Tag: self defence

Psychology of the Knife Attack [Part 2]

Posted on by joeharman8 | 12 min read | 120 views

If you saw a wild animal, its image would stay in your mind long after the threat had gone. This becomes a habit sometimes. So there is a tendency to start seeking out that image of the threat, rather than what’s actually in front of you right now. In other words, sometimes the memory of the thing holds more power over you than the reality itself unfolding. The reality of the situation is one of intensity, where every seconds counts. If we can look at it in a detached way, from an outsiders perspective, this becomes tempting and comforting. But this is a simplified reality.

With the knife attack situation as a whole, there is more than just brain activity. For example, if you are attacked with a knife, there is so much going on in that situation which is beyond the brains power to recreate. There is pressure, urgency, and awareness beyond the physical process of the fight. There is increased heart rate and nervous system activity. This makes awareness go up, so that you move beyond the analytical and cognitive stage. This does not mean reduced consciousness. It means that when your mind and body have reached a certain threshold, you break your barriers. So the reality is that you need to break these chains of physical and mental comfort. At this point you make a quantum leap in your perceptions. All of this means that you become supercharged.

When it comes to training, you might well be on passive mode thinking only of going over the superficial aspects, such as technique. All of this is useful, and I don’t discount it. But it is like learning your ABC’s. The body and brain must move beyond awareness of just the technical aspects in order to bring out a super normal potential. When I say super normal, I’m not talking about athletic ability. I’m talking about an effort which can only be achieved once you push the limits of what you can do.

So it is as if you are a different person in each situation. One aspect of you is sat in the lab, looking over the data and dissecting it. “This is the correct way to defend against the knife”. The other part of yourself has to work and apply. When you work and apply yourself you get tired. This is necessary, but it looks like a mistake. When you get tired, if you learn not to panic, this can be a tremendous energy. If you lose control of the fire within when you get tired, then it becomes a struggle. So it isa not about avoiding the fatigue of a ferocious exchange.

When two individuals are engaged in combat, there is no way they can avoid getting tired. In order for the full extent of the energies to be released, you need to break certain barriers. This can be demonstrated scientifically. When you sprint up a hill, the muscles get tired and the resources get pooled into the breathing muscles, such as the abdomen, diaphragm, and internal core. This is a good thing, because you are then energising the organs, and becoming increasingly aware of the internal side of mental and physical effort. You are then acting from within, which means you are more centred rather than peripherally aware. You even begin to physically move from an internal centre.

Behind the Mirror

The mind can only act as a mirror, projecting what has some image of what’s happened in the past. This is not reality. viewing things from the point of view of the mirror, of course the situation seems so much different than when you were in it for real. So if you were focusing on just the the memory itself, the mirror, you might tend to discount the forthcoming impressions from the environment in the present moment, the internal registers signals. This saw what I call moving beyond the mirror, or behind what it presents. If you never become tired, training in a way that you just go through the motions, you tend to avoid reaching this awareness and succumb to illusion. The present moment is what draws fourth the energy to respond successfully, because it is a full blown reality rather than an imagined picture of one presented by the mirror image.

So memory isn’t a replacement for experience right now, it just allows you to become familiar with a new situation because you can recall as similar one from memory. In this way memory triggers certain reactions rather than forming a reality. You can’t imagine in the mind something you haven’t yet experienced, only what you already know. This is memory, which can also be used to create an imagined future out of the past. Playing over in your head what you already know is useful but limited in many ways, because the reality of each situation in front of you is new each time even if looks similar. This is why it is crucial to stay switched on to possibilities, rather than utterly sure of things.

The body as a whole knows more about what to do than the mind can make out if it is going by visual memory. as we have seen, there are sorts of internal realities going on that get ignored if we are just looking in the mirror. So the visual memory can only see what has happened, not what is about to happen. That has to be experienced. The body as a whole, including the awareness and intuitive sense knows more about what has yet to happen. The mind resists this in many ways, because it is so sure of how everything should look superficially. It makes you tired and responsive to an emergency, because this sense of urgency is needed to awaken your full potential. This includes the potential of the brain too, in order for senses to be heightened.

Imagined practice

So even if you are mentally rehearsing the experience of a knife attack, practice should seek to resemble what happens in real time, which means planning for the unexpected. It is the unexpected which wakes up your attention, and the memory which familiarises you to what has happened before. The sense of what has happened in the past, memory, awakens the possibilities for action right now. This is evolution unfolding in the moment. Otherwise, what has happened in the past takes over and you don’t make that quantum leap.

The brain can become aware of what is happening know, in other words, it can operate alongside but also beyond memory. It is like if you suddenly lose your temper at somebody, it is as if someone else is acting through you, yet you are aware of some memory of yourself who wouldn’t act like this. So it is about taking responsibility for your actions, whilst accepting that is not what you would do with a cool head. What do I mean by responsibility? Simply that you will be behaving differently under states of increased energy and agitation, and to develop awareness and necessary experience of this when needed. This does not mean you become an animal willingly. No, it means that if you leave the body and mind to its own devices, you tend to just go into berserker mode or shut down in a fight. Do you want to be at the mercy of these things? Then all you need to do is work at it. This is why developing the right level of temperance and self discipline is the real lesson of martial arts.

Proper response

When you are attacked by a knife, the right response is crucial. It is like when you go and serve a customer as a shop assistant. You go through the motions, saying this and saying that, picking up the body language and working the sales floor. You are looking for the sale, and when it comes it’s not in the least bit surprising and you don’t react to it like its a surprise. You are open to the real possibilities rather than just projecting you own ideas into the situation. you have a catalogue of sales pitches, based on memory, but apply them differently each time. Everything from the tone of voice, the projection of self assurance, etc., goes into the sale. Of course, you can pressure sell, but this is really creating a need rather than responding to one. This is the equivalent of selling by memory, you already have an idea and then you force it on the present situation. This is one way of dealing with things.

When you respond to the need to pay more attention you perceive a wider reality. In the same way you can pressure a knife attacker by acting aggressively, because you know from memory how dangerous a knife is. But often this is just a way of triggering the very event you are looking to avoid, by creating a certain tension in the air. In this way, you project the past into the future and repeat it. It’s not a question of wether you should worry about knife attacks or not, there is only physiological responses occurring which you chose to pay attention to or not. These physical responses give rise to possibilities, so they are not to be ignored. At the same time, they have nothing to do with what needs to happen or the energy that can be created by these initial states which we call apprehension, anger, or anxiety. These are transient states which come and go.

One person ignores the internal signals, and acts with reckless abandon, overcoming the attack. Another person freaks out and becomes powerless. So the state someone gets in is good for one person and bad for another. It’s not the deciding factor. What is the deciding factor? It’s whether you fight back or not, whether you act as a fighter or not. This does not mean reacting physically all the time. You can experience all these things and choose not to react, based on intelligence. You have experienced the same thing as a reactive person, and yet you have created a new experience out of it.

Full awareness

The only thing to remember is stay switched on and alive because only then are you working at full capacity. If you are at full capacity and awareness, many options are open to you that in theory aren’t possible. You then ensure your own survival. It is not that you haven’t trained how to defend a particular attack that you don’t defend it. This is just a story you tell yourself if you lack the determination and self knowledge to move beyond limitations. How do you know that the knife attack isn’t jump starting you into a full blown experience of life which is just laying dormant? In other words, it could easily be you that is the barrier to understanding rather than the situation being inherently hopeless. Many people have seen situations of extreme intensity as a revival of their awareness that they weren’t conscious of but was already there. It is within all of us to reach this state and become awakened rather than triggered.

