We are all so special ......

Newest post from the blog of Chiron aka Rory A Miller - http://chirontraining.com/
There is a link to his blog from this page.
Thought it was quite interesting.
Friday, May 29, 2009

So Special...

Finishing up the first draft of the next book. It's almost ready to go
to the first readers and right on schedule. For the most part, I think
I pegged it. There are enough stories and enough logic in it to get
the main point across- force decisions are different than other
decision processes. Higher stakes than most people will ever make,
made faster and with both less information and less reliable
information, yet made by the same basic model human that buys a car or
manages a checkbook. And these decisions are shaded not just by
physics but also social conditioning and morals and ethics and laws
(sometimes very different things) and politics and both personal and
public perception.

It covers training and experience which interact with each other and produce the human who will make the big decisions.


I'm
happy with the first two-and-a-half sections (the book has two full
sections and two smaller sections that fill in some information gaps.)
The stuff in the first two-and-a-half section is important
information, good stuff to know. With luck it will add some
perspective or -gasp!- actual information to debates about police use of force. But in the end, that's all words.


The
last partial section is about action and brings it all back to the
reader, and I am running hard against the human nature wall. People
like who they are. They may not think it, they may not say it, but if
"just bein' me" becomes a burden or dangerous, people, except for the
most ego driven or stupid, change.


When some
idiot's wife asks or tells him to slow down and he speeds up and
snarls, "I drive like I want!" he's just being an ass. He sees a patrol
car in his rear view mirror and suddenly the big man who does whatever
he wants drives like a little old lady. People who say they don't
change DO change if they perceive the stakes as high enough. But they
don't like it and they resent it.


It's human
nature to prefer everyone to change to accommodate you acting the way
you want. Most of us understand that there are limits to this and it
is a two-way street. Those that don't understand this become
criminals. I'll go so far as to say that most acts defined as crimes
are simply what happens when you think you are too special. Too
special to conform to rules, to special to work to buy things, too
special to be told "no."


Usually when I write
I can subconsciously read like a naive reader and have a pretty good
feel for what buttons I am pushing. With this short section, I can
feel defensive walls coming up. Up to this point, the book has been
largely anthropology- how the strange tribe known as police think and
why it makes sense in their world. In this section it is a travel
guide- this is how to act when you run across a member of this tribe.
Simple stuff, in a way. Never force an officer to make a quick
decision. Show your hands. Reason, but don't argue and if you can't
tell the difference keep your mouth shut.


But
here, when it gets personal (not just advising some random imaginary
criminal to keep quiet but specifically YOU, if something happens to
the point that officers show up, especially with guns out, DON'T ARGUE
WITH THEM.) Suddenly, defensive walls go up. Because people like
themselves. The most unreasonable people I have ever met felt that they
were completely reasonable, even logical. They shouldn't have to
change. The public servant who gets paid from their taxes should have
to change...


Cool, except you see the logic
when force is used on someone acting just the same as you... but it's
not you... so you're special?


If I can
navigate this communication pit (and it may be entirely in my
perception. One side effect of spending so much time with criminals is
that I sometimes see their sense of entitlement and ability to
rationalize as more prevalent in the general public than it probably
is.) If I can get this through to people it will be powerful. Just the
ability to see yourself from the outside, to see when you are acting
like a criminal or like a citizen or like a protector, can be a huge
stimulus and guide to personal growth.


This is
a throw-away section. It wasn't in the original concept for the book,
but it has the potential to be the most important part. It's also
going to be the hardest to communicate. Things have prices

everything you've posted of his has been really good quality material Maija, this is no exception

That was really good… I ended up reading it a couple of times and found it very interesting.

I look forward to it…

i like the depth of this...overlapping commonalities--and entitlement, and it's propensity to
to put blinders on. i can almost imagine the state that produced these thoughts. i used to
imagine people's varying degrees of awakening--to themselves, to truth, to be not unlike
circles. the circles being metaphorical for the world you've inherited for the choices made.
the person who makes one too many convenient decisions incurrs the real punishment for
such rationality--blinders, a smaller circle whereby all perception is now related to that particular
circle of awareness that makes decisions on that level.

someone once told me that the real definition of sin was ignorrance. meaning to sin was to
inherit ignorrance, or blinders to reality, therebye incurring more sin--and the constituent
blinders that accompany this downward spiral--into a true hell, a place of unknowing. a place
whereby someone is truly lost with no way of knowing how to help themselves...maybe not
even knowing they're lost.

make decisions less 'special' and inherit a level of awareness that is closer to reality as it really
is--and inherit more sound decisions from this vantage point and the incurred enlightened state
that furthor inclines more sound decisions.

