Lessons from My Masters 26: Observations - Synthesis Part II
Jan 31, 2019
“Whatever you do in life, if you want to be creative and intelligent, and develop your brain, you must do everything with the awareness that everything, in some way, connects to everything else."
--Leonardo da Vinci
I’ve discussed Awareness before so if you haven’t read my other Blog Post on Awareness you can read it here because I want to cover some other stuff as it pertains to Awareness from another perspective.
https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/blog/awareness-the-line-in-the-sand
On Awareness
“The soul never thinks without a mental picture.”
― Aristotle
Anyway, as I said in a previous Blog Post “Awareness” is your first step in the decision-making process as to how to respond to a given situation and helps drive everything you do. Awareness is a concept that over the course of your life and study you have probably come across in a variety of ways.
Whether learning how to drive a car, learning how to anticipate an opponent’s moves in sport, or avoiding a potentially bad situation because something just didn’t “feel” or seem “right”. Awareness is all about mastering the ability to recognize, anticipate and act.
“It's not enough that you believe what you see. You must also understand what you see.”
--Leonardo da Vinci
There are all types of books out there from all sorts of experts who discuss Awareness and in my view while many are well meaning they miss the mark. As I’ve said before their explanations and techniques are too complex or the premise from which they teach Awareness is from the wrong mindset, to begin with. The point is the "Context" of a situation is important, context is everything.
Wrong Mindset = Wrong Interpretation = Wrong Conclusions.
Period!
Once again, I believe that when faced with a difficult decision people are generally going to respond in one of three ways, Fight, Take Flight or Observe but do nothing. I also believe that depending on how you perceive the situation and your own capabilities will influence which option you choose.
The purpose of this entry is to open your eyes and provide you with some tools that will help you develop your Awareness. In subsequent blog posts when we dive into developing your “Warrior Mindset” and “Conquering Irrational Fear” we will go deeper into building your Awareness.
Now, I’ve talked about this in a number of different posts but I’m going to cover this a little different and discuss some aspects of this that are not always clearly presented.
It is a form of sensitivity – we discuss spatial awareness a lot in Guided Chaos but what we are really talking about is an aspect of what we define with sensitivity where we are able to not only judge spatial relationships but also the speed and direction and even the density of other objects to include people. Without getting too technical here there is a thing that we all do where we are able to sense objects in time and space even if we are moving. This is the way we catch a football or pass a basketball on the move or drive our cars. We do this all of the time but then when it comes to fighting we act as if we don’t know how to do these things. And that’s what I want to focus on.
If you get nothing out of my blog posts but this one point I’m going to make that relates to all this stuff that I write about it is this. The human body is the human body and how it functions in time and space is limited by physics and what our physiology will allow. I don’t care what martial art you study that’s the way the universe works.
So even the fastest man in the world or the strongest man in the world no matter what is still operating within the same limitations as you and I, to a greater or lesser degree given their physical talents. But if you understand this you can then learn to manipulate the physical laws in your favor based on developing your body to take advantage of them. I’ll give you an example of something that helped me when I was in high school that I would never realize is directly related to the martial arts. So my old track coach Mr. Ward one day in practice was talking one day about the difference between the Russian relay team and the US relay team in the 400-meter relay and he said something that I would later use on the football field. He said something like,
“The Russians know their sprinters are not as fast as our sprinters so what they do to compensate is instead of waiting until the guy is almost on them during the baton pass, and then take off like we do. What they do is their sprinters have a mark so that when they begin their baton pass the guy receiving the baton actually takes off running while the other guy pours it on to catch him. So that by the time he receives the baton he’s almost already at full speed. Where our guys tend to slow down to make the pass then our runners take off. Each time they do this they’re gaining on us in time because their speed never drops when they are passing the baton. Where we lose a 10th of a second or two every time we do a pass because our guys are slowing down in the pass zone. They practice this until it’s perfect so that there’s no lag time between the two runners. That’s why they can run with us.”
In other words, the Russians figured out how to use the limitations the rules of the event placed on all runners to their advantage. Since they all have to make the pass within the specified zone, as long as they don’t drop the baton or step outside of the zone pretty much how they accomplish it is up to them.
We are Always Anticipating Through Awareness
“If we do not expect the unexpected, we will never find it.”
--Heraclitus
How this relates to fighting is simple, if you are aware of the situation or if you think someone is going to attack you. If you expect the unexpected. Whether they’re faster than you or not the sooner you act the more time it allows you to deal with them since they have to still cover the distance to attack you.
As I always tell students when they ask how to deal with a person’s reach or speed I often tell them, “move sooner”. But I don’t just leave it there I explain it.
