Perfect Clarity: The Trait of the Warrior Mind

"How often have I said that when you have excluded the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

--Sherlock Holmes 

In the last Blog Post, I introduced the importance of how the “Context” in which we receive and view information influences how we act and respond to said information or stimuli. In this post, I will get into this in just a little more depth from the perspective of "Warrior Mind Focus". In order to do this, I believe you must also develop a level of what I call "Perfect Clarity".  I define it the following way.

Perfect Clarity - the ability once you have all the required information or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics. To be able to see and understand unambiguously or as well as possible with absolute clearness.

This is where you see things in the most unambiguous manner. Where there is no blurring of your vision as to what must be done.  This is important because in a life and death struggle the more clarity you can have of a given situation the easier it is to make decisions and the more choices you have available.

"Simplify and make no simpler."

--Albert Einstein

I can remember when going through training in the Marine Corps if there was one thing that our instructors were always stressing and that was to always try to keep things as simple as possible. In our US Special Forces community on the sayings, they use to keep their minds and training in the proper perspective and context that I’ve adapted even to my own way of thinking when it comes to developing perfect clarity it “Brilliance in the Basics”. It’s not about knowing a thousand things as much as it’s being the best or as perfect as possible at the most essential things. I’m all about this.

The reason for this was and still is, is that in combat there’s enough confusion as it is no need to add to it.

Made sense to me…

However, in order to simplify things, I found that not only as I’ve stated in another post we had to train ourselves to be able to do things without thought. But I believe there was also another reason they trained us the way they did, and that was to help us overcome much of the fear that comes with going to combat. We had to train and develop a level of understanding that removed the uncertainty of what to do as much as possible. That simplified things so that your mind could cut through the “fog of war” as we liked to say and see what needed to be done to accomplish the mission and make split-second decisions no matter how dangerous the circumstances.

Thus the mantra, “Mission before men…”

Meaning no matter “what”, you have to do your duty “first” and focus on all that other stuff last. While this mindset may seem “cold” or “antiseptic”, without feeling or lacking in humanity.  It is actually when you’re in a dangerous situation the very thing that allows for your mind to focus on what is essential. Almost as if it is designed to place your mind into the state of “Mushin”, “ZaZen”, or “Flow”. I can tell you right now from personal experience this is a very hard thing for most people to get their minds around.

You see for the most part we are ruled by our emotions and nowhere is that truer than when we’re about to find out if there is a God. However, there is also a positive side to this because trust me when I tell you that nothing focuses your mind more than when you know that the very next action you take could be a matter of life and death. Coming to terms with your own mortality has a very sobering effect one that I personally believe if more people had the chance to experience that they’d realize how much a lot of this bullshit that we think is so important is just that… all “bullshit”.

But in order to get to that place you have to let it, you have to train to it you have to learn to deal with it in order to become on some level “desensitized” to the “noise” so that your mind can learn to filter out that which it understands is not important to the task at hand. To see with your mind what is important so that your eyes can focus on the essential and not chase shiny objects. To see with perfect clarity and reason without fear.

“No one is so brave that they are not startled by the unexpected.”

–Julius Caesar

You see this lack of understanding or for our purposes lack of “clarity” in my view is a big part of the fear that I believe holds us back.  The fear that keeps us from taking the leap of faith, and to boldly step into that space and do what must be done, what we need to do when we need to “kick that ass”. Once we understand, once we have trained and gained some proficiency in the art of death much of the fear dissipates because as I’ve said in the past, “proficiency fosters competence which allows us to stand in that space between courage and fear know as confidence”.

In the martial arts in my view, too many people have forgotten this. How to train people to be able to stand in that space, to gain the confidence, “real confidence”, confidence that can be felt in the center of your body, that feeling you have when you are prepared to wage battle with righteous indignation. Where your skin feels as if it is aflame, and not false bravado. And to be able to stand if necessary and do what must be done.

Where you feel as if the earth dropped out from under your feet and there is nothing but your sword and his sword. They’ve forgotten the "martial" part of the martial arts and, as a result, their training often lacks the proper focus to develop the clarity people need for battle. They’ve strayed from the way and focus more on nonsense over function without understanding the purpose is to crush your enemy and nothing less.

This is the clarity that I speak of, this is what you want, this is the level of skill you desire more importantly you will know it when you get there.

I’ll cover this in a little more depth in my next post and give some examples of what I’m talking about when I discuss Perfect Clarity.

Thank you.

     Al Ridenhour

     CEO, Creator Warrior Flow™

Al Ridenhour is a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marine Corps with 28-years of service active and reserve with multiple combat tours to Iraq and Afghanistan. He has also served as a Law Enforcement consultant to the NJ State Police Special Operations Section, NJ Transit Police Operations Section, The NJ Regional Operations and Intelligence Center, the FBI Philadelphia Bomb Section, and subject matter expert to the US Department of Homeland Security's, Explosives Division. With nearly 40-years of Combative Arts experience, he is recognized as a self-defense expert worldwide and is highly sought out for seminars, workshops, lectures, and special individualized training.  He is the author of "Warrior Flow Mind" (2019), Co-Author of "Attack Proof: The Ultimate Guided in Personal Protection (Human Kinetics, 2010) and the Co-Author of "How to Fight for Your Life" (June 2010).

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

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