JKD-Training Tips And Experience Archives

[Dion]

The hard lesson of "fear from logic" ...

How do we overcome our fears and anxieties and not lockup ????

Firstly we have to remember that our "emotions" are our own defences to something that we have developed over time due to circumstances arising in our lives but the problem is that most times we seem to focus that chemical energy into only a few areas because we are so used to feeling it in some particular muscles and so it comes back down to control, now I know all to well how hard that sounds as to face "your own" fears is probably the hardest thing you shall ever do in "your own life" but if you do not overcome them then you will always be hindered by them...

Now just to clear up one point again about keeping control as there are ideas that for example one may have the desire of revenge on someone and doesnt enact on it due to the fear of the laws reprisals... Just remember to keep things in context, when one faces his own fears then that means exactly that, the fears "inside" you not the ones that you perceive around you as a result of them.


Having said that it begins to make one wonder as to how they would try to achieve this...

Well from personal experience... The first thing I taught myself was the ability to meditate and talk to myself so that I could control my state of being at request and then after I felt I was ready to begin to face up to myself I went on what I call a field trip into the darkness and found thoughts of things that encited emotions... at each time I had the emotional rush I began to try to remember all of my other muscles not reacting to them and making them counter the ones that are to excited and hence causing my immobility, I can say this was not easy and yet it was probably one of the best "training" Im doing and yes thats not to say Im done as if I do not remind myself of what each emotion can do to me then it may override me in the moments that it really counts... Now I have achieved a state of fair balance with my emotions and all I do now is when that emotion begins to rise in me I ensure my muscles all over are in an alertive state and the chemicals ride through them all and so instead of locking me up they merely provide more energy which does feel good BUT it is also scary as the new lessons of controlling the emotions of "power" and "rage" etc that is discovered which if not properly controlled can become your nightmares...

Ok you say something like yeh so Im not fearing anything anyhow so now what? ... well how many of you, that are "big" enough to stand up to another guy or guys, can get up and for example express your voice to people or let your body sing by dancing just for the hell of it or can stand there in the middle of a crowd and say hey look! its just "me" or turned to the groups that put you down in life and said "thanks, you only make me tougher" or many other things... and so on.. facing your fears is a big task and should never be avoided...


"Control the dragon or the dragon will control you..."

PRACTICAL TIP:

Ok to begin to train yourself in emotion control would I say be best started with control again over your muscles...
BUT this time I do not mean train with bags or sticks etc but only a bare patch of floor where ever it may be...

Now sit down and stay still for some time... now when the boredom begins to set in and you feel like getting up and moving around.... DONT MOVE, instead of giving into what you believe is a cramp or soreness, try to make yourself comfortable without moving your position. At first this will be very difficult but I can assure you that if you continue it for a few days itll get very easy.

Also when you are training with eg the bag or weapons etc, when you get tired in certain muscles then instead of relaxing them and resting as you think it be done... keep them active and try to again make yourself comfortable by finding the opposite muscles to counter the soreness...

Finally always remember to try to meditate at the same times as even doing physical training, it will improve your concentration 10000 fold...

Once you find the "relaxed state of alertiveness" then you will begin to see the posibilities that can arise, your own body will begin to tell you what is happening at every moment...

Here is a hint on how good it works... Just the other day I was fooling around with the wife (yes my wife, women are very agile people and she is also a strong gal ) and she threw a knee up to my gut but instead of staying alertive I relaxed for a moment (hey she is my wife) in my foot area during the leg block, my first 3 toes struck her shin with a bit of force to which the was a loud crack sound (hehe I wonder what happened :P ) and swelled up with bruising and so on...
Although this was painfull (body will punish you if you punish it heh) I immediately concentrated on my foot area and that leg to remove the pain ASAP as my wife was still coming at me so I wanted to keep moving and the pain hasnt come back to me to this day as long as I keep the energy to the area up and be aware of the injury, I am still training quite fine and the area is healing nicely but I do not push myself in that spot until its ready again but if I have to make use of it to kick etc then so be it, Ill deal with what happens when it happens not before hand... oh and eat healthy always heh cant stress that one enough
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Freedom Ultimate... !

