Hi,

I have just spent some two hours reading the highly interesting articles of this discussion bord. I have a question with regards to my own experience: I have been practicing Tai Ji Quan solo forms for several years and I am interested in the self-defence aspect.
Many articles here stress the importance of down-to-earth physical practice, without too many complicated words.
My experience from competetive sports - table tennis - tells me that when two people have a similar level of technique, a competition may often become a battle of wills - one person is obviously mentally stronger and more often than not manages to win the game. I find this aspect to be very subtle and demanding and wonder how it is taken care of in martial arts, that is, if there traditionally exist methods of training "willpower".

Thanks for any comments,

Harry

Harry,
Very interesting question. "Willpower" (the will to persevere under pressure and prevail) will always be, to a certain extent naturally stronger in some than others (I'd guess primarily because of the conditions and environment in which one is raised). This explains the "fighters are born not made" idea prevalent in more intense combat sports.

However, I believe willpower and mental "toughness" can be forged through training.
I also believe the only practical method is to push fighters past their "comfort zone" with increasingly greater amounts of pressure and pyhsical/psychological strain. How far a student wants to go is an individual matter.

At least at times, the training situation needs to envoke an adrenaline rush, and on occasion there needs to be some physical pain and extreme fatigue. Working through the pain and fatigue builds resolve. Increasing willpower is like lifting weights, if there is no "progressive overload," one cannot become stronger.

In the martial arts, solo exercises that are physically demanding and prolonged, taken far past the point of normal discomfort and fatigue will help. The ultimate tool for increasing willpower is contact sparring, either in situations or with opponents that will trigger an adrenaline response or even a healthy amount of fear.

These types of training are important as I believe the most important attribute in a fight is the mindset, followed by power and then technique.

You have to spar and fight a lot.

Tim, Meynard,

thanks for your answers. Apart from pure willpower, taken the mindset to be very important, there should be a "science" to it, like in the Taijiquan principles of body alignment, relaxation and power generation/manipulation. These too require lots of practice, but there seems to exist an elaborate theory about it.
I wonder if the same has been done for the "brain" part.

Harry

If you don't win his mind and spirit, you at most won physically at that time, and better be worried about any given moment in the future (there are many ways to skin a cat).

In my arnis training the instructor would always teach through fighting at a higher skill level than you could handle, stinging frequently with a stick. People either left or stayed. This tested one's "heart" or built it.

Competent physical training makes anyone more capable of fighting, especially in terms of defending themselves when they're aren't too many "rules". However, in martial sports or in training to defend against experienced/skillful aggressors, the use of the mind as an aspect of training becomes essential. There are different opinions among experts on how to achieve this (auto-suggestion,pyschological preparation/training or what some traditional teachers call the "animal mind").

You can see "animal mind" flickering in the eyes of some students while training -- good ones learn to turn it on and off quickly for safety purposes while training; the bad ones just get hurt or hurt each other. I'm not talking about getting mad and using that energy as a "hot" fighter can fail against someone who remains calm and survives the initial onslaught provided by rage.

Since the use of the mind and the eyes is a key component of the traditional internal arts; using these for health purposes (visualizations) and for serious martial purposes ("no-mind" or "animal mind") should be as aspect of training for serious students. Most of my middle-aged taiji students are not interested in this kind of stuff and are never exposed to it.

Animal was my favorite Muppet too.

The concept of no mind (no yi) in Xing Yi as i understand it, doesn't mean absence of 'human' mind (where does it go, how is it restrained?) and presence of 'animal' mind, but rather there is no longer distinction between 'states' of mind and 'concept of mind' vs reality or 'presence of mind'.

Initially you employ conscious utilisation 'awareness' of your skills, then over time it becomes more 'subconscious', until ultimately no longer capable of distinguishing conscious and subconscious. Part of a whole that is more than the sum of its parts. Lag between intent of action and carrying out of action, becomes smaller and smaller until almost instantaneous.

Tim,

don't you think that to a high extent "toughness" is inborn?

I believe so, just watching brothers who are completely different at that for example.
Animals, like dogs, show this big difference when they are still puppies next to the mother.

Having researched the subject for many yrs now, I agree that education changes people (why practice m.arts then?) but "it" will never be achieved, no matter what you do after very early yrs (not sure about raising a weak-born one as a killer since his first days).