my guru told me that if i could tell the truth for 5 years, i'd be enlightened. it made me wonder
about just how hard it must be to do this--for a man who'd given his whole life to such an endeavor
as enlightenment, to suddenly say something like, "just tell the truth for 5 years...".

the whole notion of being 'special' as a monikar of being conveniently with blinders on. it's telling.
the swamis i used to be in the company of, talked less and less the furthor down their paths they
trod. it's as if approaching something in the way of sound principles of living, they saw something
that made them know less the furthor along the path they went. imagine how daunting that must be.
how humbling.

i know this is more about cops and robbers--and us folk on the fence between those two worlds.
but i like the writing as a hint of so many other things. i feel like cops and robbers are just fred astaire
and ginger rogers anyway. one [cops] has made the conscious or subconscious decision to make a contribution. those that understand their embalances make the choices consciously. those that don't are called to hate qualities in others they have struggled to subdue in themselves. i know my faults. at my core i'm a combustable and violent person--with flashes of extreme kindness and philanthropy paradoxically intermingling. in that shared space, i try and find my version of the middle--which is simply put, the cock pit from which i may one day use both sides of my inner alchemy with scrutiny, a rational mind, and hopefully ever widening circles of sound principles i discover by chance keeping my metaphorical eye open to the small details that i observe within and without--the world which i inherit as a result of my decisions. i don't really believe in good and evil as such. i believe in knowing when to act in certain ways as a means of knowing good from evil. the more detached i can be, the easier it is to do.

it is very easy to become consumed in ones acts though.

too many shrooms in my youth i reckon...when i come to my senses i'll probably erase this. but i'm more likely to show my hand here than anywhere else.

Nice post Russ -
I, too, thought there were many points of interest in Chiron's Blog.
The idea of the 'reality bubbles' we choose to live in (HAHAHA I just typo'd 'the reality bubbles we choose to LIE in - Freudian slip?) especially in the context of crims and cops.
Awareness of other peoples' realities and how to behave around them in stress situations - how to read people IN RELATION TO THEIR ROLE IN SOCIETY.
The difficulty in changing ourselves and others, in general and as teachers.

So to this last point -
Your point about the swamis talking less and less as they, perhaps, realized how little they knew, was interesting.
I don't think it is easy for the ego to be 'wrong', to fail and make mistakes. I suspect this is a big reason why we all create these 'special' realities for ourselves - to rationalize the decisions we make through life.
This search for 'appropriateness' (not necessarily right and wrong) I think is incredibly worthy, but I think it must involve a fair deal of 'mistakes' - at least as far as the ego is concerned. Not an easy thing, especially in a society where status and 'winning' are so highly prized.
You can't change, or evolve unless you can see yourself, and like you said Russ, if you don't know you are lost, why would you change where you are going?

I find that one of the hardest things to teach, is to get students to put themselves in more vulnerable and more difficult situations during flow training - obviously this is not for beginners who are already in a most vulnerable and difficult situation! (For those of you that don't know, I teach an Eskrima system based on dueling, where the basic practice is random flow training).
The tendency to 'just win' is almost overwhelming, but I think it is far more useful, especially if you know you can already win, is to put yourself in a position to try something else. Make it more difficult for yourself, limit your options, look at the things you DON'T know will work, or you DON'T know if you can evade .... 'Fail' a little to see what you DON'T have .....
Also, spend some time watching what your opponent is doing, get out of your own head and see what makes them tick. You may 'lose' more for a while doing this, but I think it is quite educational.
My teacher always said - don't try to deny the threat - let it manifest so you can recognize what it looks like in different people.

Musashi talks about this when he says "know the ways of men", and of course learning to 'know' them in a physical, martial sense, can transfer into many other areas of life - talking to the police, dealing with a predator, buying a used car ... etc etc

Maija wrote///
"The tendency to 'just win' is almost overwhelming, but I think it is far more useful, especially if you know you can already win, is to put yourself in a position to try something else. Make it more difficult for yourself, limit your options, look at the things you DON'T know will work, or you DON'T know if you can evade .... 'Fail' a little to see what you DON'T have .....
Also, spend some time watching what your opponent is doing, get out of your own head and see what makes them tick. You may 'lose' more for a while doing this, but I think it is quite educational.
My teacher always said - don't try to deny the threat - let it manifest so you can recognize what it looks like in different people.

