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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 15, 2014 20:11:17 GMT -5
I have heard, and have been told, about a particular phenomenom that occurs when one trains in martial arts.
I was told that we all eventually get to a point where we've trained all of our "old wiring" out of our reflexes/system, etc.. yet.. haven't been training long enough for our martial arts training to have wired itself into our system.
Thus the "middle ground" is born, the stage where we essentially have nothing. We no longer have our old go-to fighing "skills", yet, we haven't been training long enough for the martial arts training to embed itself just yet either.
What is the term for that stage?
I was out and about getting groceries the other night and, long story short, as I was leaving I had to "convince" 2 drunks to get off of my car. As drunks normally are, they were very defiant, beligerent, etc. A few times they began to angrily manuever towards me but then stopped, distracted by their own drunkeness. Fortunately I was able to make it into my car and drive off without things escalating.
But the feeling of confidence-bordering-cockiness that I am used to having in the face of physical confrontation was completely GONE. Absent. Null. And it stuck with me the whole way home.
I kept wondering, what would I have done? What did I used to do? Both, I could not answer. But I remembered being told this would happen, but what is the term for this phase/stage?
Did you experience it as well? When did you know that your martial arts training had fully replaced your old "wiring"?
I find this to be quite interesting and am curious as to how it has affected others, if at all..
Osu!
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Post by meguro on Aug 16, 2014 1:26:43 GMT -5
How do you know the martial arts bit has not been embedded already? You have employed the art of fighting without fighting, arguably the highest form of ma, no. The alternative is what? Beating up on drunks, or worse getting beat by drunks? Not very good alternatives. You drove away with nobody harmed, and that was the best outcome.
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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 16, 2014 12:14:23 GMT -5
How do you know the martial arts bit has not been embedded already? You have employed the art of fighting without fighting, arguably the highest form of ma, no. The alternative is what? Beating up on drunks, or worse getting beat by drunks? Not very good alternatives. You drove away with nobody harmed, and that was the best outcome. Indeed you may be right in that I applied a form of martial arts in coercing them away without further incident. Fought without fighting. Unfortunately, there are times when the "alternative" you alluded to becomes the "inevitable", and it occured to me that had that been the case that night I'm not sure how I would have defended myself. So for sake of this thread I am specifically referring to the physical application of it. *edit: I can recall there being a term for that "stage" of sorts.
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 16, 2014 14:49:26 GMT -5
I always call it the 'skills dip' where trained responses and thought interfere with instinct. Every sport has it. Golfers change coaches and all of a sudden their swing goes to the dogs. If they stick with it though they come through it better - eventually ...
Gary
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Post by meguro on Aug 17, 2014 7:06:45 GMT -5
In Outliers Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule, that is successful people usually have dedicated a lot of time (10,000 hours) at one specific task. If you had spent the requisite amount of time fighting two drunks, I suspect that trip to the grocers would have ended differently. The films End of Tomorrow and Groundhog Day illustrate the rule. Of course, I am now an expert in seeing the kata angle on this. Way too much time and effort is spent perfecting the dancing, and sadly hardly any time devoted to working on distance, body mechanics and technique in the close quarters scenarios the kata suggest.
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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 17, 2014 12:33:06 GMT -5
I always call it the 'skills dip' where trained responses and thought interfere with instinct. Every sport has it. Golfers change coaches and all of a sudden their swing goes to the dogs. If they stick with it though they come through it better - eventually ... Gary Yes, Gary, that's precisely what I'm referring to. Thought there was an actual scientific term for that "process". It's almost as if the body is in a detox during that period, so to speak, eventually making itself receptive to "the new".