European,
I agree, to a certain extent "toughness" may be inborn, just like willpower, physical talent and intelligence. I think that the environment early in life also has a great impact as well, and that with intense training/conditioning substantial amounts of change can occur even later in life.

Hi,
In the system that I am studying, there are certain methods to developing aspects of the mind during combat alot of which have to do with meditation and awareness. Initially, and throught your practice, you work on finding "gaps" in your awareness; like watching water coming out of a fountain. If you keep your head static, you see a continuous stream, if you start following the movement of the water with your eyes, you can sort of slow it down to see where it breaks or turns into large patches of drops. Similarly, you try to be aware of when you "gap" during meditation, forms, sparring or two person excercises i.e.push hands, rou shou, etc... Then you try and find out when there is a gap in your partners awareness and figure out how to take advantage of that, sort of like smacking someone when they are not looking or grabbing food off of your girlfriends plate while she is in the bathroom....(if you are still "hungry",see Rocky 5; it's a horrible joke that I just told). Alot of traditions call this "being in the moment" or any variation of that. In Hsing-I another "mind practice" seems to be creating a real "yang" energy and projecting intent to create a really domineering effect on an opponent in that you constantly feel as though you are taking up their space and advancing into and through their "turf" even if you retreat for a moment, you still "advance". This method is implemented in form work, drills and sparring. In bagua , one of the drills that I was taught for mental development of the constantly changing thing is to do palm changes or whatever movement and feel like you could change at any moment, like if you are doing a downward palm strike, feel as if you could instantly change that into an upward or sideways or whatever direction strike or into a punch, push or takedown. If you are looking for general information about "mindset" training methods, I would recommend The Power of Internal Martial Arts by Bruce Frantzis. Frantzis, while a controvertial and seemingly not well liked guy, provides very thorough and interesting information about the various methods of mind training in martial arts.

Josh,

interesting stuff. I read the book you mentioned but, being aware (solid, present, whole etc.) is part of what me and Tim gave credit to education for.

We can through mart.arts become very powerful of course, even absolutely deadly. But the 'thing', the killer instinct, is inborn, I guess.

Hi,
Yeah, I agree with the inborn "killer instinct" thing that you guys were saying. I guess the same holds true for natural ability whether it be artistic, physical, mental or whatever. It's interesting, though, do you think it is possible to upgrade an inborn ability? Like if you are born with very some but very little creative ability that you can ,through hard work, become an excellent painter? I guess it's the difference between genius and competence. It seems I've seen many people with no drawing ability go to an art school and become enthralled with what they learn to the point that they become really skilled at what they do. But oddly enough, these same people are never able to go the next step and make something that is really ingenious, something that breaks the rules of what they do. I guess maybe it's the same with anything. Dunno, just rambling here. Anyhoo, I agree.

Hi Josh,

let me put it simple: painting, music, drawing etc. are real arts. In the very true sense, that means that WITHOUT a specific school there's no art and no artist.

On the other hand 'martial' ability is something different, since humans kill each other without any proper training, barehanded.

The killing instinct is more basic in humans than painting, I believe. Everybody has it, everybody needs it, everybody (some cultures) uses it.
The way to produce killers are many but, different from music etc. the ability to defend ourselves is primary and comes from a different part of the cerebrum, the so called reptilian brain. Fighting is like breathing: you can polish or even remodel it with skills but never lose it for good.

In sum: if between us you only went to learn painting in school, fact is that you alone could paint (better than I). In fighting there's absolutely no guarantee that after some months-yrs. in a dojo you could beat me.

Regards,
the european

-but there is absolutely no guarentee that after some months-yrs training with a good teacher he would NOT beat you also.

Wasn't John Wayne Gacey a painter?
Hitler was a painter too. And there are accounts of Leonardo Da Vinci seeing a stallion that had tossed its rider- as the horse ran past Da Vinci he caught it's bridle and stopped the horse cold without being moved at all himself. He was a tough painter.

European- I think you'd enjoy a book called "On killing"

This is a little of topic, but after the last 'reptilian' debate, i had a discussion with a guy who is a sports psychologist and he made the following points.

He confirmed idea, that a thought stimilus action is slower than a purely reaction to stimilus action, about roughly 0.5 to 0.2 secs i think, which explains why countering is often the favoured method of attack. However amongst other things i thought the most relevant idea to martial artists was a point he made in regards to tennis.