Musashi talks about this when he says "know the ways of men", and of course learning to 'know' them in a physical, martial sense, can transfer into many other areas of life - talking to the police, dealing with a predator, buying a used car ... etc etc "

some really cool thoughts here. i used to slow students down and have them work out the dynamics between them so as to chance some learning. at great speeds, some of those old tricks just come out,
which means no more learning curve and the spectrum of possibilities--probably because it triggers
something in the desperate mindset that is a speedy routine. i used to occasionally seperate the antagonistic ones from each other--if they were beginners...which also halts the learning curve as they
are only fixated on, 'not letting that asshole look good' for a future reference.
not to say you can't learn things full throttle, but i expect that this privilage should come after some
skills have sunken in. sort of, "okay...got it...not lets see if you really have it, or what of it is useful to keep"

i like this idea of allowing the threat. i interpreted it as perhaps another part of what Richie talks about.
-don't get yourself in a headlock, be switched on
-now do this drill from the headlock and see what your options are if you ever weren't switched on and found yourself here

perhaps training for:
-all out beat down
-lost ground, fighting your way back to advantage
-complete cock up, turning the tables back with wiggle room reactions

etc...

it seems sound advice. but perhaps measured carefully with the weight stacked on how not to allow it to
digress in the first place. a sound plan B. my shotokan teacher had some cool thoughts revolved around
the sports drills. he'd train to watch for telegraphing and all, then for good measure, have us wait until the punch actually connected--the response being a 'moving with it and reacting' sort of a mindset. it took rewriting that part of our [my] thinking process that does not say, "wait...wait...wait...almost too late...okay now". a gag reflex for most for a time. but it is a nice drill to make people calm under fire.

in good measure of course, i'd hate to see that go wrong, "i'm being savagely attacked...wait...wait"



your teacher--and you of course, sound wise--learning curve still flexible. knowing the dangers of acting the part of 'having all the answers'. i've tried one thing that has helped me. someone will ask, "what would you do if i did this?"

and i'll think, 'who the hell knows..." and i'll respond, 'hmmm, don't know, lets find out'. i've had some
nice learning experiences from some of my guys who'd love to say they trounced me, in a gentler class
environment type way. i hope i always remember some of those lessons, they sort of presented themselves by chance and really helped keep my mind open. every once in a bit, when i'm not coming
out on top, it really gets to me and inclines me to keep that fire inside very hot. another benefit, avoiding
complaicency.

Russell quote:
"it seems sound advice. but perhaps measured carefully with the weight stacked on how not to allow it to digress in the first place".

Absolutely, to explain a little more -
As well as the example you gave when someone asks you "what would you do if ..?" as a way to explore options, these opportunities to investigate often arise when people of different skill levels play.
Asymmetry is of course what it is all about in the real world, and hesitation is not what you want to build into training. However the 'reality bubble' we make for ourselves can also be a prison, and until you know what you don't know, you can't go fix it. You need to train the unexpected, and the less than ideal scenarios, to keep yourself honest - physically and mentally.
Good training partners are great for this - if both are high level, but it is still up to the individual to test the edges of their own comfort zones.
A disparity in skill levels gives a good opportunity to go there. The problem is that there is a tendency if you are more highly skilled to 'rest on your laurels' a bit, or so I've noticed. Higher level people generally don't like to work with beginners, and spend much of the time taking the easiest option, repeatedly - after a while it just becomes ego massaging and neither person is learning very much.
So here is a great place to handicap yourself, to even the odds a little and try out some less than ideal situations. No need to practice 'losing' but, for instance, practice recovering from these bad situations - your "wait..wait..now" scenario.
I have noticed this tendency to 'laurel sit' especially in my larger training partners - size sometimes stops creativity, as often there is less need for technique. It's one of the reasons I picked my teacher who was outweighed by pretty much all his students including me, and could still prevail. I remember Mick Coup saying that he is larger than many, but if there are 3 of you ...he is now the smallest.
I also think this one of the big ego traps for teachers, where (hopefully!) you have skill, but your students start being too polite to test you in any real sense .... not good - now you really are SO special!
It's all about reality checks in the end - physical and mental, and looking at training as a way to understand the ways of others, and yourself.

laurels yes. i also want everyone to feel challenged--whether it means sitting under a pile up, or whatever. sometimes i see where it would be fortuitous to take a nibble of someone, but the blood, sweat and tears of a good struggle and strike, boot and bolt...makes for sound basics.

