Overcoming Fear Part IV

“We have ‘fear’ because we’re always trying to look for what the right thing is to do. We’re too afraid of doing the wrong thing... We want to know what to do at every point but it's just movement so there is no set in stone ‘right thing’ because it’s always changing, it just ‘is’. Nothing else matters but the moment, the fight is what it is, that’s all.”

                                --Master Joe “Zen Gorilla” Martarano, 5th Degree Guided Chaos

You see, this is why Master Martarano is the “Zen Gorilla”. He always finds a way to sum things up in Occam’s Razor fashion and distill things down to their essence. He also calls us “knuckleheads” but in a good way.

Okay as promised I’m going to get right into this. If you missed the previous installments you can access them here: https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/blog/overcoming-fear-part-1

here: https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/blog/overcoming-fear-part-ii

And here: https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/blog/overcoming-fear-part-iii

“No man is invincible, and therefore no man can fully understand that which would make him invincible.”

                                                                         --Miyamoto Musashi

The key here is in understanding a few basic things. 1) the other person you may have to deal with is human and probably doesn’t want to be injured or killed either because no man is invincible; 2) all humans regardless of size, speed or strength move relatively in the same fashion and as described before are bound by the same laws of physics and human physiology as anyone else. Meaning as Grandmaster Carron stated in Part II “you’re just dealing with motion”, because no man is invincible and; 3) if dealing with evil doers, just because someone has the capacity to be evil doesn’t make them brave or any tougher than you or I. Hell, even the bad guys carry weapons because they don’t want to be hurt or killed either. No man is invincible!

“By knowing things that exist, you can know that which does not exist.”

                                                                    --Miyamoto Musahi

Musahi had a number of profound observations and one of them was the understanding that people can only move but so fast within the laws of physics. Meaning as Musashi says in the quote above, if I know what is the art of the possible I can also deduce that which can or cannot be done as well as that which can or cannot exist. If you’re moving full speed and I’m moving full speed especially at close range you can’t all of a sudden move “twice as fast” as your top speed, that is impossible. Now you can slow down, change tempo etc. but you cannot be faster than what for you is full speed.

I was working out with Master Kevin “Bob” Harrell, and he couldn’t figure out how I was countering his moves so quickly. At first I gave him some BS answer about using “The Force” and my “Sith-like Powers”, or some other nonsense, which of course he looked at me like I owed him money. So I explained,

“I know what I can do and I know what I can’t so as soon as I feel that you’ve defeated something I attempted to do rather than try to force a square peg into a round hole I just change. I accept that what I was trying to do won’t work so I do something else. Remember, you get a vote in the fight and the truth is you actually defeat more of what I’m doing than you think. The difference is I respect the fact that you can do these things, accept it and move on.”

I went on to add,

“You watch when I work with John, notice there’s very little talking on his part, 99% percent of what he’s doing with me is “purely experiential”, there’s just way too much going on to explain. You’ll also notice sometimes I’ll laugh and say things like ‘I can’t believe you just did that’ then he’ll laugh at me and say ‘Oh you like that?’ The point is even when I change he makes his changes so fast that there’s no way for me to catch up unless I speed up. The point is John doesn’t play around with my movement, when he’s teaching that is one thing when he wants to cut it off it was already done before I could make my stuff work… Why? Because he’s always moving in a way to neutralize my movement if possible before it becomes a problem. He’s not waiting for me to do something.  So that’s what I’m doing. You always move to hit, I know that, so I’m always moving to not get hit by you but to also strike you before you have time to regroup. I don’t want to get hit either. To me this is the ability you want to develop, to be able to neutralize a person’s movements even if they move first before they have time to make it work.”

Also as discussed previously, most people have a natural aversion to getting close to another person because it makes them feel uncomfortable and outside of say grappling with another person, they don’t feel as if there is anything they can do at close range so they panic at this range by stiffening up and pushing people away. Only to give the attacker another opportunity to attack again.

However, if you are properly trained in the “Principles of Guided Chaos” (Balance, Looseness, Sensitivity, Body Unity and Freedom of Action) this is not a problem because you learn from the start how to move within your whole body to strike in the most natural manner possible even with your body pressed right against another person’s body. I believe this is one of the major factors in Guided Chaos that allows many people to overcome much of their Irrational Fear.  We learn early on to become comfortable fighting at close range.

I’ve had numerous students over the years actually tell me how since training in Guided Chaos they notice that things that would have startled them in the past no longer do so. Or how when confronted with a dangerous situation they somehow acted “without thought” and successfully handled the situation.

