The Fence of Defense

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

How many times have you heard this one, fence of defense or fence of self-defense? I have read it many times in materials about self-defense especially the book by Marc MacYoung, In the Name of Self-Defense. This article is about conveying the resulting research of the mind, mind-set and mind-state. 

I quote, “When strong primary feelings emerge or a particular categorical emotion arises, we may respond with an ingrained, learned reaction that is rooted in our pasts.” We learn most of what and who we are along with supposed coping skills that create our human defenses for survival. What you were initially exposed to as a child in the family unit later to be stretched and enhanced as a young adult in social situations like school. 

In all cases of emotional stressors we are going to trigger the old “Fight, flight or freeze” response - all emotional reactions to our own emotional responses to the external stimuli that triggers a stress response, both good and bad. 

In our early years up to at age twenty-five “we have and develop patterns of adaptation that help us cope with overwhelming situations and with our reactions to them.” At least we hope that the patterns are not only created and adapted but are appropriate coping skills especially involving violent conflicts or the potential for violent conflicts.  

The following is how the psychologists explain our defense fence, i.e., “We experience an emotional response to some stimuli -> our internal world creates a reaction of fear/anxiety -> this triggers a defense. This defense reaction shuts down the emotion, or at least the awareness of it, which then lowers the anxiety/frear and allows us to continue to function.” This is our goal in karate/martial arts self-defense, i.e., to understand how things work, to create training and practices that will help develop the ability to trigger the appropriate defense and finally to create a greater ability to continue to function so that we may defend. 

This is why defenses we develop, adapt and adopt be it from influences of our growth to that of the family and society are not just useful but essential. 

Defenses come in many forms:

• We rationalize the situation intellectually.
• We minimize our emotional feelings toward a more logical mind-set/mind-state.
• Selective Neglect: We attempt to ignore the situation.
• Selective Neglect/Projective Identification: We skew our perception of the reality to a more acceptable positive perception.
• Projective Identification: We project onto others and then hate them for it. 

The goal of our minds, our brains, here is to “build a fence around our awareness so that we don’t feel the anxiety or fear associated with feeling our feelings.” This is a good thing in most cases and a bad thing in the cases that often result in grave bodily harm and death. These automatic strategies, patterns of reactivity are adopted without conscious intention or even recognition, and certainly without free will or choice. Yet, it is imperative for the self-defense model to know of these, recognize them, use them for appropriate situations and then train and practice to encode more appropriate tactics and strategies effective for self-defense. 

The fence of self-defense is much larger then the coping skills you learned in normal, or abnormal, growth from childhood to early adulthood. It sometimes comes down to the degree of exposure to those things that can lead to conflict and violence. Many of the modern social conditions are held captive by a fence built from within while blocking out other stimuli that lead to conflict and violence in other socially conditioned and separate environments. What happens when the two clash, you need the knowledge, understanding and skills to deal with them effectively. 

To learn more, read the following:

Bibliography (Click the link)

Siegel, Daniel J. M.D. “Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.” Bantam Books. New York. 2010.