“Listen reach has the same effect as speed in most cases since a person with longer reach if you are standing in a way where they can use their reach to their advantage they will always get there first if you make yourself available to it. The most important thing to understand is to not be there, to be unavailable to it. The other thing is you don’t know if a person is faster than you until they begin to move that’s why I always like the way Tim viewed things. He always assumed everyone was stronger and faster than him so he always moved in a way that negated the possibility of them using it against him. Now, if in the process of doing battle they weren’t stronger or faster? Well, as far as Tim was concerned that was their problem and not his”.
This brings up a very important point about awareness like I said there are all sort of folks out there talking about it but they always teach it from a visual perspective or just tell you to “trust your gut” etc. But what good does it do to tell you that if they won’t even teach you what it is you should be looking for or what you can anticipate experiencing?
We need to develop it in context of what is real. One thing that folks hear me say a lot when they are training and they ask questions regarding what to do if they have someone in front of them and so I ask some basic questions and I just want you to think about what I’m going to say here.
Let’s say you’re minding your own business and for some reason, someone accosts you verbally? Right then and there, if your spider senses are not going off you’re already behind the curve. Here’s the deal once you perceive it as a threat the fight is on. Now whether it becomes physical depends but my point is if they get too close and you feel threatened or you warn them to stay away and they move toward you, well? They made their choice and you need to unleash Hell.
What the hell are you waiting for?
You’re already in it what are you waiting for?
They’ve already removed all of the ambiguity for you. So unleash the dogs of war and get after them and crush them. You see, I view my students as the good guys. I view my students as law-abiding citizens so if they have to go into action it’s probably because they had no choice. At that point, they need to have all of the moral certainty and moral clarity so that there is no hesitation.
Now if you teach self-defense on any level one thing that I’m sure you’re asked like all of the time is,
“What if someone pulls out a gun or a knife?
What do you do? Etc.
You know the questions. Now rather than give you some cookie cutter solution what I want you to do is ponder a few things so stay with me on this. So here’s a question that I always throw back at folks,
“How does that happen?”
“No really, how does that happen?”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t but I’m asking you how does that happen?”
“How does someone you don’t know walk up to you with intention, pull out a weapon with you totally unaware?”
My reason is listen folks, if it’s an assassination and they get the drop on you it’s already done. Sorry, but those are the facts. The good news is if a person is aware it is not easy to get close enough to get to a person with a knife unless they are in some sort of enclosed space like an elevator or a stairwell etc. If it’s a gun, they still on some level have to present it, and they have to be careful how they aim the thing lest they shoot themselves. I mean there is a reason in the military we have rifles that can kill people out to several miles. The point is if you are aware it’s not as easy to target you as you might think.
Also, because no one ever asks this question, what if you pull your gun or knife on them?
What are they going to do if you decide to fight back with your weapon?
Do you see where I’m coming from?
“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
--Marcus Aurelius
All too often in self-defense / martial arts, we give the bad guys way too much credit. They’re still human and can only move but so fast and just because they have the capacity to be evil doesn’t make them any braver than anyone else. This is one of the worst things I see folks do in the self-defense arena where they train people in such a way that can only reinforce their fears.
“The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”
–-Marcus Aurelius
Or you have people teaching people to do things that not even they would do which only serves to confuse the hell out of folks. There’s one guy out there telling people that if someone pulls a weapon on you or wants to fight to just run. Yet in almost the same breath when asked what he would do he goes into how he would use his BJJ on the guy.
What?
This way of thinking and advice is so misleading it’s criminal. This is truly the blind leading the blind. This mindset is rooted in that whole “Sheepdog protecting the Sheep from the Wolf”, do as I say not as I would do mentality because “only I” and people like me get to be heroes. Why anyone would want to learn how to fight from someone who already starts off with the premise that because you are not like them, and thus inferior, you can’t possibly do the “sacred inverted monkey foot techniques”. That they do and make them work, so you should either run or submit. This shit is mind-blowing.
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
--Marcus Aurelius
They don’t have a better answer for people so they treat them like children and tell them things that could still get them killed. You tell them to run but they can still get shot or stabbed in the back. Also, telling people to run doesn’t help much since they could have figured that for themselves. Now if you told them,
“Listen if for some reason you’re not aware because anything can happen. And someone pulls a weapon on you and you can escape then escape, there’s no harm in that. But if for some reason you feel you can’t escape, or you have to protect others, loved ones, friends whatever. Then you have to accept the fact you have to fight with everything you have. It’s just that simple. Now is there a chance you could get injured or killed? Sure, but I’ll tell you this, doing nothing is not an option! So I’m going to teach you some things so that should you have to fight it gives you a fighting chance, to give you your edge, no bogus promises but a fighting chance. First I’m going to teach you how to prevent it from happening in the first place if possible and if it does, then you have the best chance of having a successful outcome. Listen if you gotta fight you gotta fight and if you have to fight you gotta fight to win! Period.”
