Prince’s wisdom and the importance of the break

Once, I read an interview with Eric Clapton in which he was asked:

“So Eric, tell me, what is it like to be the best guitarist in the world?”

And Eric Clapton immediately replied: “Why are you asking me that question?! Go ask Prince!”

And since that interview I started listening to Prince’s music more.

At least as the elder brother of the best guitarist in Israel at least,

I wanted to understand more about this statement by Clapton from that interview.

It took a good few years of listening over and over, but I finally got it.

Prince knows the importance and power of the break. of the stop.

If you go right now and listen to perhaps Prince’s most famous song called in Hebrew Tshacha – “Purple Rain”, and you get to the part of the masterful guitar solo, you will hear Prince playing and stopping. Plays some more and stops. A little more and it stops again.

And perhaps he created here the most beautiful guitar solo in the world. And it is such precisely because it has all the pauses and silences of the guitar throughout. The pause is what gives this solo power.

In my karate training with sensei Uri Elisher, I discover about myself that probably from a young age a wrong insight took root in me that “good = fast”.

In training, when I am required to do a good kata (a Japanese word from the field of martial arts that describes a predetermined series of movements performed against a simulated opponent), I do it quickly. And this rush of mine is not good. He doesn’t look good. He doesn’t work well.

I need to know how to accept who I am, as more of a heavy tiger than to say.

Suddenly internalizing and changing such a deep perception, at the age of 42 is a matter.

Through karate I learn more about the power and importance of the break. The stop while moving. As much as the break gives strength and power to the movement that will come after it.

And I am incorporating this insight into my life. Play my life like Prince, with breaks. with smart stops while moving.

In our world, on the western side, there is contempt for stopping, for pausing.

The method here wants us to wear out, decay quickly, give up our lives and give way to the next thing. Even in the family, the entire Torah begins with our ability as parents to stop. (Remember the words of King Solomon regarding the relationship with his son?… “Only if we slow down, look, pay attention to the details – we will reach a new land”…)

Our children. our youth They just want us to stop. we will stop We will look. We will pay attention to the details. We will play our lives more slowly. with smart stops.