I watched a tv programme yesterday (I know... I'm weakening in the lockdown) and it featured a Japanese carpenter using a plane. He pointed out that Japanese artisans pull their tools towards them whereas westerners push them away. This wasn't new to me. The topsy-turvy nature of very, very many things vis-à-vis the west was first noted by Basil Hall Chamberlain well over a century ago, and was the theme of Mike Leigh's film Topsy-Turvy, which features a real go player as the Japanese calligrapher. I have spent a lifetime collecting examples of Japanese topsy-turvydom as part of my fascination with the different ways people (cultures or individuals) think.
I often try to apply this go. One of the characteristic aspects of Chinese thought is an urge to categorise things by numbers: Seven Spices, Eight Immortals, Three Virtues etc. I was therefore hugely delighted at discovering Huang Longshi's Five Lands recently (and it was hugely helpful in understanding his play).
None of this means that I necessarily think that one way of looking at things is better than another, although in context it often can be. But it can be helpful in appreciating why certain things happen, even on the go board.
I cannot claim to have discovered wabi-sabi on the go board (wasabi, yes...), nor to have expected to. But one thing I do expect is ma. This first came to my attention when Mihori Sho pointed out that the truest definition of good shape is expressed by what is not there rather than by what is. But apart from that it's been difficult. However, I think Bill's example above in the Cho-Yoda game provides an excellent example.
It's difficult to talk about ma to a western audience, even one that is familiar with Japanese things. One problem is the western urge to define, and the commonest English definition I have seen for ma is 'negative space', which I think is meaningless codswallop. A perfect example of why definitions can be bad.
Another problem is that the term has been appropriated by the art world, but in Japan it's more of an everyday concept in all aspects of life. So there is no need to be arty-farty about it.
Ma refers to the space between things (in go, pincers and jumps it appears in the Sino form -ken to express the space between stones). There is nothing negative about them. Indeed, in go, it's often representable as the positive thing you want - territory.
Ma is better understood as a free space where various things (even dissimilar things) can co-exist in varying quantities. To use ma, therefore, you need to think about possibilities. It art talk it is these very possibilities, or hinting at them, that can make a work artistic. But ma can also be practical. The Cho-Yoda game, copied below, is an example.
- Click Here To Show Diagram Code
[go]$$Wcm24 Wide opening
$$ ---------------------------------------
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . O . . . . . . . . X . . . . |
$$ | . X . O . . . . . 4 . . . . . , X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . , . . . . . , . . . . . , O . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . O . . . . . . . . . . . . . O . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . O . . . X . 3 . . . . . X . O . |
$$ | . . O . . X . . 2 1 . . . X . . X . . |
$$ | . . . X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ | . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
$$ ---------------------------------------[/go]
But before I comment further on that, let me first consider that game from the topsy-turvy standpoint.
It is my long experience that western amateurs in general, but also weaker Japanese amateurs, would look at the position before the invasion and ask "how can I destroy my opponent's looming territory?". That may lead to invasion. Strong amateurs are more likely to pull the plane towards themselves and ask "how can I strengthen my own position?" That may lead to reduction. But actually it's hard to choose between invasion and reduction,
But I have a feeling that the pros here don't even think about that, or about "him" and "me", but about "ma". So, rather than thinking about invasion/reduction, think about that space in the lower centre.
One point made by Japanese people about ma, when trying to explain how their view differs from the western view, is to consider a meeting room (or other uncluttered room) with no people in it. We in the west would normally think of the room as empty. If someone then enters that room, we would no longer think of it as empty - but not as full either! We'd be in limbo.
But the Japanese would not usually think of the room with no people in it as "empty" (unoccupied yes, but not empty). Instead they would think of it as a space (ma) with infinite possibilities. They, too, are in limbo, but at a different stage in the process.
I therefore invite you to view the Cho-Yoda space in that light. There are things in or around that "empty" space that affect how it will be used - its possibilities.
From the infinity of possibilities it follows that everyone will see different things. FWIW what I saw instantly in that position (pre-invasion) was that White had very strong positions to left and right, so that any invasion would not inflict collateral damage. The next thing I noticed was that White, pre-invasion, has only three groups. "Five groups can live but the sixth will die." So making a fourth is unlikely to cause White any problems. Only then did I think about invasion or reduction. I rejected reduction instantly because one major function of reduction is to build centre strength, but such strength would be otiose here (thickness is not thickness unless it functions as thickness).
So that left invasion or tenuki. I couldn't really see a good place to tenuki to - a move on the upper side can't actually be bad but it would just have one function, like putting a towel on the sun-bed by the pool but not actually sunbathing. In contrast, invasion appears to have two functions: destroying potential territory and splitting Black into two small (and so, later, possibly weak?) groups.
I'm not strong enough to know whether my analysis or my choice of invasion over upper-side extension is valid - in particular I have a sneaking suspicion that my assessment of "no collateral damage" may be too complacent to a professional eye - after all, even those White side positions have ma in them. But I do feel I have approached the problem by using ma rather than the dipole invasion/reduction, and so have a much broader appreciation of the position and of how the game is likely to develop.
"Develop". There's an important word to conjure with. It can be another example of topsy-turvydom. In go terms we westerners would be apt to think about reading ahead, controlling the future in some way. But there's a Japanese way.
I first came across it many years ago in a press event at the Japanese Embassy in London. It was to promote a big Japanese Festival. One demonstration was of calligraphy on a huge piece of paper laid on the floor. The artist took ages getting the page secure and wrinkle-free as we press bods stood around sipping champagne. Always great fun to watch other people work.
The next step, eventually, was for the artist to dip his brush in his ink. Brush doesn't really do the object justice. It was almost as big as the artist, and the ink was in a pail rather than a bowl. As he struggled to keep the brush off the floor as he carried it over to the paper, titters were starting already among the press corps, very few of whom knew anything about Japan or calligraphy.
Then the titters turned into a guffaw as the artist stepped on the paper and, plop, a blob of ink fell from the brush's tip onto the virgin paper. It spread remorselessly, and someone in the audience shouted out that we'd now have to wait another half hour while the artist laid down a fresh piece of paper. The PR person anxiously whispered something to him, but the artist just beamed and shouted out, "Happy accident!"
He then proceeded to draw characters on the paper by incorporating the splodge, dancing not walking across the page. He went with the flow. He had no preconceptions of controlling the flow. But most of the press just clapped politely. I thought it was a triumph. But I had been lucky enough to have been schooled in calligraphy by the very man who acted as the Japanese calligrapher in the Topsy-Turvy film.
I think we can apply this perception to go. Many, many players play it is if was a one-person game, insisting on controlling it from start to finish, treating the opponent as if he's someone just to put the stones of the other colour on the board. Amateur invasions exemplify that attitude.
But go really is a two-person game, and in real life the opponent may not do our bidding. We too therefore have to go with the flow. We have learn to treat our opponent's moves as happy accidents.