The other thing I tell folks because this goes right to their mindset and their sense of awareness is the difference between what is “Legal” and what is “Morally Right”.
“Now, there are two things here there’s what is right and there is what is legal. Now if what is right and what's legal are in agreement then all is fine under heaven. But if what is legal doesn’t make for good common sense? If what is legal doesn’t line up with what is right. I’m going to always do what is the right thing to do and consequences be damned. Always do the right thing. Protect your family, protect yourself and never compromise on that.”
“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.”
--Marcus Aurelius
Believe it or not, as I’ve discussed in other writings most people are more afraid of getting in trouble with the law than they are about fighting or even getting injured or killed. Much of this is due to how we are conditioned to believe that at some point. If you defend yourself no matter how right, you were that you’re going to be prosecuted for taking the law into your own hands etc. I know for some that doesn't sound logical but I’ve found over the years it to be true at least on the surface.
“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy…”
--John 10:10 King James Version (KJV)
Obviously, no one wants to die but it never ceases to amaze me what actually causes fear in people. I think what it really comes down to is that most people are generally decent law abiding citizens and what they really want from us when we teach them is “permission” to kick that ass. Permission to use force free of repercussions. Permission to use deadly force if necessary. For someone to tell them that it’s okay to want to destroy the guy trying to rape your loved ones, permission to crush people who break into your home. To kill bad people who threaten your life. For many, it’s actually liberating for them and reassuring to actually have an adult conversation for a change about protecting their families.
Anyway, I tell people the kind of stuff I said above, maybe not word for word, to folks who are new to Guided Chaos all of the time and I continue to reinforce it throughout their training. I’ve never had a person, even people who decided they art was not for them who did not understand what I was telling them.
My point is people come to us for help not to have their fears reinforced as they do in the heathen schools where all they do is discuss how tough the bad guys are. Final observation on this then I’ll move on. If you listen to some of the so-called experts out there who teach self-defense when you hear someone “mythologizing” the bad guys what you are really hearing is them projecting their own fears onto their students. I use to see this in the military all of the time where some so-called expert goes on TV or gives a briefing talking about how the big bad wolf is coming to get us.
They’re afraid and they want you to be afraid like them. Or they think through fear that you will cleave to them for peace and security and of course, keep buying their products. I mean if you went to a car dealership and all they did was tell you how dangerous the roads were and how no car can fully protect you from the evils of potholes and people driving 30 mph in the passing lane. Why drive at all? And why would you want to buy a car from them when they don’t seem to have the answer to the problem either? You get my point.
Sun Tzu put this to rest nearly 2,500 years ago when he said, “All warfare is based on deception.”
Translation: “Fair fights are for suckers and losers, screw them, cheat, deceive and win!”
Presence of Mind
“All of Greece knows what the right thing is to do but only the Spartans are willing to do anything about it.”
—Quote attributed to Plato
It’s all about “Presence of Mind” – this is something that I do not think many people are aware of but it needs to be said. One of the things that people need to understand is that you can have all of the skill in the world. But if you do not possess the "presence of mind" in context to what is going on you are doing nothing. This is important because all too often when it comes to self-defense people have all sorts of advice of what they would do in such and such a situation etc. But what they are missing is if you do not have the “presence of mind” to do something you can be looking right at it and still miss it.
I can remember during some of my earlier lessons with Grandmaster Carron while hanging out by the big rock at the old Church of North Yonkers. The rock he used to put me on and have me stand on the edge with my back to the open space in order to force me to stay loose and on balance. And I remember once discussing how he always seems to know when the right moment to hit people, or move onto the next thing. So I’ll share some of it here.
Me: “So, I don’t understand, I mean I get the idea of being loose and all that but how is it you always seem to know where to hit.”
So, at this point, Tim’s smoking a cigarette so you know some deep stuff is about to come out of his mouth.
He says, “Well, whenever you move or do something with someone it generally causes a reaction. If I hit you, you’re going to react some kind of way right?”
I’m like, “Yeah…”
He’s like, “Well, here I’ll show you.”
So he pushes on my arm and says if I push your arm what would you do?
So I said, “Well I’d get loose and try to get out of the way.”
And he’s like,
“Okay, so as I feel you trying to get out of the way because can feel which way you’re going I can either break your balance, let you go there or wait for you to finish moving and hit you. Because I can feel what you’re doing I know where you have to go to get out of it so I don’t let you do what you want to do. Or I let you do it and hit you on the other end.”
I’m like, “Whaaaaat?”
So he’s like, “Do whatever you want.”
So I start moving all over the place and he’s like, “No try to hit I want to show you something.”
