The Relative Nature of Combat in Time Part IV

"There is only one decisive victory: the last."

• Carl von Clausewitz

In my last post, I discussed in further detail the relative nature of time as it relates to combat well this post is pretty much a continuation of that before I move into discussing how you can use the inverse relationships to your advantage.

The Umwelt

I remember the first time I heard this term I was visiting one of our labs when I was still in the Marine Corps where we do research on things like optics and acoustic detection devices where they would discuss how with all creatures there is a limit as to how far our senses can perceive things. They were also trying to understand how even humans actually use their senses beyond what is normally thought of. I will not get into some of the things they discussed but let’s just say they said some wild things to me.

I had to go look it up because I couldn’t remember what it was they called it plus, after finding it again.  To be honest I was looking for a way to work it into one of my blog posts. So if you ever find yourself on Jeopardy someday and you run across this archaic term sort of like the “word of the day”. You’ll be able to get it right.

The term is usually translated as a "self-centered world pertaining to our "environment" or "surroundings" called the Umwelt (pronounced Um-velt).

Basically it is the German word and a really cool way of saying or defining the limits of what our senses allow us to know.  

Trust me like I said this word is going to show up as a choice on Jeopardy someday. But here’s the deal, you and I have our own Umwelt, and it not only extends as far as our physical senses allow us to know things but also influences how we perceive our environment but there’s another part of this directly related to this…this is important to your development because as you train you and I have an umwelt but the key is understanding how it works, what it’s limitations are and how to manipulate how it works within time and space to your advantage.

Thus in Warrior Flow, we have the concept of perceptual awareness or the ability to use your body’s natural senses (kinesthetic and proximity awareness, synesthesia, interoception, etc.)  as well as intuit with your body and see with your mind (i.e., see the Future, play where the puck is going to be).

When Hannibal stated that, “Perception is a tool pointed on both ends.” He was discussing how our perspective, our perception greatly influences how we process the information that is presented to us and thus how we respond to it. In other words, we filter information as it comes in which shapes the character of the information which then influences the output or outcome of how we respond to it.

Just by the fact that you know something if you understand how it works then you know what to do about it if you have the proper perspective and perception of what is actually taking place. This is why perfect clarity is a must because it allows you to cut through the bullshit and see past the hypnosis and cut to the heart of the matter or manipulate the situation within the laws of physics and human physiology.

When the glass is always half-full for you. You can begin to clearly see this. As I tell people all of the time in training the ultimate level of where you want your mind in training is not to understand “how?” I did a thing, that’s the easy part I can teach anyone how, but learning to recognize and ask “why?” When you begin to ask “why?” you will begin to see The Future and go to where you need to be before I arrive there.

Since we filter information that goes in and out of our bodies through our senses, experiences, knowledge, personal idiosyncrasies, wisdom, etc. this also has an effect on how it shapes or warps the information as well as its meaning to us.

So the context with regard to combat is everything for it shapes the character of the information and how you and I perceive it. However, the context is also shaped by the perception you have of Time relative to where you are in relation to the antagonist. It's like watching a football game or soccer match where a person standing and looking at something from afar has a different observation than the guy on the field.  This is why people scream at the TV when someone misses an opportunity to say trow a pass to an open receiver or pass the ball to a free guy in the soccer match.  From there perspective in time and space they cannot see what a person seeing it from the birds-eye view can see. I can also tell you that the speed is way different when you're in the middle of the battle or as Teddy Roosevelt used to say when you're "the man in the ring".

How you think of a thing influences how you move and how you move influences and reinforces how you think about it and so on. Back and forth they operate. A correct understanding of how a thing works allows for you to model and arrive at correct conclusions and continue to grow as you make logical inferences and as long as you maintain the beginners mind (i.e., being willing to empty your cup but with wisdom, a scientific mind, and a healthy dose of skepticism or trying the spirit’s so to speak) you will continue to grow in skill.

This, as I’ve written about before, is the foundation in my view of creativity and how our intuition and ability to connect the dots is structured. However, an incorrect understanding of how a thing works has the opposite effect reinforcing the wrong things and starts one down the path of the dark side so to speak. This is how either good or poor habits develop. I’ll return to this theme later in this blog post because there are things about how we think which directly impacts how we learn that is important towards getting your mind right if you are to break free of The Matrix.

