Training Smarts – Page 6 – Conflict Manager

Reflexes Reactions and Conditioned Responses – Jari Peuhkurinen

This material is quite scientific in nature and direct application to self defense training might be lost to some of the readers, but it is my opinion that as an instructor one should always know the science and principles behind human behaviour under stress. Other thing is that I strongly believe that understanding helps to comprehend principles and concepts behind action faster and this directly affects how fast one is able to absorb new skills.

Selective Attention; Vigilance

By using selective attention an individual is able to pick out the most important information for processing from all the information that is received by the senses. Selective attention is regulating memory information and information picked out by our senses and deciding what to bring to our consciousness. This is also called cocktail party -phenomenon, meaning that when you are surrounded by lot of people talking, you can still pick out the important words for you, for example if you hear your name mentioned.

Life would be surprisingly difficult without the selective attention. In a noisy train station it would be difficult to hear the announcement when you train is leaving, if we could not consciously guide our attention to the information we want to. Same goes for recognizing a friend in a crowd, if you could not pick out the information needed to recognize a friend and compare it to the memory information that you have about him or her, think about that for a second.

So we can guide our attention consciously, but if there is a stimulus that surprises us or stimulus that needs our attention, even when our conscious mind is not at that moment concentrating on it, it will be guided to our attention. This is called the Orienting Reflex or Orienting Response.

Reflex, Reaction and Response

Before going into details I need to define a couple of terms used in this article. I do not like Wikipedia definitions so much, but I will use them here to make a difference between these terms;

A reflex (lat. reflexus < reflectere = bend back) is an involuntary and nearly instantaneous movement in response to a stimulus. It recurs in similar way each time. It is fast and automatic. Some of the reflexes and inborn and some are learned. Scientific use of the term “reflex” refers to a behaviour that is mediated via the reflex arc; this does not apply to casual uses of the term ‘reflex’.

A reaction (lat. reactio) refers to response to other event. In psychology reaction is a response to stimulus, in physiology it is a change that happens in body.

Reflex and reaction is often used concurrently and for the clarity of this article I will use the word reflex to describe responses to stimulus that is not activated by our conscious mind. In my mind reaction is somehow more conscious than reflex. Reactions can also be natural responses to different stimulus, but reactions can also be chemical and reactions can be also acted consciously. For example reacting to bad news received in phone. Reflex in its essence is something more unconscious, something we do not decide to do. Only important thing here is that you make the difference and are able to tell apart action that is conscious and unconscious.

Orienting Reflex

The orienting reflex is an autonomic reflex, this means that it can not be controlled consciously. It guides our attention to stimulus that come to our conscious mind despite of all the other stimuli affecting our senses. The orienting reflex is very primal reflex and is part of the behaviour of most animals, this reflex has been programmed to our genes since very early in our evolution and its main function is to keep us alive. It literally grabs our attention, it is our inbuilt early warning device, the creak on the stairs in the night, the new smell that we do not know.

Think about situation where you are in middle of training and talking to students and suddenly a window or door closes loudly. Everyone’s attention shifts to direction of the noise and whilst the overall responses to the stimulus might differ a lot in a group; everybody has a shift of attention at minimum. Some may merely glance in the direction of the sudden noise others may adopt a kind of startle response, where hands come up and head goes down and at once the direction of the stimulus, it is a spectrum but there will be a response.

If the door or window closes frequently, there will be familiarization to the stimulus and responses will not be that strong people will allow the noise to become background. In the end of the training it might be that there is no shift of attention at all. The stimulus that results in the orienting reflex is sudden and unexpected, if there is preparation and expectation the reflex is not so strong or it will not appear. If there is no preparation the reflex is strong, just try slapping your focus pads together unexpectedly during a training session.

Stimulation of the orienting reflex will abort any ongoing task. That is its function. It forces our attention to shift to possible threat and at the same time the amygdala will initiate the flight or fight response. All this happens in milliseconds and our human brain has not yet have time to process the information for us to even know what the stimulus is. Is it something that is threatening our safety and life or is it something harmless? Once the information from the stimulus is processed and it is recognized as not life threatening, one will experience the feeling of relief. We can feel it in our body as the stress hormones are standing down and preparations to fight or flight will cease.

From the point of view of self defense this is meaningful reflex to understand. This can not be unlearned, at least not completely, but getting used to unexpected stimulus during a confrontation will reduce the time for us to consciously understand what is happening, allowing us to recover faster and process our thoughts and actions more effectively.

Protective Reflexes

The protective reflexes are closely related to the orienting reflex, while the orienting reflex shifts our attention in the direction of the stimulus and is more psychological in nature, the protective reflexes will protect us physically. We can separate out two distinct functions two parts of the physical response that protects us.

The first is the well known startle reflex that is a universal response to threat stimuli. It is most clearly seen when the direction or the source of the stimulus can not immediately be identified. This is a primary reflex, where shoulders go up and protect the neck whilst the head and chin go down and basically whole body tries to go to fetus position when standing. The hands come up to protect the head and when this happens our lizard brain has got the lead and human brain has not yet had time to process the information to realize what is going on. This is our primitive response of the oldest part of our brain, the amygdala automatically triggers the preparations for fight or flight.

The protective reflex is the physical movement of body and hands that follows the startle reflex. It happens when the direction of the threat is recognized. Recognition can happen through seeing the threat, hearing or feeling it.

The protective reflex is not so universal in its nature it as the startle response, it varies from person to person, from one situation to another. It can be strong or weak, it can lead to freezing or sudden action, the power of the stimuli can be an influencing factor, if a dog attacks you, would you react the same if it were a toy Poodle or a Rottweiler?

Usually the reflex promotes symmetrical movement where hands move the same line forward or backwards towards the head. However,this is not fixed it can be that only one hand is pushing forward, while other hand protects the head. The main thing is that it does not matter how much one has trained to develop a certain response to a threat the automatic protective reflex cannot be overridden by training, we may alter it but rarely will we eradicate it.

What we can train for is how fast we are able to start productive action after the protective reflex has occurred.

In Training

From training point of view it is important to understand that even when training helps us make use of these reflexes and training helps us to get used to different stimulus that normally produce strong uncontrollable reflexes, these responses cannot entirely be shut down. If and when the stimulus is strong, autonomic reflexes will reappear. Not all reflex responses can be transformed into something tactical. Sometimes it can be that reflex makes you take a step backwards. This has to be taken into account when training the action after protective reflex has occurred. What we need to think about is how fast can we get back into the game?

My answer, it depends. After we orientate towards the threat and the protective reflex occurs it then depends on many variables how fast we are able to make the conscious decision to go forward against the threat or retreat as fast as possible. How strong is the pressure created by the stimulus? How close to the reflex is our trained response? Training can make a difference but we need to know what is happening.

It is also a question of how early in moment we are able to pick out the stimulus. The earlier we pick out the incoming stimulus the more we have time to process the information, the less the pressure created by incoming stimuli will be.

The more simple, more symmetrical, more close to the original reflex our trained response is the more able and faster we are able to make it into something tactical. When training it is important to train conscious action after the stimulus has been created by a strong protective reflex. This training cannot be done by deciding that now I will make protective reflex, it has to produced naturally.

