Please take a look at Articles on self-defense/conflict/violence for introductions to the references found in the bibliography page.

Please take a look at my bibliography if you do not see a proper reference to a post.

Please take a look at my Notable Quotes

Hey, Attention on Deck!

Hey, NOTHING here is PERSONAL, get over it - Teach Me and I will Learn!


When you begin to feel like you are a tough guy, a warrior, a master of the martial arts or that you have lived a tough life, just take a moment and get some perspective with the following:


I've stopped knives that were coming to disembowel me

I've clawed for my gun while bullets ripped past me

I've dodged as someone tried to put an ax in my skull

I've fought screaming steel and left rubber on the road to avoid death

I've clawed broken glass out of my body after their opening attack failed

I've spit blood and body parts and broke strangle holds before gouging eyes

I've charged into fires, fought through blizzards and run from tornados

I've survived being hunted by gangs, killers and contract killers

The streets were my home, I hunted in the night and was hunted in turn


Please don't brag to me that you're a survivor because someone hit you. And don't tell me how 'tough' you are because of your training. As much as I've been through I know people who have survived much, much worse. - Marc MacYoung

WARNING, CAVEAT AND NOTE

The postings on this blog are my interpretation of readings, studies and experiences therefore errors and omissions are mine and mine alone. The content surrounding the extracts of books, see bibliography on this blog site, are also mine and mine alone therefore errors and omissions are also mine and mine alone and therefore why I highly recommended one read, study, research and fact find the material for clarity. My effort here is self-clarity toward a fuller understanding of the subject matter. See the bibliography for information on the books. Please make note that this article/post is my personal analysis of the subject and the information used was chosen or picked by me. It is not an analysis piece because it lacks complete and comprehensive research, it was not adequately and completely investigated and it is not balanced, i.e., it is my personal view without the views of others including subject experts, etc. Look at this as “Infotainment rather then expert research.” This is an opinion/editorial article/post meant to persuade the reader to think, decide and accept or reject my premise. It is an attempt to cause change or reinforce attitudes, beliefs and values as they apply to martial arts and/or self-defense. It is merely a commentary on the subject in the particular article presented.


Note: I will endevor to provide a bibliography and italicize any direct quotes from the materials I use for this blog. If there are mistakes, errors, and/or omissions, I take full responsibility for them as they are mine and mine alone. If you find any mistakes, errors, and/or omissions please comment and let me know along with the correct information and/or sources.



“What you are reading right now is a blog. It’s written and posted by me, because I want to. I get no financial remuneration for writing it. I don’t have to meet anyone’s criteria in order to post it. Not only I don’t have an employer or publisher, but I’m not even constrained by having to please an audience. If people won’t like it, they won’t read it, but I won’t lose anything by it. Provided I don’t break any laws (libel, incitement to violence, etc.), I can post whatever I want. This means that I can write openly and honestly, however controversial my opinions may be. It also means that I could write total bullshit; there is no quality control. I could be biased. I could be insane. I could be trolling. … not all sources are equivalent, and all sources have their pros and cons. These needs to be taken into account when evaluating information, and all information should be evaluated. - God’s Bastard, Sourcing Sources (this applies to this and other blogs by me as well; if you follow the idea's, advice or information you are on your own, don't come crying to me, it is all on you do do the work to make sure it works for you!)



“You should prepare yourself to dedicate at least five or six years to your training and practice to understand the philosophy and physiokinetics of martial arts and karate so that you can understand the true spirit of everything and dedicate your mind, body and spirit to the discipline of the art.” - cejames (note: you are on your own, make sure you get expert hands-on guidance in all things martial and self-defense)



“All I say is by way of discourse, and nothing by way of advice. I should not speak so boldly if it were my due to be believed.” - Montaigne


I am not a leading authority on any one discipline that I write about and teach, it is my hope and wish that with all the subjects I have studied it provides me an advantage point that I offer in as clear and cohesive writings as possible in introducing the matters in my materials. I hope to serve as one who inspires direction in the practitioner so they can go on to discover greater teachers and professionals that will build on this fundamental foundation. Find the authorities and synthesize a wholehearted and holistic concept, perception and belief that will not drive your practices but rather inspire them to evolve, grow and prosper. My efforts are born of those who are more experienced and knowledgable than I. I hope you find that path! See the bibliography I provide for an initial list of experts, professionals and masters of the subjects.

