SMASH FEAR PART II

How to Smash Through Your Fear of Violence! (Part 2 )


So now we get down to HOW to recondition your mind, your emotions, your neurology to respond to violent confrontation with calm, determination and even aggression.


The framework of the “Core Visualisation” Process I teach is based in essence on a Sports Psychology Framework. It’s not some spooky or exotic “ninja mind control” tactic, it’s an honest, objective Performance Psychology tool for those people looking to learn to protect themselves in a street fight.


This is key to the psychology of violence, and the mental training needed for a street fight: in essence this is Combative Psychology.


There 6 steps and 3 key elements to this process.


Step 1: Choose a specific skillset


Don’t get greedy, choose which particular element of your total self protection training you want to work on and just focus on that. It could be the verbal confrontation, de-escalation elements, use of a socially camouflaged targeting strategy or fence before delivering a pre emptive strike, the clinching and mauling range, finishing the fight, whatever it’s up to you, but the rule is: KEEP IT SPECIFIC, KEEP IT CONSERVATIVE


To use a sporting analogy a golfer could visualise their whole game ahead of time and indeed they should do, but only after they have repetitively worked on the separate elements of their game, over time FIRST. If this was a golfing article I would say: Start with just your “drive” or just your “putting”.


As it’s an RBSD/ Street Fight /Self Protection/ Combatives article I would give you a hint and say: start with a fence and pre emptive strike.


Why?


Because this is a key moment in a street fight and one that causes people the most fear. The line is being crossed and you are now moving from the verbal to the physical- a lot will be decided in that moment. So get good at it by physically and mentally training for it over and over, regularly.


Step 2: Choose the “Ideal State” You want to be in to deliver that Skillset


Everything I teach people who want to learn self defence techniques is rooted in psychology and more specifically in “state”. Your state is your emotional, mental and physical condition in the moment.


What state would you want to be in when facing violence with skill?


It’s not for me to dictate to you how you train, but I will give you some pointers.


If you are panicky and over excited in your emotional state, your movements will be frantic, ineffective and you will tire quickly. You aren’t going to move with the skill and timing that is likely to land you the knock out shot and you aren’t going to make good decisions.


Remember the rule:


PEOPLE IN GOOD STATES MAKE GOOD DECISIONS; PEOPLE IN BAD STATES MAKE BAD DECISIONS.


So by altering your emotional and mental state you immediately impact your physical skill and effectiveness.


Here is another clue, especially if you are very fearful:


Rage and Righteous Indignation trump Fear of Violence- every time.


Anger and fear cant exist in the same space, so if you are very fearful I suggest you ramp up the aggression in your choosing of your state. If you haven’t hit the tipping point of righteous indignation then you’ve never been pushed to that place in a real fight (nothing you can do about that) nor have you used your imagination properly (something you can impact immediately).


This is not pleasant.


This is not “nice”. We must move into the darker realms in order for this to be effective. If you use your imagination in a weak way you will get weak results. To access the kind of righteous indignation that allows housewives to defend themselves with cast iron savagery and determination against hardened street criminals you need to ask yourself the question: what would I need to experience happening in order for me to switch from fear to rage, to access that primitive survival instinct brutality WHICH WE ALL HAVE and to take massive, determined action?


For most people who can’t access that point they simply need to imagine someone attacking someone near to them. For some of us we struggle to access righteous indignation when we ourselves are being attacked, but that strong protective instinct can be brought to bear when it is a loved one who is under threat.


Remember a good Combative Psychology principle:


People will do ANYTHING if they have a good enough reason.


It’s your body, it’s your brain, learn to run it.


Learn about yourself, explore what pushes your buttons.


USE your imagination. And I do mean “use” it. Your imagination is a tool, and if you don’t master it and learn to use it, your imagination will master and learn to use you.


List the “Ideal Combative State Attributes” you want to build, for example:


· Cold,


· Determined,


· Tenacious Resolve,


· Righteous Indignation,


· Focussed Aggression etc




You choose what works best for you and your training.