Now, you’ll recall I discussed how the very nature of time affects not only things like speed but also things like how we deal with size and strength.

To reiterate:

• If someone is faster than you, should you move sooner, they get to the wrong place sooner.
• If they are stronger than you should you move sooner, they cannot gain purchase on you because you have to be there to be available to them.
• The same is true for reach and height, both of which can be considered forms of speed since they both require more effort on your part to overcome.
• Since they either force you to have to move closer to close the distance to strike since their height creates the effect that they are already out of the way by their head being further away.
• Or move you have to sooner to get out of the way of their reach.
• Either way, you have to be able to anticipate on some level to move sooner or delay their action.

Again, by developing a better understanding of how to move your body and more efficiently within time and space you can learn to minimize them. Folks, when you train you need to train and take into account as a part of your calculus how time affects movement and the choices you can make. The point is no matter who you are you can only move but so fast but if your timing is right and you can learn to move soon enough it is a huge advantage for once you get ahead o them. No matter how fast they are they cannot make their stuff work against you because they do not have enough time to do so. 

Now, if you can do this, and you can, because there are methods within Warrior Flow where I teach people how this is done. It eventually becomes crystal clear and self-evident I’ll explain.

In previous posts, I discussed the four basic stages of learning. I won’t rehash it all here for though they are generic they are basically the way in which people learn things, and whether through direct transmission and study, through personal observations, trial and error, rote learning, or whatever we basically go through the stages of subconscious incompetence (we don’t know) conscious incompetence (we know what we don’t know) conscious competence (we know what we know) and finally the stage you want to push all of the things you learn and that is subconscious competence (where you just know without having to consciously think about it). It is the last level that I want to focus on because this has a direct impact on our ability to move and act within time and space.

Learning How to Think on Purpose

"Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true."

• Julius Caesar

Caesar knew what the hell he was talking about here, we all want to believe what we wish to be true. The hard part is accepting the way the universe works and getting over yourself. Like I like to say, there's what we think about a thing and then there's the way the universe works and if what we say doesn't align with the way the universe works then we need to get over ourselves. So even though George Castanza from Seinfeld stated, "It's not a lie if you believe it..."

Well... just because you believe it doesn't make it true. 

"All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures."

• Julius Caesar

Before I get into learning how to think on purpose I need to clarify a few things here because they are directly related. While I’ve said it before I'll just reiterate it and that is you "cannot" not think. It's not even possible. Frankly, I don’t know why this is hard for people to grasp I mean think about it, even the idea of not thinking is a form of thinking?

What more do you need to know that this way of thought is not even remotely correct?

This is an important thing to get because if you do not think then how are you supposed to know how to train to a specific skill?

You gotta be able to focus on it?

This way of thinking (which ironically, is a form of thinking by the way) isn't even remotely possible. 

Sure you can overthink something and get in your own way but if you don’t think about it then how do you know if you are even practicing correctly?

If wisdom is the application of knowledge and experience then how do you develop any level of savvy or wisdom on anything if you do not think about it on some level? 

This is bullshit...

Yet this is the kind of stuff you hear in sports and martial arts all of the time (i.e., don't think). Folks, these people are confusing things and actually making it harder for people to learn. There is a significant difference between clearing your mind so you can focus on the task at hand and thinking you "cannot" think about something as you practice it which only generates more unnecessary thought. They're just not the same thing.

This is why the concept of multitasking is bullshit. Just because your brain has the ability to switch at light speed between thoughts doesn't mean that you are multitasking it just seems that way because it can do it so fast. All you're actually doing is flitting from one stream of thought to another. In other words, you're just making shit hard for yourself. The key here is learning to focus and develop in your training your powers of concentration, but in order to be able to concentrate, you must think, in order to be able to figure things out you must think. The sooner you come to grips with this idea the faster you'll learn whatever it is you're trying to develop because you won't burn time off of your existence trying to do the impossible.

Now, as I sort of talk out of the other side of my mouth when you are performing complex physical tasks it is not that you are multitasking you are merely engaging in "learned behavior". Meaning the reason you're able to do seemingly many things at once is that you trained yourself to do them provided they are related on some level otherwise you wouldn't be able to drive a car.  I'll give you an example, while many people can play guitar, and many people can sing not everyone can play and sing at the same time. I had a friend in college who was a phenomenal guitar player who once told me,

"You ever notice when BB King plays, whenever he starts to sing he stops playing?'

