2007 February | Lethal Street Self Defense

Training Your Combat Flow

Self Defense Street Fight No Responses »

Feb 262007

Ryan Wolfenbarger asked:

Flowing from move to move

I recently read the book Flow by Mihali Csikszentmihalyi (good luck figuring that name out.) I couldn’t help but notice the applications that the principles in this book have in everyday life as well as training. In his book Mihali’s talks about this flow state that we can acquire when we become engulfed in what it is that we are doing.

For example a chess player who is so in the moment while playing that everything around him seems to disappear and he can maintain complete focus on the task at hand.

This can happen for us when we do an activity with the right blend of challenge and skill. For example let’s look at our training.

In martial arts there is a term to describe a concept similar to flow called “Mushin” which means no-mindedness.

It’s a state that some masters will enter when using a technique. These cases are actually common. They have no recollection of what happened after they where attacked. As one martial artist I know put it “I remember he threw a punch and I pretty much woke up with his blood on my shoes.”

They say that it takes thousands of repetitions before we reach this flow or “Mushin” state. This is why martial artists train the same drills over and over.

“Why would you want to have “no mind” during a life or death struggle?”

Because when you enter a life or death struggle, you’re pretty much going to have “no mind” anyway when your fight or flight responses take over. All you’ll have left is your natural instincts. Anything that isn’t a conditioned response or a reflex will be too slow to be effective.

“How do we apply this to combat training?”

1. Drills

This is why martial artists and boxers do so many drills. They are training to condition their responses to be good ones through repetition. This is why rather than focusing on moves and technique, try to focus on drills. Drills make the movements automatic and put us into the state of flow during training.

2. Practice moves in combination

Chaining together techniques conditions your body to keep moving and train you to “drive through.”

3. Train simple techniques

For everything an attacker throws at you, there are nine million ways you can defend yourself. Why train all nine million when you can train one or two variations that work in many situations and drill on them hard. This will allow you to achieve a state of no mind much faster with a certain technique.

4. Get hit

Put on the pads with someone who knows what they’re doing. This will teach you flow. After the 5th or 6th boot to the head you’ll realize that the moves are coming at you too fast to think. You’ll only have conditioned responses to depend on. Granted this doesn’t compare to the “adrenaline dump” you get with a life or death confrontation, it helps force your brain to work on a faster level than conscious thought.

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Psychology of Self Defense

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Feb 012007

Mario Andreis asked:

In order to be able to respond to any kind of an attack, the first thing one should do is to prepare psychologically for possible confrontation. One should become aware that in any given moment he could face a danger coming from another human being. Acknowledging this is the first step in achieving the readiness to an attack.

It must be noted though, that emotional awareness on itself will not necessarily guarantee the ideal physical reaction even though this is implied in most martial arts schools and conventional self-defense programs. Emotional and psychological readiness must be viewed as an absolutely necessary brick in the wall of your self-defense. The rest of this self defense wall consists of course of physical condition and training. Most self-defense courses and trainings lack real life pressure and stress one is submitted to during the attack. For this reason special attention should be paid to making the circumstances as real as they can get while performing the drills and trainings.

Also there should be many scenarios which can occur in real life simulated. The more situations you experience, the more ready for the street you’ll be. Many times self-defense courses consist of drills and trainings too static for the real attack situations. Such courses may make you feel better but they may also tell you a lie. You may think that you’re somewhat ready because you invested in course and because you took some lessons but in reality you may be even more endangered. Why? Because you’re convinced that you know how to do things when attacked while in fact your false defense will only make the assailant angrier and more determined to do you harm.

So if you’ve learned anything from this article, then you should know by now that before thinking that you’re ready to face the attacker you need to:

- Adjust your everyday-thinking to real life circumstances, that is – you should live with the thought in your head that there is a threat outside, and that threat can become real at any given moment

- You should be prepared to react in case of violent attack, you should think about what and how the things should be handled if they happen

- You should think about what actions you would be capable of taking. Would you critically injure another person? Would you kill another human being?

- You should take classes with professional people who know what they’re teaching you. Some swinging hands in the air will not help you one bit!

- It’s a real life you live, no matter whether you’re ready or not for it!

If you’re not a physical type of person, if you’re not physically strong nor you have the time or the genes to become strong then you could use some kind of self-defense weapons.

Some very popular are: pepper spray, taser, stun gun and even guns and knives. Yes these can really help you but make no mistake – you should by all means take the lessons on how to use these kinds of weapons. If you don’t take time to learn the proper usage of weapon then you risk even worse consequences than what you would be in case you have no weapons at all. Remember, you better not carry any kind of weapon around that you’re not ready to use and that you know not how to use it the right way. One of the most suitable gadgets for this purpose is a pepper spray. The effect on the attacker is devastating but not fatal. Did you know that it takes more to recover from pepper spray effects than from taser?

Think about the facts of self-defense depicted in the paragraphs above and stay safe.

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