As a counter balance example, think again of Golf, what state would you want to be in to play at your best?


Calm, focussed and zen like?


Probably almost the opposite of a “Combative State” but the point is you CAN CHOOSE and you should do. Ahead of time.





It’s no different in principle: fighting back, protecting yourself is an emotional and physical skillset no different than any other. Treat it as such, rather than as some mysterious, exotic, otherworldly superhuman ability and you will get MUCH BETTER RESULTS.




Go now and write a list of 10 emotional attributes you would want to be experiencing when fighting back and protecting yourself. These will go toward creating your “Ideal Combative State”.


I will show you how to build this State in the next article.

Those are allll great points Richie, I love it! For me when I feel fear, I say a word to myself like "hate" or "fuck you" " or I say "what the fuck you want to do to me"? Something to arouse my hate and boiling anger.Through training I have learned to control this anger, but as you said , anger WILL overide fear.Great stuff. As well i would add, that if someone works on the fence and the responses from the fence in realistic scenario training, with real verbal abuse , shouting, rude behavior and sudden attacks etc( as you mentioned) the persons responses WILL become automatic.The hands WILL Just fly to the face as if on automatic pilot.Funny thing is, once you have done this many times you begin to see how actually easy it is to take someone out with well placed explosive strikes.Especially some arse hole who is posturing like some freak rooster with his hands down.Badda Bing Badda Boom Forgedaboutit!

thanks Danite, badda BINg!

thanks for posting for me Russ

when you hear the truth, the debate mode in one's brain just sort of says--unless someone's mental , yup that's
right. that's what i have to do. the only thing i occasionally have trouble with is some of the time [not all], when things
take too long, there's just too much rational thought. that's when i know i have been caught off guard. it'd be nice to
prep my mind more. i spend loads of time training, have alot of confidence mostly. but if i were to have several things
to keep in my brain, to keep there, when the shit just takes too long to build up because the 'other' person is taking too
long to amp himself up [i admit that i'm on occasion not going to bait someone, but sometimes have a feeling, 'go already you stupid fooker'...you're making me lose the feeling--and what ticks me off is how much time i've wasted matching witts with the wittless], 'IT WOULD BE 'BE FIRST; BE FUKKING ANGRY AS HELL; MAUL, MANHANDLE AND BEAT LIKE A GODDAM
NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE'. my track reckord for the real thing is actually not so bad, but my consistency varies greatly
in my game plan. sometimes i'm way too patient, and i don't really want to be. i know it behooves folks to show restraint after years of training/conditioning, but i sort of hate my compassion. i'd rather just dish out a beating, and feel incensed. i've always been the nicer of my hard core friends. and the times that i've dished out a real beating, i've actually put others that have known me into a sort of shock for the inconsistency. i'm actually at a point in my life where i've started to give myself permission to NOT have compassion any more, after trying to avoid it initially. the rattle snake blessing. and by not having compassion, i hope this is implicit that i mean when things are going wrong and people are posturing. the rest of the time, i DO in fact want said compassion, even if 'compassionately detached' is what i mean.

this article brings it all back. that's an element i need to spend more conditioning on. i was raised with a bit of early brainwashing from the nonfighting world. when i've gone all out, i've sort of felt like the man that gets caught going to the brothel--ashamed of his nature being exposed. my trousers are down and now i must make this even appear anomylous and shamefull . my whole life i've been the family cultural broker, the nice guy who smiled at my dad and changed his foul mood. i've spent a life time hiding my feelings. so much so that i feel like a double spy at times. like i don't know who the fuk
i am inside. then i surprise myself and others on the rare occaison, and i know what i want. i want to stop acting. i want to be that guy that i only let out on this forum, but now i want him to feel free to leave the yard and introduce him to the world,
hmmm , because it's become so much of a parallel personality, that it threatens to derail my fight game.

