“There is a passage in The Book of Five Rings in which Musashi says, "Your attitude will be recognized by potential enemies and they will prefer to fight someone else. The ultimate aim of the martial arts is not having to use them." I don't want to ask what you think this attitude is since, obviously, it is situationally dependent. Rather, I would like to know what you think are the essential elements underlying the ability to project such an attitude. It seems to me as though confidence is an important ingredient, but there must be others. What do you think they are and how might someone go about cultivating them?”
Musashi talks about the ultimate aim of the martial arts in being not having to actually use them.
Similarly Sun Tzu has said that the highest strategy for achieving victory in war is to win without fighting.
“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.”
Sun Tzu
In terms of Self Protection this is absolute. We aren’t “sport fighters” looking for opportunities to display skills and to put our training to some practical use. True Self Protection is really only concerned with survival. Everything else is assertion of the ego.
The question as it was asked uses the word “attitude”. This is the translation from Japanese to English. I prefer to use the word “intent”.
“Intent” implies a deliberate, goal orientated imposition of the will which will manifest in a person’s emotional and physical state, their general demeanour and their meta communication. Another word sometimes used in translation is “spirit”.
The question then becomes one of asking “How do we go about cultivating and projecting RAW Intent” such that a potential aggressor can be dissuaded from considering attacking us?
You see, the strongest form of bonding, rapport building or attraction that can take place is from
UNCONSCIOUS ATTRACTION TO UNCONSCIOUS BONDING
As anyone who has the “Blank Face” CD course would know.
Similarly the strongest form of “target hardening” or of putting off an attacker, making them choose someone else comes from the same place
UNCONSCIOUS REPULSION TO UNCONSCIOUS TERROR
The most powerful elements of our mind are below the layer of conscious awareness which is a very, very limited on board computer that is really only there to give you just enough ability to navigate through the world without bumping into things. It’s not very perceptive and is NOT powerful in making decisions, changing or breaking habits, dealing with pain, achieving goals etc etc
Yet people will normally try and do these things using only the conscious mind. It will get some results most of the time, but the results will be weak at best.
Ideally we want to create instant, automatic and non conscious repulsion in a potential attacker, so that he sees you and PERCIEVES non consciously that you would be more of a handful than he is prepared to deal with. This works on groups, larger opponents, whatever it doesn’t matter. You are accessing their animalistic survival instincts. These things are not logical, that is why in packs smaller and physically weaker dogs can still be the dominant pack leader.
That is to say, it doesn’t matter in the context of typical “anti social” violence.
In atypical situations where other factors come into play, this technique won’t make any difference at all! If an attacker is truly committed to attacking you rather than trying to decide whether you are a hard target or not, then this technique should not be used.
An immediate and physical problem will require an immediate and physical solution, don’t waste time. And for goodness sake don’t kid yourself into thinking there is a way out of physical training through some fantasised psychological shortcut you’ve created in your own head.
Fortunately most of us who work outside of law enforcement, the military or the security industry will not find ourselves having the misfortune of dealing with situations beyond that of “anti social violence”.
Let’s be clear: this is an extremely powerful technique to dissuade an opportunistic “casual” attacker in an anti social scenario who is “weighing you up”.
So why should you learn to cultivate and project your intent?
Because it stops the fight before it has even begun to begin.
This is now the pre- pre- pre fight phase.
It will save you the time and the hassle and the risk of actually having to physically fight or to even verbally engage and then disuade. If you lose you could go to hospital or the morgue, if you win you may have to contend with the police or come backs. A fight is always a risk, if you go physical you roll the dice knowing that any idiot can get a lucky shot or that you might even just trip over the curb. Don’t kid yourself. Some of my worst injuries were not inflicted by others but came from making bad decisions mid brawl.
How can you learn to cultivate and project intent?
There were 5 methods I came up with initially in response to this question.
But then a few months later I caught myself using another completely different strategy to “project my intent”. I was not consciously aware of it before but it was EXTREMELY powerful.
It will work best if you have familiarised yourself with the “Core Visualisation” and “Supra States” techniques from the Psychology of Violence Course.
In order to understand the power of this technique you need to appreciate how most of our perceptions are made unconsciously. Most of what communicate about ourselves to the outside world we ALSO communicate unconsciously.
If I perceive you as a “soft target” and you feel me looking at you, “weighing you up”, if you have worked these techniques, repetitively, diligently, over time AHEAD OF TIME (very little of what I teach in terms of Combative Psychology works as an on the spot solution, it needs drilling into you) then you can switch this on within yourself, change gears emotionally and physiologically and most importantly hold a particular thought in your head (this last one is crucial and IS an “in the moment” technique) you will Project your Intent so forcefully that you will literally see the shock on the persons face.
It’s not a very nice thing to do and isn’t going to make you any friends, especially if you work on getting good at it. HOWEVER if you have a good imagination and some common sense it is easy to see how this powerful technique could be applied to other areas of your life. That is up to you.
If you think this is about “faking it” or “acting tough” you couldn’t be further from the truth and this course probably isn’t for you.
To even understand these concepts takes a good degree of intelligence, patience and maturity and to contextualise properly them takes some personal experience of violence. “Thugs 101” this most definitely is not. Cultivating and projecting intent is a subtle and powerful art.
“Faking it” or “acting tough” just will not work unless you are facing the most non determined of attackers for reasons described in the “6 ways to Project Intent” course.
If you think this would be something useful for you the course is available for immediate download now.
Richard Grannon
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