Your driving or your martial arts? I recently avoided an accident that could have proven very serious. My reactions were amazingly instinctive, concise and fluid. This started me thinking about my training and while I have fleeting moments of greatness, I also have many moments where I simply put way too much thought into it. Much more often than in my driving.
What’s more instinctive?
- Thread starter Holmejr
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Which do you do more?
- Thread Starter
- #3
Haha, Exactly. Less work more play. Would sure like to be at that level though.
Both are complex and filled with stimuli. Both can be enjoyable. Driving, especially at night on straight highways, can put you to sleep. Just like some instructors can.
Driving can get you where you want to go. So can training.
On a long drive my wife might never stop talking. She never talked in class. Class was always better.
You can run out of gas driving. Or training.
You don’t usually have to watch out for the cops while training.
Driving can get you where you want to go. So can training.
On a long drive my wife might never stop talking. She never talked in class. Class was always better.
You can run out of gas driving. Or training.
You don’t usually have to watch out for the cops while training.
You might if you're training in public. Or training something illegal. Just like driving.
I'm sometimes rather surprisingly fast at avoiding an unexpected punch thrown at my head, and then tend to eat the next one, which I see coming. Annoying. However, I keep trying to stop overthinking and just flow. Sometimes I do OK-ish.
- Thread Starter
- #8
Yeah, we do a lot of sneak attacks during class and I seem to handle it mostly well. Our instructor will blast us out of the blue while explaining something totally unrelated to another student. Tapi tapi with my instructor, I’ll choke more often. Last session he end up behind me with a rear naked choke, only with the stick. I couldn’t tap fast enough.
My commutes changed over the years, and sometimes I work hybrid vs. onsite vs. driving everywhere. But looking purely at driving for work, I probably average 20 minutes each way, which I'd guess is a healthy average, or on the shorter end.
Assuming 2 weeks vacation, that's 40 minutes a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. 40*5*50 = 10,000 minutes a year of driving. Not including personal driving, which I'm not sure how I'd calculate.
I'd say on average in a given year I'll go 3 classes a week about an hour each. Some years the classes are longer, sometimes I go more often, but I think that's a good average. I'll assume 2 weeks off there as well. 3*60*50 = 9000 minutes.
Ultimately, 10k minutes driving each year vs 9k minutes training isn't too far off. And there's personal driving that I do outside of that, but also personal training I do outside of class.
So I'm going to rule time out as a factor here for which one's more engrained in me. Which brings it down to active/intentional learning.
This is kind of a side thing, but I remember a study my pastor pointed me too when I asked him about a similar question, where pastors/priests were found to have not memorized the communion liturgy without having it in front of them, despite reading it weekly, because they were not focusing on memorizing/deeply understanding the words. I think that's a fair comparison here, if a bit stretched.
So, on to intentional learning: Driving is scary, you have a lot of power, there's a lot of things you have to look towards, and a lot of rules to remember. So initially, driving has the jump there in getting you to internalize/instinctualize it. But, at some point there's no new things to learn, and you start phoning it in. I'm sure we've all experienced those moments where we drove somewhere, and afterwards don't remember the drive. That means that even if we're putting in the minutes driving, it's not getting through to us on a meaningful level.
Meanwhile, in martial arts the initial stakes aren't as high, and never become as high. But you have to spend more time actively learning, because there's always new things. Once you learn how to properly send your force through your strikes, you have to learn to add footwork to it. Then timing. Then deal with other timing, etc. There's similar additional complexities in grappling arts. So it's always more of an active learning situation, and when we train (or at least for me) if we learn something new, we're probably reviewing it over the course of the next few days in our heads, or even drilling it while in between other tasks.
So ultimately, spending roughly the same amount of time engaging in both activities, my guess would be that martial arts are more instinctive, because the time we spend on them is purposeful learning, while the time we spend driving is a rote activity.
I can completely relate to this. I am definitely my own worst enemy.
isshinryuronin
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Is it possible you're over-prioritizing defending that first attack and mentally seeing a second one as "less" important? Often it is the second attack that's the main one.
Physically, there's five ways that come to mind to handle the problem:
1. Move offline as you deal with the first punch so that second one has trouble reaching you.
2. Block the first attack with one hand and have the other hand up and ready to check a second punch.
3. Block with one hand and simultaneously counter with the other((or same), before the second attack gets to you.
4. Cause enough pain on the first attacking arm to delay a second attack.
5. Block and grab the first attacking arm then pull the opponent of balance/out of position.
You're probably aware of most of these things. But practicing them in solo/partner drills and sparring is needed to keep them in mind and instantly available to put them to use. Too often we practice "1 and 2" instead of 1-2, the result being getting tagged on the "and." Part of this may be the "flow" you mentioned.
(Note: More than one old master said that kata is designed be modified for actual fighting by doing #1-5 as well as other adjustments. This adds another layer one can explore in kata.)
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In the U.K. it’s illegal to consume anything while driving, even a chocolate bar! You have to pull over to adjust you navigation device and even radio!
Multitasking is a myth, rather our brain’s basal ganglia switches and attends to tasks serially due to limited available processing power. The more tasks you take on, the less processing power and time is allocated to each task by the brain’s basal ganglia to the point that there’s not enough time to complete each task effectively, you become overwhelmed and the effectiveness of each task diminishes, sometimes with disastrous, fatal results.
Do you remember Apollo 11’s 1201/1202 alarms on it’s descent to the lunar surface? That was exactly the same problem. Aldrin decided to keep the abort radar turned on so they could locate Columbia back in orbit in case they had to abort the descent and return to Columbia in the emergency. The 1201/1202 alarms were the guidance computer protesting that it didn’t have enough time to complete each task it had been allocated (‘executive overflow’) and it was having to decide which were the most important tasks to complete for a successful landing (marvellous design)! 🤓
Most of us can attend to 3-4 different tasks serially at a time with a good degree of efficiency, at most. Fighter/test pilots and astronauts can attend to up to 10 tasks and assessing this ability is part of their recruitment testing. Astonishing people 😳 This ability decreases with advancing age.
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Martial arts because I started as a young kid and have kept on training.
I’ve been practicing since I was really young, but I still think that it takes much less thought to drive. Maybe because there are less movements/muscles involved.
- Thread Starter
- #15
Haha, so you’re saying that your driving is terrible?
Joking! That’s impressive. There are certain aspects of my ability that works that way. Good for you!
