Nature is scary.

[Ironbear24]

So I got this 70lb punching bag and have it hanging from an olive tree. When I was training last night on it one of my kicks shook the tree and a bird fell out and hit the floor.

My dog immediately jumped on it and ate it. I can't help but feel bad for the bird, anyway, is this how martial arts supposed to be? Actions caused by reacting quickly without contemplation?

 

[Touch Of Death]

So I got this 70lb punching bag and have it hanging from an olive tree. When I was training last night on it one of my kicks shook the tree and a bird fell out and hit the floor.

My dog immediately jumped on it and ate it. I can't help but feel bad for the bird, anyway, is this how martial arts supposed to be? Actions caused by reacting quickly without contemplation?

That dog is a martial artist, for sure. Your chi, and the dog's, simply willed that bird to die.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Nope it just means you have an awesome dog gets joy out of eating birds.
As for martial arts there is a time for thought and a time for action. In fighting, thought slows down action so in that case it's better for those actions and reaction to not have thought attached to them. Thinking should be done before action or reaction. That way thought is not needed for the action or reaction

To use your example. You put a bag up with no thought to what was in the tree and as a result your action would be delayed when the bird fell. However, by the way you say your dog jumped on the bird, it makes me think that your dog already knew what was in the tree and already had a game plan of what to do when it falls out of the tree. Because of this your dog didn't need to think when the bird hit the ground, it only had to act.

I don't think your dog would have jumped on the animal as quick if it was a snake that fell out of the tree, because your dog is expecting a bird to fall out of the tree.

Martial arts is thinking before action so that there is no need to think during action.

This is how Martial Arts is. If A happens then I know to do B. There's no need for me to think about it because I have trained my body to react to A. If you recognize A then your body can do B without thought.

 

[Ironbear24]

Ok so the thought is before action, during actions no thought, just action. I think I get it better now.

 

[Flatfish]

 

[JowGaWolf]

Ok so the thought is before action, during actions no thought, just action. I think I get it better now.

Correct. Here' is a few of my thought processes when I fight:
1. Encourage you to throw an attack or defense that I recognize so that I can respond with a trained reaction.
2. Encourage you to perform a motion that I calculate where you will be in the short future. If you take big steps when avoiding certain punches, then I can calculate where you will land when you move. Instead of attacking you where you are currently are. I will attack you where you will be. All I would need to do is to trigger the movement.

If you do anything from 1 or 2 then you are guaranteed to get a trained and thoughtless reaction from me. To give you an idea of how trained some of my responses are. I actually have to think in order to stop the trained reaction vs. thinking to cause a reaction. It's like having an insect crawling on your neck. Your thoughtless reaction is to quickly smash or brush off the insect, and in order to prevent the thoughtless reaction you actually have to think. This is how fighting in general is. If you want to stop or slow down your punch then think about punching or even better missing. If you want to punch really fast and catch your opponent off guard then punch without thought by doing your thinking 3 or 4 seconds before your punch.

I do a punching pad drill where we train to punch only when we see the dot on the punching pad. The less thought we use the faster we are able to punch the dot. After learning how to punch a dot without thought we then begin to learn how to punch openings without thought.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I think martial arts are like defensive driving. The more you do as a habit, the better. If you have to stop and think about what to do, every time it gets a little complicated, you are in big trouble.

 

[JowGaWolf]

kicks shook the tree and a bird fell out,
My dog immediately jumped on it and ate it
Actions caused by reacting quickly without contemplation
is this how martial arts supposed to be?

This was his "light bulb moment" or "enlightenment moment" where he sees something not related to fighting / martial arts that helps him better understand martial arts in general. At first it went over my head just because those "enlightening moments" are always so personalized. He recognized that his dog reacted without thought and he noticed how quick the dogs reaction was to the bird falling out of the tree. In reality it may have been a planned action and not a reaction.

Touch of death explains the same thing by using Defensive Driving as an example. It's the "enlightenment" of understanding things that makes martial artist talk funny. Like Bruce Lee talking about being water and people learning how to fight from watching a praying mantis.

 

[Tez3]

and sometimes things get pretentious.

 

[Kickboxer101]

kicks shook the tree and a bird fell out,
My dog immediately jumped on it and ate it
Actions caused by reacting quickly without contemplation
is this how martial arts supposed to be?

This was his "light bulb moment" or "enlightenment moment" where he sees something not related to fighting / martial arts that helps him better understand martial arts in general. At first it went over my head just because those "enlightening moments" are always so personalized. He recognized that his dog reacted without thought and he noticed how quick the dogs reaction was to the bird falling out of the tree. In reality it may have been a planned action and not a reaction.

Touch of death explains the same thing by using Defensive Driving as an example. It's the "enlightenment" of understanding things that makes martial artist talk funny. Like Bruce Lee talking about being water and people learning how to fight from watching a praying mantis.

Either that or he was just bragging about being able to shake his tree lol

 

[Ironbear24]

Bruce Lee's famous was be like water, formless. Takes shape and adapts to all situations.

Mine will be "be like a dog eating a bird. Opportune and reactive." XD

 

[crazydiamond]

I was outside and put a bowl of water down for my dog, and he immediately decided to ....blow bubbles.

That's an artist.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Bruce Lee's famous was be like water, formless. Takes shape and adapts to all situations.