So what about the environment of the knife attack? Staying with the analogy of the shop assistant, each customer is different, and as you develop an understanding, you realise that each customer is there due to a particular need. You begin to spot the types who are receptive to sales, as well the ones who aren’t. In a similar way, spotting a potential threat, such as a knife carrier, is a little bit like this. You become aware of the environment and selectively respond to those who look out of place by choosing a certain course of action. Just as you would pick an appropriate person to sell a product to in a shop, you do the same when selecting someone who looks edgy or aggressive. Internally you get a feel the more you become aware and the more you pay attention to these aspects in the street or elsewhere.

Do you cross the street? Is it too late to do anything other than fight back? These are all the questions surrounding what to do. You do what needs to be done in that moment, and rather than reacting to it you make a positive action, because you have increased your awareness of the situation as a whole. It then doesn’t matter if you see an attacker or not because you have fully responded to the environment and got the most out of it anyway. What does it matter if you don’t confront somebody? You have responded not only as necessary but fully. This is the real victory, and the response of heightened awareness, whatever the outcome.

So wether you see an attack or not is not the point. You just respond equally to the situation wether an attack is there or not, with full awareness. It is no good being told when to become aware, because this is selective awareness. So the choice becomes yours once you are in a certain seeking mode. Otherwise your just reacting to things as they pop up. So just look. Not with tension, but easeful awareness. If you chose not to act, by seeing a situation as harmless, this is a positive action and an informed choice rather than one of unawareness and non activity. If you have to fight then you do so with full awareness.

Psychology of the Knife attack [Part 1]

Posted on by joeharman8 | 13 min read | 124 views

Many people talk about the need for effective knife defence. There are numerous exercises which can be done against armed attackers. For instance, the guy attacks you with a knife, you do certain move, he drops the knife, and you win the exchange. Obviously it isn’t that simple, but you get the idea. There are many of these exercises out there, and there’s nothing wrong with these exercises, as they demonstrate possible scenarios. Here, scenarios may or may not happen in real life, and you go through them in a step by step fashion during particular exercises. During these drills and exercises, the the particular external scenario is bringing out the effort. However, there is another aspect which is often overlooked, and that is the energy you bring to the situation, which can be internally driven. There is no reason energy should be triggered externally, because it is simply the basis of existence rather than some allowance given by an event.

The knife attack happens externally according to time, but your response to it is internally driven. The whole event is like a wave, it rises and recedes, and you ride the wave. The energy to ride the wave, the internal energy, happens in this very moment, if you are willing. So when you ride the wave there is a certain amount of energy that needs to be there before it rises to the peak. It is not just a case of technically planning what you will do to ride the wave. You cannot plan what to do in response to energy, you have to have an absence of preconceptions to divert your energy towards awareness and away from cognition. Of course cognition happens in training, which is low stakes, but becomes increasingly irrelevant at the peak of the wave. The peak of the wave involves vast awareness, the cognitive aspect of planning and over thinking was a brief aspect of this activity.

Say you walk into a busy bar. The energy hits you in the face first of all, and then you talk to the barman and shout across the counter what drink you want. At no point is there a guarantee that you will be heard, or that someone won’t jump in front of you with their order. all this requires situational awareness. You are not planning to argue with people or shout loudly over and over again. It is like that in any emergency situation, including knife defence. You are not actually planning to endure attacks and argue with an assailant. Instead you are looking to minimise this activity by increasing your awareness. At the same time, you do what needs to be done having become increasingly aware of your possibilities to respond.

If you walked up to the bar totally switched off, you would suddenly have to switch on and also shout across the bar to order a drink in a coherent way. During all this you would probably not have time to think of your order, and would hesitate. Many people experience this kind of anxiety, because they are not used to the hustle and bustle of the bar. In the same way, people imagine as though a knife just appears out of nowhere in front of them. Knife attackers are generally drawn to certain situations of high volatility or energy. It’s like a drug addict. You would generally find them out at night near a bar somewhere. Both are not really in tune with the environment, because it is one of chaos generally. So they are clinging to a knife, or a drug, or both. This volatile clinging, rather than relationship of mastery over the weapon, means anything can happen. In broad daylight their behaviour would be so obvious from a mile off, that you would know something wasn’t right. Obviously they would be even more dangerous here, as they would stick out more and feel less secure. However, your internal apparatus would alert you due to the contrast of peace in the environment, with the erratic behaviour of a potential attacker. So awareness is crucial.

When you try to defend the knife purely reactively, without being prepared and alert to the environment, then things happen in a state of fear. The fear gives you a boost of energy in that moment, a certain agitation which gives you a nervous energy. But this is not yet energy at its higher potential. I’m not against fear, it’s perfectly good, and it is perfectly normal in a life or death situation, but it isn’t something to look for, it is more a brief happening and something to become aware of more broadly. It gives the signal that you need to act. If the battery on your phone told you the power was low, you could go on using it at limited power or you could go and charge it up. The mind and body connection is similar, there are various cue and signals which tell you to become energised and attentive to the environment at key times, and to charge up ready.

Even when you are alert to the knife, you know it’s coming, and yet it still takes you by surprise. So to have confidence that if you just rely on some kind of technique, and just like that it will work, is not realistic. Not without the right level of energy awareness. When one is attacked by a knife, there is no necessary set up or end point of execution. It come can from anywhere at any time during an altercation. For example, if you hold the attack on the floor, all they need to do is poke you slightly at a key moment. This is why it is imperative to secure the knife arm. Therefore, what might happen isn’t predictable like an exercise. For example, with the boxers punch there is an initial set up and an execution. Boxers are trained to look for this and react. Because of the gloves or blunted fist, it is necessary to develop a certain amount of velocity in the swing for it to do damage. This takes a bit of time, giving the other guy time to react. Not so with the knife, it can be within an inch of the target quickly without much force, and still cause serious damage.

Situational awareness is crucial in knife defence. This involves becoming aware of the environment you are in, picking up the subtle cues. It is more effective to take notice of the entire environment than just the moves you might do inside of it. Obviously, this involves intensely focusing on one thing, the knife. But this focus is part of a larger whole, the eye of the storm. It is not necessary to go straight to the eye of the storm just because you know its on the horizon. This isn’t logical. So, remaining aware of everything whilst focusing on one thing, the knife – the eye of the storm, is not contradictory.

When a bird fly’s at your head, you pick it up peripherally as you sense it swooping in. Your focus is due to overall awareness. If you were not aware of the environment, it could be a bomb flying at your head, or just about anything. You then begin to fear just about anything! However, awareness that you are outside in the countryside, or wherever, gives you the knowledge that it is likely a bird flying past. Same with sport. If you’re on the football pitch, the looming object coming at you is going to be a ball. This gives a level of security that allows you to move beyond fear. At the same time, you are not just a spectator looking for the ball, you are a part of the game and understanding of what to do comes from within that game. Here, there is a totally different understanding from the spectator.

In this way your awareness narrows when it needs to, and requires no effort on your part because you are involved in the game. If you try to focus on something far away and not in your immediate vicinity and experience, this requires mental effort and you become more of a spectator. The spectator is free to analyse, but they are not in the game. However, because you are aware of the game, because the knife situation is there in front of you, there is no mental effort required, just total awareness of the urgency required to deal with the knife. Mental effort will then match the perceived urgency. Everything else just kicks in and you do what’s is needed. Even better if you do so after the training and exercises have been practiced. I’m not saying just be aware and stop training, the training is a support system which will never work without the right kind of awareness to reality.