I was like, "No way!" 

So he says, "The next time he's on TV check it out."

Well... through the magic of television one day while watching the King himself perform sure enough every time he would start to sing he stopped playing his guitar, then when he would stop signing he would play. Now I'm quite sure he could do both but in all of the videos, I've seen he's never done it though I'm sure they're out there. So how is it that BB King doesn't play when he sings yet there are millions of people out there who do? Assuming he can't just for argument's sake, it's probably because he never felt the need to practice it. That's all.

Now for those of you who are curious as to whether I can sing as I play at the same time, I can, but unless you're into Chinese Water Torture you really don't want to hear me sing.

I'm Just sayin...

Okay, let me beat this dead hoser a little more... 

When you and I first learned how to read we started off with the letter "A", then "B" and on it went. Then we learned to sound out words, then read sentences and before you knew it you were reading The Complete Works of William Shakspere.  The very fact that you are even reading this is proof of this. but here's the thing there was a time where you didn't know how to read at all. Yet though this method as you went through the four stages of learning you somehow arrived at this place.

Now... you just read this without having to consciously think about it. Why?

Because there are multiple levels of thought but for our purposes here I'll just focus on two just to keep it simple for me as I try to explain this they are, conscious thought and subconscious thought. One which we are aware of and the other we're only aware of it because we've been taught of its existence. Or we are only aware of it after the fact because we knew from experience that we couldn't have done a certain thing any other way. Either way, they are both forms of thought. 

Listen, walking is thinking, talking is thinking, chewing gum is thinking.  You cannot not think it's just not the way our bodies work or learn things. This is why you want to learn things to the subconscious competence level until they become purposeful habits.

Where everything you do for the most part is not only the right thing because you trained in it correctly but that you did it on purpose because you trained yourself to the level where the habit is a form of "thinking on purpose".

This is why you train in the first place otherwise why bother?

What's the point of training?

Here's the deal if you can train yourself to respond or perform something one way you can also train to respond in another fashion. In other words, you learned to think in that fashion on purpose.

If it were not true, then how in the hell did you learn the first thing?

How did you learn anything for that matter?

Also, if you don’t put some brainpower into your training how do you know you’re training the right things?

Without thought how do you distinguish between what is correct and what is not?

Like I said the idea of not thinking in your training isn't even possible... it's just bullshit.

If you ever saw the movie Firefox with Clint Eastwood, this is the one where he plays a former Air Force Pilot and Vietnam Veteran where he infiltrates the Soviet Union (that’s Russia for those of you born after 1990), and as a part of a joint British-American plot he steals a highly advanced Soviet fighter aircraft (MiG-31, NATO code name "Firefox") capable of Mach 6 flight, is invisible to radar, and the best part, its weapons systems are controlled by thought.

Now if they were smart they could have gone to the weapons bazaar in Balochistan, Pakistan and bought one at a marked-down price. Hell, they would have even sold you the pilot. 

Anyway, his mission is to fly it back to friendly territory so we can tear it apart and find out what makes it tick. The main point I want to make is by having a system controlled by thought it allowed the pilot to engage an enemy while not having to physically control the weapons when flying, saving precious time in the cockpit. The only other point was you had to think in Russian. Now imagine how well you could do this once you trained yourself to do this to the subconscious competence level in the same fashion you make decisions when driving a car? This is how you want to train yourself to put time on your side.

"Many things which nature makes difficult become easy to the man who uses his brains."

• Hannibal

In Warrior Flow, one of the keys is you want to learn to recognize what things are and keep progressively learning new things in order to act or respond soon enough to make a choice to your advantage or at least make better decisions. This however you slice it requires "thought" on some level even if it is on a level where it is outside of conscious thought.

As an aside, once again I believe it is because these things are outside of our ability to consciously be aware of them that people have incorrectly assumed that there is no thought to it.

Wrong!

Nothing could be further from the truth. There is thought to it it’s just that you didn’t have to run the calculations consciously, you just knew what to do because you trained to it (i.e., thought on purpose). This is what people get wrong all-of-the-time. It is not that there is no thought it is that it is at a level and speed (i.e., the speed of thought) outside of our ability to be aware of it until after the fact. That's why you have to build it in ahead of time. This, my friend, is a huge advantage once developed because as you develop the ability to recognize things in the body before they become a problem it cuts down on the amount of time it requires for you to take action.

