So in my last blog I talked about the attribute of reaction. In self defense and martial arts we want our reaction time to be fast and appropiate.
Let's talk about reactions in a fight. In Jeet June Do we like to use the term "Hit First, Hit Hard, Hit Often" What does this mean? It doesn't mean that we go out and start a fight. Or that we are the first person to initiate a punch. It means we strive to be the first one to land a strike and have it be hard and followed with repeating strike to finish the fight. We don't like to get in the tempo or mode of blocking, cause seldom is their one strike. If we follow that motto we would always be blocking and eventually one we will miss.
So back to the Fight. A fight starts: Both parties assume posture and are ready to fight. Maybe one person shoved the other. This initiates the fight. A person is then qued on the fight starting. Maybe it's from a physical posture, a gesture, or verbal. Either way... we know that a physical confrontation is about to happen. With the training of martial arts we can have a good reaction cause we mentally have been put in similiar situations in class over and over. And with realistic training you will be in a much better place to defend yourself. So, in this case you have developed the necessary training to react in a positive way for your survival.
My next scenerio. What is your reaction from a surprise attack? Many mma fighters who are not mentally prepared for the surprise attack around the corner fall into a state of fear. The the book called the psychology of violence. It has gone over case studies of professional fighters and officers who are use to training in prearranged arenas. But when they have to face the same events in the outside world their reactions are different. Some people drop in fear and have a huge dump of adrenaline into their body that puts them into shock. So how can we train our reactions? We are not the pink panther and can have kato lurking to attack us to keep us on our game.
Take the kid around the corner who jumps out to scare the whits out of his/her friend. Usually their friend throws their arms up in a startled reaction. This is partially innate and most likely a result of evolution. But how can we adapt our reaction? How to change it to a more positive reaction. Here is ideas... Maybe you have more.... Please do email them to me...
1. Training martial arts gets you accustomed to attacks. You don't fear a punch or strike as much cause of the fact that you have seen it come your way hundreds of times before. This is conditioning mentally to violence.
2. We can use drills that get us from a normal day to day stance to a more positive position to defend ourselves. The que to change stance can be an auditory, a visual, or even random planned attacks from blind views. It's training your body to get into a good fighting stance when something happens.
3. Visualization excercises. Pro althetes sometimes use visualization excercises of seeing themselves complete the race in first, stepping up to receive their reward, visually seeing their event and imagining their own competition and coming out the winner. So it's a good practice to take scenerios where people are attacked. Take a moment and close your eyes and mentally go through the excercise of visualizing the attack and what you want your response to be. By doing this you are mentally already solving the puzzle. Additionally each time you play that sketch over in your head you will have that response more likely when reality hits. Additionally you will not be in such a state of shock. And hopefully be able to gain your whits to defend yourself.
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