In the 'modern' game of tennis, racquet technology has seen average serves increase in speed to the stage where 130+ mph serves are almost the norm. At these speeds it was pointed out to me that even the players with the best reaction times would really struggle to get a racquet on the ball, let alone make a decent shot. However in spite of this, serving while now being more important than before, still does not dominate the game.

The reason why, it turns out (quite obviously if you think about it) is that the key factor in returning service ability, is being able to 'read' the serve, i.e. pick up cues on the direction of the serve (server's intent). The best returners, know more often than the others where the ball is going before the server makes contact with the ball, so therefore actual response to the serve itself is not as critical (hand eye co-ordination is still the most important factor). Conversly the best servers are not necessarily the fastest servers, but those who are best disguisers. Here left handers have an advantage, their 'closed' stance and fewer numbers (limiting developemental experience in reading) making them more of a mystery.

How these concepts transfer to fighting may be already intuitively obvious (even to non-tennis players), but i thought it was interesting none-the-less in relation particularly to thought, intent, direction of action and reaction.

interesting point about time. someone once told me that anything below 1/2 second starts to sneak under the level of most people's perception. their "radar."

don't know if i'm saying this clearly. but at the time it made some sense to me. best...

Chris, that may explain why, in many activities, experienced practitioners often defeat younger, better conditioned opponents. Kinda fits in with what was said about skill over strength elsewhere on this board (to a certain extent, that is).

Mas Oyama talked about exactly the same thing although he wasn't able to explain it quite so well. Also O'Sensei of aikido made mystic references to seeing what his oponents would do just before they did it.

On the topic of "killer instinct," it appears that all humans have the potential to kill (leaving aside individual limitations on talent).

Shane mentioned the book "On Killing." According to the Author, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, in WW2 only 15-20 percent of combat infantrymen actually fired their rifles at the enemy. In Korea the number rose to 50 percent. In Vietnam 90 percent of combat soldiers fired their weapons at the enemy.

The steep rise in soldiers willig to kill was entirely due to improved "conditioning" techniques developed by the military. So it's possible for virtually anyone, with proper training, to be trained and willing to kill.

Chris brough up an interesting point with the MA comparisons to returning a tennis serve. Learning to read and interpret your opponent's force is a dominant theme in the IMA. The skills are most commonly refered to as 'Ting Jing' (listening ability) and 'Dong Jing' (understanding or interpreting ability).

"Conditioning techniques"?!?

Pretty deep and effective brainwashing is more like it.

My bro became an officer and it took 6 months for him to cool down and about 2 years to regain his old respect for life.

"So it's possible for virtually anyone, with proper training, to be trained and willing to kill."

Exactly!
But we're talking about using fireguns here, Tim. Barehands it's different. I'm not saying that people cannot be trained, I just guess it's hard, very.

When using a gun (firearms in general, even a missile..) we are separated from the action itself.
Tons of material demonstrate (see reports about Yugoslavia's civil war) that cruel executioners shook like babies when forced to fight with their hands (including bladed weapons, which are an extention of the limb).
I'n mot scientifically sure but I guess it's beacause the basic reaction that is in barehanded fight(reptilian brain) is found somewhere else in cerebrum when shooting ("I just pull the trigger and IT killed for me..")

What do you think, Tim?

Rumbrae,
The book points out the major problem of what happens to soldiers after the war is over. The author believes our military does a great disservice to its combat soldiers by conditioning them to kill, then releasing them back into society without properly deconditioning them.

European,
The book says much the same thing. According to Lt. Col. Grossman, the more distant you are from your enemy, the easier it is to kill. The greater the distance from the enemy, the less post event trauma as well. Even well trained and seasoned soldiers are most often reluctant to kill in close quarters combat with their hands or a bladed weapon. The reasons given are rather complex, my explanation wouldn't do them justice (those interested should get a copy of the book).

hhhmmm...

I don't think I've ever be deconditioned.

"I don't think I've ever be deconditioned"

Then it's off to Tai-Chee class for you! Learn to love your Chi-blasts, you brainwashed barbarian!

Well, thank goodness we're all one big happy family!

this may be the tacit reference in the last couple posts, or not.

http://www.belief.net/story/130/story_13040_1.html

gee, you see how peaceful and happy it can make everybody? me, i think i must still be fighting my "inner opponent" as the article says.

best...