Water has a different meanings for me. To me it means flow like water. When water is blocked then let the attacks crash on and around the guard into other openings.
- When someone attacks water, water will still wet them (defend and attack at the same time).
- Water breaks through at the weakest point not at the strongest. If grappling is your strength then I must fight you at your weakest point away from grappling.
- Water when hot, still burns even if it doesn't not touch the body. Refers to striking the limbs
- A single drop of water is manageable, but multiple drops (rain) become complications: this is in reference to not just throwing one attack or multiple attacks on the same location, but multiple attacks in multiple locations.

Nature gives us clues on how to view things from a natural perspective instead a human perspective. Because nature is so diverse, a bird falling out of a tree and an animal eating it can result in multiple perspectives of how one may see life in general.

Even from a non martial arts perspective. That same situation could mean. Falling great heights will always be an opportunity for those under you. This is especially true in the business world.

The only thing I don't like about it is that it tends to get too much Zen and not enough living.

 

[JowGaWolf]

I was outside and put a bowl of water down for my dog, and he immediately decided to ....blow bubbles.

That's an artist.

Sign of intelligence and an understanding which one is most likely able to figure out to get into the food pantry lol.

 

[Ironbear24]

Either that or he was just bragging about being able to shake his tree lol

Nothing much to brag about I'm sure everyone here can do that with an olive tree.

 

[Flatfish]

kicks shook the tree and a bird fell out,
My dog immediately jumped on it and ate it
Actions caused by reacting quickly without contemplation
is this how martial arts supposed to be?

This was his "light bulb moment" or "enlightenment moment" where he sees something not related to fighting / martial arts that helps him better understand martial arts in general. At first it went over my head just because those "enlightening moments" are always so personalized. He recognized that his dog reacted without thought and he noticed how quick the dogs reaction was to the bird falling out of the tree. In reality it may have been a planned action and not a reaction.

Touch of death explains the same thing by using Defensive Driving as an example. It's the "enlightenment" of understanding things that makes martial artist talk funny. Like Bruce Lee talking about being water and people learning how to fight from watching a praying mantis.

That's fine, I just don't think about those kinds of things too much....in fact doing so makes my brain hurt. Never been the philosophical type, now let me get back to those Zika virus papers.....

 

[Buka]

Do you know part of the bird the dog was after?

Olive it.

 

[JowGaWolf]

That's fine, I just don't think about those kinds of things too much....in fact doing so makes my brain hurt. Never been the philosophical type, now let me get back to those Zika virus papers.....

Zika virus papers? Mosquito + Virus = screwed human lol.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Zika virus papers? Mosquito + Virus = screwed human lol.

Not really. The ZIka virus is more media frenzy than zombie apocalypse. For at least 80% of the infected population, the infection causes no symptoms at all. In most of the remaining 20%, the symptoms are, basically, mild flu. Headache. Body aches. Low grade fever. Generally feeling "blah."

It's really only an issue for one small segment of the population, and that is women who are in the early stages of pregnancy.

Now, for that relatively small segment of the population, it's a huge deal.

Do you spend a lot of time worrying about malaria? Dengue Fever? Yellow Fever? West Nile? Viral encephalitis?
Probably not. But they're far more common. And for the majority of the population, far more dangerous. But they're not "new", they're not "exciting" and they're not being pushed by the media as the next Black Plague.

There are anywhere between 50 and 100 million cases of dengue fever every year. And 300-400 thousand cases of hemorrhagic dengue. I've had that myself, and it's miserable.
But it didn't stop me from going back to the same island a few months after I got recovered.

Over a million people die from malaria every year. But they're mostly poor people in sub-Saharan Africa, not a relatively affluent country like Brazil. So nobody get's real worked up about it.

About 30,000 people die every year in the US from the flu. Not some exotic strain of the flu either. Plain old seasonal flu.

Does the Zika virus warrant concern, research and education? Absolutely. But as happens so often, the media is more interested in ratings than reality.

 

[Ironbear24]

Not really. The ZIka virus is more media frenzy than zombie apocalypse. For at least 80% of the infected population, the infection causes no symptoms at all. In most of the remaining 20%, the symptoms are, basically, mild flu. Headache. Body aches. Low grade fever. Generally feeling "blah."

It's really only an issue for one small segment of the population, and that is women who are in the early stages of pregnancy.

Now, for that relatively small segment of the population, it's a huge deal.

Do you spend a lot of time worrying about malaria? Dengue Fever? Yellow Fever? West Nile? Viral encephalitis?
Probably not. But they're far more common. And for the majority of the population, far more dangerous. But they're not "new", they're not "exciting" and they're not being pushed by the media as the next Black Plague.

There are anywhere between 50 and 100 million cases of dengue fever every year. And 300-400 thousand cases of hemorrhagic dengue. I've had that myself, and it's miserable.
But it didn't stop me from going back to the same island a few months after I got recovered.

Over a million people die from malaria every year. But they're mostly poor people in sub-Saharan Africa, not a relatively affluent country like Brazil. So nobody get's real worked up about it.

About 30,000 people die every year in the US from the flu. Not some exotic strain of the flu either. Plain old seasonal flu.

Does the Zika virus warrant concern, research and education? Absolutely. But as happens so often, the media is more interested in ratings than reality.

I think he was jus joking.