passion for storytelling taking a savage beating, we need someone in our corner to remind us to let our hands go.
It goes beyond writing. We could apply the same maxim almost anywhere. My friend and teacher, Mark Hamrock, bent nearly same proverb Doc gave about boxing toward music. “You need to learn the theory,” Mark told me. “But usually, when you’re writing the song, you should forget it all and just play.”
It seems contradictory at first, doesn’t it? Do we need the knowledge or don’t we? I believe wholeheartedly we do need the knowledge; and lots of it – when something works we need to know why it works, so that we can do it again. When we revise and perfect we need to apply our hard-won knowledge and experience to shape our rough-hewn image into a smoothly polished picture. But before then, in the beginning – when the page is blank and the possibilities are endless, sometimes we need to forget all we know or think we know, trust our instincts, and just let our hands go.
Right now I’m writing the sequel to the book I love more than anything else I’ve ever written: JIM MORGAN AND THE KING OF THIEVES. I don’t even know if audiences will enjoy the first one half as much as I enjoyed writing it, much less demand a sequel (hell, the book may not even find an audience!) But I love that little story and I found myself absolutely terrified to continue the tale. First, the questions and self-doubt set in: What if it doesn’t read like the first one? What if it isn’t as funny? What if the adventure isn’t as exciting or the heart of the story fails to ring true? Then, after the questions were really buzzing, the rules sounded off, criticizing my every move until I was sitting there with an overstuffed mind and a blank piece of paper for the better part of an afternoon. I needed Doc’s words come back to me, like a whisper from the ropes:
Let your hands go, kid.
I remember the day it happened in the boxing ring at the University like it was yesterday. I was sparring, getting my butt handed to me as usual, when something unbelievable happened. I slipped a punch, and without thinking I launched into a combination that sent my opponent sprawling into a corner. I heard Doc from the ropes, cheering me on. For a nineteen year-old kid, it was glorious.
That same unbelievable moment happened again, years after that sparring session, in a coffee shop just down the street from where I live.
I was staring at a blank piece of paper, my mind clouded with those loud and obnoxious questions, until I slipped one of those rules and just started typing - one word after the other. I forgot the first book after a few minutes. This was its own story. I forgot the rules after a few moments more. This is my story.
I heard Doc again from the ropes, cheering for me.
Thanks for the lesson, Doc. I still remember. Let your hands go ... Let your hands go and just write.
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