So as I try to hit not only is he countering what I’m doing but he’s hitting me pretty much at the same time. Not hard, but just showing me what’s what and how easy it would be over for me. He was everywhere and nowhere. No matter what I did, no matter how I moved I got hit but at the same time, I couldn’t lay a glove on him. Then he goes, “Now watch, be careful I want you to move faster with me.”
Rut-row…
So, I start going faster but I only achieved the same result. I got hit! But this was eye-opening and please pay attention to what he basically said to me.
“Because I can feel where you are and where you are trying to go and I know my movement when I hit you causes you to move a certain way. I can just go to where I know you have to go to avoid it.”
So, I’m like, “Okay I get that but how is it that you always seem to know where I’m going to strike before I get there?”
And he’s like,
“I just have more experience and skill than you but I also have the skill to know enough not be there. Like I said I’m just dealing with your motion and if I feel what you’re trying to do I’m not going to wait for you to do it before I move. I just don’t let it happen in the first place. Too many people here, wait for people to do something or finish what they’re trying to do before they move. They’re waiting too long to move.”
It would be years before I would fully appreciate what he was showing me because it’s not always an easy concept to understand. Basically what he was showing me was not only by what he was feeling could he negate my movement, but because he was basically getting ahead of my movement he was pacing and dictating the flow of the battle. He had basically developed what I call the “Presence of Mind” to either strike, move, loosen, negate or whatever I was trying to do. It’s really simple in concept, but difficult to do at first especially if you’re getting hit.
If you feel what people are doing and you know you’re already in the fight what the Hell are you waiting for? If you feel a person when you’re striking them begin to move away why would you continue to reinforce failure when they already won that battle? This is what Grandmaster Perkins would later teach me in great detail under the “Wisdom Tree” about inverse relationships to movement.
So it started like this.
Me: “Okay… I’m confused…”
John: “No, no, no don’t overthink this. Pay attention”.
Me: “Yeah…”
John: “Now watch”.
So he begins to move with me as he’s explaining what he’s doing.
“When you move, I move, when you change I change. That’s it! But I don’t change in a way that’s obvious, it’s not big movements. Like I said, your push is my pull, your pocket is my entry you see? Here extend your arm like your striking. When you strike, your strike is my entry point because usually when people strike they are only thinking about where they are striking. So, all of the space outside of your fist, outside of your where your arm is, is my space to enter. When people throw a punch they’re locked into it. You try to isolate? well, that’s my isolation. If you step to the left, well that’s no different than if I stepped to your right but that kind of thing takes a long time to get because you have to recognize it before they strike. Not easy but it can be done. That’s why I prefer to step no matter what. As long as I can pick it up in time I really don’t have to move much, it’s more of an adjustment with my body. I can just time it to when you try to hit and just strike you.”
Bam! Pure gold right there…
And on it went. But this presence of mind, this understanding of inverse relationships doesn’t just deal with when in direct contact with a person, but is really an aspect of “Awareness”, that people never either discuss in the martial arts or, more than likely they don’t know it. This "presence of mind" is not just a skill you apply when you’re walking down the street and you spot trouble but is a part of your spatial awareness and kinesthetic awareness whereas you feel the Shadow Impression, the “adumbration”, the “foreshadowing” of another person’s movement. This allows you to begin to move, or use what Grandmaster Perkins call, “Pre-Movement” (how do you like that one), which is as I like to say, “The thing you do, before you do the thing, that you’re going to do...”
This is why when I was working with Tim or when I work with John, in truth it doesn’t really matter which way I move. For John as I’ve said in other posts the glass is always half full. The key here is they’re not consciously thinking about this, it’s just who they are. It’s a part of them. That’s why it’s hard to track let alone thinking you’re going to get ahead of it.
Let me help folks here…
It “ain’t” happening because even if they make a mistake they correct it so fast, because of their ability to feel what’s going on in real time that you don’t even notice it. I’ll even go as far as sometimes even when they make a mistake, it actually works to their advantage because you still have to deal with it and will generally respond to it. in other words, by the time you recognize it, it’s too late to do anything with it.
I’m all about this type of movement.
This is why when they move and this is important, while technique is good, they move in a way that “transcends technique”. This is what you want to be able to do in my mind, this is the shadow impression you want to develop. This is the level of skill, the level of adumbration, of foreshadowing of movement where, while techniques come and go the ability to change on a dime, “smoothly”, “seamlessly”, “gracefully”, is the level of Body Unity you want to develop through the principles and in your practice.
Stop looking for the silver bullet. Stop looking for the mystical technique. Stop looking for the one technique that ends all technique. It is just you and your body and how you work within the principles of Guided Chaos. Along, with the will and Ruthless Intent to act and nothing else.
This along with a million other things is what I learned from my Masters.
Well, that’s for this installment as I continue to try an tie this stuff together.
As always thanks.
LtCol Al Ridenhour
Senior Master Instructor
GUIDED CHAOS
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