The original link is here - http://chirontraining.blogspot.com/
The comments are interesting too.
Physics and Fear
Physically, personal combat can be pretty simple. If I can be more
efficient than you- get power to the right place faster than you can- I
will prevail. That becomes a very complex simplicity very quickly. If
I am better at generating and delivering power, I have the advantage.
If you know how to disrupt balance and can do it at the right time, you
can neutralize my advantage in power. If I can keep the encounter at a
range where your tools are ineffective, I have the advantage. If you
can control how I perceive time and opportunity, the advantage is
yours. There's a lot there, but the actual physics of it is pretty
clean. Simple.
That's the baseball bat
problem. The problem of someone swinging a bat at your head isn't that
complicated. The closer you can contact to his shoulders (hips,
technically...) the less force you need to absorb or dissipate. The bat
can only move along one plane and each plane has specific dead zones.
The momentum of the weapon in a committed attack gives you certain
gifts and the constrained momentum of an uncommitted attack limits the
damage you will take. It's not hard, physically.
But mentally and socially, knowing what to do is a far cry from doing it. In the last post, there were some good comments, especially from the BTDT. Uncomfortable... pressure to succeed... concerned... PISSED... cold and very, very focused...
Some speculation that it is probably the same chemical, but interpreted
differently. I would go so far as to say the hormone is properly used
instead of taking over. LawDog says something to the effect that the
hindbrain has the authority to take you over.
A
very, very primitive part of your brain has the power and the
inclination to shut down the sophisticated parts of your brain,
including your martial arts skill, and revert to an animal or child, a
screaming monkey or passive victim hoping mommy can save you.
So we get past that. All of the BTDT regular commenters have done it. The question is , "How?"
Anonymous
speculates that adrenaline junkies get the same thing, so it might be a
training issue. That sounds wrong. The trouble with chemical reactions
is how to tell if we have learned to deal with it or we have
desensitized to it. That's a profound issue, because if it is a purely
desensitizing process, there truly is no substitute for experience and
training in complex skills will not help you at all until a certain
threshold number of encounters. If it is a training issue, it can be
taught...
Evidence- Mark brings up that in my
one operation where I was assigned as shooter, I got a lot of the
adrenaline effects that didn't occur anymore in hand-to-hand stuff.
Tunnel vision (which actually seems to help with accurate shooting);
time dilation; extraneous thoughts and new after-effects. All true. But
I broke through it faster and was operational almost immediately. So it
appears (aware that a sample of one isn't much for statistical
purposes) that breaking the freeze can be learned or modeled as a
skill. That's good to know, and might give us the crack we need to
teach it.
It's also clear that BTDT people
don't feel the fear the same way. Or so it seems. There may be no
difference between "Oh my god I'm gonna die!!" and "This isn't going to
end well." The only difference may be the words. You can't measure what
is in someone else's head.
It may be as simple as having
done it a hundred times without anything too bad happening. Maybe it is
simply unknown territory for some and less so for others. It may be the
difference between singing in public for the first time and a
professional performer.
Or it could be a
difference in wiring. I was raised in rural eastern Oregon. Some of
those ranchers and loggers were tough. But when it got down to it, did
they handle pain better (using will to ignore it) or did they feel it
less (just insensitive nerves)? How would you tell?
So- deal with fear better? Or feel it less?
I'll
think more on this. This emotional aspect is what I fear is missing
from most training- or worse, students are simply told that it won't
happen to people trained in X ("because we meditate" or "Because we
practice self-discipline" or "because mushin will take over," or....)
And
this is just one emotion- fear. And just one way- fear inside yourself.
A panicked animal is a different animal to fight than a rational
person, even if the animal is human. Incoming rage seems to trigger a
monkey-minded fear in most people. And a truly cold killer, someone who
can take your life or simply, coldly, put you down and put the cuffs on
without engaging any emotion at all is another thing entirely.
Lots here. Consider the surface barely scratched.
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