Many years ago I was at a Daygame seminar and an American lad asked the speaker about his thoughts on something and referred to “the London school.” As in, the London School of Daygame (not to be compared to the London School of Economics) compared to, say, the American or European School(s) of Daygame. His use of the word struck me as odd because, in my opinion, it suggested that Daygame thought had been codified and neatly packaged into competing philosophies. Undoubtedly there are people out there who think differently, and I’d certainly heard people use the word “flavour” or even just “style” before, but not “school.”
What’s special about England is that we don’t have a constitution. We don’t have a list of rules that we follow. The constitution is unwritten and is instead “written into the hearts of men.” At a deep level, English people are extroverted and intuitive thinkers who take the world and then understand how to live within it, tinkering as they go, until they reach a point of equilibrium with it. Take a journey into the countryside and you’ll see this: houses, pubs and other buildings which melt into the surrounding areas as much as they stand out as manmade structures. At the heart of England there’s a level of harmony and tranquility. I believe that they are, deep down, countryside people, rather than city people or forest people (each is its own character set).
This is replicated in the way that we think. We don’t start with a list of rules. Instead we go out into the world and learn what’s best for us and those around us given what we experience. You can see the same thing happening with the English language. We don’t start our lives with a heavy focus on grammar and rules and instead learn the language as we go. In fact, we learn more about breaking the rules of the language with its many exceptions than we do about the foundations underpinning it.
So how does this apply to Daygame? Well, I think, for one, there aren’t any schools of thought, just individual people. You’ll get a different take from each coach as you will from any other English practitioner. That take was developed over time as the best natural fit for that particular person. The implications for coaching are a double edged sword. On one hand you can go and learn from different coaches and see their unique perspective. On the other hand, if you try and break down Daygame into a list of rules so that “anyone” can learn from them then there will always be obvious failings and a tendency to create “and then what” Daygamers.
The answer then, to learn through the English method, is to be a sponge. Absorb as much information as you can. At the end of that journey you will have created your own flavour and style of Daygame.
If you need help on that journey, click the links below. I’ll be holding my first bootcamp of the year on the weekend of 7th and 8th March too, if that interests you.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
> Buy the best of Thomas Crown, Volume One
> Buy the best of Thomas Crown, Volume Two
> Buy my beginner’s guide to Daygame
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