Reflexes can not be omitted in training by thinking that all it requires is more training to make them go away or manage them tactically. Reflexes need to be taken as something that are within us and will stay within us, no matter how much we train. We can use them to our advantage and we can experience them in training and practise getting into action faster after such reflexes appear. Exposure and experience will make these reflexes our friends.

Many times I have heard, and also trained myself, using the natural reaction of human being to defend against an attack. The principle is sound. Techniques and tools, based on the movement of natural reflexes is good. It can be moulded by training into something tactical and usable in real life situation. However, if you really think about the original, the ultimate purpose of these reflexes, it is something that is out of our hands. They are unconscious reflexes produced without our frontal cortext, our human brain, processing the information or selecting the logical response. Nobody decides to have an reflex, it is decided for us by the lizard brain, the amygdala.

Intention – Beginning – Movement – Hit

One needs to train for different stages of response to threat stimuli and how to react and respond to them.

Intention of an attack: This means simply that when attacker shows intention of attacking by closing distance the defender will go into action.
Beginning refers to beginning of the movement, where the pressure of the attack is weakest, the pre-contact cues.
Movement means training against the actual attack which is already on its way to target. This is the most common stage of practising against attacks. This is most likely stage of producing autonomous protective reflex.
Hit, refers to situation where defender has not been able to defend and the attacker hits its target. This is also important thing to practise. If consciousness is not lost, the defender needs to be able to get back into the game asap. An attack that hits will produce some form of reflex, may it be just psychological momentary freeze, before the defender is able to burst into action. This depends on the training and experiences.

Operant Conditioned Responses

Operant conditioning responses to certain stimuli is the method most commonly used when training animals. It is also method used when training self defense. The purpose of conditioning is to produce desired response to a stimulus that triggers it. In training, response is either rewarded with success when the defender is able to thwart the attack and evades being hit. Or it is punished by failing to produce desired response, what results in being hit. Positive experiences make the behaviour more likely to repeat, whereas negative experiences reduce the behaviour.

Operant conditioning is best produced by repetition. The desired response is repeated again and again in response to a certain stimulus, in different situations, so that it will become the most likely action taken when the stimulus is identified. We literally programme the brains response to the stimulus.

This brings us to the main point of operant conditioning. Conditioning can be universal in nature, for certain stimuli, for example being hit produces psychological and physical response of attacking with an offensive attitude to gain upper hand in a fight. Conditioning can also be more specific. A straight punch attackwill be conditioned to produce certain defensive response and circular punch will produce another response and a knife attack downwards a third response and so on. This is the most common way of training MA/SD, it is what we do.

The problem with this type of conditioning is the identification of the stimulus before an appropriate response can be triggered. If the conditioning is specific to the attack, then the need for identification and proper response selection from memory needs to happen before action takes place. This is where OODA -loop comes into play, if the stimulus is something general in nature, for example the identification of pre-attack indicators like in a monkey dance then the response is also something general in nature such as adopting a defensive stance. Here the trained response is easier to perform and more likely to succeed in real life. No need for specific identification and no need for selection from multiple attack specific responses.

However, if the conditioning is more specific, for example a defence against straight punch, the movement itself needs to go through the identification process before action can be taken. This brings the attacker already so much closer to hitting his target that active, forward moving response is really difficult to produce. Here the protective response is more likely to kick in not trained responses, because the lizard brain will take charge from the human brain once the threat (the punch) is seeing coming towards the face.

It is important to understand that no matter how well conditioned we are to respond to a particular stimulus, it is something that will not erase the protective reflex. If the stimulus is sudden and takes us by surprise the protective reflex will dominate. Too many times in conditioning training, these protective reflexes are seen as a mistakes, rather that opportunity to train productive action after the reflex. This is itself a major mistake, think about how you train!

Operant conditioning is is a great method of training and some form of conditioning always happens when training. It just depends on what we are training to condition ourselves to. Think about this and re-read the Intention – Beginning – Movement – Hit paragraph again.

Self-Defense “Moves”: The Good, Bad and the Ugly – Erik Kondo

Popular movies such as Miss Congeniality have given the idea of self-defense “Moves” popular appeal, particularly among women. In the case of the movie, the Hollywood “Moves” targeted S.I.N.G. (Solar Plexus, Instep, Nose, Groin). Generally speaking, men are more interesting in learning how to “fight”, while women are more interested in learning self-defense “Moves” to repel sexual assault.

I am going to focus on the Good, Bad, and Ugly of instructing self-defense “Moves” for women.

The BAD of Some Self-Defense Moves

If you are using a self-defense Move, then you are being attacked. Knowing Moves don’t help you prevent from being attacked in the first place.
Moves assume that the victim will actually “fight back” as opposed to being frozen in fear.
Learned Moves are subject to the Forgetting Curve meaning that most of what is “learned” will soon be forgotten anyway in an exponential manner.
Knowing how to do a Move, doesn’t mean you know when to do the Move and when not to do it.
The implication of an instructed Move is that it is better than an instinctive response. Therefore, the Move is intended to replace instinctive actions. According to research, 80% of women who actively resist in some manner are successful in stopping the assault. For the instructed Move to be reliable and worthwhile, it needs to have an even higher success rate than instinctive actions.
Learning a Move, doesn’t mean you know what to do if the Move fails to work as intended.
The instruction of Moves tends to lead students to believe that there is a single right way and many wrong ways to act as opposed to better and worse ways of responding.

The UGLY of Some Self-Defense Moves

Learning these Moves, gives you false confidence, and makes you think you can do things that you really can’t. This false confidence encourages a tendency for you to put yourself in risky situations that you might have otherwise avoided.
These Moves place you in more vulnerable position if the Move fails.
Instruction of these “killer” Moves promote the misleading impression that all assaults come from strangers and are life and death situations.
These Moves when used without judgement are likely to escalate situations as opposed to de-escalating or providing the opportunity to escape.

The GOOD of Some Self-Defense Moves

Good self-defense Moves are not really Moves at all. They are effective responses in certain situations.
Good Responses are modifications of instinctive actions that you are likely to do anyway.
Good Responses are taught to beginners through the use of conditioning as opposed to rote instruction.
Good Responses are taught to beginners in manner that is more about the experience of the instruction and less about what is actually learned. Experiences tend to be remembered while instruction is not.
Good Responses have a higher probability of making the situation better and a lower probability of making the situation worse.
Good Responses encourage “breaking the freeze”.
Instruction of Good Responses “gives permission” to act and break out of socially conditioned scripts and reactions.
Good Responses encourage critical and dynamic thinking.
Good Responses take into consideration a person’s potential emotional, psychological and physiological state.
Good Responses incorporate ethical and legal considerations.
Good Responses can deal with both of the scenarios described below:

In the following two scenarios, the factors are the exact opposite which is an illustration of how much variability is involved in assaults.