[Dion]

Just another "funny" example of control over ones own power within themselves for you to ponder over..

This also from a little match between my lovely wife and I, she had struck out at me a couple of times trying to hit me and I was playing around with her trying not to let her hit me of which mind you was frustrating her (hehehe) but none the less she did not stop but tried harder to get me so I surprised her by grabbing one of her punches and whipped around behind her and gave the shoulder blade just a touch and let go before damage could occur... she stopped and laughed at me saying that was a smartass thing to do cause she had a dead shoulder from it... now I only touched her shoulder with my fingers or did I ?...

***USE THE UPSTAIRS SECTION PLEASE***
I would not try this full on as it will rip a shoulder out of the socket so please if you decide to try it or something similar.. BE VERY GENTLE with you opponent otherwise you may hurt them and then well guess what happens ?
yep they get real upset and you may get the law or something on your back...
***

REMEMBER please do not take these to use as something effective in a situation, it will not work if you try to plan it as I have merely given an example of the surprise I throw at any situation yet at all times being aware of how much I throw out at any time.. thats one reason my wife and I do things as it lets us concentrate on control to be gentle with each other (oh do I ever concentrate on that heh) but yet keep up the speed etc..



Freedom Ultimate... !

*We are given a "memory" to analyze what has happened, not what is going to happen..*

[Chad W. Getz]

Not freezing up, I feel that sparring with minimal or no gear has affected me to not freeze up. Certain situations that can happen in sparring situations can also give you the opportunity to turn on the killer instinct. There's a video at the web site titled "Unleashing the beast within". A guy rushed and took someone down before the "fight" was supposed to start, and the guy that got took down, simply hit the switch. The more comfortable you are in dealing with a sparring situation, the more likely you will be able to deal with yourself and your emotions in a fight. When I am calm in a fight, I find it rather easy to mentally say to myself, "OK, Chad, hit the switch". Literally.

Another interesting point is that I have never been one to talk in front of crowds or people and present my ideas. I have always been content with being the second in command, so to speak, and tell my ideas to another person to relay to everyone else. After I started stickfighting, I found it much easier to stand up in front of large groups of people and speak. I found that my personal confidence levels were much higher than they had ever been.

I can not stress how important it is, that if you want to be able to be comfortable in a fighting situation, you must put yourself in the context as close as possible to simulate that environment. The idea being that if you go into 100 punching sparring sessions, where approximately 100 punches are thrown at you in each session, what do you think will happen in a fight when someone tries to throw a punch at you? You probably won't be worrying as much about it because you've had over a thousand punches thrown at you anyway. And the longer you train, the higher that number increases. Same with the ground. I am currently working on having people mount me and throw punches at my face without me trying to escape. my only goal is to be comfortable with what is happening so that I can use my brain when time comes and someone does get me into that position. Of course, we use progressive isolated drills and protective equipment until the full punches are thrown at the head. If you don't want to be taken down, get someone to try and take you down hundreds of times. Constantly put yourself in situations where you NEED to get better and you will get better. How can you get any worse? Something that I always tell the guys that I work out with is to write down your fears and train it. If you don't want to be taken down, then work it. If you think you've got a decent ground game, but don't know how to take someone down, then work it. If you are afraid to get hit in the face, then work it, try to have someone really hit you in the face, with boxing gloves or macho headgear. Or less, if your desire to learn is that great. If you need to work on your counters to kicks, put on some shin guards and have someone try to kick you hard. If you don't know what to do in a clinch, then.......clinch.

OK, off my soap box for now.

