Marc MacYoung wrote a solid blog post on pre-attack indicators and the one that jumps out at me is the reference to a persons "reaction to stimuli, especially the type that is antagonistic." When you have that knee-jerk egoistic male prideful reaction to an antagonistical confrontation do you go for it or do you train to avoid those reactions that will just escalate the antagonism into physical conflict? Is the monkey going to drive that bus?
Do you actually recognize your reactions as monkey crazy stuff or do you consider it a "man's reaction that makes you a real man?" Think about this cause I believe Mr. MacYoung is trying to tell us all something important especially in regards to our reactions. As stated in his blog, "Are you monkey-stupid in your reactions and if you say you are not are you actually training to keep the monkey-stupid stuff out of it?" [well, almost what he wrote but I did take a small bit of license for my post :-]
Do you find that you feel that your reactions are based on some belief system? If you do take another long look at that belief system because it is monkey-stupid stuff that drives aggression and aggressive actions/reactions? Do you have the ability to actually look honestly and with distance at your personality, beliefs and egoistic prideful stuff? If you don't or you feel right off you have a handle on it, think again and ask for guidance. Guidance you can get from either Mr. MacYoung and/or Mr. Miller in their seminars. I suspect when they mention some of the monkey-stupid stuff you just might say to yourself, oh I do that too.
Being able to look deep down within yourself at the truth is difficult but necessary if you wish to truly learn "fense." To me avoidance is first and foremost but if I don't get a handle on my monkey then in an instant I can find my reactions at the end of a fist, knife or gun - ops, too late.
Think about how you react to things that seem to "diss you" cause it just may be a monkey-stupid belief that is going to drive your face right into someone's fist, foot or floor.
See Mr. MacYoung's post here for the "rest of the story."
When my mind is calm and clear, I find that I "respond" appropriately, rather than "react" blindly.
ReplyDeleteI also find that this is a skill useful in everyday life, aside from obvious self defense applications.
Here's an example:
http://cookdingskitchen.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-i-train-in-martial-arts.html