The other thing is and this is important, you want to learn to do only what you can do within your own body. Meaning you want to move within “your natural range of motion”. Since everyone is different there are different ranges of motion and levels of physical talent. This fact cannot be avoided however, this does not mean that you cannot learn to fight to a high level just because you don’t have the physicality of an Olympic athlete. It just means you have to figure out what works for you and learn to compensate when dealing with another person who may have a physical advantage over you.

In fact, the more you concentrate on developing ability within what you can do within your own body the more capable you become and in my experience teaching the art “less apprehensive”. The more competent you become the more capable you become with your abilities. The more capable in your abilities the more confident you will be at handling your fear.

This is one of the main things that Grandmaster Perkins discusses all of the time and that is the fact that when he says he fights with his whole body he literally means “with his whole body”.

John was holding court in class recently where he discussed that within his body, within his “Sphere of Influence”, there are “Spheres within Spheres”. He explained by being able to move in this fashion it gives him the ability to strike in any manner at any range with power within his Sphere of Influence.

In other words, when you can strike with great effect at any range it resolves a lot of problems when even dealing with larger, stronger opponents. Their head is still their head. Works for me… (I also want to point out that when experiencing this type of movement. About the only way to describe it is it has an almost “dimensional feel” to it because the strikes he’s capable of just don’t seem possible but they are because when he hits you you’re the first one to know it. They are truly out of “The Void”).

Let me just say, for the record, this concept is so alien to most people the possibility of such a thing even being possible, even for many people in the self-protection arena. That they are at a loss for how to effectively train people in this fashion. I’ll give you an example, you hear things like “the hand striking range”, “the kicking range” or “the grappling range” or “how to deal with a good striker, kicker or grappler”. And of course all of the counters to such strikes are then based on the same paradigm as if the real situation is going to be as controlled as in the training hall. This way of thinking is all about looking at a confrontation for your life as if it were a duel. Not good…

What about the eye gouging range? The biting of neck’s range? The stomping of heads and balls range? The unscrewing of heads from bodies range? The crushing of throat’s range? The ice pick and broken bottle range? The evisceration with a blade range? “Jim Bowie” style no less. I could go on and on.

I’ve seen this in many self-defense programs where an instructor instead of leveling with people and telling them that there are some situations that if you get yourself into no good technique is going to get you out of it. They literally make shit up!

They do this because they feel if they don’t have an answer then they people will view them as not being competent instructors or whatever. I think they do themselves and their students a greater disservice by their lack of honesty on the matter. To me telling people not to get there in the first place if possible “is” the answer. The bottom line is there are just some things that as we like say you can’t let it happen in the first place. To me that’s a better and more honest answer that will at least give people a more realistic way of dealing with their fear than false hope or assumptions.

You see there’s only one range, “The Human Range”. Now, I’m not discounting that you can do different things at different ranges but I find this way of thinking extremely limiting and it doesn’t take into consideration factors such as size, strength, reach etc. You know there is a reason why there are rules and weight classes in sport fighting. Also this way of thinking doesn’t take into consideration that people can when fighting for their lives move in ways that even they didn’t think they were capable of moving.

I remember recently speaking to a class where I explained something that I thought I’d share here. I said something like, “Now if you look at the women who train in this art just given our size alone they’re at a significant disadvantage. The truth is they’re not kicking any man’s ass in a fight, I’m sorry that’s just not happening.  Most women are smart enough to know that. Now, cutting some guys femoral artery, slitting their throat or carotid artery? Spitting their belly open or worse?  Now, that’s a completely different conversation…  so no matter how it turns out you know if they have to really go, that there’s a piece of you they’re getting that you’re not getting back.  For them a fight is not a duel but for their lives. The key here for all of us is knowing the difference. Trust me the women get that!”

My point was the vast majority of women just don’t have the physicality to take on a man in a duel. Also understand that for women virtually every man is like a “Silverback Gorilla” so they are always contending with the issue of size and strength etc. But, if she’s skilled and knows how to use weapons? Like I said that’s an entirely different conversation and that’s the point.

Anyway…

Along these lines, I’ve had several students over the years who for various reasons were limited in their mobility and their major concern when first inquiring about the art was that they were not able to do a lot of moving around due to their limited mobility etc. I usually resolve the issue for them by telling them very matter of fact, “You’re just going to have to learn to take everybody out where you stand”. Usually at this point they’re looking at me like my Granddaughter looks at me as I explain to her how to adjust the parallax on a 13x power rifle scope, until they realize I’m dead serious.

