Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)
Emotional intelligence model, are about the self and the self is one of those topics heard spoken of in most karate and martial arts dojo. In this model we become concerned with, “Self-awareness and Self-management.”
The following are the very basis to EI self-mastery, i.e., “Awareness of our internal states in all situations of both calm and stress, and the management of those states.”
Competencies of emotional management, a drive to achieve our goals in karate and martial arts toward self-defense, our adaptability under adrenal stress-conditioned situations and our initiative in applying our expertise are all based on our emotional self-management.
Now, how we go about that in karate and martial arts self-defense, well that is the issue isn’t it? See the bibliography for references and sources with emphasis on adrenal stress-conditioned drill type training as a start.
Quote: “The amygdala is a trigger point for emotional distress, anger, impulse, fear, and so on. When the amygdala takes over, it acts as the ‘bad boss,’ leading us, our monkey, to take actions we might regret later.”
EI self-mastery is about exposing ourselves and recognizing and accepting our emotional monkey and taking the appropriate actions to learn and apply better actions in place of that triggered within our amygdala, making the proper actions available through access to procedural memory so we can remain within the self-defense square.
It should be noted that training is critical to handling EI for self-mastery, i.e., when properly activated and trained it creates within the brain that enables us to have a decision where we can act better. Remember, for the most part, we cannot dictate what emotions we are going to feel, when we are going to feel them, nor how strongly we will feel them. Emotions come unbidden from our amygdala and other subcortical areas of our brains. We then though training and practice come to a choice point, a very brief point that comes and goes very quickly ergo train it and practice it. Once we feel a certain way we have to train to trigger appropriate actions so that we can express those emotions appropriate to the situation. You want to develop what brain experts call the, “Inhibitory circuits” so when triggered will enable you to have a decision that will make you more appropriate in actions and words, to guide you on how to respond.
Encoding actions into procedural memory then connecting those actions to the inhibitory circuits of the brain can achieve great things while also influencing those around you, i.e., emotions and actions tend to be able to trigger like emotions and actions in a group setting. This is self-regulation and influential emanation of appropriate EI to the environment and it occupants. It is an opposite to group dynamics where it can be beneficial in lieu of not beneficial.
Remember, our amygdala is our scanning ability to detect threats and nature gave us this ability for survival. This brain of ours is our only tool of survival and we must train it to survive the self-defense threat. If the brain detects a threat, in that instant it takes over the brain and that means our brains are hijacked so training, practice and experience must be properly applied to create and implement that procedural memory connection to the inhibitory circuits of our brains.
Note: Once emotions and the amygdala have hijacked our brains we no longer have the ability to learn and we rely heavily on what brain experts call, “Over-learned habits,” the ways or actions we have used time and time again (hint hint, what does this say to karate-ka and martial artists). Remember that the time for innovation and flexibility in the hijack are gone so training, practice and experience must be achieved before, not during or after.
This is just the tip of the iceberg and as such we must remember that it is about not only what we know, but what we don’t know and what we don’t know we don’t know. The brain just doesn’t know what it does not know and therefore cannot activate either procedural memory or those zombie sub-routines that act seemingly instinctively because to code the sub-routines means you have to know the data necessary for proper coding.
Bibliography (Click the link)
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