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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 17, 2014 12:55:57 GMT -5
Gasp! How dare you suggest that there not be as much time spent on kata You must be one of those MMA jocks !! *sarcasm
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 18, 2014 4:24:25 GMT -5
I always call it the 'skills dip' where trained responses and thought interfere with instinct. Every sport has it. Golfers change coaches and all of a sudden their swing goes to the dogs. If they stick with it though they come through it better - eventually ... Gary Yes, Gary, that's precisely what I'm referring to. Thought there was an actual scientific term for that "process". It's almost as if the body is in a detox during that period, so to speak, eventually making itself receptive to "the new". 'Choking' is the term most used to describe this in the heat of things as opposed to during the training process. It just refers to the mind interferring with automatic responses, be they natural or trained. Gary
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Post by Ros on Aug 18, 2014 5:23:28 GMT -5
I have heard, and have been told, about a particular phenomenom that occurs when one trains in martial arts. I was told that we all eventually get to a point where we've trained all of our "old wiring" out of our reflexes/system, etc.. yet.. haven't been training long enough for our martial arts training to have wired itself into our system. Thus the "middle ground" is born, the stage where we essentially have nothing. We no longer have our old go-to fighing "skills", yet, we haven't been training long enough for the martial arts training to embed itself just yet either. What is the term for that stage? I'm not 100% sure there is such a stage. I think instincts/reflexes/old skills can only be 'trained out' by repeatedly training a different skill in (the 10,000 hours as Meguro mentioned). If we are talking reflex or basic skills then I don't think there is ever a no man's land of not having either: it is the very act of repetition that replaces the old skill - there isn't a defined 'I don't have reflex A, or skill B.' Your brain will default to one or the other (or will sometimes choke - but the reason for that is usually psychological not physical), sometimes many years after you feel you have acquired skill B! For more complex skills, it might be a different matter, can you give us an example of your old skills and the new skills you are trying to replace them with? Your description also sounds very psychological rather than physical; a feeling of having lost confidence-bordering-cockiness. Which, to be honest, is probably a good thing to lose - if you don't feel confident and cocky about physical confrontation I would suggest that you're less likely to put yourself in a situation that would require such.
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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 18, 2014 11:35:30 GMT -5
Yes, Gary, that's precisely what I'm referring to. Thought there was an actual scientific term for that "process". It's almost as if the body is in a detox during that period, so to speak, eventually making itself receptive to "the new". 'Choking' is the term most used to describe this in the heat of things as opposed to during the training process. It just refers to the mind interferring with automatic responses, be they natural or trained. Gary To put it quite frankly eh. Guess it's over-analyzed to a degree. I think "choking" sums it up better than any 'scientific' term floating around for it.
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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 18, 2014 11:59:37 GMT -5
I'm not 100% sure there is such a stage. I think instincts/reflexes/old skills can only be 'trained out' by repeatedly training a different skill in (the 10,000 hours as Meguro mentioned). If we are talking reflex or basic skills then I don't think there is ever a no man's land of not having either: it is the very act of repetition that replaces the old skill - there isn't a defined 'I don't have reflex A, or skill B.' Your brain will default to one or the other (or will sometimes choke - but the reason for that is usually psychological not physical), sometimes many years after you feel you have acquired skill B! For more complex skills, it might be a different matter, can you give us an example of your old skills and the new skills you are trying to replace them with? Your description also sounds very psychological rather than physical; a feeling of having lost confidence-bordering-cockiness. Which, to be honest, is probably a good thing to lose - if you don't feel confident and cocky about physical confrontation I would suggest that you're less likely to put yourself in a situation that would require such. ------------------------------------------------ Ah, it's been a long time since I've let that sense of confidence/cockiness hinder my better judgement regarding physical confrontation (could've sorely used those words a little over a decade ago, though).. But.. It certainly is good to have it and, not having it that night was a little unnerving. ("it" being that sense of assured confidence) Reading the responses and giving it thought, I see exactly what you (and meguro) mean regarding it being more of a psychological hiccup than anything physical. Rather, the physical shortcoming that may come in those moments is a result of the psychological.. And even then it seems that natural human reflex would/should kick in.. I agree.
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GJEC
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Post by GJEC on Aug 18, 2014 15:14:29 GMT -5
It's true for most of us that confidence is pretty variable. There's been times in my life I'd front up against anyone then other times I've hung my head and walked away.
But maybe that's a good thing. In the Fire Brigade the youngsters want to charge in, the older ones assess more carefully. That's little to do with lack of bottle. It's just good sense.