You see, there is "a pattern" to all human movement in the way the body moves. Now when I use the word pattern, I’m not talking about the sort of ridged patterned movement or form that actually restricts what a person can do in the body but the natural pattern of how the human body moves, how your arms move and work, how your body turns, twists, contorts, steps, etc., thus the importance of learning how to listen to another person’s body and get ahead of their movement or learning through deception to hide your intention. The key is in training to recognize these things soon enough in-the-body to the subconscious competence level to get ahead of them. (This, by the way, is what I believe most martial arts strive for but have the wrong methodology of training to get there.)

"Nothing keeps me up at night. I keep other people up at night."

• Gen James Mattis, USMC, former Secretary of Defense

Through the Warrior Flow exercise from the very start, we are training people to recognize the "impressions" and even the "shapes" of what things are or yet to be before they become problems for us. This is why we don't try to adapt to what others do but force them to fight on our terms even if they are not aware of it. This is why understanding “Time” and how we move our 3-dimensional bodies within it is so crucial to your development. Because it allows you to then develop ways to train using your perceptual awareness (within your umwelt). Where you learn to become so efficient in what you do that you remove unnecessary obstacles to your training that only hobble your ability to get to where you want to be in the first place.

It isn't magic but it does take study and proper training starting with what's going on between your ears if you are to get to where you want to be. Like I've said before if you can't see it with your mind you can't see it with your eyes.

"You win some... you learn some."

• Travis Bradberry

Final points on this and I’ll move on. Understand my friend that all behavior, “all behavior” including martial training, is belief based and how you move good, bad or indifferent is based on a belief on some level that your movement or that behavior is the right thing to do. This is why it is important to distinguish between good and evil in your training so that you can avoid developing bad habits or at least correct them and replace them with purposeful habits that serve you.

The notion that how this is done is as if you just have to fool around with it long enough where at some point it will come to you through the Force or the ether of the universe is just not true.

If what I’m saying we're not so, then how is it that some people when it comes to the fighting arts or sports even where all things are basically equal are better than others?

It is because they move better within time and space than others, it really is that simple. Otherwise, there is no point in training because if our abilities are a matter of fate or in the hands of the gods then there is nothing we can do to improve our skills anyway.

This is why I tell people all the time to trust their abilities. If they do not trust them they will not believe they can do it, if they believe they can't do it they will not do it, nor ever develop the skill they desire. I've seen this too many times so I know what I'm talking about here. At the end of the day, you are either able to take the leap of faith in your abilities or you’re not. Most people stay stuck on the Island of Misfit Toys not because they are broken mind you but because they choose to stay there. They've brought into things that are not true and have accepted that their limitations, limitations that we all have, made them inferior. So, they remain so in mind and ability. 

"Superficial goals produces suerficial results."

• Attila the Hun

Folks, as I said in my last post on Time please reread all that I've said above because this is truly and least for the martial arts, an entirely different way of thinking for it allows you to think about moving differently, more efficient, and better, when you take action in the body you have right now. If you can get this understanding it will triple your ability to move more efficiently almost overnight.  You just need to appreciate and understand "Time" and how it affects the battle and train accordingly.

"It's not that you appreciate, it's that you appreciate.'

• Hannibal

Just A Different Vibe 

"War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished."

• Julius Caesar

Warrior Flow works by training people to move in a way that alters people's perception of time and space where we are able to get ahead, influence, delay and throw them off where even if they know the right thing to do the cannot because they do not have enough time to do anything about it. We move to throw people off and crush them. This is why I constantly circle back on this stuff.

In Warrior Flow, we focus on training our bodies to become creative to fight in the future playing where the puck is going to be. Developing those arcs of predictability through proper understanding and adumbration within time and space to recognize things soon enough to do something about it. The difference in Warrior Flow is we get ahead period.

That’s what we do, we don't wait or fuck around!

We train to win and seek to finish the fight right there in the most brutally and ruthlessly efficient manner. There is no other way...

Okay, that was a little longer than I wanted it to be but I needed to tie some things together otherwise when I discuss the Inverse Relationships and how recognizing things and what they are in time affects your ability to master the concept. This is an entirely different way of thinking. 

Thank you. 

P.S. for those who want to learn more about how to develop this type of movement.

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     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" (2020), 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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