Psychological Preparation for Violence

[Ian]

I'm curious - what do you tell yourself, if anything, before a fight, either for real or in the ring? What's your thought process?

My thought process seems to be:

-give them a chance by verbally de-escalating, either firmly if I can tell they're testing, or by putting myself in their shoes and being sincere and friendly if they don't really mean it;
-if that fails and I can see a fight is imminent, I hear "ok, here we go!"

It's not a conscious thing, but it turns fear into excitement, and hesitation into action.

The two times I've had to protect my peoples, I heard the same words but in a much calmer tone. And lots of reminders to continue breathing and to keep a clear head. It was more of a cold, professional mindset.

Wow I actually learned a thing or two about myself by typing that out.

So how do you think?

[mixjourneyman]

The most recent situation (and only recent one) that I was in involved a crazy guy who was probably wrecked on someting.
He walked up behind me and my friend and made kissing noises in my ear. After that he walked out in front of us and stared me down.
My immediate reaction was just to blurt out "Hi!". The guy got really confused looking and walked away. Me and my friend immediately got the heck outta there. We were both pretty shaken, but no one got hurt. During the situation itself, I felt very calm. Weird that.

[Chris McKinley]

I don't really do the internal dialog thing when I believe I am in a threatening situation, so I don't really tell myself anything. That's wasted distraction to me, and all my awareness goes external. As to someone "testing" me, I don't play that game at all. Ever. I'm not willing to stake my life or those I may be protecting on my interpretation of someone's threat as anything but a threat. Some dumbass wants to impress his girlie or his broheims by threatening me in a situation in which I cannot negotiate de-escalation, leave, and/or get my wards to safety, he gets fucked up, end of story. It's just his bad luck that he picked the wrong guy to corner with an empty threat. Heaven help him if his friends jump in to help assault me, because then the situation just went lethal.

[Ian]

I don't really do the internal dialog thing when I believe I am in a threatening situation, so I don't really tell myself anything. That's wasted distraction to me, and all my awareness goes external.

I don't believe you can switch off your internal dialogue, but I may be wrong.

Personally, there seems to be something running in my head almost constantly. Sometimes I'm aware of it, sometimes not.

Being able to identify and objectify your internal dialogue is a great way to gain insight into your thought processes. As I said, it's not something I do consciously - it just happens.

As to someone "testing" me, I don't play that game at all. Ever. I'm not willing to stake my life or those I may be protecting on my interpretation of someone's threat as anything but a threat. Some dumbass wants to impress his girlie or his broheims by threatening me in a situation in which I cannot negotiate de-escalation, leave, and/or get my wards to safety, he gets fucked up, end of story.

Aren't we talking about the exact same thing, then?

[Chris McKinley]

RE: "I don't believe you can switch off your internal dialogue, but I may be wrong.". Yeah, you can (unless you're schizophrenic or dissociative), but you have to learn how and you have to practice. Mostly, it's just a matter of the fact that some people are more auditorially driven than others, and internal dialog, which everyone has a bit of, is usually more prevalent in those folks.

As to talking about the same thing, I'm not sure I see it. Then again, I just had dinner so maybe all the blood's in my stomach.

[TaoJoannes]

As soon as I sense that anything might possibly start to go down, I begin to relax and start thinking very clinically about angles and degrees of freedom and positioning myself to interrupt possible attacks, while trying to talk down the situation calmly and professionally with humor, assertiveness and non-threatening yet strong body language.

When anything actually occurs, I'm in the dead zone. Thought is an afterthought and things just happen. It isn't until afterwards that I can analyze what I did and why, and it is always in perfect clarity.

In that all, though, I don't hear words so much as see flows of energy and thought patterns that work themselves out in my own internal symbol-language. Words are too slow and inadequate, generally.

[klonk]

Last time (last month) it was some kind of nut case or druggie, picking a fight over nothing. I turned to face him squarely, and while he kept his distance, he started bouncing up and down in place, as if with impatience--hopping mad, as they say. Bouncing on his feet. And I had the hardest time to keep myself from bouncing up and down with the moron. Weird.

But no, I hear no interior voices. I would not listen to them if I did. It is my head. No trespassing.

[TaoJoannes]

Bouncing on his feet. And I had the hardest time to keep myself from bouncing up and down with the moron. Weird.

I think Musashi would call that "infecting the enemy with your mindset" or something,.

[Ian]

But no, I hear no interior voices. I would not listen to them if I did. It is my head. No trespassing.

Maybe I should've posted this in Ivan's thread. It's empathic claire voyance, damn it!

Chris, maybe you're right. I've been a multi-instrumentalist from very young and quite often I find myself thinking in terms of tempo, rhythm, symmetry, duration and all that jazz relating to the auditory sub-modality.

[klonk]

But no, I hear no interior voices. I would not listen to them if I did. It is my head. No trespassing.

Maybe I should've posted this in Ivan's thread. It's empathic claire voyance, damn it!
[...]

Yeah, well, if it's reminders from yourself or recalled lessons from former coaches or teachers, okay, but...why waste time on what you already know?

[tiltpoint]

I am extremely auditory, nevertheless, switching off the dialog for me came with repeated exposure.

I think the difference lies in an exclusion/inclusion paradigm.
Previously I had internal monologues screaming, to the exclusion of what was going on around me. One specific objective, amplified. This is what I use still in practice, and non adrenaline dump situations.
When I switch 'on,' however, the focus is entirely external... noises amplified, heartbeat thumping in the background, all along with the white noise of blood flowing through the head. I can hear what feels to be the slightest thing, and noises get immediately categorized as noteworthy or nonpertinent.

[Formosa Neijia]

I'm curious - what do you tell yourself, if anything, before a fight, either for real or in the ring? What's your thought process?

I'm going to highly suggest a book to you:
http://formosaneijia.com/2008/10/30/rev ... -violence/

It's about real violence and traditional martial arts training.

Dave C.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Don't think. It slows you down in a situation where you should be 'doing'.

[Ian]

Don't think. It slows you down in a situation where you should be 'doing'.

reaction has its place in an actually event (e.g. when you get blindsided or when someone makes a sudden, threatening movement)....

...there's also usually a very clear escalation phase. this is the phase I'm talking about ("psychological preparation for violence").

I don't see how you can get away with "not thinking".

IME this phase requires you to be mentally sharp and on your toes.

besides, the internal dialogue I'm talking about is not a conscious thought, as I have already explained.

[Chris McKinley]

Ian,

There's only an escalation phase if it's a fight, and even then only if it's a single perpetrator. If it's a surprise physical assault, there will be no escalation. There won't even necessarily be any awareness than violence is coming at all. Professional robbers, some muggers, thrillkillers, and certain mentally ill individuals won't even let you know there's going to a be a "fight", let alone give you time to engage them in escalatory banter.

That said, there's still a place for a certain amount of the right kind of cognitive function, i.e., assessing the situation, remaining aware of changing variables and environmental obstacles/weapons of opportunity, routes for egress, anticipation of further possibilities for ambush, awareness of the status of any of your wards who may be present, bystanders, etc.

That's a lot to process simultaneously and without error. That's why tactics need to be completely unconscious and fluid to the situation at hand. If you're busy thinking in terms of 'techniques' that you're gonna try and do, your mind won't be able to focus on the list of other things I just mentioned.