SCENARIO #1:

The assailant is a stranger. (creepy guy, dangerous serial predator)
He attacks from an ambush. (surprise attack)
The attack occurs in a public place. (parking lot, public park, sidewalk, etc.)
The attacker forces victim into secluded area. (dark alley, behind a bush)
The attacker uses a weapon and/or high physical force. (knife, gun, hard strikes, strangles, etc.)
The victim fights back unsuccessfully. (flails, kicks, screams, etc.)
The victim reports the crime to the police. (right after the attack)

SCENARIO #2:

The assailant is known to the victim. (friend, date, boyfriend, acquaintance, family member, co-worker, boss, etc.)
There is a buildup to the assault. (interview, boundary testing, etc.)
The assault happens in private area. (apartment, dorm room, private vehicle, etc.)
The victim went voluntarily to the assault location. (wanted to go, was manipulated into going)
The assailant doesn’t use a weapon, uses coercion or minimal force.
The victim doesn’t fight back. (frozen in fear, incapacitated by drugs/alcohol, didn’t want to make the assailant angry, unwilling because of existing relationship)
The victim doesn’t report the crime to the police. (doesn’t tell anybody, or only after a long period of time)

The notion of Self-defense “Moves” is ingrained in the public and in many self-defense instructors. Since it is unlikely that this thinking will disappear any time soon, effective “Moves” should focus on the GOOD and avoid the BAD and UGLY.

Sparring for self defense training – Lex Biljsma

There is a lot of debate about sparring for self defense purposes.
I’ve noticed people bashing people who don’t spar because sparring is supposed to be the only way to train for real fights because it’s the closest thing. Other people claim they can’t spar because their system is too deadly, and sparring is not a real fight anyway.

I would like to give you my definition of sparring , why and how I use it in my classes.

What is it ?
Of course you already know this, but just to understand what I am talking about in this article I’ll explain a bit. I am talking about any life drill with one or more opponents where you train with people putting up active resistance. It can be boxing, it can be wrestling, but it can be very specific on certain techniques or training objectives. Training objectives can be technical/physical, tactical and mental. It can be with or without weapons etc.

It can get pretty close to reality, but it can also be totally different. The idea of walking up to each other, touching gloves , taking a step back, and starting to trade punches is not my perspective of a real fight. I still like it a lot because of the many helpful skills we do train.
How do I use it?
I love it as a tool for evaluation. I can see how my students perform under pressure.

Do they still have proper footwork?
Do they protect them self by having their guard up?,
Do they move correctly?
Are their aware of their surroundings?
How do they react to an opponent that puts forward pressure on them?

You can add your own, the list is not exhausted.

It gives me a lot of things to work the next x number of weeks.
In these cases I usually give my students a lot of freedom. It starts with touching gloves and is usually 1 on 1 for a number of minutes each round. The fight may or may not end up on the ground. Your opponent may or may not have a weapon hidden in his or her waistband.

It gives me things to work on but is great for students to learn about timing, moving, accuracy, strategy, trying the combinations we did in class etc.
I like to train on specific techniques/ strategies or other objectives

It gets more into the direction of self defense training when we add specific assignments or attacks. One example can be take-downs and defending them. If you want your students not to end up on the ground in a street fight you should give them the tools and opportunity to train those tools.

If you do need to take a fight to the ground it should be on your terms, and you should end up in a dominant position. This is especially for people in security and law enforcement who cannot all the time just hurt their opponent and run away. In my classes the main focus is being able to defend them though. A good reason to teach and train actual good take downs is to provide good training partners.

Some people seem to be very eager to take people down without good reason. This is where concealing training knifes come in handy. If you take the wrong person down you will be facing a knife while wrestling and usually you’ll end up full of holes like a Leerdammer (Dutch cheese).

Another thing I like to do in this situation is adding multiple opponents. Just give the assignment in class that you see a fight on the ground next to you you will “attack” the guy on top. I do not always do this because I also want them to be able to save themselves on the ground rather than stalling the fight until their classmates save them.

Mental objectives
A drill I like very much is where 1 person has to do a take-down but is not allowed to punch or kick. He is allowed to defend him self though. The other guy can move around, punch and kick to keep the guy away from him. Besides a little tactical training for the striker it’s most of all a determination drill for the take-down guy. He will have to get in close despite the attacks. There is no option to jab and step out of range again. He’ll have to get in close again and again.

Sometimes I tie each end of a judo belt up to one of the opponents so they could not step away from each other and had to continue to fight at close range. It’s not supposed to be with a hard impact but to overcome the anxiety of getting close.

With more beginner students we may want to simplify sparring more to work on some other problems that you will see.

People who flinch and panic a lot, people freezing, turning away from the opponent, people bending over too much looking at the ground etc. Obviously hard and realistic sparring is still a bridge too far. In these cases their opponent should have a more coaching job and slow the pace down. Also limiting the amount of techniques will help a lot. If you give them only straight punches to work with and specific defenses from your system , they will improve their thinking process and reaction speed. It will also build confidence better than to just keep hitting them.

I think even beginners should start training what they know under more pressure, but never more than they can handle. Sparring should always be physical and emotionally safe. Even with more advanced students you will see the reluctance to really get inside the distance to make combinations. So sometimes I create exercises where only the rear hand can be used so they have to turn their body in. In this way you can make countless varieties such as specific kicks, combinations, only hooks and uppercuts etc.

Specific attacks
There are specific attacks that happen (a lot) in street fights but not so much in an competition like setting. Think about grabbing a throat with one or two hands to choke, certain bear hugs, knife attacks, stick attacks etc.

One drill I like to use is setting the timer on 15 or 30 second rounds. Each round one guy starts with closing the eyes. The attacker does an attack and the defender defends. The attacker however does not let him defend ,and either tries harder or switches to other methods of attack, resulting in a short intensive sparring round. With knives you can of course let them keep the eyes open, or the attacker will attack the body and the defender will have to feel and then see what is going on and defend the second stab properly, this is pretty intense. It is also a way for me to create more realism and need for specific self defense techniques in the sparring rather then making it look like a boxing or MMA type of match.

Adding multiple opponents is a great tool for tactical training. You can vary the level by varying the intensity and variety of the attacks and number of opponents. This could vary from two opponents doing only straight punches to fully equipped and full contact sparring including weapons and take-downs.

Summary

The most important thing is that you set certain realistic training objectives depending of the level of the student. The drills are not supposed to break people down. They should build certain skills that will help them survive in the real world. A side effect is that a lot of people find them challenging and fun. You can vary a lot in drills to keep the classes interesting as well. The point of this article is to express my love for these type of drills and give you ideas.

American Krav Maga – Gabe Cohen

I do not train because I like to fight. People will ask me, “Did you see the fight last night on TV?” Whatever the latest hype may have been about, whether its UFC or boxing, etc. My answer is always the same, ”No, I did not.” Often they think I am being sarcastic but I am serious. Mainly it’s people who know me from the gym that assume I follow these fights.

“Don’t you teach that hardcore brutal Krav Maga stuff?” I answer them but without the explanation of why I don’t follow or participate in competition sport fighting.

Here is my answer…”Yes I do but we like to call it, brutally effective! But I do not enjoy sport fighting.”

Most people dont care to really listen to why I feel this way or hear about why I am so passionate about what I teach. It is sacred to me and i do not waste my time with in sincere people who just want to make small talk or rub elbows with their local “tough guy” ( at least thats my perception of how people look at me sometimes).

I do teach the mindset of total, all out aggression…if attacked. Krav Maga is a self-defense system and I teach people to walk, run away if they can. To pick up an improvised weapon if they do not possess one but if all you got is you, with no exit possible, then I teach them to do as much damage to their attacker in the least amount of time. I do have tremendous respect for people who train with everything they got in their respective martial art or competition fighting system. I just do not enjoy entertaining people hurting other people for trophy, money, sport or any reason. ( to me self –defense is justified violence and I occasionally like seeing video of a bully getting his ass kicked or victim of a crime kicking the predators ass! Guess I do have exceptions).

