A demo overview-chart project with virtual fields (aikido)

#1

With thanks to Mohammad (and tobibeer and TWaddle and others), I was able to scratch one of those “If you wish it existed, try to build it” itches.

This project is for martial arts study – specifically aikido. I wanted a “big picture” chart of how specific attacks might be met with specific responsive techniques (within the particular tradition I’m studying), with instant-gratification embedded video previews (yes, broadband recommended!), and quick interstitial links to navigate along this or that axis of relation.

What this tiddlywiki might demonstrate, for novice users of Shiraz who wouldn’t find it obvious, is how to use templates, within dynamic tables, to extract related information as if it were contained in fields. Every “cell” in this dynamic table is automatically filled in based on the same criteria. All this related info could have been entered into fields, but that redundancy is unnecessary. The crucial template tiddler is a clone of a shiraz template:

$:/plugins/kookma/shiraz/templates/body/technique

EDIT TO ADD: Here’s a permalink for convenience:
my example of a dynamic-table template for virtual fields

The idea of virtual tiddlers from a recent discussion (or holographic or potential – all technically “Missing” tiddlers that still represent something in information-space) thus seems to have a parallel in the form of virtual fields.

https://aikido.tiddlyhost.com/

password [for now]: the most obvious possible one (the subdomain at tiddlyhost)

Comments welcome, as always!

-Springer

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#2

Smart design!
lovely new coined terms: virtual fields, very powerful tool in combination with dynamic table.

Thank you for sharing!

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#3

Whoa! Brilliant!

You kindly credit the tech (@Mohammad, @twMat, tobibeer et al.) but on the content you should also credit yourself!

On Content: You did an amazing analytic job organising the aikido moves in a way that makes sense!

(I want to emphasise that as it is a known problem depicting anything to do with “somatic education” programmes on the net—how on earth do you present it in way that a user can orientate themselves?) This is a very good solution!

FWIW, I think your approach could be used well in other fields like Yoga, Feldenkrais, Sports-Training, etc.

On The Workings: I understand it is still early stages.

One thing you might want to look at is how the videos are presented???

For instance if I was doing something like that I’d maybe use either pop-ups or modals with the video scaled full-width of the container. Why? A practical issue with training videos (especially on phones) is the need for the videos to be as big as possible when you have to study precise movements.

Anyway, it is neat! I’d love to see how it goes!
Best, TT

#4

It seems to be currently set as private, needing a password for access.

#5

“aikido” is the password.

#6

Meanwhile …

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#7

Ueshiba (the founder of aikido, also called Ō-sensei) makes it all look so effortless.

And lest you think that the uke (the person attacking) is giving less than full commitment, I can vouch for the fact that the more earnestly you attack an aikido master, the more quickly you find yourself tied in knots or flying through the air.

But the ethics of aikido is what attracts me most: the ideal is to drain all power from the attack while causing no harm to the attacker. This can be achieved only with keen perception, deep integration and calm groundedness. For these reasons, aikido is sometimes called “zen in motion.” :slight_smile:

-Springer

#8

TT,

You have a good point!

For now, I’m requiring the visitor to click manually on the full-screen icon within the YouTube window. One reason is that it makes it very easy to register the “in-place-ness” of the preview (which intersection you’re previewing), and to decide whether that is indeed the video you want to review now, without losing track of the larger field.

Ideally, I would choose a key frame from each video, its “Aha! moment” if you will, with that preview rendering small – after which point clicking on the link would get you full-screen (rather than tiddler-within-story-river sized). But so far – this being at proof-of-concept phase – I haven’t had time to choose key frames for each video, nor even to work with my sensei to decide which videos most deserve the spotlight for each “node” of the chart.

At any rate, I appreciate your comment because I haven’t begun to think about things like access from a phone. Both the grid-layout and the video-display might need to be re-thought for mobile platforms, especially since “hover” doesn’t function straightforwardly on touch-screen devices.

-Springer

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#9

Thank you very much for sharing this.

Your design work is impressive! Even at first glance, your use of virtualFields and dynamicTables has an immense appeal since I generally strive to think in contexts I refer to as ‘N-dimensional arrays’ (due to an early, and extensive exposure to APL) and prefer the use of UCS characters over conventional words.

And the way you are interfacing to YouTude videos clearly maximizes the value of precise access to significant information in a seamless manner.

Best regards,
Hans

#10

As someone also organizing martial arts with Tiddlywiki (have not shared it here yet), this is AWESOME. I studied aikido in Highschool, but am now teaching Indonesian Kuntao Silat. Really glad to see some-one also doing work in this design space with embedded videos. Will have more feedback after I really dig into your wiki.

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#11

Thanks!

The TiddlyWiki technical challenge was getting the dynamic table cells to self-populate based on whether tiddlers are found to match any given intersection of row and column.

But the long-term challenge is to include additional information and resources (not limited to videos) at all the “nodes”, and to make the whole site more helpful to those who don’t already understand what the row and column headings mean. (And of course, not every skill in aikido fits neatly into that structure, so there will be more lines of connection, and additional dimensions to highlight, as the site matures.)

I’ll be happy for any feedback you can offer!

-Springer

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