If you try to focus on everything at once, what the attacker is saying, what type of blade they have, all these details, then this becomes a mental strain. Energy has to come from somewhere, and if attention is directed towards details at the wrong time, then response time and awareness goes down. It’s simple economics. You develop a muscle memory in training, rather than trying to acquire iron the street. If a football player tried to focus on on the football as it flew towards them, rather than orientating themselves on the pitch in the right position in anticipation, then all sorts of decisions would need to take place when they should be responding to the ball as needed. The right position, the anticipation, the positioning, all this takes place before the ball is in the air. So initially, you remain aware, ready to pick up certain environmental cues before focusing and deciding what to do.

With situational awareness, you are switched on the moment you step out of the door or into a particular environment. This is not something that any creature on Earth, other than the human being, has trouble with. The reasons for this is that humans are more cognitively advanced than other animals. Obviously, this has its advantages, but like any technology it can be mishandled. When people used to enter the coal mines, they took canaries with them, who would start to hyperventilate and become agitated if carbon monoxide was in the air. In the same way, the highly aware individual starts to sense signs in the environment before its too late. The problem is that human beings have become increasingly switched off from their environment, and they often dull their consciousness of the environment with drugs or alcohol. This is the equivalent to the canary in the cage being dead and still going into the mine.

So when you are aware, you are perpetually unsure. When the Batsmans is hitting the cricket ball, the bowler could throw any kind of bowl. Uncertainty and remaining aware to the possibilities is a must. Instead of being unsure and yet highly aware, many people have got for the self assurance of practicing scenarios and drilling them into their memory. This gives people a certain comfort and security. There’s nothing wrong with this, its valid training. They then play these over in different ways, hoping that it will amount to certainty. One of these scenarios might resemble the reality of a knife attack one day, but even then the resemblance isn’t an exactness. This drilling of scenarios is a back up system, a summary of what needs to take place at best. It is meant to keep the mind and body engaged during periods of inactivity, not as a replacement for activity within the environment or awareness of it unfolding in unpredictable ways.

So people sense they need to become more involved in situational awareness. Situational awareness is not like hyper vigilance. hyper vigilance is an excessive concentration and attention towards the early warning signs so that they become projected into the present moment. Awareness is the present moment as a whole. Memory of the past is an aspect of this. So, early warning signs are a fragment of reality, indicators of potential threat, which then manifests in front of you. So focusing only on the potential threat, or the fear of it, is a halfway house. And people build up all sorts of defence mechanisms against perceiveed threat. Have you noticed that when you face a situation of stress, after a few moments or minutes, the anxiety of the situation tends to wear off if you see it through? It is like if you start walking up a flight of stairs. At first you are tired, and then the body acclimatises. You just get better acclimatised, you don’t stop preparing for activity. Those familiar with exercise know this, however many people mistake the tiredness of the initial stage as the final outcome. Similarly, film stars know that as soon as they have gotten past any on stage initial nerves, they soon feel more confident.

The problem is that when people focus on these indicators of threat, rather than the situation as a whole, then that becomes the scope they view the whole world from. This is what leads to living in fear. Never get comfortable with fear, because it is a brief happening. Not only that, but at a certain stage of the journey it takes on a huge sphere of relevance, which gradually recedes over time. Fear is an intense feeling which breeds a lot of attachment to it, like a teddy bear that if it is held on to for too long just becomes a source of insecurity rather than strength. So depending on your level of attachment to fear or anger, it becomes either a vast experience or a smaller one. Both fear and anger can be tremendous sources of energy in the right hands, because they are so intense. The problem is when the source doesn’t lead anywhere else, it doesn’t reach maturity. The maturity I’m talking about is converting this intense bio chemical feeling into an energy form.

Whilst it is possible to act in fear, it is not a goal in itself. However, the instinctive reactions to threat are like a mirror of what’s happening. The mirror reflects light but it isn’t the light itself at the source. In the same way, the feelings of fear represent an aspect of energy which isn’t yet energy. So fear is also like a seed, which when triggered into action, sprouts into tree which is actually nothing like the original form. And yet, they are of the same source. All that has happened is that the limited has turned less limited. So with fear, it has to be accepted and responded to sensibly, rather than letting it drive and take over. This doesn’t change whether it is a knife or any other situation, because it is all dependant on you and the meaning you create for the situation within, which is your business. So I don’t want to go into which techniques are the best, because there are thousands of videos online and classes to attend, all with their own pros and cons.

Stick Work

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 5 min read | 103 views

When working with weapons it is often better to practice the movements and actions around a target, articulating the joints and paying close attention to your every move. In this way you will be able to intuitively build a strong understanding of attack and defence by thinking consciously about your every subtle movement. But you have to be fully engaged, not thinking about smashing the thing to pieces, otherwise you will not be aware of the subtle movements. During inner Martial Arts practice we should realise that we already know how to do these things, it’s just a case of concentrating and genuinely feeling these movements and skills so that we manifest this understanding.

If you are simply seeking to smash the other person, you may well achieve your aim, but this is not to your own benefit. Personally I hold on to the idea in my minds eye that I am a living light, trying to illuminate the target, or forces of darkness. This can inspire the most attentive and inspired behaviours so that ones actions converge towards the highest ideal of perfection. But this is a very delicate point, do not confuse and delude yourself into think of yourself as a figure of light physically speaking, it is a mental tool.

You will find that by using this method you will awaken and stimulate skills and techniques which would otherwise remain dormant, even with extensive technical training. This is because we need a high ideal, and a simple symbol of power to surpass ourselves, which is often more effective than accumulating scars of lifeless information1. In other words to fully absorb ourselves in work, it is better to relate ourselves not according to our physical capabilities and limitations, but our creative imagination. You might say “What a load of rubbish, I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous”. You are free to think that and I wouldn’t blame you. However feel free to try it for yourself as I have no reason to deceive anyone.

It is better to concentrate fully on the task at hand, and then if you can put it into safe practice with a partner. Too often the partner drills lack any real intuition and freestyle improvised flow. These aren’t always conditions where your keen senses really develop, because you either get whipped up into a rage when hit by the other person or the exercise becomes dull and predictable. If you have a good training partner then great, but the subtle side of martial Arts requires relative silence from chaotic environments and concentration on the inner forces. In other words, this is where the lessons are learnt which will enable you to handle chaos2.

Obviously live sparring can be beneficial. But at the same time the inner attitude and philosophy is neglected so that the person engaging in such activities actually ends up more tense and taking things personally, when in fact it isn’t about winning some contest of drill. I only advise engaging in partner drills of this kind when it is clear there is no pride on the line, as pride is the most difficult enemy to overcome. Lots of people engaging in these activities say that they are humble but the way they go about training often betrays the fact they they are training their pride and vanity, which when active simply takes up all their concentration. They may pound other into the dust but in their ignorance they’ve stunted their development.

Only train with others if you think it will benefit your development. Otherwise it’s likely that your so called training partner will just undermine the exercise by letting the chaotic forces within them ruin the spirit of the activity. From my point of view, any training should seek to reduce the influence of vanity and pride by working on concentration, intensity, and inner understanding, and under those conditions your abilities will emerge triumphantly.

So move around the target, imaginary or otherwise, fully concentrating and immersing yourself in the subtle movements which are demanded of you to keep centred and connected to the activity. Keep this connection and you will find that you flow and understand the movements contained within the work you are performing. Each time you go back to this, your understanding will increase. Why stop there? every instance of the day is an activity to engage in exercise, by contemplating and mindfully practicing anything from lidting a chair, to holding a cup, from breathing to thinking.

It is not important to think only about the weapon. You will make all sorts of other connections by applying the principles learnt from weapon fighting to say, boxing. From knowing how to use a weapon you will better be able to use your hands more generally, and vice versa. Having the right attitude and perspective will allow everything to converge, so that even though you are practicing one thing, it represents everything else. This is worth contemplating.