I have witnessed enough violence in my life in some very dark places, some in broad daylight and at night in the streets of America. I choose not to spend my free time entertaining more of it. I don’t really like violent action movies anymore (Jason Bourne an exception!). I have been a part of a very violent lifestyle in the past it in different capacities, hospitalized by it and sent a few there myself which I am not proud of but this has been my experience. Today I use my past to help people learn to keep themselves safe. It is very satisfying and therapeutic for me to teach people how to wield violence to those that wish to “ walk in peace.” Taking the things I have learned through my experience, many of them from the school of hardknocks, and not just from traditional training in a gym/dojo.

Years of being a bouncer taught me to use my “verbal Krav Maga” skills as much as possible while weathering a storm of verbal abuse and provocation. Sometimes hitting first was the best way to keep myself and others safe, I teach this too but I do not go around looking for the opportunity to use my skills. In fact I will do everything within reason to avoid a physical confrontation.

I have two sons in their early 20’s that love to box and train several times a week in it. They enjoy watching the next bout between champions. I lose potential clients that want to learn mixed martial arts “like the stuff they see in UFC” when I tell them that I incorporate many of those types of techniques, especially striking but that I teach a self -defense system. “Basically,” I say “ I teach all the stuff your not allowed to do inside the ring.”

We all have the right to defend and protect ourselves and our families. I tell people up front that they have to have the mindset that there life is at stake when they train with me. That techniques by themselves aren’t worth much for real world violence unless you’ve trained them under stress and exhaustion. Yes there are many benefits to training in any martial arts or sport fighting system, mentally, physically, and spiritually but my reason for training is for survival. Having the mental, physical and spiritual aspects in your life will only enhance our training but that is not the scope of my focus. I do not teach morals or ethics, I do not teach an art.

So if I don’t like violence and state that I don’t like spending my free time entertaining it then I can understand how this may baffle some when they see me training 3-4 hours a day in a for violence. Some people want to train with me “to learn how to kick ass” if they ever need to bugt there not really willing to put the work in. They want me to show them “magic” things that will keep them safe. Mark Slane, my instructor and founder of The United States Krav Maga Association says it well in his book, American Krav Maga:

“We get people in our gym who want to take one on one lessons from us. They want to learn the techniques…not do drills or be ran into the ground. I turn them down flat. Krav Maga isn’t just techniques. The whole mindset and philosophy that we teach make it a complete system. The philosophy of go forward, go off, go hard and destroy is what will save us in the real world.

Violence of motion trumps technique. Aggression, attitude, meanness, and looking to do major damage is what keeps us safe.”

I have had clients ask me how they can find that place in themselves. They are not used to thinking in such an aggressive manner maybe never having had to muster up such hatred and rage within them.

This was one of my biggest challenges as a new instructor because for me it’s easy to teach people how to physically perform a technique but the ability to help someone come to the understanding that they have and can tap into this aggressive mindset is a different story. Not something that was easy for me to articulate in the beginning of my American Krav Maga instructor journey.
I had a friend that was familiar with some of the “war stories” from my past and some of the more recent bouncing experiences. He asked me how I overcame that fear when I am in a fight or about to engage in a violent confrontation. He had been jumped by several guys, beat up pretty bad and had begun training with me. He said, “ How come you don’t get scared?”

After thinking about it for a moment this question led me to the answer I had been looking for to convey to others how to attain the mindset of all out aggression. To do whatever it takes to survive a violent attack. Conveying this attitude to others came to me in this round about way.

Something I had remembered reading about the psychological screening used for new volunteers applying to train for a special elite military fighting unit was that they would ask these guys what their biggest fear was. Many of these guys had that very macho attitude and would blurt out, ‘I’m not scared of anything,’ and quickly be disqualified. The reasoning was that they needed mature soldiers, men that were self aware and humble enough to recognize and acknowledge their greatest fear. If they weren’t able to do this they could jeopardize the whole team on a mission, putting everybody at risk. If your scared of heights and the whole team is waiting for you to rappel down the side of a building, you never admitted your fear, never focused on facing it, working through it then when the time comes when its life or death you freeze up. Foolish pride gets alot of people hurt and killed.

I train and diligently work hard to be as proficient as possible in my style of self defense. Criminals and predators live there lives lurking in a very dangerous destructive violent mindset. I need to go to any length to meet the challenge of having to defend myself against one of these very sick people because I have identified what one of my biggest fears. I do not want to jeopardize my team. I am responsible to protect and provide for my family. I am not a soldier but I am a father and a husband, a brother and a son I have a family that depends on me for many different things. One of the ways I can take care of them is by taking care of myself.

God forbid we are ever confronted with a horrible violent situation and put in harms way. This is what I think about when I’m training. I see my sons, my wife, my sisters and brothers, my father. I would mind set on the way down to work at the nightclubs where we had 5 of them on one block at 2,000 people in the street after last call. The mindset is, “ I’m going home tonight, safe. We don’t lose.” My family and my responsibility to them comes before anything.

“How come I don’t get scared?”
Quite the contrary. One of my biggest fears is not being able to be there for my family, to make sure their safe and secure. Especially having worked in an arena where I was putting myself and safety at extreme risk, I had better damn well know what this is all about for me. Why am doing it and who I’m doing it for. I’ve learned to identify this fear and harness it. Recognize the initial adrenaline dump and the “freeze” that’s coming in an assault or that is coming as a confrontation escalates. Being aware and knowing what to expect and how to react to this fear is key. It’s going to happen and I’m going to experience but I have a choice on how to train to condition myself on how to respond to the inevitable.

You dont have a family? think of the worst thing that can possibly happen to you, that you don’t want to happen. This is where you start, this thinking is what motivates you to go that extra mile in training and in reality. That’s how I do it.
When I’m dragging my ass in the gym or don’t feel like training or push myself to do that extra rep or sprint, I think about that if I give up in the gym then I’m giving up on my family. My motivation in training isn’t to try to be super badass and look cool in front of the mirror, have great abs and burn 800 calories or compensate for psychological hang ups like insecurity, ego or pride. No. I train and will fight for the people I love and to protect myself if need be. I do train to hurt people and teach people how to cause as much damage in the least amount of time but I pray that we will never have to use it.

Spending quality time with my family is an essential part of my training. This is where the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects come in. Of course we spend time together because we love each other and it’s conducive to a happy, healthy, functional family life but I as I savor the moments we share together it will also be a tool that I’ll reflect on when I’m working out. They are the spark that’s behind the fire in the gym or if necessary, in the street. I do not entertain violence for a pass time or for entertainment value. I do not like watching people get hurt. I am sensitive to other people’s pain…would I, could I unleash the beast I’ve been feeding within me? Absolutely. I would not hesitate, not for a second if it was necessary.

So yeah, I do teach that brutal stuff… brutally effective!