Another thing about freezing up and fear. You have to realize what fear is. I know and have always heard the butterflies in the stomach is just adrenaline. Your brain is telling your body that something is wrong or about to happen and your body is releasing adrenaline. Adrenaline is what feels like those butterflies. Adrenaline is what protects your body and "super charges" you. In my opinion, real contact stickfighting is oneof the best vehicles to experience this adrenaline. Trust me, when you walk out there with just a fencing mask and a stick against someone else who knows what he is doing, you experience adrenaline. This opens doors into so much more...meditation as Dion mentioned, zen, etc., etc. I mention zen because zen is a state of being as described by some where all is nothing and nothing is all, there are no thoughts, there just "is", in a manner of speaking. I do meditate and have studied several variations of meditation and do in fact sometimes use it before fights depending on my mood. I have experienced "zen" if I can call it that, during full contact stickfights where I face someone with a high level of fighting skill. This has brought around some discussions of relation to adrenaline and "zen". Here you can use one method, which would be relaxation, soothing, calming methods and take another method, extreme fighting with weapons and wind up at the same place. Zen. There is so much here to talk about on that subject, but it would be getting off of the original subject. One last point about these two paths towards the same goal so that I can finally make my point. I'm sure many people here have meditated or tried it and feel how hard it is to calm yourslef. the thing is that the "harder" you try to clear your mind, you don't realize that you are thinking about clearing your mind, and in doing so, you can't clear it at all, therefore defeating the purpose with your intent to reach the purpose. Also, when reaching zen, some may be frightened by the sudden calmness of the higher conciousness or be so excited that they just attained that level, that they lose it all together once they "realize" it. With adrenaline, we really have to understand that it is there to protect your body. Like I said, go stickfight, and look at where you got hit during the fight. You will be amazed at what your body can take with the presence of adrenaline, or maybe adrenaline is just the vehicle that takes us to that destination of zen. Unfortuantely these things are hard to prove, and even harder to explain, but its something that should be experienced.

So to get back to the subject. I forgot what it was, but if you constantly put yourself in sparring situations you become comfortable with the adrenaline dump that happens. With that and realistic hard drills against realistic energy (strikes) that provide you with the right muscle memory, you can achieve zen in fighting where you go out without a strategy or gameplan but just repond and react to what is.

BTW, Dion, do you like George Carlin, the comedian? He is one of my favorites.

[Chad W. Getz]

One more thing, I find it easier to reach calmness by meditation after fighting. This may (or may not) be due to the assistance of the adrenaline.

Oh, and one thing I forgot to mention in relation to losing "zen" upoin realization, fear, or excitement, is that alot of people are afraid of adrenaline because they are not used to it happening to their body. People say thatthey understand it, but to understand adrenaline, you have to experience it. By fearing zen, you hinder yourself from attaining "zen".

I put zen in quotation so as not to confuse anyone by implying that zen is some mystic sense of being. I don't feel or treat it as mystical, it is something that we can practice, but there may not be an exact english translation to the chines/eastern philosophy of zen. Zen is a word used to describe an experience that the Chinese believed to be on a higher conciousness, but it is an experience that can be experienced today, therefore there is no mysticism to it. Calming yourself through relaxation is something that is real.

[Chad W. Getz]

Marc Denny-Crafty Dog also has alot to say about this matter of adrenaline in the fight and some very interesting thoughts. Marc, if your reading this, chime in at anytime. If not, check out http://www.dogbrothers.com and try asking him about the subject. There's a book called "On Aggression" that is very good reading.

[gungfuhero]

Thanks a mil Chad. I'll look into Crafty Dog's article and try to become cormfortable with the adreniline. I've been sparring since I was 12, but I've always known it was "just a sparring match" and I never had to worry about some big crazy psychopath (they never seemed to enrole). I'll intensify my sparring and let you know how it goes.

Thanks to everyone for all the input.

[Dion]

Chad... I can't say I remember the name but then again the name is not important to me, its the laughter they induce that I am interested in when watching or listening to comedians


Freedom Ultimate... !

*The circle begins to complete itself...*

[Chad W. Getz]

GH, have you checked out the DB or SBG videos?

[gungfuhero]

Unfortunately no. I've wanted to check out the SBG videos for a long time, but all my cash is going towards seminars and training (a lot of traveling). Right now I'm teaching 7 days a week to support my martial arts addiction! I watched the Dog Brother's stick grappling video (it had one of the Machados and showed the fang choke), but that is all I've seen from them.