Stick Fighting and Boxing Example
Stick Practice

References

1 The High Ideal https://harmanater.com/2020/07/26/the-high-ideal/

2 Live in Harmony, Fight in Chaos https://harmanater.com/2020/07/12/fight-chaos-live-in-harmony/

The Straight

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 1 min read | 83 views

The Straight Right, as it’s called, isn’t thrown often because it has potential to swing you off balance.

Throw it like you would thrust s spear, you would jab it through the target from distance and without being taken of balance. This is a powerful symbol to work with.

Generally speaking you keep it tight, and pivot the body into the strike so that the arm is the last to actually extend. This ensures balance.

Steve Morris recommends turning the body so that you are punching outwards, like the extension of a wing. another helpful analogy.

Identifying Aggressors.

Posted on by joeharman8 | 9 min read | 120 views

People often ask “How do I recognise the attacker in the street?”. What I do is look at the way people walk, listen to their voice, what they are doing with their hands, and then I can get an idea of whether they are a threat. I don’t bother looking at their contrived actions, and their and carefully studied demeanour. No, instead I look for the almost imperceptible impressions he gives off. For example the unconscious movements he makes with his eyes, mouth and head – because this is where people betray themselves. By knowing what to look for, you can therefore avoid being fooled. The tiniest detail is often the most revealing, and most of the time people don’t study themselves adequately to work on these things.

It is unlikely that someone who has studied their demeanour, and the impression they make on others, will allow themselves to lose control. This would only put them in danger on the street. This is why young and naive people are often the aggressors: They don’t have the experience and wisdom to conceal and overcome their natural inclinations. Or to put it differently, they waste a lot of energy on unproductive behaviour.

The strongest individuals will know how to work on their aggressive tendencies and won’t waste their time on pointless exchanges with others. Yes, the most courageous heroic individuals have within them the same monstrous tendencies as violent attackers1. Aggression is very normal, but it is expressed differently depending on the person. If you are inwardly strong you do not need to show off about it, and if you need to show off you are not inwardly strong.

Knowing that people only look at appearances only, many weak and insecure people strut around arrogantly creating hostility wherever they go. This is a tell tale sign of weakness. It is only an outward appearance of self confidence, inwardly they are children who are accomplishing nothing. And of course, children can be dangerous too. Whilst these types are dangerous if, say, you bump into to them drunk on the street out with your family, then of course it is difficult to get everyone to safety and you may be forced to stand your ground. Unfortunately these situations occur relatively frequently, because opportunistic predators often strike when an individual is with vulnerable others. However, I do not wish to talk about that, because any number of martial arts publications deal with what to do practically. In fact this is all they seem to deal with. Although it is an important subject, I instead want to talk about intuitively knowing what will happen in certain situations according to the laws of human nature.

What I am mainly concerned with is identifying a dangerous attacker in somebody who is seeking to take the scalp, symbolically speaking, of someone equal to themselves. Why do people pick on those who are protecting or associating with the weak? Because they know such a persons forces can be divided, between watching over those they are protecting, and fighting off the aggressor. It is a tactic of divide and conquer. So if you want to avoid such a situation my only advice is to be very careful not to attract attention to yourself. Do not let pride get in the way.

As an exercise, whenever you are out and about get a general feel of the area. Is there a sense of tension in the air? Are the people walking around aimlessly creating a general environment of listlessness? Then avoid these places and don’t come back there with people under your protection. These environments attract seemingly pleasant people, but their is nothing to nourish their better nature. Instead, go somewhere out the way, into the countryside, or a slightly more expensive venue. The behaviourally unsophisticated have no taste for these place and don’t know how to operate in them. These are by no means insignificant details.

Many people visit areas and places which attract maggots, vermin, and wild animals, figuratively speaking. Here, they expect to find enjoyment and pleasure. However, they inevitably find trouble. In these dumping grounds which warehouse all sorts of vagrants and idiots (so that they don’t pour onto the street) – trouble is just around the corner. You have been warned. Develop a habit of avoiding these places if you want to be be able to remain at ease when you are outside. The people might seem pleasant enough, but actually in say, a nightclub, there cruelty and instinctive calculations become apparent after a few drinks.

Do not suppose you can come out unsoiled from places like the nightclub on a Friday night. People who are usually sensible and strong willed have got themselves dragged into a fight. It only takes a moment of bad judgement. People smash glasses, slap each other, bump into everything, without ever noticing what effect this has on their own inner condition and others around them. Well, I can only say that it causes great disturbance, whether people are conscious of it or not, and makes them resentful, annoyed, and grudging. People think they can’t do without these places, but it only takes a few years of practice to and you will no longer feel the same way.

As an exercise, start by going whilst not drinking and you will realise that people get drunk precisely because of the foul atmosphere and coarse attitudes of the people in there. By all means drink if you like, a glass of wine never did anyone any harm. People often notice that by doing this they come away tense due to all the meaningless blather that comes out of peoples mouths, which resembles the sound of a machine gun. Then of course they go back to heavy drinking. Instead if you avoid these places, after a few years you may well realise you’re better of without them.

All that needs to be said is that if you associate in bars and night clubs with people looking to ‘lose themselves’ then that is exactly what they will do. In other words, the level of consciousness going on in these places is very low and therefore peoples behaviour is volatile from one moment to the next. There is no doubt that people are looking for fun in these places, but instead what you get is a lot of people groping around miserably, which sours the atmosphere. If you sleep with a dog, you are likely to get fleas. In the same way, if you hang around in many of the nighclubs and bars out there, you are likely to have your state of mind changed to suit the environment and you will no longer be thinking lucidly.

A man spills the pint of another man who blames him for spilling it. The first man insists it was the other guys fault. Neither backs down and hostilities begin. There is beer on the floor, people everywhere, and one wrong move can result in splitting your head open on the hard floor. If it goes to the floor in a wrestling match, other members of the group will pile in smashing bottles and trying to kick your head in. The bouncers will not discriminate, and will often act violently towards the two parties. I have seen this many times, as men on the doors will often look to gain their stripes any way they can. An observer looking at the scene impartially would realise that the two men were collaborating in the same task: A competition to see who was the toughest.

Once you set a scene in motion the consequences are then out of your control. In the above example a 50/50 fight begins. It doesn’t matter what your training is, you are embroiled in a fight which can only work to your disadvantage. You may think you are entirely in the right but that just shows how ignorant you are. When we look at the causal mechanisms of a fight it involves two forces colliding. If you want to take control of the situation I suggest taking the role of the impartial observer and you will see that you can transform a bad situation into a good one by rising above it. Walk away.

As long as people think in terms of beating the aggressor with violence they will never be capable of transforming the situation into a good one. They will continue to give off arrogant glances and signals to other violent individuals, all the while supposing they had nothing to do with the fight when it kicks off. And then situations of this kind will torment them wherever they go. It is they themselves who have given this evil in others power over them. I hope this is quite clear, that you only need to work on yourself principally to stop the aggressor. In other words, by seeing violence as something independent of their influence, they have availed themselves of the means to pre-empt it. It is only because martial arts training has become so lifeless and without philosophy that there is no one to remind them of this fact.

The problem is that many people are ashamed of themselves for not fighting back or crushing the opposition. But it is because they fight without intelligence. If you have a philosophy of doing whats morally right and watching the signals you give off to others, you will act with confidence and assurance. You will know you did everything you could to avoid calamity. On the other hand, rubbing people the wrong way and giving off arrogant gestures tends to make you feel discouraged and lacking in inner confidence. Morality is considered so old fashioned that nobody bothers with it. But actually, the moral teachings in martial arts are designed as a practical guide to developing will power and courage. One of the main reasons martial arts is so ineffectual today in peoples lives is that it lacks this moral fibre.