The Dangers of Killer Instinct, Part I – Rodney King

The vast consumption of reality based self defence programs are not by military, law enforcement, or occupations that deal with interpersonal violence on a regular basis — but rather civilians. Civilians by their very nature, and at least in the relative safety of the Western world have very little experience with interpersonal violence, outside of Hollywoods depiction of it. Added to this, there is an uneasy truth that is often not spoken openly about in the world of ‘self-defence marketing’ — that very few of these civilians will ever have to deal with an interpersonal violent confrontation in their lifetime, at least not one that would be considered life or death.

Yet with the onslaught of media that seem to focus exclusively on a world that is seen as wholly unsafe, it is no wonder then that civilians — especially those who live in the cushy, relative safety of upper class suburbia — feel it necessary to seek out methods to secure their safety. The way the media portrays it, no matter where you live in the world, there is a bad guy around every street corner (who knows even your butler might be out to get you).

The methods of teaching often employed in many of these reality based self defence schools seek to unlock the killer instinct within an audience which as suggested earlier are not acquainted with acts of violence on a daily basis. Bringing out the animal nature in civilians is proposed as the type of traits necessary for them to defend against a violent, deranged, attacker. This approach in my view, far from being productive, and of course constructive in giving someone the necessary fortitude to take on a violent assailant, is to a large degree setting them up for failure. Before I suggest why this may be the case, I want to set the grounding for what I term self preservation, as opposed to self defence and an ego fight.

Getting Clear on Self Preservation

At least from my perspective, self defence has always held a reactionary meaning. For example, one finds oneself in a bad situation, you are attacked and you deploy your self defence skills (often, as pointed out earlier with intensity and ferocity, i.e., with that killer instinct).

Self preservation on the other hand, at least as I am defining it, is preemptive in nature. From this perspective self preservation doesn’t begin when someone attacks you, but starts that morning, a day, a month, and even a year earlier. The reality is that statistically a person living in the suburbs is more likely to be seriously injured, even killed in a motor vehicle accident — especially when not wearing a safety belt — than being mugged. Statistically speaking a person is more likely to have a heart attack and die because of bad nutritional choices in the Western world, than being attacked by another human being. If we are then seriously talking self-preservation, which is the preservation of the self (i.e., to live), it then implies that ‘safety’ of oneself is not just when someone attacks you, but rather ensuring self preservation in the things that WILL happen, and are more likely to kill you on an average day. For instance if you really valued your life, then you should make sure you put your safety belt on when you get into your motor vehicle or not eating cholesterol rich food that will clog up your arteries and cause you to have a heart attack.

When one then takes this further self preservation implies being astute and aware of ones surroundings (take note, I said aware not paranoid). Why go down to that nightclub when you know it’s a hot spot for violence? If you do find yourself in a nightclub, and a bunch of guys are giving you the evil eye, and you sense that it may escalate, leave the club and go home. If you are out at night and you have to park your car on the curb, then choose a spot that is well lit, and frequented by many people, and not the one around the corner near that alleyway with no visible lighting. If you bump into someone in a bar, and he spills your drink, your default setting shouldn’t be to turn around in a rage — which then changes a situation that could have been deescalated to now one that could result in potential personal harm. This more importantly is not self preservation, it’s ego defence. If you walking in a bar, and you bump someone and he spills his drink all over you, your first reaction shouldn’t be to throw profanities at that person, but rather to apologise, see it as an accident (which it more than likely was) and use verbal jiu jitsu tactics to politely ask if you can buy them another drink. This is self preservation, more over it is being a mature, sensible human being.

Often times, what is passed off in the world of reality based self defence is akin more to ego defence, than true self preservation. If we are honestly talking self preservation, then it is about avoiding violence where ever possible, It is about being aware of potential threats and removing oneself before a potential problem arises. If faced with a threat, then the first choice should always be to talk that person down using verbal jiu-jitsu, and if no other choice is available and it requires that you need to go hands on — then you do just enough to neutralise the threat — and then immediately find the nearest exit. This is what it means to preserve the self.

I would argue that many people, especially those teaching reality based self defence would have a hard time with this definition. One only has to look to YouTube to see a myriad of ‘self defence’ videos, where the defender fends off an attack, only then to go ballistic on the opponent, stomping his head into the ground, even though and crucially (albeit it being a demonstration) the fight was actually won ten moves earlier. Lets not even talk here about the appropriate use of force applied to the situation at hand. I am surprised that not more of these instructors or their students are dealing with assault charges.

Additionally tons of ‘self defence’ videos can be found on YouTube that show situations where if someone gets in your face then you neutralise him with a barrage of vicious attacks. But when one looks closer at many of these situations, especially contextually — how these situations are dealt with, even set up, are more often than not about the ego, not self preservation.

The reality is, if you truly talking or teaching self preservation then the number one thing you want to teach someone is to avoid conflict at all costs (of course the ego doesn’t like this approach, but that should be a ‘self defence’ lesson too). This understanding seems to be a no brainer for wild animals, who would much rather posture than fight. They know all to well that even if they fought and one of them won, whilst the other died — the injuries sustained by the victor could mean that they both die in the end — albeit a week or so later.

Revisiting Killer Instinct

Coming back to the notion of teaching civilians killer instinct. There is several glaring problems with this approach. Firstly, it is wholly out of context to how people typically live. Most people, unless they find themselves in a profession that encounter interpersonal violence on a regular basis, the most they have to deal with is an occasional road rage incident on the way to drop the kids off at school. In most incidents that the average person may have to deal with, in which it could potentially become interpersonal aggression — the use of awareness, verbal jiu-jitsu skills, and a sensible, mature attitude to a given situation — is more often than not the best form of ‘self defence’.

When civilians are taught to focus on killer instinct as the master strategy, and they do find themselves having to deal with a potential physical threat, it sets the stage for the hammer and the nail syndrome. If all you ever have is a hammer (killer instinct) then that is what you will likely default to using for all potential aggressive encounters (the nails). As they say, you rise to the level of your training. People trained to deal with potential violent encounters with killer instinct will default to this as their master strategy, because they would have never been taught that a battle is not always won, or needs to be won with fists. Coming back to my examples previously that implied what I meant by self preservation, if we are seriously talking about the defence of self (not an ego fight), then using verbal jiu jitsu to talk ones way out of a situation is far more prudent a strategy than risking ones safety by being physically injured. Lets be honest too, no one really wins in a fight, even if you win, you may still walk away from that with injuries that you may never recover from (physical, psychological or otherwise).

Secondly, invoking killer instinct especially in those who are not exposed to violence on a regular basis will likely result in a hyped up berserk state that would create a lack of awareness on the part of the user. Training it in the confines of the gym, is not the same as using it on the street. The latter will be tied to a massive overdose of survival hormones that will alter both emotional and cognitive functions. The result then is a tendency in the midst of that berserk state, fuelled on by adrenaline etc al., to then centralise ones focus, thus losing touch with what else is happening around oneself. In other words you simply no longer have situational awareness. The result, you may not see that multiple assailants have surrounded you, or if an opportunity for escape presents itself, you may miss it completely.

Thirdly killer instinct mismanaged, which it likely will be considering the civilian nature of the user, will result in an over reliance on the reptilian brain in that moment (the fight/flight/freeze response), thus shutting down the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher cognitive functions like planning, distinguishing right from wrong, determining what is socially appropriate behaviour, decision-making, and producing insights. The truth is, anyone who has worked with interpersonal violence will tell you, being hyped up and aggressive is often a poor performance state to be in. You want to instead be cool, calm and collected. This allows you to make decisive, focused choices leading to keeping yourself and those you love safe.