Then I explain to them,

“What are you going to do? If you’re in a situation once you’re in it, you’re in it, you have to fight. I mean unless they have a gun with some distance they have to get close to you to do something and in that regard I’m basically at the same disadvantage as you are. The key is learning how to fight as well as you can with the body you have as you are right now. Now we have exercises and skills we will teach you to help develop your body as best you can but we have to focus more on what you can do and learn to work around what you can’t. Think of it even if I had to escape a bad situation if the bad guys give chase how long can I keep that game up? My point is it’s not a perfect world and you know what everyone of us to one degree or another can be in a situation where we are at a disadvantage, and if you find yourself in such a situation the time to figure out how to deal with it is not when you’re in it that’s why we train”.

Believe me having been injured before playing football where you have limited mobility can be frustrating and at times frightening because you feel “trapped” within your body. The idea that you just can’t move the way you once could can be debilitating on the mind as well. Now imagine a lifetime of that?

But you know what, once I get them to understand that along with the true dynamics of human motion and of what can and can’t be done (i.e., “the art of the possible”) as with the way we teach women, the easier it is for them to begin to develop skills and strategies to defeat people of greater size, strength and speed and learn how to work through or around their imitations. Again you’re either trained or you’re not.

The Art of the Possible

       “Adversity is the midwife of genius.”

                         --Napoleon Bonaparte

When you’re thinking about dealing with a person that has more size or perceived strength in the same way our forefathers dealt with warring tribes and dangerous animals so too must you think in this fashion. You should not look at a person from the perspective of, “Man that guy is so much larger than me what can I do?” This is losers talk and a good way to guarantee failure. You need to think of it from the perspective of, “If I had to deal with someone of that size how would I take them down? What would I do? What would I try to avoid doing like standing right in front of them or waiting for them to strike first, how would I not let it happen in the first place? etc.”

Listen size does matter let’s not kid ourselves, but when you think in this fashion you’re now able to focus your attention where it belongs on not on irrational fear of what can’t be done but what is "the art of the possible". The reason I’m spending so much time discussing this is it’s because it’s like one of the biggest fears along with dealing with a gun or a knife that people have. I get it, I’m just offering a different way of thinking about this so help folks overcome this mindset, this fear.

Think of this, before there were fire arms and the bow people hunted with spears and swords etc. now think of the animal’s people use to have to kill for food, clothing or self-preservation. You can only imagine the first time people encountered a woolly mammoth or saber tooth tiger. I’ll bet it didn’t take long to get that sinking feeling in their gut.

Yet we know they were able to kill them because they survived, “we survived”. I doubt there was never a moment they were never without fear however, because they knew how to hunt them they knew how to overcome the fear to some degree and in some cases probably got a rush out of it (the thrill of the hunt). How did they do this? Simple. Bigger brain. They figured it out.

They found a way to overcome all of their disadvantages. Same way a matador fights a bull. He doesn’t challenge the bull’s size, strength or speed he beats him through being smarter than the bull, better trained, more cunning and ruthless. It is in this fashion you must develop your skill to develop the confidence to push past your fears in order to deal with evil. Remember just because a person has the capacity for evil doesn’t make them brave.

Hitler was evil and he died hiding in a bunker, Saddam Hussein was evil and we found him hiding in a hole in the ground. Muammar Gadaffi was evil and he was captured hiding in s sewer drain.

Manuel Noriega was evil and not only was he captured trying to hide from the US Army Special Forces, but when they captured him he was found to be wearing “red” women’s underwear because that’s what his “Santeria Priest” told him to wear because it would protect him from the US forces. Guess that didn’t work out. You just can’t make this stuff up…

These were some of the most-evil men in modern times, feared by their people and yet brought down to the sides of Hell when they had to deal with people who weren’t afraid of them. Remember the bad guys don’t want to get hurt or killed either.

Learning to Panic the Right Way

“We are the sum of our actions, and therefore our habits make all the difference… We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

                                                                                  --Aristotle

Aristotle nails it! This philosophy needs to become a big part of your mindset when training so that instead of thinking about the “thing” you want to be able to do you want to “become that thing”.

I said in the first part of this series that acknowledging fear doesn’t make you a coward it just makes you human and that feeling this way is the norm rather than the exception. So you want to recognize the physiological responses in your body when experiencing a tough situation and learn to harness them.

Again, since you’re going to panic anyway learn to “panic the right way”. Meaning it takes you just as long to do the “right thing” as it does to do the “wrong thing”. So if you’re going to panic anyway you might as well do it in a way that is beneficial to you and gives you the upper hand in a situation. Become that thing that you wish to be.

