Body's physical reactions can be overcome through training

Ceicei

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From the first paragraph of the link:

Most people would shy away from a situation that puts their life in danger, but for police officers, firefighters, soldiers and others, danger is part of the job. Fight or flight is one of the most basic instincts, but how do people who regularly face danger condition themselves to repress the flight part of the equation and brace for the fight?
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/220937/

True, most martial artists do not regularly face danger condition as part of their daily lives, but could we also somehow benefit from this training of the mindset? For those who teach, how do you encourage the proper mindset for your students? For those who train, how do you mentally prepare yourself for such situations?

- Ceicei
 

Carol

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From the first paragraph of the link:

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/220937/

True, most martial artists do not regularly face danger condition as part of their daily lives, but could we also somehow benefit from this training of the mindset?

- Ceicei

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Being able to think and reason through an adrenaline dump is extremely valuable. To know how your body feels, to know how you have to change your way of thinking and your way of moving and to know what it feels like is extremely helpful for many urgent situations.
 

Andrew Green

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Yup, and for martial arts I think the ones that get people most often are:
Proper mindset can help limit these things, however. If an officer is searching a building with the expectation that no one is there, a person jumping out from behind a wall will surprise him and all of those physiological responses will kick in. But if that officer searches the building expecting someone to be there and the same thing happens, Grossgebauer said, those responses will be muted.

You got to expect and accept that you will get punched in the face... hard.

Firefighters can train in realistic situations. A fire department can put a trainee in an actual burning house so they experience the same type of heat they will find in the field, and learn to operate in it. Trainers can also throw countless variables at the firefighters to recreate things that could happen during a fire.

You got to train realistically, which means getting punched in the face :)
 

Carol

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Yup, and for martial arts I think the ones that get people most often are:


You got to expect and accept that you will get punched in the face... hard.



You got to train realistically, which means getting punched in the face :)


Everybody's got a plan 'till they get punched in the face, eh? ;)
 

Tez3

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Yup, and for martial arts I think the ones that get people most often are:


You got to expect and accept that you will get punched in the face... hard.



You got to train realistically, which means getting punched in the face :)

OH YES! got my front tooth knocked out last week sparring like that! it was a crown though, but I'd had to have that because my original tooth was battered lol! It can be frustrating though, I've spent a long time karate point sparring and I cannot get to grips with real sparring if you follow? I'm conditioned now to the hard sparring in as much as being hit doesn't bother me but it's the hitting back, blocking and moving in a 'hard' fight I can't get whereas in the points sparring I managed it. It's so frustrating. I think it's the change of style that's foxed me.
 

CuongNhuka

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(from Rocky 5)
Rocky: So who was your best freind back in Montana
Tommy: Jack Mathers (or something like that)
Rocky: No, your best freind is this guy named Freddy Fear. See, fear is what keeps you sharp, keeps you aware. Some people think you want to be angry, anger makes you forget to deffend yourself.

Ok, so I may of added that last line, but you know what saying. Fear keeps you aware, anger makes you hit. You shoulden't be completely angery, or completey afraid. If you're just afraid, you forget to hit. If you're completey angry, you forget to defend and when to stop. What you want is to be calm. Zen.
Few can do this with ease. The best thing is to be alittle bit of both.
 

bushidomartialarts

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This idea is how I 'sell' parents on sparring if they're not sure they want little Johnny getting smacked in the face.

When you line up to spar, you know two things about the person standing in front of you.

1. That person is a trained martial artist.

2. That person is about to start trying to punch you in the head.

We've got hundreds of thousands of years of evolution telling us to run away from that sort of thing. Overcoming that is one of the best ways for a child to learn how to overcome fear in a safe environment.
 

MA-Caver

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I think a lot of what was said (so far) is true and correct. From (my) pov in actual experience fighting on the street and against people not in the mind set that "this is training" but it's for real and they are out to hurt you as much as they can... It is difficult for the average person who has a house, job ... a LIFE to have the mind-set for the occasional or "blue-moon" event much less a daily occurrence. Low income, indigent street people do live in the environment where such happenings occur on a frequent if not daily basis. Surviving instead of living.
Brain training helps but without a basis in reality it can be overblown and inaccurate and can get one into more trouble than when they first started out with.

Thus constantly practicing your techniques, doing your katas, perfecting your skills greatly increases your chances of getting out of a physical altercation on the street, in your home/work, bar/restaurant, where-ever! faster and in one piece. heightening your awareness levels dependent upon where you are helps. This has all been said before here on MT.

You know that you're going to get hit and it's going to be a no-hold barred type of hit, you know it's not going to be the perfect right cross swing and you know it's going to come a hellva lot faster and wilder than what you're used to and you know that those hits are going to stun you (just a little bit... or a lot) and that's going to throw you off your "game". Thus train harder, train faster, train to be better than what you are now.

The results may surprise you.
We've seen videos (here) of actual street fights where one punch took out the assailant. What does that say? Luck? Or constant training and a good dose of confidence in one's abilities?
 

seasoned

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From the first paragraph of the link:

http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/220937/

True, most martial artists do not regularly face danger condition as part of their daily lives, but could we also somehow benefit from this training of the mindset? For those who teach, how do you encourage the proper mindset for your students? For those who train, how do you mentally prepare yourself for such situations?