References

1 See Strength of weakness https://harmanater.com/2020/03/12/strength-of-weakness/

High Intensity Work and Balance

Posted on by joeharman8 | 9 min read | 134 views

One of the reasons for training is to develop strength and power through high intensity work. However it is often the case that those engaged in high intensity work completely over do it. High intensity work, by which I mean 100% effort, is actually a kind of stress on the body. But it does you good if it is performed in short bursts over a small time period. For example, a one hundred metre sprint takes an athlete just over, say ten seconds. However they would not do this over and over again or for much longer than ten seconds. And for good reason – it is hugely taxing on the body.

Now the most important aspect of fitness is health, or harmony within the body. In other words your strength, endurance, energy levels, and all other aspects of health should all be in accord. This is all achieved by living sensibly and actively. High intensity work improves your capacity to do this. Unfortunately, many people are completely out of tune with health, and have instead bolstered some aspects of fitness at the expense of overall health. This lack of balance eventually leads to wear and tear and a decline in capabilities. And therefore health. It is therefore wise to take care of all this before injury occurs and health declines.

What I do is, whenever I train I try to reach my highest intensity of work by doing no more than a few minutes on the heavy bag. I go for intensity over duration, and in short bursts. For example, I might do a minute or so and then rest, and then go for it again. Of course I warm up a bit and practice a few concepts and skills before getting to work. I then do all sorts of things like walking, everyday activities like gardening, and breathing exercises, sport, etc., to fill the day. Once again, high intensity work, or a short duration, improves my capacity to do everything else. You might say “Only a minute? That’s nothing, professionals do twelve 3 minute rounds!”.

Yes, I admit I’m nowhere near the fitness levels of some athletes, and I tell myself the same thing daily, as I am just as concerned as anyone of still not attaining my goals This forces me to work twice, or three times as hard within a small time frame, because I have other things to do. To do huge quantities of low level work is easy, to condense this down is another matter. All those people who want to be champions of this or that are obliged to push themselves towards performing huge amounts of intense work that can’t be maintained. They may get away with it for a while, but not for long. Of course they limit themselves and stagnate eventually, by getting worn out. And yet these are the people who everyone looks to for advice!

Many people talk of having survived life threatening situations, but I wonder how many of them have any idea of how to train for the urgency required. Having been in these situations myself, I can tell you that the experience is so intense and only lasts a few seconds before things get life threatening and you are killed. So I train to condense everything down to this time frame. Yes, you must condense it all down to a smaller time frame to increase the demand for quick decisive action. However nobody does this, or thinks its beneficial. Instead they go about doing whatever every other Tom, Dick, or Harry are doing.

It is situations of extreme urgency which give you the intense desire to change and improve the mundane training practices adopted by the many. Perhaps quite a few experience this, perhaps without analysing it much, but they often abandon their new found motivation after a day or two.

If you cannot devote as much time to training as a professional athlete, or you think you’re not any good, you must try to achieve the same intensity of work. And then you will be able to achieve the same output as someone else who has more time to devote to one thing at the expense of everything else. Yes, you might not have the same capacity for repetitive work in one narrow discipline, but you will be able to work at the same intensity. Intensity is what counts. This is important because you will gain the same benefits of strength, and power.

The health benefits that come from high intensity work are numerous. Increased defence against disease, more vitality, higher energy levels, etc., but don’t over do it, because it will wear you down. It’s not enough to “leave it all in the gym” and then flop in front of the sofa. No, that just means you have stripped yourself of energy and probably lowered your immune systems defences. Instead go for quality over quantity. That way the high intensity work will increase the body’s demand for energy, which sets the ground for increased health. There will therefore be an increased supply of beneficial forces acting on the body’s capabilities, preparing it for greater work. It’s an inescapable cause and effect process.

As soon as you go beyond your limits in an attempt to go do what you’re not capable of doing, things fall apart. You pay the price, in injury or burnout. What else can be expected? Many people try to “push through” when they “hit a wall”, and at this point they’re not even interested really. Sapped of energy they lose motivation, which carries on to the next session, and the one after that. They then come to associate hard work with depletion of reserves and boredom. In that case walk away and come back to it another time revitalised. The only reason Martial arts becomes boring is because people lose motivation in this way. They practice for hours on end when they should have looked after their health and developed themselves before even attempting high intensity work. Instead they jump straight in!

And things often go from bad to worse. Training is increasingly moving away from a more balanced approach, and people are become more driven to overdo everything, whilst achieving nothing. Wherever you look people are mimicking some guru who insists they go beyond their limits. What usually happens of course is that people work at a very low intensity, because they have run out of energy. And then no amount of work can replace the energy which is not given time to replenish. They are forced to work at a slovenly pace because they haven’t put in the real work of maintaining health and balance. They are then congratulated for at least giving it a good go.

Don’t bother focusing on some magic exercise programme to do the work for you. There is no secret technique or wise sage to do this work for you. Focus on intensity, and then in one stroke you will have achieved health benefits as well as power and fitness. Sure you won’t be as big as some people in the gym, who, in any case are usually fatter than they are muscular, but you will be on the right track. And don’t bother learning loads of combinations in the hope that you can then perform them quickly with no effort. It can’t be done, and takes much too long, a whole lifetime would not be enough time to learn everything bit bit bit. You would have to pick one discipline, learn all the moves, and the other indispensable techniques would be neglected.

This is what I do: I don’t bother increasing my fitness by doing boxing combinations, and then Muay Thai drills, etc., it would be a waste of time. I’m interested only in intensity. I perform the basic skills, and sometimes I go over them more slowly and deliberately, but if my only goal is to work at one hundred percent effort, this forces me to put together any number of combinations within a very small time frame seamlessly. It happens naturally if the desire is there. This forces me to pick out the most important skills because every second counts. Just try being fast and powerful if you are exhausted and fatigued, you won’t succeed. And for no other reason than because you tried to push beyond your limits for too long.

I would leave all skills practice more or less alone. Don’t bother with the drills anymore, at least when doing high intensity work. “How can you give such bad advice”. Whilst no martial arts expert would advise this, I am a generalist, and therefore we aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet. Take a few moves here and there by all means, but son’t suppose you will perform them well without intent to work at one hundred percent effort. I cannot stress this enough, you must be intent on supply maximum effort. The technique will then take care of itself. Obviously there are people who don’t do this and still do well, but they could do better.

People often say to me “I used to do boxing”, or “I used to be good at such and such a martial art, but today I’m injured and don’t have the time”. The reason is that you devoted too much time to the wrong thing. I remember reading that Steve Morris, who is in a league of his own when it comes to martial arts, said that he thinks “intensity intensity intensity”. And that he trains for a few minutes at a time at maximum intensity. There you have it. Instead people get addicted to drudge work, which eventually erodes away their abilities, because it’s not intelligent work.

Instead you should accept that intensity boosts your bodies defences and increases its durability. This is self defence against the greater enemies of overwork, burnout and stagnation. So what I recommend is to do all the exercises you want but focus on intensity within a short time frame. High intensity effort and work is the force that will boost all your capabilities to do all the other exercises. It is as if your body collective system says “We need to up our game!”. And then the adaptation to greater challenge takes places as time goes on. That is provided it is given proper rest afterwards and isn’t pushed beyond its capabilities too far or for too long.

The Skill is not separate from Work and Contemplation.

Posted on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 114 views

Many people believe that if they practice the right skill a few times, such as a punch, then they will simply have it at their disposal. And if a teacher fails to give them the right instruction they go off and find a better one. If the instructor doesn’t have the right paperwork they are ignored. The problem with this attitude is that it robs the student of the only resource that matters: themselves. In fact, if you go about practice the right way, working hard and honestly, even if you didn’t plan to be very good success will be unavoidable. You bring it on yourself through cause and effect. What the Martial arts community thinks of you is then of no real interest.

