Why do you like fighting?

[Transk53]

Some time it is difficult or even impossible to be forthright over childhood circumstance.. some time people find liberty in being straight out.. whichever for you, I appreciate your comment, there can be no aspersion cast upon you for how you are now nor do I see contradiction just a person trying his best.. this is my view having perhaps shared some of that circumstance xo.. To make some thing of an attack is pointless you have said.. yes.. I cannot disagree with how I think you mean that.. Is black and white though or can there be mitigation? like what if some one who would seek to vent their anger physically and it is them that want to make some thing of it? like some one want to show me -or you- a lesson for not doing what they want.. do you think is ok then to make some thing of it??? thank you again

Well maybe. Do I feel that everyone deserves a slap, maybe. Do I want to do that, no. When you are in a place experiencing viloence, doesn't mean you have to transmit that to others. That is one thing that my moral conscience will not allow. So no my childhood experiences are my own, at no point would I ever wish, or would I transmit that to another.

Mitigation through an attack. Yes that does exsist. I do not like doing harm, but if someone affects harm, then I wiill respond accordingly. A kind of sliding scale that I have to adapt, or had to adapt over the years.

Do I think it is okay to make something of it, maybe not, but I have already sized you up. From that, the end result is you on the floor.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Right. Going to ask Sifu today about that today. Interesting stuff and I thank you for bringing that up. Making me think about Wing Chun and what would be the likely response if a practioner saw the red mist, and used Wing Chun.

I think a lot of people would resort to some kind of primal response, irrespective of whether training is there or not. I mean I have had where "maybe I should have done that instead" moments on reflection. Mind though certain things in the context of job, do have lawful limitations, but emotional content seems to float between reason and actual action.

Can I ask though, to you stress and danger. Are they linked to the point that stress triggers a danger response. IE the full on " I am going to have to fight" Or would that be down to the person with training, apposed to the one with not. Sorry I am rambling a bit.

What we, in modern society, see as "stress" is actually a misapplication of the danger response. Our bodies evolved to deal with physical threats. Psychological threats (stressors) don't fit with the model our brain is built to handle. That's why stress responses cause so much physical trouble. They evolved for short-term usage (deal with a threat then recover). Now, a pre-action state is activated on a routine basis by things like being late, having too many tasks, concern about losing a job, etc. Activating those chemical reactions that often allows them to harm the system.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Thank you for helping me to understand that more clearly! and I want to ask you another question about this.. Like under what circumstances does the reptile or lower brain (if it is ok to call it that) overrule the executive or higher functions?? or does it not? will a fight only occur if the executive committee agree it is necessary?

The easiest example of the amygdala overriding the executive center is rage. Think of anger as a continuum. At one end we have annoyance, and at the other we have rage. There's a point near the "rage" end, where a large dump of neurochemicals happens. Daniel Goleman refers to this as "emotional hijacking". These chemicals are released (or caused to be released) by the amygdala. Some of them actually shut down the functioning of the executive center. This is why when you get someone who is very angry, and you ask them to "calm down", they can't, and will often respond by being more angry. "Calm down" is a request for the executive center to take control, but it isn't functioning much at that point due to the chemicals. So, the amygdala responds, and it is in a threat-recognition state, so it responds to the request as a demand, and responds to demands as threats.

So, in a very real way, under the influence of high anger, we are not functioning with our whole brain. Thus, when really angry, people do things that ignore the long-term consequences (think of the extremes that happen in road rage).

It normally takes a long time to reverse this process, because it is a chemical process. Calming down from rage to a lesser anger takes a minimum of several minutes (absent something like fear for a loved one or shock to cause a different chemical dump). Removing all the anger-activated chemicals, to remove the threat-awareness reaction takes hours.