Most people when faced with a threat of dealing with an attacker if they are going to try to handle the threat generally will attempt to do one of three things, they’ll either try to block their strikes, try to redirect them or get out of the way. The irony is while trying to block a strike is the least effective way of dealing with it. It generally is the choice that people make.

Why? Because that’s what most of us have been conditioned to believe our response should be. Now many will argue with this but here’s the truth, your reaction time no matter what you do is your reaction time. Meaning no matter how you resolve the problem you’re going to react relatively at the same speed whether you do the right thing or wrong thing.

So why not train to do the one thing you need to do when the strike arrives and that’s not be there. In other words make this a habit unit there is no thought of doing it, it's just a part of who you are. If a person has reach or height over you and it’s a disadvantage for you the one place you already know where not to be is right in front of them so why wait and make it easier for the bad guy? Don’t let it happen in the first place!

As a side note understand that the way most people panic is a learned response so the stiffening of the arms or attempt to block what another person is doing is more of a conditioned response than what your body would naturally do. How do I know this?

For those who have kids you’ll appreciate this. When you see little kids panic, notice they almost never try to stop people if anything their hands are very active but they almost never use force to stop things. Why? Because they intuitively know they can’t.

Now I’m not talking about wrestling with your friends I’m talking about genuine panic like you’re afraid to get hurt. You’re just not there for it. But what I believe happens is as we get older we become conditioned to try to stop things.

By now some folks are probably rolling their eyes so okay think about this. When you were a little kid and you accidentally stepped out in traffic and saw a car coming did you try to stop it? Did you try to block it? No you were the Hell out of the way because you intuitively knew you weren’t blocking a car. My point is we are born with this innate response and are conditioned out of it to some degree. The good news is you can get it back but you have to think differently about dealing with another person’s motion.

This can be partly done, by focusing your mind on a series of possible scenarios and then focus on simple responses. My attitude is if you hit my "panic reflex" you may not like the way I panic. Instead of absorbing my fear if I perceive you as a threat I’ll give my fear to you by projecting it outward.

Rather than focusing on a multitude of scenarios, which I find tends to overly complicate things. I usually try to get people to think about common situations that they may find themselves in and then begin to “wargame” out the scenario of one or two simple responses. Something as simple as focusing your awareness when you walk in and out of your home, or get in and out of your car, or walk out of a building maybe your place of work.

Places where you are familiar with the terrain but also due to the frequency you engage in these activities become likely places you may have an encounter. You begin to become more aware of potential bind spots and angels from which you can be attacked.

From there I like to get people to understand that generally speaking a person can only attack you from three possible directions 1) somewhere from the front; 2) somewhere from the side or; 3) somewhere from the rear.

The key is developing the ability to “strike for effect” with lethal strikes from anyone of these directions without having to move more than necessary, something most self-protection programs neglect. This is because if it is a surprise attack you may not have time to turn and face an attacker.

One of the main things I teach especially to beginners along with how to strike for real is a technique created by Grandmaster Perkins called the “Fright Reaction” (see the book “Attackproof: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Protection or www.Attackproof.com). Since most surprise attacks happen from behind or from the side this is a move that teaches a person how to get their hands up to protect their head and neck area at lighting speed (again check out “Attackproof: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Protection). It works because it is simple and relies on our “natural panic reflex” to work instead of some overly complicated multi step process that would probably only work on a drunk. Remember “truth is simple lies are complex”, which is exactly why elaborate self-defense moves generally don’t work!

Next I teach people how to strike either with a palm strike or a chop. Nothing fancy just teaching them to move and strike as naturally as possible. The idea is to get them use to striking immediately without hesitation. Then building up the speed until their movements because intuitive. I call this learning “purposeful habits”. I believe this is what Aristotle was talking about. 

As I said before, you don’t have to use elaborate responses something as simple as anticipating their movement toward you through your awareness and learning to step out of the way, getting your hands up to protect your head or just striking go a long way in developing this ability.

Cutting to the Heart of the Matter

“You’re always going back to the beginning.”

                            --Grandmaster Tim Carron

Tim use to always talk about how you’re always going back to “the root” of your training, cutting to the heart of the matter. He always emphasized the importance of doing the exercises, too include proper Contact Flow, not for the purpose of just “doing them” but to develop your body to do what you need it to do if you have to fight for your life. He was very big on training as if your life depended on it, because it did.

