Would Tinderbox be good for visually diagramming a playbook for a grappling sport?

Tinderbox Tasks
1

I’m in a martial art, and I’m looking for software that would help me diagram my strategies in different sparring situations. I want this to be a visual diagram. I’m trying to figure out whether TB would be able to do this.

It should allow me to show, say:

I) if I’m in stance X and my opponent is stance Y

A) I can do this

a) he can react with A

  1. to which I can do blah

  2. or something else

b) or he can react with B

  1. to which I can do something

  2. or something else

B) or I can do this

C) or I can do this

II) whereas if I’m in stance Y and he’s also in Y

III) or if I’m in stance Y and he’s in X

etc.

But I want to be able to have “situations” which can be referred to in multiple places in the diagram… (e.g. he has my sleeve and lapel, and I have his), since many situations would be reachable via multiple roads. Those shouldn’t need to be duplicated.

Similarly, techniques would be referenced in many different parts of the diagram, but they should be singular and not duplicated – so that if I click on them, I can also find linked info on them as techniques. I’d also like to be able to easily see all the roads by which one could come to use that technique.

And it would also be useful to have searchable attributes automatically added: e.g. show all decision nodes that are “children” of a certain grip position… even if those children are in radically different branches of the map.

And finally it would be great if I could also in this visual scheme easily link to other relevant info (e.g. drop in a video clip of a technique).

I want to be able to start creating the drawing from anywhere (in other words, start inputting a random situation in) and then insert it into the flow anywhere I like, or into multiple places.

Would TB be able to do this well? If not, any suggestions for software that might be able to?

2

My answer would be yes, I could several ways of doing this.

In the end, is this for personal consumption, or might you being trying to write a book?

If I were to approach this I would I NOT simple focus on the “visual” aspect of the task; rather, I would

  1. start with an outline that captures the defined states and situations, i.e., create a prototype for the stance and all the attributes I want to know about the stance
  2. create a prototype for the situation, list all the attributes
  3. create a resource folder for situations, stances, media, terms, arm and foot position index, terms or glossary, reactions, explanations
  4. use my Media template that pulls in video, audio, or images
  5. use automated linking to links the notes based on their relationship of the situation or stance
  6. use includes both in $Text and in templates to have Tinderbox help with the associations
  7. Use an attribute browser to help get a lens on all the various inputs
  8. Use agents to help incrementally explore different relations and help with the persistent map building and linking
  9. Develop a situational map with adornments, use the OnAdd capability of adornments to help with the automatic addition of attributes to relevant notes while I build out the relationship mapping; I’d think about how I’d want to represent “visual” different aspects of the body, e.g. different shapes for whole body, arm, foot, etc. (I think this will be the hard part as it will require a certain level of abstraction).
  10. embrace the process and, leverage incremental formalization, let the tool help me cover the insights. Realize that Tinderbox may not be able to do everything, there may be secondary tools needed
  11. consider if I need to cite or attribute to anyone else work (e.g., is there a history in this)
  12. I’d most definitely use taggers and highlight capabilities to have TBX help automatically tag my notes for me as well as highlight key areas of text as I explore the topic; with this in mind, I could see cross-tabs being a super useful tool in this case as you could pivot on different ideas.
  13. refocus on my purpose, in the end, why I am doing this and what is the end output (just me, a class, and the audience–book, presentation, etc.)

In the end, Yes, I think you could produce some very meaningful insight. If you had some example, even if they were hand drawn, that would be helpful. Perhaps we could use a Saturday meetup or one of my Patro sessions to dig into this.

1 Like
3

Thanks for your detailed and thoughtful reply!