The skill is only a small reflection of the reality behind it. It is the outer appearance of the inner evolution, and present form, that appears on the outside of a fighter. It is this attitude that should be embodied. I don’t wish to spend time instructing others on the “technique” aspect, as you can find all the details you want everywhere. However, what is often missed is the spirit of perseverance, overcoming adversity, time and effort spent, etc., which are all inseparable from the physical manifestation of any punch, kick, throw, or whatever. Like a shoot from a seed, the seed must be planted in fertile soil otherwise it cannot take root and flower. The fertile soil, symbolically speaking, is the mental attitude and work.

When a fighter “effortlessly” Ko’s an opponent, it is often imagined that he did it easily. Or when they are “super fit”, people think that this grace and physical prowess are obtained through some kind of external fitness program. However, as I have explained before, the skills that can be acquired from instruction are mainly superficial aspects. The source comes from within the fighter 1. It is this source of motivation and drive that you must aspire to work with, rather than have someone else manipulate your energies from the outside. Of course, if a coach or teacher has your best interests at heart, and knows how to bring only the best out of you, by all means allow them to work on you. However this is often not the case.

The inner states, such as motivation and energies, are the essential ingredients, the factors that count. The various expressions of these, such as specific skills, I have called non essential, because their form changes, and in any case is context dependant. Form is therefore unreliable as a source in itself. Focus on what is essential, the driving force. You might say “That isn’t fun, and it takes to long without all the answers given to me”. How do you know that? If people worked on themselves diligently and took their time to acquire knowledge and experience, rather than rushing towards mediocrity, they would be amazed at the discoveries they make. The work is too hard, supposedly, but because so many people don’t bother working hard to to think for themselves they lack all inspiration to go very far.

People argue about and try to imitate the perfect from. They work for years imitating a tiger, crane, or professional fighter, and end up exhausted and injured from copying these superficial aspects. They have never been taught that is is important to use these things as a guide only, or if they are to identify with them it should be in the spirit of full commitment rather than passive observation. It is far more important to maximise motivation and health by pursuing what matters, or the meaning behind performance. Neither moves nor world title belts are responsible for this. In other words, it is essential to embody the work that goes behind achieving any great goal.

Specific skills are the peripheral details, the mere expressions, and the central central prerequisites are work an energy. In other words, these existing natural resources must be given direction and specific form, or meaning. It is not possible to perform a skill properly otherwise. And also, it is not possible to think you have learnt something by going over some mundane exercises, and then hope to inject a bit of energy into afterwards. This is why the Masters of the East used to give their disciples symbols and parables to contemplate: It would draw on their internal resource in a specific direction without working everything out for them. Through this method of teaching the disciple embodied the skills they practiced and became inseperable from them. I wonder if this is at all clear? The work and ideas come before the skill, there is no other way of thinking about it in my opinion. If so few actually achieve what they set out to do, it is because this basic truth goes unnoticed.

Of course any ideas conveyed in stories and parables must be symbolic of some truth so that the disciple will later come to understand. Through certain powerful symbols2, the student of old would meditate on images within the mind until the physical manifestation later emerged. This tradition is virtually lost today with advent of scientific detailed explanations. Such explanations rarely inspire any kind of intrinsic motivation within the student, they do all the work for him.

If you want to understand how martial arts works, you should use your mind to contemplate and experiment with ideas. For example, Snake Style kung Fu is really practicing skills using the imagery of a snake. You can do anything in this way, and the mind has an innate tendency to work like this. You must imagine yourself darting in and out from various angles and snapping at your opponent. Your attacks should have venom and bite. Any skills you then practice will take on a life of their own. Hopefully you can see how symbols such as this become reality having started as an idea.

Alternatively you can imagine actually defending against a Snake, as Steve Morris often suggests. Here you can use your mind which is a tool that, unlike the body, never wears out. It is an inexhaustible arena of practice, and limitless in its scope. But it needs to be exercised by creative thought and use of the imagination. It is then that your ideas become materialised physically. I hope this is quite clear. When it comes to images in the mind, I’ve never found it very fruitful to imagine mundane things that correspond to some dull lifeless training centre. Although this is what is typically recommended. Instead I prefer to imagine myself on a mountain fighting some larger than life opponent, but more about that another time.

Another symbol used in martial arts is the circle. In Tai Chi for example, circles are made with the arms. It is very easy to practice doing this in your minds eye, because a circle is an accessible symbol recognised by anyone regardless of their training. Therefore, a beginner can begin to practice, awkwardly at first, until they are adept, with just this symbol alone. Such is the power of symbolic explanation. A simple idea such as the circle can undelie more complex ideas later on. This is why babies play with shapes in early development. They later understand more complex things. This is seen in all areas of life, for example the world is round, and so are stones, both of which rotate around an axis.

All I am saying is that we should have the same child like inquisitiveness for martial arts, which is only beyond the scope of out understanding if we have failed to contemplate what its all about for extended periods of time. We would not expect a child to understand, say, rotation around an axis or the solar system without first playing with circles and hoops. It is the same with martial arts, we cannot learn complex fighting movements and skills without first drawing upon our knowledge of symbols, shapes, and ideas which have created meaning for our adult lives.

But most people say “I get it, it’s easy”. As long as they’re having fun, the musics blaring, and the coach is shouting commands at them, they’re quite satisfied. They are like dough in the hands of a baker, tossed around and pounded into submission, which they call work. I’m not talking about that kind of work, I’m talking about inner work which is the real reason for martial arts practice4. Work is not just going through the motions and simple amusement, it is a chance to contemplate and accomplish meaningful pursuits. Many people would like an approach that inspired their better nature, and it is them that I write for.

At the professional level, it is very much the same story. Many athletes wear themselves out looking for some medal or glory, and end up so jaded and worn out by all the politics, deception, and debilitating training, that they ruin their health. “I’ll do it whilst I’m young and able” they say, not matter the cost. If they had thought about it, these athlete “development” programs do nothing but exploit their limited resources of youth a lot of the time. They draw on their reserves, absorbing them in some “peer system” of similarly naive athletes, rather than a wise guide, and then as their enthusiasm grows fainter and fainter they are left on the scrap heap. This is all considered perfectly normal, since this counsel of “talent development” specialists has given them a livelihood and has a right to use them as it sees fit. “Here is a guy who is driven!” They proudly proclaim. Not that they have particular admiration for the superstar, they’re just proud of their hold over him.

What is the point in pursuing all these achievements if you are incapable of enjoying them and lose all inspiration and spirit? In my view “A living Dog is better than a Dead Lion”. In other words, a lion who becomes worn out and incapable of anything is useless, no matter his past glory. He was living on borrowed time. Whereas a dog who is still going and has some fight in it will outlast the Lion in the end. I don’t wish to upset anyone involved professional competition, and anyway there are some exceptions, but it is up to individuals to chose their path. Everything can be found in the manuals of technical instruction, except what I am talking about here. The thing to know is that training is all dependant on how the energies are expended. Are they being absorbed in mindless labour, or is there some left over for contemplation and mental work?

Most animals die in mortal combat in the wild. Clearly, this is the law of the Jungle. However, if we wish to understand how to survive longer than animals we must take the perspective of the child who starts at the beginning. In other words, imagine that you are thinking about martial arts for the first time and work to gradually understand. This is really the case, when you consider how many years it takes to learn even the most simple tasks properly, like writing perfectly. Using the perspective of the child, even in adulthood, you can use advanced knowledge of walking, crawling, rotating the body, etc., and apply them to still more advanced moves like punching. Yes, having spent 18 years learning to walk, there is a further evolution. And then tactical applications. You should then feel as though you are approaching everything for the first time, rather than strutting around as if you are some hard nut looking to prove himself. Here is another example of symbols.

