Psychological Preparation for Violence

[Ian]

Thanks, Chris.

As I understand, fights have much clearer escalation phases. I don't agree that this happens only if there's a single perpetrator - haven't you ever seen groups of people testing others before?

However, the rest of the stuff (muggings, robberies) also have escalation phases. I guess it would be more appropriate to call them 'signs' rather than 'phases'. Reading materials from Gavin De Becker and the like has made me more aware of these signs.

Being aware of all that stuff you wrote in your second paragraph, I think you and I can agree that there's a way to do it without acting like Jason Bourne.

Re: tactics & techniques

Personally I don't think in terms of technique. I think in terms of accumulating body information in training, and reacting in reality.

But I'm curious, as a bagua man, don't you work a lot of techniques in training?

[Chris McKinley]

As to groups...yeah, I've been there. Escalation in those situations only happens if a) the group is toying with their prey, or b) the leader of the group is prolonging the episode as a display of dominance and power.

DeBecker's book is a classic, and the signs he gives to watch for are legitimate, but only in those situations in which they occur. Professionals will not give you such signs. They may not even give you a chance to capitulate before striking you. If they do, you'll be given one chance only and it will be so immediate as to rule out the watching for any signs.

As to Jason Bourne, once the stuff hits the fan, that's the only way to be. The Bourne character represents perhaps a fictionally impossible ideal of those qualities, but nonetheless, if we're using fictional archetypes, you'll get a lot further pulling a Bourne than you will by waxing kung funky.

RE: "But I'm curious, as a bagua man, don't you work a lot of techniques in training?". I'll assume you're just pulling my leg, since you know that as a Bagua man, I don't have any techniques.

[Bhassler]

Let me get this straight:

-The goal of MA is to prepare for life or death assault by a skilled professional who does not give warning prior to the assault
-Because there is no warning, the exact method of the assault cannot be predicted, and there is a high likelihood that the MAist will initiate the conflict from a damaged and/or highly disadvantaged position
-Because of the suddenness and unpredictable variables involved in the assault, specific techniques trained as counters are likely to fail
-Instead, we must rely upon correctly trained movement patterns that have been deeply ingrained in our persons
-Those correctly trained movement patterns, since they are not specific techniques per se, are in fact functional abstractions of movement patterns that have been shown effective in combat

Therefore, our best training practices are to ingrain these functional abstractions of movement patterns (as in form work) and develop an understanding of vectors and timing so our movement abstractions are effectively applicable to another person (as in push hands). So, as you can see, I have just outed Mr. McKinley as a Chi-hugging Tie Chee Hippy!

Mission accomplished.

[D_Glenn]

Actually Bhassler, it should be more like this: The best form of defense is attack, and the most vital element of attack is surprise. Therefore, the best way to protect yourself against any assailant is to attack him before he attacks you... or better... before the thought of doing so has even occurred to him. So you may be able to render your assailant unconscious before he is even aware of your very existence.


.

[Chris McKinley]

Oh sthtop....you're stho sthilly.

If I didn't believe in the viability of neijia arts for real combat use, the pathetic way they are trained for that purpose by most of their practitioners would have long ago forced me to ditch 'em entirely, and I would have saved the damage to my reputation for continuing to defend them in professional combat training circles.

D_Glenn's onto something there....preventive capital punishment. Hang a peasant at random and whatnot. Gotta love the Machiavelli.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

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.

when the cause occurs, the effect should follow. Prior to cause is void. Following cause is effect. Following effect is consequence.

If you are in an altercation, I agree, there are ways to de-escalate etc etc. But altercation is chest pounding and is not actual physical conflict. when physical conflict occurs, there is not much time to ruminate on anything, you simply must do and hopefully your tarining wasn't shyte and helps you to defend yourself.

If you are talking about the imminence of combat, say what does a soldier think before he jumps from his trench and starts killing, then there is plenty of material to be had on this from various military institutions.

[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.

when the cause occurs, the effect should follow. Prior to cause is void. Following cause is effect. Following effect is consequence.

If you are in an altercation, I agree, there are ways to de-escalate etc etc. But altercation is chest pounding and is not actual physical conflict. when physical conflict occurs, there is not much time to ruminate on anything, you simply must do and hopefully your tarining wasn't shyte and helps you to defend yourself.

If you are talking about the imminence of combat, say what does a soldier think before he jumps from his trench and starts killing, then there is plenty of material to be had on this from various military institutions.

er... yes!

too drunk to post

agree that most altercations = chest pounding.

not always the case though. friend of mine got mugged and then stabbed, even though he complied and didn't want to fight. small cut though, nothing serious.

another friend of mine punched a chav because there was a group of them following him on their bikes. got out of the situation ok.

both cases were clearly altercations. they had time to think, obviously. no chest pounding either. just some innocent guys being harassed on their way home.

my point: not all situations requiring a measured response are out of the blue where there's no time to think. and not all "altercations" are about ego. sometimes you just have gotta some fools

ok I guess I posted after all...

good night!

[blacksheep]

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.

yes!
buy shutting down your own system,he can't read you.
also you can read them very clearly.
thank you for that.
cheers

[Darthwing Teorist]

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.

+1

[I am...]

"Not thinking", as well as the mirror mind and immovable mind are core elements in Zen training. It may be fruitful for us to be more hesitant to assume what is and is not possible based on our own understanding (if we already understood how things worked, none of us would need to learn anything). I agree with Chris, a professional will not only not tend to give you any signs, they will be aware of the fact and actively hide signs. Tactically it generally gives them the advantage.

[blacksheep]

Oh sthtop....you're stho sthilly.

If I didn't believe in the viability of neijia arts for real combat use, the pathetic way they are trained for that purpose by most of their practitioners would have long ago forced me to ditch 'em entirely, and I would have saved the damage to my reputation for continuing to defend them in professional combat training circles.

D_Glenn's onto something there....preventive capital punishment. Hang a peasant at random and whatnot. Gotta love the Machiavelli.

me too,same thing. blacksheep

[Walter Joyce]

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.

FWIW recent research has shown that the older you get the harder it becomes to turn off the internal dialog. And to clarify, the article I raed made it clear that this was not a bad thing.

As to its worthiness in a self-defense situation, that issue wasn't explored.

[Chris McKinley]

The only time I really notice that I would prefer not to have an internal dialog going is when I lay down to sleep. Same thing with an internal soundtrack....it's annoying to have a song stuck in your head when you're trying to sleep. The method I use these days is still mostly based on NLP's submodalities, but these days it's more of an automated process in a self-hypnosis routine I break out occasionally.

Then again, sometimes if you want to have a good conversation, you're forced to talk to yourself.