For example, during my military service I served in VIP Protection. As a body guarding unit we were tasked to protect various important members of the armed forces. We were taught early on, that when faced with a potential threat, say for example from another human being moving towards us, that we needed to have an open focus (situational awareness), breath and keep calm. Remembering always that to get hyped up, or aggressive on one target would lead to a centralisation of focus on that one threat, thus loosing track of potentially other threats — not to mention forgetting about our primary mission — which was to keep our Principle safe.

End Part I.

About the Author

Rodney King M.A., RSME is the creator of Crazy Monkey Defense, and its sister self-preservation program Combat Intelligent Athlete. He has taught army special forces and law enforcement teams how to survive a life and death encounter when all they have is their body to defend themselves with. You can find out more about Rodney and his work at www.coachrodneyking.com or www.crazymonkeydefense.com

The Dangers of the Killer Instinct, Part II – Rodney King

The Misunderstanding Of Applied Martial Technique

If you agree with my line of enquiry, then the question is why is this hyped-up aggressive approach to dealing with interpersonal violence so widely taught, and not just that, often as the primary go to strategy?

Most reality based self defence instructors often start teaching from the moment of the attack itself. Little or not time as I have seen is spent on anything other than dealing with the actual attack. Most everything else is cursory at best. Of course there are times when attacks happen without warning, but I would argue, and based on the students mostly being taught (i.e., civilians) there is a strong likelihood that what they will more than likely encounter in their lifetime (probably more than on one occasion) is someone bumping into them in a bar. As noted earlier in that situation, awareness, verbal jiu-jitsu skills, and a sensible, mature attitude are far more practical self preservation skills for the average Joe to have, than how to eye gouge someone.

Secondly, many reality based self defence instructors have never actually been in interpersonal violence themselves. This sets up an unrealistic mental framework of the reality of violence, which is, as I have been notting not something anyone who really cares deeply about their safety would want to be engaged in. However avoidance, verbal jiu jitsu etc, seems never to be adequately if at all taught in reality based self defence systems. For all the practicality expowsed by these reality based experts, much of what they teach isn’t reality at all. How could it be, they have no real experience themselves to begin with. If they did, they wouldn’t then glorify the violence as they do. It also wouldn’t be their default strategy to use violence to solve violence.

Thirdly, when these reality based instructors do train under someone who has real world experience in interpersonal violence they often choose ex-military personnel, preferably someone from a special force unit (it just looks cooler on a resume too). I am the first to admit, that someone who has gone to war and survived has a lot to teach the average person about managing fear, explaining the reality of real violence, and the psychological dynamics that underpin it. However fighting on a battlefield is not the same as defending oneself on civvy street. The mandate for a soldier (relevant to their role of course), and the level of violence that a solider is allowed to apply, not to mention the context — is very different to that of a civilian. Civilians not only have to protect themselves, but they also have to seriously consider the legal ramifications of the force they use.

Finally and my greatest concern, which harks back to the notion of a killer instinctive mindset to deal with interpersonal violence. Using my favourite resource on the topic of reality based self defence training YouTube — clip after clip one watches an attacker who attacks, a defender who defends, who then goes on to obliterate the attacker with a barrage of fast, dynamic, aggressive striking. While the attacker stops hitting after the first blow, proceeds to cower, folds under the pressure and then falls to the floor. Anyone else see a glaring problem with this?

There is an unconscious assumption in these demonstrations that the person you are fighting doesn’t know how to fight. I don’t know about you, but seldom did I find working as the head doorman outside some of Johannesburg’s roughest nightclubs for several years, where a person would only strike me once then allow me to do what ever I liked to him. People actually fight back. What is equally not taught is what happens when your super fast, vicious, merciless, counter offence doesn’t work?

Lets say you teach a person to preempt a potential violent encounter with another person, or lets say you teach to aggressively, and mercilessly mount a barrage of counter offensive moves when a punch is thrown at a person (all of course with the killer instinct that is required). But lets just say reality steps in, as it always does, and the permeative strike, or that barrage of vicious counter offence doesn’t work? Lets say the other person now not only fights back, but fights back even harder because they now want to survive at all costs (imagine that?) Now all of a sudden, not only didn’t the physical technique work, but neither did that bezerker killer instinct.

Now what?

The defender may now find himself going from winning to losing. He may have started off pumped up, and hyped up on aggression, but now finds himself in a situation with all his physical resources depleted. Added to this his confidence has now taken a major battering, which may result at worst that he freezes or turns his back on the threat. When killer instinct doesn’t work, there is only one way to go, and that’s down into a negative spiral that most people who are not used to surviving violence will likely never recover from.

The Body Is Already Primed To Survive

The reality is, when faced with any kind of danger (real or unreal) the body is already primed for danger. For a long time the general consensus when talking about fear was that it was activated through a cognitive appraisal of a threat, which then invoked a fear response. That feeling of fear then drives the expression of behavioural defence responses. In other words we run from a bear because we see it, recognise it as a bear, and are afraid of it. More and more though, researches like Joseph Le Doux have argued that the amygdala circuit detects threats non-consciously, and in turn controls the subsequent behavioural and psychological aspects of the fear response. It is the cognitive systems secondary role to interpret the feeling of fear.

What does this mean? It means, that for the most part the body primes itself for a potential threat in absence of conscious awareness and control. It is in other words automatic. The ingredients for survival then are automatically set into play the second a threat is detected (often as noted unconsciously). Using an approach then that seeks to heighten that survival response though cognitively arousing the mental state and bodily attitude even further by getting a person into a more killer instinct frame of mind — at least from my experience — interferes with the bodies natural ability to attend to a fearful situation as it has been designed too.

Not to state the obvious, but our ancestors adequately survived much harsher survival situations than we would likely encounter as civilians today, and they did this before a martial art school ever existed. More over, the overlaying of more cognitive demands on the system, can have unintended consequences, often negative as I have outlined in this article.

This is why, I teach my clients to be completely trusting in their training, done through progressive stress inoculation, to the point that as best as we can, everything has been given over to unconscious motor skills, which then allow for space within the mind to decide how one would want to attend to the situation one finds himself in (i.e using the prefrontal cortex, instead of being ruled by the reptilian brain). In this respect, my approach is to teach my clients how to stay calm, centred and mindful in a survival situation, not to make them more hyped up. The body is already primed unconsciously to deal with the threat, you don’t need to now either hype it up more, or force it to work for you. All you need to do is apply a grounded strategy and subsequent tactical system to neutralise the threat you face. As the saying goes a clear mind, is a determined and focused mind.

The Samurai, born and breed for battle knew this all to well. Togo Shigekata, a Samurai, proclaimed: “One finds life through conquering the fear of death within one’s mind. Empty the mind of all forms of attachment, make a go-for-broke charge and conquer the opponent with one decisive slash.” In other words, true performance in a life and death battle requires a mind that is clear, focused, expansive and aware — not one clouded by aggression!