In boxing, you circle the opponent. In order to practice footwork it is a good idea to imagine doing this in your mind. You can first imagine circling round an opponent, and once this idea has been set in motion you can begin contemplating what the steps might look like in relation to this circling. Lots of people get mixed up with the footwork because they contemplate all the details of the footwork separately. Instead, it is better to think of the circle, everything else will begin to make sense when you hold this idea and work with it in your mind. Otherwise, you just end up learning some complicated footwork and it never becomes embodies or feels natural.

Symbols, work, and perseverance. Never rush this process!

References

1 Signs and Symbols in Martial arts Part 2 https://harmanater.com/2020/06/06/signs-and-symbols-part-2-pedagogy-and-the-art-of-war/

2 Signs and Symbols in Martial arts Part 1 https://harmanater.com/2020/05/16/signs-and-symbols-part-1-the-way-and-the-number-ten/

3 Movement and Breathing https://harmanater.com/2020/04/17/movement-and-breathing/

4 The True Meaning of Martial arts https://harmanater.com/2020/05/18/the-true-meaning-of-martial-arts/

The Higher and Lower Self in Martial Arts

Posted on by joeharman8 | 11 min read | 124 views

Many in the martial arts industry say you should always fight fire with fire. That you should be bigger, stronger and more aggressive than the opponent. “Bigger, faster, fitter, stronger”. Yes, you should become healthier, more motivated, and increase your abilities, but beyond a point it becomes counter productive. Because in fact we are not invincible or anywhere close. We should be careful not to deplete our resources by becoming embroiled in endless petty battles, particularly if they don’t serve to improve us in the long run. This is what makes us stronger, more energised, and able.

A moments reflection would tell us that spending all our time thinking about all the enemies out there, and confronting everyone, would only result in overtraining and burnout. This intelligence is the reasoning of the higher self, which is wise and knows what it’s talking about. The higher self should manage and command the more instinctual side, which can be called the lower self.

Through will power the higher self channels the lower instincts in a direction of its choosing. It is highly influential, but only if used activly, unlike the lower self which is automatic. The higher self is like a general in battle, it sees everything more clearly than the ground troops, who are ready to fight all the time and get themselves killed for what the consider glory.

Overdoing the physical side of training is a common pitfall in martial arts. It is good to train hard, particularly to correct laziness if that is a weakness. But in their quest to be strong, people do all sorts of counterproductive exercises which cause wear and tear, and general exhaustion. But then they will say “I’m losing it, I’ve got to get back to how I was and double the effort!”. In fact, this stagnation is a sign that they were overdoing it, usually in their youth, and are now paying the price for such “overspending”. Yes, what we can get away with in our youth is quite unbelievable, but this approach is disastrous later on.

Instead of promoting moderation, many trainers out there will appeal to the students lower nature by encouraging it. Often without knowing. Although, to be fair, a trainer who knows what they are doing is simply testing the student to see if they take the bait. “C’mon you’re weak”, “You call that a kick up, pathetic!”. When you hear this sort of thing, my approach is to ignore it totally. You can never be sure whether the coach thinks they are helping or not. Just go about your usual training, and if they are any good, the coach was just testing to see whether you would rise above it. This indfference is a triumph over your instincts whilst putting them to work, which is the only way of using them properly.

Wanting to be invincible, strong, and tough is often the real enemy if taken as a literal possibility. It’s great as an ideal to intelligently aim towards. I say it is the enemy because eventually this same pride which once spurred us on, later saps us of our reserves. This is our lower nature given free reign. It gets us seriously injured, and focuses our attention on overcoming ignorant individuals or unimportant tasks when we should be moving beyond such concerns. “Are you going to let him get away with that”, “Did you see that look he just gave me”, these are all tell tale signs of our instinctual lower self which we have chosen to identify with instead of order around.

If you progress and live past a certain point, it is usually because you have managed to become wiser. However, there is virtually no guidance on the subject and people think it is just the natural course of events to stagnate and decline with age. Instead, you should be healthier and more energised, having eliminated so much baggage that often the young and naïve carry about. Often as we get older, the lower self will say “You’ve lost your edge”, you’re no good anymore”. This is all perfectly normal. But instead of listening to it, put it to work and relate instead to your higher self and it’s reasoning powers1.

Rather than listening to reason, instead we often listen to our lower instincts, which tell us to be hyper vigilant all the times and look for enemies everywhere. It has a point, and should be given a seat at the policy table, but it is always belligerent and domineering if left to its own devices. It often drowns out reason, the higher self. The lower self is a relentless source of energy and motivation, an endless battery, but lacks even common sense. According to its reasoning, peace does not exist and we should live in chaos all the time. This is a reflection of our animal ancestors, who did live in constant threat of predation all the time. But if we start listening to it, we start to become like animals ourselves. In other words, we resemble that which we look at and contemplate: therefore we should see the world through the vision of higher reasoning.

Obviously we still, even today, live in threat. For example, the threat of losing our mortgage, or job. But these threats require more careful management, and aren’t worth loosing our reason over. Such concerns require the intelligent use of the lower nature by the higher self. The lower nature alerts us to action, but it shouldn’t lead the operation. It is vitally important to stimulate us to act, and to detect possible threats. This is why highly intense individuals have cat like reflexes, and are able to process thoughts and actions so quickly. But so many such individuals have failed to control and channel their emotions and have instead been destroyed by them.

The lower nature will tell us to always watch out for double crosses, liars, and thieves. It will only be satisfied if we come down to that level and buy into it totally. But in doing so, you too will become part of that category of behaviour, ignorant and counter productive. Instead, leave the lower nature to say what it likes, after all it is a workhorse and supplies us with energy and motivation. We don’t need to give it the time of day. Relate and see the world through the eyes of the higher self instead. This is the key, to use the lower nature to sense danger and support combat skills to add instinctive power and dynamism to our actions.

You don’t conquer circumstances or enemies by becoming like them and thinking about them all the time. This is what gives them power, and over time the qualities they show manifest in you too. So even if you get rid of your enemy, it is as if they live on in you taking revenge day by day. For example, if someone you work with is antagonistic towards you for no apparent reason, they will often try to drag you down to their level. But you often come to resemble them over time if you continue to lower yourself in this way. For example, you share the same mannerisms, appearance, and even personality as this is a pre requisite of relatedness.

I recommend thinking about the steps you can take to avoid confrontation at all. Think instead about positive and productive achievements you can make by ignoring people on the individual level of personal dislike, which is the viewpoint of the lower self. The lower self, if listened to will contantly want to outdo everybody and will never be happy until it has won against everything, especially higher reason. And people think this is progress!

To conquer an enemy, why not make a friend of them instead. I have done this for years, and if you do it properly you can make some of the most powerful and lasting friendships with people who would otherwise have drained your time and energy. You might say “Well I can’t be fake and like that person!” and that only a weakling wouldn’t dominate them. That is the lower self calling such actions cowardly, and weak, etc., And what is fake or weak about turning a situation to your advantage using strategy and determination? The real fakery is to think that the initial impulse to dislike is someone is an enduring trait that you should listen to and respect. This perspective was meant to be outgrown, just as we have evolved to live in houses instead of mud huts.

The real enemy is often the lower self talking as it does, because it lives in a bygone era and goes on like a broken record. It’s the general who fights the last war over and over again. But the instincts are not the real you, even if we have chosen to identify with them. This is a big problem in Martial arts, as elsewhere, because it greatly limits any progress to a very low level.

