The Brutality of it...

[kingoftheforest]

you made me do it...you FUCKING made me do it...
check ur pm, beotch.

I feel bad about it already.

Wow that really was some sick sheet there buddy. I'm gonna go scrub my brain with brillo now.

[Garland]

Dude here ya go. M'Kay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VHIW...%20park%20shit

you made me do it...you FUCKING made me do it...
check ur pm, beotch.

I feel bad about it already.

[kingoftheforest]

Ahhhhh!!!

and THIS is for making me say fvck instead of ****.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcp-rPaJJFQ&search=scarface

fucking fucks.

Dude here ya go. M'Kay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VHIWkJjt04&search=south%20park%20shit

[Garland]

and THIS is for making me say fvck instead of ****.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcp-rPaJJFQ&search=scarface

fucking fucks.

[Garland]

lol at the appliances attacking people.

Remember the movie Maximum Overdrive? It was one of those 80's horror movies about appliances coming to life and attacking people.

Agreed on the Don Quixote 'attacking the windmills' philosophy.

Shitty 80's film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqz2rejJS6M&search=maximum%20overdrive

Where the FVCK is Sancho Panza??? Im a kill the lil' bitch if I catch him humping that damn mule again!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAH5LB-lCFw&search=don%20quixote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMAl_QeMs4Y&search=don%20quixote

*don't anyone say SHIT about my predisposition to cartoons and ballet...I will KILL you.

Oh Sancho best go run and hide, Goo's got a new 45.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSPTnkXJ6js&search=sublime

[Tom Yum]

The problem with always thinking that your neighbors and household appliances are about to attack you is that you are always very very tense. Not only will this cause all kinds of health problems and emotional problems, it's also very draining energetically, not to mention the fact that it will hurt you in a fight. You need to have a relaxed awareness. If you cannot be aware and relaxed at the same time, you've got a lot of work to do. Trained fighters (in sports--boxing, MMA, etc.) look very relaxed even when they're getting hammered... I'm not sure how many arts teach this but it's always something I look at when I'm sitting in on a dojo. Are people tense, or relaxed? You fight how you train... Of course I think you need to be able to both be relaxed and be explosive, but I'm always amazed at how much emphasis there is in so many different unrelated arts on this. Like in Muay Thai when they say your leg needs to be loose during your blocks, as one recent example... Ninjutsu does a lot on this too--the most advanced stance is the open stance, they teach. It's good stuff. The difference between breaking a board and (trying to) break a hose.

lol at the appliances attacking people.

Remember the movie Maximum Overdrive? It was one of those 80's horror movies about appliances coming to life and attacking people.

Agreed on the Don Quixote 'attacking the windmills' philosophy.

[treelizard]

I think repeatedly putting someone into a full-contact sparring situation will develope that quality- assuming the person has a personality that won't just panic and quit after getting hit a couple times. I think trying to get some people to be that way is just hopeless because they just aren't fighters and never will be- in those cases I doubt having the best teacher in the world would make much difference. I guess what I mean is that all a teacher or coach can do is put the student into that kind of situation and let them find their composure for themselves. The people who are determined to succeed will learn to stay level headed, but once they are given the opportunity they have to do it for themselves.

Interesting. I guess I consider myself as one of those people who is "just not a fighter and never will be." I will never fight with somebody over a tactical seat. I will always prefer other people doing the dirty work for me and staying out of the way. I will never seek out a fight intentionally. I'm just not cut out for combat and I know it in my heart. But I still know how to handle myself and will do whatever I need to, to get home safely.

As for people who panic and quit after getting hit in class, well I probably would have been one of those people too, but luckily I had AMAZING teachers that have gone far above and beyond the call of duty in trying to tailor their classes to individual students' personality styles, strengths and weaknesses, etc. and teach in a way that is digestible and that somebody could handle. I read in a book that discussed stress (distress vs. eustress or whatever good stress is called) was when the circumstances you are dealing with are beyond your capability of handling them--so it's up to the instructor to make sure you are being challenged, but not enough that you'll quit. And then upping the level of challenge.

I saw a very dear friend of mine go through a complete transformation during a WSD class. She started out by saying, "I don't want to hurt anyone!! I wanna go home!!" and I tried to assure her by telling her that the hardest part was just showing up. She was an animal by the end of the class. I guarantee that she would have walked out had she been hit as hard in the beginning of class as she was by the end.

I think everyone is capable of learning basic self-defense that will help them have a reasonable chance of surviving what they will likely encounter in a normal lifetime.