Like John, he moved and fought with everything. Every part of his being was a part of what he did. No movement was too subtle to pass his notice, no adjustment so refined that he could not make use of it. For him everything counted everything was on the record. It’s really a testament to the art that John has created where people to varying degrees can learn how to do this.

John has at times referred to this ability as “slight of mind” or “slight of body”. Where the changes are so subtle that in truth by the time you are hit the reason you cannot avoid it is because it already happened. To me this is one of the highest levels of skill one can develop. The ability to get so far ahead of another person’s movement that they were already done for before they even tried move because “it already happened”.

Sort of like baseball where once the ball has left the pitchers hand he has no control over it, whereas the batter is already in position anticipating when to swing at the ball. At that point the only one who has any control over the situation is the batter.  The only way the pitcher can dupe the batter is to make the change he needs before he throws the ball. Meaning it had to happen “before the ball leaves his hand”.

Think of the confidence and peace of mind you'll have by developing this ability? That's what I'm talking about! 

Coming to Terms with Fate

Tim always focused on training to fight for your life and not making the art too much of “an art” if you will. In my training with him he never wavered off of that understanding of what it was all about. You see from my perspective you can’t talk about overcoming fear from a self-protection perspective without coming to terms with death. I feel that many people in the self-protection arena even within our own school dance around this issue. The truth is there should be no ambiguity in your mind on this matter. The sooner you settle it in your mind before hand the better you will be at controlling the fear that cannot be separated from death. 

I can remember Tim teaching me what he and John called “finishing moves” and when he applied them there was no ambiguity in your mind that if you got to that place with him there was no coming back from it. Let’s just say, if you find yourself talking to long lost relatives and hearing them tell you to keep walking toward the light, yeah I have bad news for you, you’re in the “afterlife”. This was the beginning of my understanding of, “Don’t let it happen in the first place”!

So now John, he’ll just punch your head off your body and be done with it. Now Tim… aaaah yeeeaaah um, trust me if Tim got his hands on your head and really meant it, you couldn’t die fast enough. Just from the torque alone you could already feel the lights starting to dim. But there is believe it or not much value in such training besides the obvious teaching a skill and that is in order to appreciate it, in order to come to terms with it, you have to feel it. It’s one thing to dodge bullets and punches, it’s quite another when you feel it to your bone.

In the Bible, in the Book of Job, and I’m just paraphrasing here. God and Satan have a wager that no matter what Satan does to God’s servant Job, that Job will remain faithful none-the-less. So God gives Satan the power to do what he wants to Job. He basically destroys Job’s life. Here’s the short list of things Satan does to this poor guy:

Destroys his property; destroys his means of earning a living; kills his children etc.

Yet after all this Job remains faithful so Satan offers God one more "wager" and this is a direct quote:

“And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause. 2:4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. 2:5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. 2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.”

                                                                             --Job 2:3-6 KJV 

Now pay attention, because the point of me sharing this is not to bring glory to Satan (lest I be accused of it), but to point out God’s response. Notice God’s answer? He never once questions the validity of what Satan says but only admonishes him to not kill Job?  You see Satan points out something very fundamental that cannot be ignored, you can do many things to a man and a man can experience a number of things, but touch a man to the bone and it’s a "different thing".

You had better believe that!

I believe that one of the things that allows irrational fear to perpetuate in people’s minds is not experiencing such things in life or at the very least understanding them in proper context. Of knowing the finality of death and tasting its sting. If but a kiss of oblivion. Of just dodging the “Reapers Blade” by a hair.  Like the Rolling Stones sing in "Give me Shelter", "You're just a kiss away..." (as a side note if you ever closely listen to the lyrics of that song that's exactly what they're talking about, "death").

People who’ve cheated death by violence understand that they live but by the grace of God and have a "different" appreciation for life. There is nothing theoretical in their minds of how to handle themselves or when to bring it. And if they weren't that way before they quickly learn how. 

They also have the capacity to make different choices in how they handle their fears because they now know what can be, what they can or can’t handle, and the fact that to live in dreaded fear of death is to die over and over. Such people who have a healthy sense of their own mortality, a healthy sense of what real fear is and how to manage it live free and are not shackled by it. Fear to them is not an obstacle but an ally that helps focus their mind.  It is choosing the "Spirit of Victory" over the lowley spirit of fear. It is always our choice, always has been always will be. 

The question is what do you want to do, who do you want to be?

Choose well...

Well that’s it for now I’ll probably come back to this at a later time and just continue to build on it.  

Thank you.

LtCol Al Ridenhour

Senior Master Instructor

GUIDED CHAOS

For more go to:  https://protectyourself.mykajabi.com/

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