It is said that the enemy can be held at bay and under control only by superior clarity, which becomes a skill and a form of strength. Then, even when the enemy is in front of you, their onslaught can be withstood.
You’ve probably heard people say in martial arts “Stay calm under pressure”. The moment you become reactive and powered by stress, you are liable to do something stupid. You also become very forceful immediately. However, when you decide on a clear intention, which you stick with unwaveringly, you organise the mind beforehand. with this clarity in mind, you are not trying to organise, fight off, and adapt all at the same time. The idea is to not be too reactive to the immediate presentation of things, or too under active, but to remain balanced.
You want the lights to be bright enough to see, but not so overstimulating that you forget to even breathe. This is what happens when the system fires up all of a sudden, certain faculties get diminished whereas others supercharge. It is said that the enemy can be held at bay and under control only by superior clarity, which becomes a skill and a form of strength. Then, even when the enemy is in front of you, their onslaught can be withstood. Reactivity to the situation brings one kind of strength. On the other hand, when you bring superior organisation and clarity of thought to the situation, this brings another kind of energy and strength entirely.
Stress triggers activity in the amygdala, the brains survival region. The survival circuits themselves are not designed for intelligent activity, but to initiate fight or flight. in terms of evolution, superior sense comes after survival has been ensured. When it comes to brain functioning, intelligent functioning can only be achieved if the survival circuits are kept within certain parameters. In other words, in an all or nothing survival response, it is beneficial to have some investment in intelligent action. Otherwise, you might over react for no reason other than because this is the only investment you have set in motion.
The work of the martial artists is to maintain their survival instincts within certain parameters, and constantly adjust and attune themselves to the situation as it unfolds in front of them. This means they do not get over reactive or under reactive. For example, when one succumbs to inertia, it is a good idea to do some training and activity. This need not be physical activity, it could simply be making more of an effort to remain attentive and switched on to the environment. Otherwise, without ramping up the system in some way so that it sits within certain parameters, you may be triggered into reactivity by outside events more than is necessary. On the other hand, when one becomes over stimulated, it is a good idea to sit and bring agitation levels down.
Fight or Flight as an Empowered State
The fight or flight response happens in everyone, but it is expressed differently depending on how you handle your own internal situation. If you keep yourself properly maintained, in a balanced and coherent way, then you are able to process everything clearly and take effective action. At the same time you get an injection of energy. Then, there is a good balance between attention and processing, which then gets powered up. You then know what’s going on properly, and you are in a better position to respond accordingly instead of simply reacting. When danger comes, you are then hit with less psychological shock because you see the whole picture clearly, and you are more stable. Let’s see how this works.
If you can grow and swell with the situation as it unfolds, expanding when needed without bursting your banks, you can learn to benefit from high pressure situations.
A person who relies on getting hyped up and stressed at the last minute, is fragile the moment things don’t go their way. Take the example of the boss who leaves everything to the eleventh hour and then bursts into a fit of activity. What should have been done over several hours is done all at once. This is because they have not prepared themselves optimally. On the other hand, if you can grow and swell with the situation as it unfolds, expanding when needed without bursting your banks, you can learn to benefit from high pressure situations. In many ways, this involves broadly assessing the situation without multi tasking and spreading yourself thin, as well as remaining aware but not hyper vigilant. You are then not trying to do everything at once, and do not become hijacked by the survival circuits of the brain. Instead, you remain dominant over the survival circuits, putting them in their rightful place, because other features of the system get powered up.
In terms of martial arts, if you remain balanced you are then much less likely to make poor judgements and make the situation worse. When you keep yourself balanced and regulated, the situation is in your hands, and you can use such situations as a tool for your own development, making better decisions. The additional adrenaline of fight or flight is then like a ball being thrown to you, which you absorb into your hands. Rather than the ball bouncing out of your hands before you absorb it, or fumbling about with it, you just take possession of it. Instead of being taken by surprise, there is a sense of anticipation. At the same time, too much calculation and overthinking actually causes people to miss the ball entirely.
The mind is able to declare that just about anything is a threat to survival, making you unnecessarily reactive to external situations. The survival response is not conditional upon their being an actual serious situation. This explains why people who overthink things, even small matters, can easily blow them out of proportion or miss something vital, even though they become very insistent or forceful. The vital thing they miss may be quite subtle but can make a big difference in the end. This is why it is important to remain attentive and aware of the situation as a whole. Then, you can see that which is not obvious, expanding your sense of the whole as well as the yet unknown. In this infinite game, you carry on noticing more and more in life that you previously didn’t get, broadening your consciousness.