- Ceicei
The first thing to conquer is self. Sounds easy, but is it? Not everyone that studies a martial arts wants to really get that far into this mind set. Not everyone that teaches wants to teach that way either. Police Officers and Fire Fighters were mentioned along with military personnel. These are some of the most heavy duty people that are on the front lines of life, preserving life and limb and there mind set is, they may die doing it. But lets look at there training. The police academy is very hard, my son just went through it. Is this for everyone, no. There is a weeding out process that takes place and if you can’t hack it you are out. They take you to the limit physically and mentally. They don’t kill you but I understand that in your mind they are trying to. End result you survived, maybe. Military the same thing only you are not out, because you owe 4 years so they have a job for you some where:) Now lets look at the dojo. How do you approach your training, how do you teach others to embrace theirs? Add this to how do you also pay the bills, heat, lights, gas if people quit because you are too hard on them. Sounds like a fine line between 300 students and a store front dojo. What I have experienced is, MA is for everyone. Young, old, male, female. Maybe just not at the level of do or die. Not everyone wants that from there training. It gets back to my first sentence, conquer self. The belt ranks are a good example of this weeding out process , it starts out challenging and progressively gets harder until Black Belt. I believe that if you have a standard to meet at each belt level then it needs to be meet. If you were at a belt rank and could not meet the requirements then you stayed at that level until you did or quit. By the time you got to black belt it was not an automatic thing but earned with blood and sweat. Couple this with respect for self, others and dojo and I feel that this will head you in the right direction for the mind set to do battle if need be.
 

Adept

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how do you mentally prepare yourself for such situations?

- Ceicei

To be honest, I've never really thought about it. I work as a bouncer, so charging into the fray is all part of the job. I'll often see two (or more) people shaping up, and I'll think to myself "gee, I hope those guys don't start swinging. They look like they eat weights for breakfast, and could spit nails!" yet when it comes push to shove, I really just don't think about it. Part of my brain just shuts down, and in I go!
 

Shotgun Buddha

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One of the single most difficult things to develop in training, is the willingness to hurt another human being. Most people have a natural psychological resistance to the idea. Usually people are able to work around it by dehumanizing the opponent, essentially viewing them as a moving target and learning to deal with it as such.
Unfortunately when it comes to issues such as self defence, dehumanizing the opponent is highly difficult due to the close range of these encounters, where our opponents humanity is essentially being shoved in our faces.
This is also true of ring combat where its common among fighters to try and humanise themselves to the opponent before the fight, and give them a resistance to attacking them fully.

So, all this means that we have to develop the ability to do damage and harm to someone who we fully recognise as human.
One particular way of doing this was employed by my sensei recently, where he would stand in front of us and start shouting "Are you my friend?" at one of us, till the person answered yes. Once they said that sensei would begin shouting "Then f-ing hit me!" and would attack the person full force all the while shouting "Are you my friend?THEN HIT ME!" at the person until they counter-attacked in a proper committed attack.
Having been on the recieving end of this, I know those attacks were fully intended to knock me out if I didn't do something about them. So I was put in the position where my only way out, was to physically assault full force someone I know is a friend of mine.
The basic theory being that if you can bring yourself to willfully attack a friend, doing so to a stranger should be far easier.
 

Shaderon

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One of the single most difficult things to develop in training, is the willingness to hurt another human being.

I totally agree with this, it's handy if you can find a mental "switch" that you can trigger so that you can shut off and not think about it, but it's difficult for some people, it's scary to flip it, just in case you can't flip it back again.
 

Shotgun Buddha

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I totally agree with this, it's handy if you can find a mental "switch" that you can trigger so that you can shut off and not think about it, but it's difficult for some people, it's scary to flip it, just in case you can't flip it back again.

To be honest, Im not sure how good an idea learning to "shut off" is. Thats mostly trying to avoid the fact that you're opponent is human, and Im not sure how that will affect your abilities if you're suddenly confronted with something that forces you to accept they're human. And up close and personal the smallest and strangest things can do that.
Plus, Im not comfortable with the idea of desensitizing myself to the damage Im doing to another person. I'd prefe to be aware and learn to deal with that awareness, rather than finding a way of not caring.
 

Shaderon

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True, but I don't mean shutting off to the fact that they are human, I mean a switch that lets you hurt someone else even though you care. A switch that will push that overdose of caring about them, even though they hurt you to the back and make it wait until they stop hurting you.

Caring too much about others is one of my failings, if people upset me I'm more likely to worry about their feelings, but through a great deal of forced training I found that bit that puts myself first and enabled me to hit back. I can tell you it hurt me inside more than them but I found it. That's the sort of thing I mean.
 

Bigshadow

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Being able to think and reason through an adrenaline dump is extremely valuable. To know how your body feels, to know how you have to change your way of thinking and your way of moving and to know what it feels like is extremely helpful for many urgent situations.

Or slow the adrenaline dump, I believe this is a result of achieving mushin (no mind). I believe the adrenaline dump is triggered by what we see and hear. The ability to detach the emotional rollercoaster of danger will slow the adrenaline dump.

How to train for it? I personally believe it is training in such a manner that contact is made with a training partner and with the proper intent, commitment, and mindset. Just not full force for safety sake.
 

jdinca

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"One of the single most difficult things to develop in training, is the willingness to hurt another human being."

Amen. When I have a new student hit me so they can see what they're doing, the deer in the headlights look is very common with the phrase "but I don't want to hurt you" being uttered. For most, they get past it eventually but some never really do.
 

zDom

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I think it IS important to take shots to the face / head UNTIL you have trained yourself to be able to perform following having taken a shot.

Once you have that trained into you, then it is a case of diminishing returns: just additional brain damage and face damage for no good reason.

As for "adrenaline dump" for me it's kind of like jumping into a cold pool: quivering with adrenaline until I get hit (akin to jumping in the pool), and THEN it becomes a "comfort zone," oddly enough, once I'm "in" if that makes any sense ...

Relaxed and full o' ZOOM
 

10,000 Hit Combo

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I get the shakes really bad, espeacially in my knees. I tap my foot to stop my knees from shaking but this tends to be taken as an act of aggression rather than self-control. Any other ideas on how to stop my knees from shaking?
 

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