A lot of it is technique, too. Sure at first you take punches squarely across your nose. Your nose breaks, and you learn to better angle your face so punches slide off. The first time you get nailed in the ribs you probably werent breathing right. It hurts and later bruises. Later you learn to exhale while being hit. Your techniques, stances, and posture change as you get more confortable fighting; as does your understanding of your art. So how do you deal with pain? You adapt.
Is there mental/physical training to withstand pain?
An interesting study found that pain tolerance is also cultural. Certain cultures have developed higher pain tolerances than others. Beleive it or not the study had Irish with the highest pain tolerance, and Italian with the lowest. It might not be true, but I think it may show that how you're raised influences how much pain your willing to endure. So although I dont know any training, it could be developed, and it probably exists.
Many people aren't used to even rough-housing. There's a difference between pain and injury. Rough-play, games that build tolerance, teamwork, aggression, and athleticism are probably the best way to build pain tolerance among children. Get them wrestling, playing football, sparring, etc, as long as its fun. That would be my best guess.
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"The harder you train, the harder it is to surrender"
(Vince Lombardi)
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