I think a person is also a zillion times more likely to keep their composure if they have thought about similar situations to ones they will encounter, and can therefore have a base of knowledge to reason from instead of responding emotionally.

I also think that being repeatedly forced to function while being attacked can be done in different "levels"--maybe don't go full force on the beginners.

In addition, I think other things also help with keeping composure... I'm a big fan of prayer, meditation, ceremony, and other things that will help someone come back to center when under stress. Breathing is nice.

My apologies if everything I've written is fairly obvious.

[Sagacious Lu]

SO having somebody work on that isn't teaching them?

I think repeatedly putting someone into a full-contact sparring situation will develope that quality- assuming the person has a personality that won't just panic and quit after getting hit a couple times. I think trying to get some people to be that way is just hopeless because they just aren't fighters and never will be- in those cases I doubt having the best teacher in the world would make much difference. I guess what I mean is that all a teacher or coach can do is put the student into that kind of situation and let them find their composure for themselves. The people who are determined to succeed will learn to stay level headed, but once they are given the opportunity they have to do it for themselves.

[treelizard]

IMHO this cannot be taught. I think the only way to develope the ability to keep your composure that way is to be repeatedly forced to function while being attacked.

SO having somebody work on that isn't teaching them?

[Sagacious Lu]

You need to have a relaxed awareness. If you cannot be aware and relaxed at the same time, you've got a lot of work to do. Trained fighters (in sports--boxing, MMA, etc.) look very relaxed even when they're getting hammered...

IMHO this cannot be taught. I think the only way to develope the ability to keep your composure that way is to be repeatedly forced to function while being attacked.

[treelizard]

I love testing out WSD techniques against MMA guys. then i can tell what works and what doesn't. against trained fighters.

[Garland]

Who said MMA wouldn't work for women in a SD situation against a large guy?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWQk3gfNrGU&search=nhb

[Garland]

If that type of aggressive approach alienates people...Bas Rutten must not have many friends.

(this is funny...Bas is such a joke-ster.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNXRInrSSVU&search=nhb

[treelizard]

One more thing is that I think like Lu said (or whoever it was) bad guys can really smell fear and the more you are afraid (that's the universal YOU not referring to any person) the more you will be a target or manifest the types of situations you are pretending that you are trying to avoid (when in reality you probably want them to repeat over and over again so you can get whatever "comfort" you can out of your victim mentality and repeating cycles, etc...

In addition, if you think the guy on his cell phone or your washing machine are threats, you will likely be focusing on them and not see the REAL threats if there are any.

Also if you think everyone is out to get you, you will likely alienate a lot of people who could be your friends. And I've seen mostly women do this, yelling "BACK OFF" at the guy who just wants to say hi. Etc.

[treelizard]

Also I was going to add that there's a difference between thinking, "Hmmm, that's odd!" when there's a car in the middle of the street, and between getting into a stance. If your adrenaline is rushing because of something that's not even a real threat, that is a problem. See the book On Combat.

This is something that I've struggled with in the past and had to work on really gradually... one trick I played with myself was when some bum came up to me I'd try to figure out whether or not they were gonna ask me for change or ask me for my number, and then sort of learn to read from body language or subtle energy (for lack of a better term) what kind of "feel" there was to the approach. Afterwards I'd analyze the situation as critically and analytically and unemotionally (detached) as possible and this improved my ability to pick up on factors I may not have noticed before. The goal was to move away from "OMG THAT MAN IS FOLLOWING ME!" to "Wow, that person's walking around kind of funny. Wonder what's going on. I'm going to make space and see...oh wait, is that a cell phone? No wonder he's pacing around like that."

I try to look at accident scenes and figure out what happened before I got there. I'm not convinced of my explanations but that kind of analytical thinking is EXACTLY what is called for in a real life encounter.

I was getting followed once while walking home from work late at night (flat bike tire and no patch kit at work) and because of practicing this I was able to make good decisions that put me in a more strategic position (tactically), whereas if I had just panicked, I'm pretty sure I would have just ran (and both the ways I could have "run" home were very bad strategically--one was an underpass/tunnel (no way to cross the street) and the other was by a very busy street where it would've been impossible to cross the street or get anywhere as well with all the speeding cars going by. I was on foot and Dude was on a bicycle so both of these locations were really bad choices.

I remember once upon a time getting in bike tug-of-war with some crackhead when I almost walked out into the middle of traffic trying to get away. I was tunneled out.

Something about FMA seemed to help me with these types of situations...