PAIN, PANIC, & PERCEPTION

[Anonymous]

I read the article by Ed Kane on the Self Defense Blog following an email link, and it was a great article. One part I’d like to focus on:

[quote:g182ti3o]A new guy taps from a choke almost immediately no matter how effective the application. This is not because he/she is soft or weak. It is just a totally natural reaction to a sensation he/she has never felt. Revisit this

[Damian (Instructor)]

Prevail,

A LOT in that post. A few things I pulled are tapping with a submission. In old school judo practice you DID NOT TAP ON A CHOKE. You either escape or pass out. This has happened to me quite a few times in practice. I stopped counting at around ten. doing this teaches you a few things first: what your physical threshold is and second, what it really feels like when you’re about to go to sleep. It’s actually the best 10 seconds of REM sleep you can get. I always fade out to jogging around the lake at my first house.

Joint locks are different since you can cause permanent damage. In competition some guys will sacrifice the joint to stay in the fight. That’s a attitude we try to bring out in hard training. Body conditioning and intense PT are two common methods to develop that. Then there’s the intangible. How can one person sustain multiple stabs, gunshot wounds, strikes and still keep going while another gets a scratch and falls to pieces?

The answer is attitude, the hatred you talk about. We try to pull that out in training. We try to prepare regular people to face a world of shit. This is why we don’t mince words and use terms like “lethal”. Because you have to be prepared to go the distance. Its either you or him and if you’re not going to make it, you bet your ass you’re taking him to hell with you.

Before I forget, I recommend this book about 10 times a month so to some people I sound like a broken record. Check out Steven Pressfield’s GATES of FIRE. Its an historical fiction about the Spartan’s stand at Thermopylae. It not like the 300 which was basically based on a comic.

Great posts, keep them coming.

[Damian (Instructor)]

[quote:1qnnowqg]It’s actually the best 10 seconds of REM sleep you can get.[/quote:1qnnowqg]

That was funny. In training it would be counterproductive to keep breaking your arms and legs but, I would agree, competition is a little different.

I think that when you fear something you enable it. Or, at least increase the likely hood of it happening. We all know negative, anxious people who are always experiencing disasters, and positive, determined people who have all the luck.

I believe in luck, but not in the traditional sense of the whimsical winds of fate but, instead, as a function of focused belief and action. I heard Donald Trump say that the harder you work the more luck you have. I think he was quoting someone else who I can’t remember.

I really believe the mindset is the foundational thing. In the NFL, for example, they all take the same brutal punishment. Yet some guys are always getting injured and pulling their big toe or whatever, and then other guys can get absolutely creamed pullin one down over the middle and walk away like nothing happened. Actually, technically, they’re all playing injured, but some of them refuse to be distracted by discomfort.

Another thing I like about the SDTS because it is the rare day when I feel like I am at at a perfect 100 percent functioning level. There’s always discomfort – *always* the potential for distraction and loss of focus. Could even just be emotional. Dealing with drama or whatever.

We’re all playing injured in this life.

As far as self-defense goes, no techniques and tactics in the world will save a guy who isn’t *committed.* Who doesn’t have serious *intent* with no excuses.

I appreciate your feedback, and your SDTS is truly a thing of beauty and simple genius. In fact, the simplicity of it makes it *easier* to focus the mind because one isn’t all confused trying to remember overly-sophisticated techniques. I may seem smart, but that’s because I love simple.

I’ll check out the book on the Spartans. I love reading. Here in Michigan we have the Michigan State Spartans, and I’ve always thought that the coaches there ought to make their players study the Spartans since that is quite a name to brand yourself with. I don’t think Tom Izzo has a problem in this department, although I have no clue if he’s ever mentioned the Spartans to his players.

[Damian (Instructor)]

[quote:2our0qe5] we’re all playing injured in this life[/quote:2our0qe5]

Great observation. There is not a professional or amateur athlete who doesn’t play with some type of injury and there isn’t a person on the planet who feels 100% all of the time. Everybody never feels as good as they think they should. Shit, everyone has problems no matter who you are, t’s all relative.

I laugh when I hear guys who claim to use their sport or style for self defense and then don’t train because something is pulled or broken. If you are serious about protecting yourself then you should train or prepare for when you’re injured. Hell, arm yourself to the teeth. Just have a plan.

If you leave your house, you should be good to go. If you can’t adapt what you’re doing to ANY PHYSICAL CONDITION you’re in, it’s not self defense.

[Author]

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