Gary
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shugyo
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Post by shugyo on Aug 25, 2014 10:49:18 GMT -5
Are you talking about Shu Ha Ri? Shu Ha Ri speaks about the different stages of learning. In Shu, we repeat the forms/techniques in a disciplined manner so that there's no deviation. In Ha, once we've disciplined ourselves in those forms/techniques, we make innovations, and in that, we discard forms/techniques. In Ri, we completely depart from the form/technique, therefore, opening the door to creative forms/techniques, and we arrive in a place where we act in agreement with what our heart and mind desire, therefore, we're inhibited, without forgetting the laws of said forms/techniques.
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Post by kyokanrik on Aug 26, 2014 19:47:03 GMT -5
Are you talking about Shu Ha Ri? Shu Ha Ri speaks about the different stages of learning. In Shu, we repeat the forms/techniques in a disciplined manner so that there's no deviation. In Ha, once we've disciplined ourselves in those forms/techniques, we make innovations, and in that, we discard forms/techniques. In Ri, we completely depart from the form/technique, therefore, opening the door to creative forms/techniques, and we arrive in a place where we act in agreement with what our heart and mind desire, therefore, we're inhibited, without forgetting the laws of said forms/techniques. Thank you, I have never heard of Shu Ha Ri, nor had it broken down that way. I don't think it's the term I thought I'd heard before. When you say,"In Shu, we..", who are the "we"? Just curious because it doesn't sound like anything I've heard thus far in my short stint in knockdown.
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Post by powerof0ne on Aug 27, 2014 0:19:17 GMT -5
Shu Ha Ri is very essential to Japanese martial arts in ideology in the beginning but not so much with modern kakutogi-gendai budo. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shu_ha_riI do agree there is a stage like what you're describing Kyokarnik but I'm not sure if I would fully agree. However, if I try to explain it I think I'll do a horrible job. With myself I described a few years ago something I noticed with Aikido techniques and was honestly expecting people to disagree and was pleasantly surprised that Gary said it made sense. Basically, I said something along the lines that I put a couple of years into Aikido and Aikijujitsu in my teens but wasn't that good at it. Sure, I "play" with the techniques and have off and on for many years but I noticed within the last 4-6 years that my "aiki" techniques are much much better and that I can actually apply them when as a teen as much as I loved Steven Seagal's classic movies (Marked For Death, Above the Law, Glimmer Man probably being the last, etc.) I rarely could make them work in anything close to a real non resisting opponent. When I was teaching a couple of years ago I tried to impart some of these techniques and some that I modified to work in more realistic scenarios to my own students and saw most of them struggling just as much as I did as a teen albeit them being 19-23ish. I was never a master that knew every variation of every Aiki technique but I noticed that somehow my body got the fundamentals down so I could apply the basic principles to just about any attack I was able to actually "see" as I would in normal kumite. Many years ago my Dad told me about his first sensei telling him (Frinkleton Hayashi Ha Shito Ryu Kai, back in the days when you had to go to Japan to get your black belt if you wanted to learn Japanese karate)that at the high levels of Karate it begins to look more like jujitsu than karate but that jujitsu often times does almost the opposite. I thought this was BS but I think there is some truth to it and sort of understand why with my limited experience. Now, I'm not somebody that spends hours braking down and practicing all the bunkai/oyo from a kata and quite frankly have made it known I'm very anti-kata but I believe when you spend enough time and have enough experience with 'Uke,' opponents in competition, and/or real life that you become hardwired to react without thinking, hesitating, and often times don't ever remember learning that technique or variation. You're applying fundamentals from other techniques at varying distances, angles ,speed and with power that you have done hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of time, and so forth before. It is my personal belief that those that never really experience non-resisting opponents in good kumite (really trying to use techniques/strategies/defense/parrying/fundamentals!), competition, "real life," and so forth will never understand this. Sure, there are those that are more gymnast or excellent athlete but they lack the experience, win or lose, but just plain and simple experience to ever reach this. Good karate isn't complicated as long as you're patient but many make bad karate complicated by trying to cut corners. However, this is just my opinion through my own experiences and I'm sure there is more than one right answer because there are so many body types, levels of strength, speed, courage, and environmental factors (cold/freezing/hot/humid/wet/slick) that truly make every fighting style for every person as unique as a snow flake (well, maybe not that unique but you get the point). Sorry, I could ramble on and on and believe it or not, had to cut out a lot of what I originally typed . Osu!
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