sound nuts, i guess it is a bit. in short, i'm happy to be first now--and i need to condition it as such. first meaning pre-emptive. most of my fights have been reactions to others going first. in my corner is above average fast twitch muscle fibers. i'm [anyone that knows me will tell you] jumpy to a fault. but now that there's so much forward drive to my game,
i don't have the house space for being second anymore--it's just no longer appropriate. i used to be the mongoose, and we all know that sometimes the mongoose loses.



anyway...i really like the article

it's made me want to write a few things down and really refine refine refine. tah mate

Russ the Muss wrote:

when you hear the truth, the debate mode in one's brain just sort of says--unless someone's mental , yup that's
right. that's what i have to do. the only thing i occasionally have trouble with is some of the time [not all], when things
take too long, there's just too much rational thought. that's when i know i have been caught off guard. it'd be nice to
prep my mind more. i spend loads of time training, have alot of confidence mostly. but if i were to have several things
to keep in my brain, to keep there, when the shit just takes too long to build up because the 'other' person is taking too
long to amp himself up [i admit that i'm on occasion not going to bait someone, but sometimes have a feeling, 'go already you stupid fooker'...you're making me lose the feeling--and what ticks me off is how much time i've wasted matching witts with the wittless], 'IT WOULD BE 'BE FIRST; BE FUKKING ANGRY AS HELL; MAUL, MANHANDLE AND BEAT LIKE A GODDAM
NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE'. my track reckord for the real thing is actually not so bad, but my consistency varies greatly
in my game plan. sometimes i'm way too patient, and i don't really want to be. i know it behooves folks to show restraint after years of training/conditioning, but i sort of hate my compassion. i'd rather just dish out a beating, and feel incensed. i've always been the nicer of my hard core friends. and the times that i've dished out a real beating, i've actually put others that have known me into a sort of shock for the inconsistency. i'm actually at a point in my life where i've started to give myself permission to NOT have compassion any more, after trying to avoid it initially. the rattle snake blessing. and by not having compassion, i hope this is implicit that i mean when things are going wrong and people are posturing. the rest of the time, i DO in fact want said compassion, even if 'compassionately detached' is what i mean.

this article brings it all back. that's an element i need to spend more conditioning on. i was raised with a bit of early brainwashing from the nonfighting world. when i've gone all out, i've sort of felt like the man that gets caught going to the brothel--ashamed of his nature being exposed. my trousers are down and now i must make this even appear anomylous and shamefull . my whole life i've been the family cultural broker, the nice guy who smiled at my dad and changed his foul mood. i've spent a life time hiding my feelings. so much so that i feel like a double spy at times. like i don't know who the fuk
i am inside. then i surprise myself and others on the rare occaison, and i know what i want. i want to stop acting. i want to be that guy that i only let out on this forum, but now i want him to feel free to leave the yard and introduce him to the world,
hmmm , because it's become so much of a parallel personality, that it threatens to derail my fight game.

sound nuts, i guess it is a bit. in short, i'm happy to be first now--and i need to condition it as such. first meaning pre-emptive. most of my fights have been reactions to others going first. in my corner is above average fast twitch muscle fibers. i'm [anyone that knows me will tell you] jumpy to a fault. but now that there's so much forward drive to my game,
i don't have the house space for being second anymore--it's just no longer appropriate. i used to be the mongoose, and we all know that sometimes the mongoose loses.



anyway...i really like the article

it's made me want to write a few things down and really refine refine refine. tah mate

I know exactly what you mean... especially about having always hid your true feelings for the sake of the 'greater good.' A lot of times in the past I've felt like the only one with a rational thought keeping thigns from completely blowing up and turning stupid.

The really funny thing is, the few times when I did reach my breaking point, everyone else who was posturing wanted NOTHING to do with it LOL.

If there was an internal dialogue it would have been something like "look...I tried to be Mr.Niceguy, I tried to be reasonable, I gave you several chances to walk away... but you didn't... now look what you made me go do"

damn, running out of time this morning, gotta get to work. stupid monday

I really like this article... I've made my list of 10 attributes....

cheers all