About the Author
Rodney King M.A., RSME is the creator of Crazy Monkey Defense, and its sister self-preservation program Combat Intelligent Athlete. He has taught army special forces and law enforcement teams how to survive a life and death encounter when all they have is their body to defend themselves with. You can find out more about Rodney and his work at www.coachrodneyking.com or www.crazymonkeydefense.com

Training for life – Dave Aiton

Throughout all of my years in training, whether in martial arts, reality based conflict training or throughout my time in the military I’ve experienced a wide range of various types of instruction, some good, some bad and a few excellent but all in some way or another have given me something that has lasted…. the ability to determine what works and what doesn’t.

After watching and learning hundreds or even thousands of different techniques as well as a multitude of combinations and variations I have become aware that keeping things simple enhances the chance of a successful outcome. This has been a principal I have applied throughout every aspect of my military career.
When I first started training (before I joined the Army) I would more often than not defer to what my instructors taught me without question. I had the general impression that given their experience and subject matter knowledge they met all of the prerequisite criteria to teach, even in the subject of self defence.

Sadly and much to my misfortune I discovered that although my instructors at the time taught skills for competition that encouraged a sports mentality they did not take the time to teach how to adapt sport techniques into skills that can be used on the street. That discovery came many moons ago when I was walking back home after a night out in Glasgow. I found myself on the receiving end of a serious assault by three guys which left me with 3 broken ribs, a broken nose, black eyes and a concussion which left me hospitalised for a couple of days.

The problem I had during the assault was the sudden realisation that for all of the training I had under my belt it did not prepare me for the reality of the violence that I was on the receiving end of. I couldn’t react to what was happening and none of my training at that time gave me the skills I needed to deal with real violence. Everything I had learnt in the Dojo failed me when I needed it most.

After my recovery I returned to training more determined than I had ever been in my life to make sure that what happened to me would never be repeated. I began to look further into the techniques that my instructors taught as self defence applications and realised that the experience I previously presumed they had was based purely on practice against compliant training partners and had absolutely no bearing on the reality of a violent assault.

My instructors at that time failed to understand that in real-life violent confrontation, defending ourselves is not a sport. There are no rules, no referee’s, no rounds and no bells. An attacker doesn’t think or act like your training partner or a competitor.

This Dojo mindset had no real concept of the fact that an attacker wants to cause you serious hurt or even kill you. The training I received did not provide any education on the combat indications that help to raise awareness during pre confrontation or any tactical options that help us to focus more during conflict. The wider picture just wasn’t understood by many martial arts instructors at the time and as a consequence more attention was paid towards obtaining status and grading rather than the importance of student self-preservation.

In the years that followed that unfortunate evening I have taken the opportunity to train with many excellent reality based self defence instructors within the civilian sector and a great many Military instructors with shared experiences during my 29 years of service with HMF Army.

The resounding principles that I have adopted as a result of my experience as a student and soldier is that in order to give ourselves a fighting chance of surviving an attack we need to cultivate a pre-emptive sense of situational awareness and a tactical mindset to prepare for that worst case scenario. It doesn’t matter, how we are built, or how experienced in martial arts we are. Physical strength or acrobatic skills, age, gender or condition are not deciding factors.

The outcome of my years of training has led to the development of Effective Self Protection training (ESP) which originates and has evolved from various self defence systems used by Military and Police Forces in the UK and throughout the rest of the world. ESP was developed to provide both an education and physical skills that were until recently only taught to Military and Police organisations.
Its effectiveness lies in its simplicity of use and its common sense application. It involves education and training in the psychological factors of confrontation, physical awareness and the appropriate reaction techniques that can be employed in times of necessity. Through continued training in ESP students grow and attain awareness and an understanding of the information that enhances their ability to deal with violent confrontation and greatly improves the chances of surviving dangerous and potentially life threatening situations.

The application of ESP provides the necessary skills to recognise the early signs of confrontation and the mental and physical skills required to respond and react to violent and aggressive behaviour whilst developing situational awareness, assertive confidence and common sense techniques. ESP creates a tactical mindset that promotes an individual’s confidence and ability in confrontational situations.

ESP is broken down into five components:

1. The Legislation of Common and Statute Law and the use of force.
2. Situational and threat awareness.
3. Conflict Resolution and response options.
4. Tactical Communications.
5. Technique Training.

Training is a straight forward process that is easy to learn and effective in both its content and practice. Through common sense application ESP is an easy way to learn and develop threat awareness and the response options necessary to resolve or conclude confrontational situations in any environment.

The ability to defend ourselves in real violence is not found within a Dojo. The benefits of martial arts training should never be confused with the expectation that they will help you survive real violence.

Keep in mind that getting home safe to your family and becoming tomorrows newspaper headline comes down to how well prepared you are to protect yourself in a confrontational situation. A fight is always between you and an attacker; Self Defence training is neither a sport nor a game. It must be realistic enough to protect your life!

From Your Heart! Passion is a must. – Robert Frankovich

When students perform their techniques, whether in drills or patterns, it is very easy to tell if they are actually trying or merely dancing around. This is one of the tricky parts within training…or any education.

I had a student tell me that the way to fix that is to make them work harder. How does that get accomplished? Make the drills longer? Count louder? Stand over them the whole time? Nope. Never going to make their training better that way. If their passion hasn’t developed yet, no external factor will change the behavior.

Does training actually fit their goals? Are they looking for physical improvement? Maybe they just want the socialization in a subject matter that interests them. The only way that a student will improve and develop skill is when they choose to. This is a deceiving point, too, though. I’ve asked students to adjust technique to make them more effective and have gotten “That’s what I’m doing!” as a response. (We won’t discuss the respect issue now) But since it makes no sense that I would waste my time asking for things to be adjusted/corrected for no reason, they still haven’t chosen to learn the technique past what they “think” it is.

Now, I’ll give credit to those putting in effort and working but poor technique can only be helped so much by strength and commitment. There is some passion there, although needing direction. I came across a saying the other day which is very accurate. It stated “If you can’t do it slow, you can’t do it right.” which fits the piece above. The idea of being able to go slow would mean that your mind is in the work as well and that will show in your hands (and legs).

I would wager that, if you are able to put your mind into the focus of the work, your heart is involved also. This changes the fear and anxiety and nervousness into enjoyment. Those feelings and emotions fade as the passion grows. The development of your passion is seen in the performance of your techniques. You start to see deeper and understand more. The desire to see others succeed rises and helps create the desire in you to work harder and learn more. It brings students together as a community…family…who supports each other off the floor as well as on. You are now building your passion.

The activities that are physical can easily illustrate how passion grows the skills and knowledge. You can find many YouTube videos of a 13 year old playing an awesome guitar piece. Another can be seen with the number of 16 and 17 year olds performing on “The Voice” talent show.

Physical talents are not all, though. Recently, our high school junior son had a classmate over. The discussion turned to the plant on the kitchen window ledge. Once he saw it, his eyes lit up and he started commenting about the leaves and their size. That lead him to the 20 plants that he has and their growth cycle including blooms and developing offshoots. This was not knowledge repeated from a book. It was the knowledge born from his passion for plants. It kind of makes sense, then, that he’s focusing on chemistry and biology among his AP & Honors classes. He stated that it would probably be his best route to get into a career field that will let him work toward a botany position.

These factors to improve your training are the same as those you need to develop your career, regardless of the field. If you don’t have a passion for what you are doing, how can people believe that you are knowledgeable and competent? Make sure your heart is in your training.

Understanding how to direct passions into jobs that pay the bills is an important point. If you can spend your time earning money while learning and developing your passion, then you have success and will enjoy more of your life.