Preconception Survival Instincts

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

Lets start with this first, we all are exposed to a variety of stimuli in our lives from the moment we become aware as children through life up to death. This stimuli is influential in that it helps us create our personal belief systems of understanding of things and our followup perceptions that build on our beliefs thus making a more complex, yet simple, self-image. This self-image makes for our character and personality while our beliefs come from the stimuli and what it teaches us to form our understanding of many or the myriad of things. Both character and personality along with beliefs and understanding are what we depend on to live. 

It is kind of a ‘chicken and egg’ conundrum that makes all this work and sometimes I wonder how we humans have survived all these centuries. In order to have beliefs and understanding you have to take in stimuli of the environment and those who provide us as individuals experiences, knowledge and understanding so we may learn, grow, adapt and survive ourselves. What they provide along with our own experiences plus all the stimuli from the environment, i.e., tribe connections and the socialization that goes on for the group survival, etc., all contribute to the input so we may hypothesize, analyze, and synthesize things all in the name of knowledge, understanding and survival applications, etc.

As we build our database of facts, perceptions and beliefs we build memories that we use to make moment to moment decisions of life both good and bad. All of this leads to our need to make decisions quickly, a holdover of ancient times when fast decisions meant life or death. This has not changed much even tho modern times would make us think that those types of things are no longer needed, but … they are. Taking too much time to analyze and decide, i.e., observe then orient on what is important and in this case what would end our survival vs. make sure of our survival then make decisions with most needed in split-seconds to milliseconds and then to take appropriate actions from our knowledge, understanding and what works lizard brain flight or fight memories all at the speed of light form databases built from perceptions and beliefs often effected in the process of preconceived notions that all, mostly, help us to make decisions for action quickly.

Most times this is good and benefical but due to modern times and the effort to make larger than able to handle groups where we are now socialized toward others as if they were family or tribal members makes for a huge amount of stresses that just overwhelm. Add in that we all through this mass socialization have been steered wrongly away from the very nature that makes us human, our survival instincts built on millennium of survival in more dangerous and chaotic times. Nature moves at its own pace for evolutionary progress and thinking we can force it deals out even more stress. 

Stress equals adrenal stress-effects from the chemical dumps that are triggered more often due to ignorance then needed for survival therefore creating stressors that have never been felt, experienced or dealt with in human history. 

In modern times preconception seems to be at least one aspect of our survival instincts that can be handled then trained into our primal conditioned response system so that our lizard can trigger that memory vs. coming up against no memory leading to great stress. The following quotes provide information about our preconceived survival model:

“Every day we go into life with expectations about how things will occur. These beliefs have an astounding impact on our perceptions of and reactions to the world around us, often times without us even being aware.”

“When we allow these expectations to override our senses (and with them, often our better judgement) we set ourselves up to miss out on an amazing number of opportunities for positive interactions in our lives. And while it’s not necessarily easy to overcome this habit (when are habits ever easy to change), the fundamental principles aren’t that difficult to understand.”
  • First, be conscious of these tendencies and their role in your behavior. At every chance you can, ask yourself, “What do I expect to happen here? Why do I expect that? Could something else happen?” Cultivating awareness is probably the hardest task, as we are so used to simply reacting to things without thought. The simple kinetic act of putting our thoughts on paper can be amazingly illustrative. What sounded perfectly logical in our minds looks absolutely ludicrous once we actually spell it out.
  • Second, work to change the underlying negative scripts that support the beliefs in the first place. When you find yourself saying “My kid always needs my attention. Why can’t they just leave me alone? Can’t they see I need to take care of the other kids?”, try changing it to “Boy, my kid sure does love to spend time with me. How can I let them be a part of what I’m doing while not neglecting the other kids?” Here again, I think writing these thoughts down (both the old and the new) can be a difference maker. Our thoughts hold incredible power over us, so we may as well learn to turn them to our advantage.
“Don’t go through life blindly listening to your own expectations. Examine them, question them, and drop them by the wayside if they aren’t helping you lead a happier, productive life.”

Notes:
  • a preconceived ((of an idea or opinion) formed before having the evidence for its truth or usefulness.) idea or prejudice.
  • our pre conceived thinking affects our attitudes toward people.
  • unconsciously made two prejudicial assumptions.
  • The problem of holding preconceived notions as being true is that they can lead us to very negative and critical beliefs about others and that can affect our behaviors toward others. 
  • characterizing people as all one way or all another is another example of stereotyped thinking that affects how we vote and as well as how we treat other people.
  • it is better to have an open mind about other people and to not allow ourselves to be guided by beliefs founded on stereotypes.

Bibliography (Click the link)



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