Getting Hit

In SD it never occurred to me that getting hit would carry importance and when I first started teaching SD in MA I always preached that one had to “hit something” a third of the overall time spent in training and practice. In other words, about twenty minuted to each hour of training - if you are serious. I guess since sparring, etc., was a given that I didn’t need to address actually getting hit as an intricate part of a persons SD ability along with a lot of other stuff like reality stress adrenal training.

I just assumed that if you are hitting something that in all likelihood you are also getting hit. Now that I think of this it is very likely that many can hit a makiwara or heavy bag or speed bag while never getting hit. Kind of a big “boo-boo” don’t ya thunk?

First, if you have never hit or been hit there is no reference point for the thinking, monkey and very important lizard brain to reference and compare. Think freeze and emotional freaking out time. Then, as Marc MacYoung will convey in his book, “In the Name of Self-Defense,” if you have never experienced being hit you don’t know that those hits you have seen on TV and in the Movies is not a devastating and debilitating as you may think. In other words, “it won’t destroy you.” 

Part of the monkey might want to naturally fall into a state of “trauma-drama-esque and ‘triggered’ over having been hit in your past. Then there is fear, fear of being hit. When you have only a TV/Movie reference to being hit with all the dramatization that tends to go with that you really will fear being hit. When you are hit and find that although it hurts, you find that you are not completely and utterly devastated into submission and frozen, you can still act - ain’t that cool. 

Marc MacYoung states, “Your ability to handle being punched is a stable dat point on the spectrum of how bad things are - or are going to get.” You get hit, you learn that, “Hey, no big deal.” Then you learn that you can get hit and keep right on going. It is a bit like Marc MacYoung’s mini-book on getting shot that in reality you don’t just drop when shot and that in a lot of cases you can keep right on keeping on after. Taking the pain of a punch, hit or strike while continuing to act is really a huge thing in SD. 

Marc MacYoung goes on to say, “Our fear of getting hit is more debilitating than getting hit.” You don’t really want to freeze, drop and curl up in a ball or just stand there as a stationary target for an adversaries continued onslaught of punches, slaps and head-butts - do you?

If you can control your monkey brain and know in your minds deepest recesses that you can be hit and still function, to think and process with the thinking mind and lizard, then you are better able to apply SD and stay in Marc MacYoung’s square, the SD Square, where you really, really want to be in such situations. 

Marc MacYoung has more to say about being hit, the type of hits that tell you things of importance to SD and even mentions the female perspectives. Like:

1. Ability to assess people’s ability to punch.

2. Your assessment of being hit that allows you to walk away.

3. An ability to assess an adversaries abilities while knowing your limitations. 

4. Your ability to take a hit as it would apply to your ability to de-escalate the situation.

and a whole lot more. He provides us with a different perspective toward SD that, for me, has not been adequately addressed until INoSD. 

Oh yea, pain is a factor and now you know about it especially as it relates to being hit. So hitting something is important and the flip side of that is being hit. I am understanding it a bit more that in my first years my Sensei insisted we hit, hit hard and that we use a minimum of padding on the hands with none on the feet (except maybe shin guards). 

Note: remember, hitting and getting hit, using gloves, light padded protection or other type of hand and head protection is great but when being hit, it is different from being hit with bare hands, fists, feet, etc. Safety has to be paramount but be creative in the ways you “get hit and hit” so as to really know about “getting hit and hitting.” 

Bibliography:

MacYoung, Marc. "In the Name of Self-Defense: What It Costs. When It’s Worth It." Marc MacYoung. 2014.