MISTAKING MODELS FOR THE REAL THING – Mark Hatmaker

We’re going to take a weird sojourn through 17th-century French theater, an eyewitness account (names withheld) of an embarrassing demonstration, 10-day weather forecasts, and end (hopefully) with a point about taking drills too seriously.

First, a trip to the theater with an excerpt from Moliere’s The Bourgeois Gentleman, the premise of which is that a shopkeeper newly come into money decides that to be one of the upper-crust he needs to take great pains to “become cultured.” He engages numerous “culture instructors” who gladly take his money and leave him none the wiser or better cultured.

One of these “culture instructors” is a fencing master who teaches him a few basics in the form of a call-and-response pattern (sounding familiar?) Later, within the play, our cultured dupe decides to display what he know about fencing with an un-cultured person who knows nothing about fencing.

Mr. Jour: Goodness me! The fencing master seems to set your teeth on edge. Come here, and I will show you at once your senseless impertinence. (He asks for two foils, and gives one to Nicole.) Here, reason demonstrative the line of the body. When you thrust in quart, you have only to do so; and when you thrust in tierce, only to do so! That is the way never to be killed; and is it not a fine thing to be quite safe when one fights against anybody? There, thrust at me a little to try.

Nicole: Well, what? (Nicole gives him several thrusts)

Mr. Jour: Gently! Hold! Oh! Softly. Deuce take the wench!

Nicole: You tell me to thrust at you.

Mr. Jour: Yes; but you thrust in tierce before thrusting at me in quart, and you haven’t the patience to wait till I parry.

Familiar scenario, huh?

Now, the eyewitness account (my own). In the distant past I observed a renowned instructor in the midst of a seminar-based video shoot ready to show a “fool-proof” top-saddle/mount escape. He hits his back, asks someone to mount him. The volunteer is simply a “Nicole,” by that I mean, he had no special training, just a good sort doing what he was asked to do by the man in charge.

Our “Nicole” takes the top position and our “instructor” does his thing which appeared to be a boisterous wiggle to which “Nicole” posts his hands on the mat and remains stubbornly on top. Our instructor tells “Nicole,” and I quote “You wouldn’t do that.” I and a few others present exchange looks with cocked eyebrows that say “Well, obviously he would.”

Instructor bucks again, Nicole does what he would not do yet again, and again is chastised. The third time is the charm as Nicole “behaves” properly and the fool-proof escape and scene from Moliere is now complete.

I’m sure we’ve all seen countless demonstrations of “if you do this, I’d do this to you.” Uh-huh, sure you would.

Yes, drills have their place to teach us a vocabulary, but often the rookie (and unfortunately some beyond that stage) behave as Mr. Jour and believes that the drill is the real thing- the map is not the territory.

The best drills make no predictions further than 2-3 tactical responses in, and even these are “best guesses.” Long-form drills, even if front-loaded with wise choices, become less wise as they continue.

Let’s look to meteorology for a lesson in why that might be the case.

Despite the horrible reputation and abundant bad jokes about weather prediction, in the short term meteorological predictions are quite accurate. Predictions in all other arenas (politics, war outcomes, fashion trends, the next “big thing”) these fail left and right. The weather predictions seeming more wrong than they are simply the result of the fact that they predict every day and when they do get it wrong we are reminded of it by the extraordinariness of the wrongness-the rained out picnic, for example. No one is taken to task for saying Johnny Depp’s next movie will be a big hit, as a theatrical bomb does not rain on our plans.

To see just how extraordinarily right weather predictions can be, keep screen shots of 2-3 day forecasts over the next two weeks and at the end of that period you’ll find that if you go back and compare the 2-3 day out predictions with what did occur you just may gain some new respect for the profession.

But in that same two weeks of keeping screen shots do the same thing for the 10-day forecast and see how often the 9th and 10th days were on target. Not so much, as a matter of fact a careful look at the screenshots will reveal that the extended forecast is constantly changing as new data comes in (and wisely so). In essence, the 10-day is eye-candy, where the real science is in the 2-3 day forecast being re-calibrated each and every day.

In short, the shorter the term the more accurate the prediction, and the longer the term the more entropy in the system. (Make of that what you will with 20, 50, and 100 year term climate forecasts).

We would be far wiser if we constructed drills as meteorologists do, that is looking at all the real world data, making our best scientific guesses from there, and assume that we only might be right, not definitely right, and that’s only in maybe the first move, two, to three after if we’re lucky, and then re-calibrate and start the next short forecast.

We all become a bit un-cultured when like Mr. Jour we assume the drill is reality.

Fit Defence – Douglas Graham

Is Fitness training important in Self Defence? I say yes of course it is. So let us discuss the how and why. We all realise that our cardiovascular performance can be handy for ‘taking it to the trenches’ but let’s face it. The trenches, is a place that few of us ever intend to take a fight. Not to mention that fighting is not the essence of self defence anyway. Conflict management is. So having an element of control over our body and mind is essential yes? Of course.

So how does Fitness training facilitate this process? Let me give you an example.

I was training a young client only a few days prior to writing this blog. We were doing a protocol where his strengths flourish. This lad is solid in structure, strong in body, driven. After a fantastic job on his second movement, exceeding my expectations. He broke down. He was shaking, feeling ill and I could see the energy draining from him. He had pushed himself right to his physical limit. But with excellent form the whole time. But, adrenaline struck hard.

Discomfort shows us we are pushing our limits. Pain shows us we are pushing our luck-

He was extremely uncomfortable. He had never experienced adrenal dump. So we took an extended recovery period to deal with it. To do this we exacted control over the body, using the mind. “YOU are in control” The mind can activate mechanisms in the body to regain control. In This case it was posture and breathing. Sound familiar to anyone?

Ideally we want to release the adrenaline gradually, for the best performance. Rather than saturate the blood with it. Now and again though, it is productive to take ourselves there. He simply pushed his limit and was able to recover then continue without any issue.

As with any reality training(and make no mistake that this is reality training. More real and grinding than a lot of ‘reality based’ self defence I see on the market) You have to push your limits. Body, mind, technique, beliefs. The young warrior learned much of this, in the space of five minutes. Adrenaline is your friend, but it can be your enemy. Physical stress with a functional application is an effective way to tap into this and learn to cope with it, especially on the physical level.

I have personally used my fitness training to supplement my SD for a long time. Mainly technique based, improving quick twitch etc. The stamina aspect is obvious enough. But far more significantly I believe, as do we all at the Art of Functional Movement, is that movement is universal. No matter what modality in which you choose to use it. As much as, if not more than any other part of us, our bio-mechanics have existed almost unchanged since our species came about. The applications are many but the core of functional and efficient human movement is the same. Lines, shapes and patterns.

Functional Fitness training will facilitate every aspect of your life once you see the simplicity of it all. Active core engagement during ‘fence’. The way a simple step turns a straight punch, into a curved one. The difference between squat and deadlift motions can be the difference between dodging a punch, and taking a knee to the head. It is all there. Hiding in plain sight. No secrets, no mysteries, just you and your training. If you can open your mind and apply it right, the world is your oyster full of pearls.

You can check out my other writings via our website at http://www.functional-living.co.uk/

So take care folks. Stay functional, stay safe.