it's great to see what comes out of people as others watch and comment. i like what you've written, i bet i'd like your classes. mine are little more than nurturing quick agro--and staying in motion, and moving like water to every new opportunity to strike some undesirable place...in short

i'm trying to get a video geek i know to record some of our antics--and help me put it on youtube for
entertainment purposes, if nothing else

it's funny..the busier and more frustrating life gets, one still finds moments that offer the impetus toward creativity. mine is the work-jitsu, the deadly art of weaving training, teaching, and philosophy within the borders of the mundane world [the one that pays the rent and changes the nappies...and [hmmmph] sorts out emotional upheavals from the footsoldiers that are in one's keep].

it's a pleasure to step into this web-dojo and find what is at times hard to find in the world within one's
grasp. i understand your teacher, and his aversion to teach too close to where you've shat, showered and shaved. sometimes it takes reaching people outside your circle of influence to accept the merit you've painstakingly applied years of rigor to. some hats are worn so well, in the mundane world, that people have trouble swallowing another mask that they've yet to encounter save it's rather limitted conditions of access.

my guru also said, 'keep good company'. he meant, stay in the presence of others facing the same direction you are trying to achieve in life. i'm aware why this site of Richie's has me bothering very little to venture out into cyberspace. i try and not re-invent the wheel unless i've been given some rather unfortunate circumstances that incline it.

cheers for the good exchange. back to my other hats.

Russell Sage wrote:

laurels yes. i also want everyone to feel challenged--whether it means sitting under a pile up, or whatever. sometimes i see where it would be fortuitous to take a nibble of someone, but the blood, sweat and tears of a good struggle and strike, boot and bolt...makes for sound basics.

it's great to see what comes out of people as others watch and comment. i like what you've written, i bet i'd like your classes. mine are little more than nurturing quick agro--and staying in motion, and moving like water to every new opportunity to strike some undesirable place...in short

i'm trying to get a video geek i know to record some of our antics--and help me put it on youtube for
entertainment purposes, if nothing else

please do, your classes sound awesome!

Quote :

I also think this one of the big ego traps for teachers, where (hopefully!) you have skill, but your students start being too polite to test you in any real sense .... not good - now you really are SO special!
It's all about reality checks in the end - physical and mental, and looking at training as a way to understand the ways of others, and yourself.

I havent met a teacher yet who doesnt fall into one of these ego traps at least in some small way, smugly living out some fantasy of amazing skills performed on fawning compliant students- if you cant force your students to punch you in the face when your open, go to a kickboxing or MMA class where noone knows of your mysterious ninja status and ego trimming will be dished out for free! "oh look the skinny 18 year old with 9 months BJJ under his belt seems to be guillotining me and...zzzzz "

"keepin yourself honest" - I like that expression Maija, it seems most instructors have either succumbed to the pressure of being seen as invincible or sheer bloody comfort zone seeking laziness, but I dont see many instructors willing to make themselves look vulnerable/silly/human for the sake of "keeping honest"- it is another advantage of the combat sports stylists, if you get punched in the face your punched in the face regardless of belt colour/fight wins or whatever

combat sports lend themselves to honesty because they force people to be honest! not just with students but with themselves, Im sure some instructors just genuinely believe their own bullshit- an untested ego left to fester grows like some hideous psyche boil filled with the pus of arrogance- HAHAHA!

Yes, I too will use metaphors... allegories... word... thingies... tweed jackets with leather patches Prof. Sage?

Richie wrote///

"Im sure some instructors just genuinely believe their own bullshit- an untested ego left to fester grows like some hideous psyche boil filled with the pus of arrogance- HAHAHA!

Yes, I too will use metaphors... allegories... word... thingies... tweed jackets with leather patches Prof. Sage?"

ha ha ha ha ha

i believe we all just upped the bar me like it.
oi, our tweeds would have milky bar stains, ripped sleeves, and smell
like sausage, bean, and cheese pies

students would be sitting in the back row, all nervous like



"i do hope YOU ALL DID YOUR HOMEWORK!!!!!"






love this cyberplace!
working on the vid. thingy...i've got all the 'yes'es, but none of the 'whens'.

Quote:
"I dont see many instructors willing to make themselves look vulnerable/silly/human for the sake of "keeping honest""

It's one of the reasons that my Eskrima teacher was, and is, such a great influence on me. His idea was that he wanted his students to get to the level to be a challenge for him - he said he was bored playing by himself, and of course that meant that when they got closer ... he had new questions to find answers to. All he demanded from his students was respect and focus.
The evolution of his ideas came from something not working anymore. His life was constant empirical study, and he was certainly not scared of trying new things without knowing if they would work beforehand.

This atmosphere of empirical study is also why I particularly enjoy this forum. The openness and interaction here is inspiring and non pretentious - a nice mix of tweed, sausage pie and knuckle dusters

Russell - looking forward to the vids