Lots of learning from this as you point out _Bill.
The 'wimp' will kill you as surely as a Mr. America would, sometimes in more ruthless ways you never expected, if you push him hard enough.
Heard tonight somewhere on this strange planet.... " OK, class. Now today we're going to practice the defense against a teenager wielding an ax in the hardware store. "
But this sensei does not tell the student how to overcome the first defensive hurdle…
Impaired Thinking.
One's very "ability to think in a rational, creative, and reflective manner" is likely to be reduced or perhaps eliminated under sudden mortal threat conditions.
This "will generally cause a massive block of the brain's ability to process thought functions."
Thought functions are still necessary in those moments to blend with any sort of ‘mushin’ concepts we might be relying on…
The inability to process thought functions rationally and reflectively in an instant …will have an obvious effect on one's ability to clearly sort out the proper response action…with some pretty disastrous physical, emotional, legal and financial consequences.
The Tachypsychia effect will be there in an instant, whether we believe in it or not.
That brings in the Denial Response – flashing through your mind…it is like …On an otherwise normal day, you get a call out of the blue telling you that your mother has died. Your first response? _ "No! Mother can't be dead!"
Another common example is people yelling "no" at a car that's about to hit them, or hit someone else.
" Prosecutors say he told police, shortly after the incident, that he wasn't sure why he swung that axe and that he never had a problem with Mayton. "
The Tachypsychia effect…brings on Cognitive Dissonance --
Common manifestations of Cognitive Dissonance include remembering things out of sequence, trivial things looming large in the mind immediately after the incident, and important things being lost to short-term memory immediately after the incident.
With this confusion comes ‘logorrhea’ where there is a disconnect between the brain and the lips that will keep on flapping nonsense.
Cognitive dissonance can be one of the mind's ways of saying "no, I didn't just come within 5 seconds of being dead, that didn't happen to me."
Then there is this
Cognitive dissonance also entails doing things out of sequence when stressed.
We have all experienced it.
One chilling example: When unloading a pistol with a round in the chamber and a full magazine __ the proper procedure is to first remove the magazine, then cycle the slide, ejecting the round in the chamber, then lowering the hammer [ some do it by pulling the trigger]__
Under cognitive dissonance [ confusion] brought by stress __ many will do the reverse, i.e.,first cycle the slide on a full magazine, thereby placing a round "up the spout" __ next remove the magazine, and finally lower the hammer [ some do it by pulling the trigger] and the gun goes off.
So you will practice defense against some crazy guy attacking you with an axe. OK…
Watch out for the effects of adrenaline…
“What adrenaline, Van…there won’t be any time for adrenaline effects…it will come later”
Sure…let’s listen to Mr. Farnam who teaches defensive pistolcraft
Adrenaline can be experienced in two main forms, Anticipated and Unexpected.
If we expect something unpleasant is going to happen our body will release adrenaline in order to prepare us for confrontation the more unpleasant the experience the more adrenaline is released.
When something unpleasant happens that we don't expect adrenaline is dumped into the bloodstream in one go so that we enter a type of "overdrive state".