The instincts are particularly stimulated by high intensity training, and they are highly prevalent in emergency situations, such as self defence. They flatter us with how great we are at responding to such situations. “What a Hero!” it says. As soon as you hear this kind of thing throw it away immediately, it becomes a burden and a waste of time to think like this for long. It may puff you up for a bit, but it simply gets in the way of clear thinking afterwards. This is true humility.

When facing off against an opponent, the lower self tells us all sorts of overblown things like, “they’ve got nothing on me”, or “I’ll crush that pathetic idiot”. And this is what gives us the overconfidence, delusions even, to act. But it is a mistake to identify with the delusions of the lower self at any other time than to save your skin. It works for you, and cannot work but through you. Whilst it can be thanked for saving our life, the lower self cannot be trusted to make wise decisions because they will simply get us into trouble until we find it everywhere, in our friends, colleagues, and relatives for instance. It must be used, as it often motivates us, and at any rate it can’t be switched off without dire consequences. Instead, we must channel the motivation to in a direction of our choosing, rather than being dictated to by it.

Most of the training out there centres around building confidence to the degree that when someone gets a blackbelt, or wins a few matches, they think they should become a hero. Often, they feel that if they don’t do this, their training was a waste of time. They should have become a superman. In their eyes, it’s now time to prove how tough they are. Examples of this on social media are endless. Again, this is the lower instinctual self talking. It is very convincing and seductive, unless great effort is made by the higher self to silence it. When the higher self asserts its reasoning, you often realise that what you were after all that time is not what you want anymore. This is the often the case with martial arts and “winning at all costs.”

Many people go around showing off how tough they are having learnt some secret moves, but then end up having to give up training altogether through disillusionment and lethargy. This is by no means the natural course of events. Personally, I am not at all bothered about combat effectiveness or becoming the greatest athlete anymore. I recommend following simple exercises, repeating them for years regularly, and through your love of a high ideal to overcome weakness, remain effective, and become wiser, you will make progress better than if you were to take short cuts and buy into delusions.

How many experts out there preach humility, and how you should stay out of trouble, and yet recount with excitement their stories about how they once did this or that to such and such a person. I’ve sat and listened to many of these stories. This is the lower self once again bragging and loudly proclaiming how great it is, in its attempts to undermine those around it. It’s instinctively calculating, and is looking for the lower self in others to be wowed by it. I’ve seen this countless times in martial arts and elsewhere. Often when you look at these individuals, it is obvious they could no longer even run up a flight of stairs. This egocentric behaviour, which is a form of living in the past is something that often afflicts experts who are no longer progressing or evolving.

References

See Omraam Mikhael Aivanhov The Key to the Problems of Existence. in this Book, Aivanhov describes the difference between the higher and lower self, and how to change perspective. In other words, how to relate to the higher self and not be fooled by the tricks of the lower self. I have adapted lot of the ideas from here, as they are highly relevant.

Shadow Boxing

Posted on Last updated on by joeharman8 | 6 min read | 87 views

If you’ve got no equipment, no one to train with, and can’t get to a gym, the best exercise I can suggest is shadow boxing. In fact, as a staple exercise there’s nothing better. By shadow boxing I don’t mean just moving around the ring without a focus for a minute or two throwing punches and doing blocks. This is alright, but you want something to focus on whilst doing these things. The shadow gives you this figure to focus on.

The term shadow boxing actually means your shadow is boxing. You can learn a lot from watching your shadow box, dance, or move around in general. I’ve found that the concept of shadow boxing works with things like Tai Chi, and posture activities: You can sense whether your symmetry and equilibrium is where it needs to be and adjust automatically.

In general, watching silhouettes seems to be a meaningful experience which captures our attention. We recognise the characters and what they are doing, even though there are no details. Our creative imagination fills in the rest. As far as boxing goes, our shadow shows us if what we’re doing is poised, graceful, and balanced. From this basis, you can then generate powerful moves which are more adaptable.

This is what I do: find a space outside and focus on my shadow and watch it moving to see whether my form is correct. I don’t mean “correct” in terms of analysing every move in detail, because then you never get an overall picture. I mean correct in the sense of checking whether everything is moving fluidly with speed and precision, in a coherent way. For example, if an artist drew a picture it would look awkward and unbalanced if everything were out of proportion, the angles were wrong, and there was overemphasis on one detail at the expense of the overall picture. This is how you can tell if a drawing is accurate even if it lacks fine detail. Whereas if you add detail on first it is often difficult to make sure everything is in proportion. It is the same with shadow boxing, you are looking to get a sense of overall poise rather than thousands of details. The details can be added later as you go.

Personally, I use video recordings and get an intuitive feel for the moves too, but the shadow never lies. It will teach you everything about technique. But by using all these ways of viewing your practice you can link all the experiences together. For example, if I am feeling an intense energy when hitting the heavy bag, I can then put this experience together with seeing the recording. By doing this often you can then intuitively know what to look for in a potential opponent, because you have seen and felt what they’re experiencing. You can’t do this well if you haven’t felt this yourself, or haven’t observed it mindfully. On a side note, in the same way you can camouflage your appearance by cultivating a fluidity and dynamism on top of the raw state. You can then also recognise the camouflage of others by knowing yourself well enough. For example when someone looks calm in the ring, you can learn how to spot whether they are poised to attack at a moments notice. But back to shadow boxing.

By focusing on the shadow you are viewing a basic outline rather than getting lost in the details. You want the overall impression. You will soon see whether your technique lacks fluidity or is awkward. At the same time, you can focus on specifics, like the head or shoulders, but you will be able to view how they relate to everything else. As a side note, you are obviously not learning to fight by doing this, just practicing the skills involved, which are sometimes very subtle and seem totally unrelated to martial arts.

When shadow boxing, what I like to do is work in bursts, or look at phases of different potential scenarios. You can then work at using unpredictable timing and tempos, or going “offbeat”1. For example, you can move backwards or to the side whilst doing combinations and varying the rhythm. You then go back to the start, or centre. You don’t need to worry about what techniques you are doing, you’ll find they rattle of nicely by themselves. But obviously you need a basic knowledge of how to do them. After this, you will be able to see for yourself, after a bit of practice of course, what options are available to you as you move around. You will see what works and what doesn’t by whether your shadow is able to do it, or more precisely whether you are.

How does all this work? Human beings are able to follow simple outlines, such as shapes and figures and then elaborate on them. These basic imprints are innate to us. We are able to relate to these thanks to our instinctive sense of proportion and certain shapes, like the human figure. Once we see these at work performing certain tasks, we can mimic them and then begin to add details as and when needed. It is a process of evolution from basic to complex. For example, when a baby learns to walk it doesn’t first learn all the details. It views an adult, gets a general idea and slowly puts it into practice. Watching a person doing something and then memorizing all the details is like memorizing a script word for word. It takes time, effort and it is merely an act. Instead you’ve got to feel and understand on the intuitive level what you’re doing.

Once you get used to viewing your practice from the shadow perspective, you will begin to feel as though you are the shadow itself moving about. Importantly this takes away the self awareness and vanity aspect that a lot of people feel about themselves in training. This self awareness often directs their attention towards unnecessary points, which can actually make you tire more quickly and miss the main point.

By viewing yourself as the shadow you are able to get a general outline of what you are doing. You begin to get a sense of what it feels like to move powerfully and without resistance once you have seen this from outside yourself in your own shadow. It’s a way to view yourself from the outside. Sure, an outside expert can give you some useful tips, but really it’s up to you to experience it and see it in action.

References

1 See Steve Morris getting in rhythm and breaking rhythm, YouTube clip.

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