Intentionality

"What's the role of intentionality here? It's certainly involved in the creation of the structure-as-idea. It's also involved in the transformation of that structure from one of its forms to another. This sort of transformation, in fact, is what the process of mastery is all about. Sometimes I have my students hold the vision or the feeling of a certain throw in their mind, and then practice it over and over for an hour or more until they are drenched with sweat and wiped clean of their previous thoughts or feelings about the throw. This use of intentionality often produces favorable results in the palpable, three-dimensional world of the martial arts.


Thoughts, images, and feelings are indeed quite real. Einstein's thought that energy is equal to mass times the speed of light squared (E = MC^2) eventually unleashed awesome power. The transformation of that thought into heat and percussion was a long andarduous process. Still, the thought, the vision, the intentionality, was primary."

All I know," said Arnold Schwarzenneger, "is that the first step is to create the vision, because when you see the vision there—the beautiful vision—that creates the 'want power.' For example, my wanting to be Mr. Universe came about because I saw myself so clearly, being up there on the stage and winning."

Intentionality fuels the master's journey. Every master is a master of vision."

from George Leonard's Mastery p. 96