The typical Training we do, and discussions of realities of violence, do not cause the anxiety, or hypervigilance, unless it is of the extreme, all consuming “mental torment” _ that may cause an “emotional injury”, or an exacerbation of a pre-existing _ anxiety medical condition, which, in turn, gives rise to PTSD/hypervigilance symptoms, as in a pre-existing condition exacerbating perceptions of danger/violence.
None of us trains this way that I know of. We simply “explore” the “ways” so as to inure against this possible aberration rearing its ugly head.
People who “explore the ways” and learn the realities of the need of a “force continuum” _ and “reasonably” prepare for it, become empowered with that “relaxed awareness” that George talks about.
This should be required MA study
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Training with a few kata, some drills, etc., never does, never will engender this relaxed mind state, because it is grossly incomplete. The result is that it produces a “gross illusion” of one’s real capabilities, and, deep inside, many of us know this.
This realization can morph into a “mental injury” in subtle ways, and become a “ pre-existing trigger” _
Thus the reason why enlightened senseis, such as Gary Khoury, have chosen specialized cross training paths for their students.
This realization can morph into a “mental injury” in subtle ways, and become a “ pre-existing trigger” _
Thus the reason why enlightened senseis, such as Gary Khoury, have chosen specialized cross training paths for their students.
Van
This empowerment through a thorough understanding of real violence dynamics, keeps us physically and emotionally safe by any action we take that helps make the environment we live in safer, and the surrounding ourselves with friends and people who genuinely care for us, learning not to take things personally_
setting adrift adverse personalities, and coming to grips with “life tactical” _
This includes changing our perceptions of reality to reflect the real world, instead of the one we fantasize about, and be “smartly prepared” as in Rich Castanet’s case, who appears to live very happily in a state of relaxed awareness because of his unbelievable background and diversified training.
setting adrift adverse personalities, and coming to grips with “life tactical” _
This includes changing our perceptions of reality to reflect the real world, instead of the one we fantasize about, and be “smartly prepared” as in Rich Castanet’s case, who appears to live very happily in a state of relaxed awareness because of his unbelievable background and diversified training.
Van
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gmattson
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Important information Van
I think you correctly define the potential problem in the dojo:
Which is what a martial art teacher may see in a student or fellow teacher. Regardless of what caused the problem, someone suffering from it will not be helped by any self-protection lessons and my earlier questions was meant to ask whether such lessons may actual make the problem worse.
Regarding the military, I suspect that the same rules apply. Somone getting into the military having a pre-existing condition (at some stage) will have difficulties adapting to average civilian life. The question I have is whether participating in wartime activities make the problem worse or will it not have any affect on the person.
exacerbation of a pre-existing _ anxiety medical condition, which, in turn, gives rise to PTSD/hypervigilance symptoms, as in a pre-existing condition exacerbating perceptions of danger/violence.
Which is what a martial art teacher may see in a student or fellow teacher. Regardless of what caused the problem, someone suffering from it will not be helped by any self-protection lessons and my earlier questions was meant to ask whether such lessons may actual make the problem worse.
Regarding the military, I suspect that the same rules apply. Somone getting into the military having a pre-existing condition (at some stage) will have difficulties adapting to average civilian life. The question I have is whether participating in wartime activities make the problem worse or will it not have any affect on the person.
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
True George.
But a tough problem to solve. First it goes to the qualifications of the sensei to detect these problems correctly and make decisions as to what this student will or will not participate in_ which can cause more problems.
I think Gary Khoury has received specialized training in “how to deal with the problem student” _
Many come to us with “heavy baggage” and it will be difficult to assess and deal with it fairly and responsibly.
We have all had this problem over the years.
Today it brings the added risk of personal liability for the acts of the student, against himself and third parties, flowing from the training.
But a tough problem to solve. First it goes to the qualifications of the sensei to detect these problems correctly and make decisions as to what this student will or will not participate in_ which can cause more problems.
I think Gary Khoury has received specialized training in “how to deal with the problem student” _
Many come to us with “heavy baggage” and it will be difficult to assess and deal with it fairly and responsibly.
We have all had this problem over the years.
Today it brings the added risk of personal liability for the acts of the student, against himself and third parties, flowing from the training.
Van
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paul giella
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Van, yes, exactly... they manifest that behavior before stepping into the dojo. And then dojo training just serves to drive it in deeper because it reifies their obsessive fears and anxieties. Paradoxical, no? That we train in order to relieve ourselves of some of the worry but end up even more hypervigilant. (Hypervigilance IS a symptom of at least one psychiatric disorder besides PTSD...paranoia). Let me be very clear that I am not saying that every martial artist has PTSD or paranoia or will become traumatized or paranoid by the practice. I don't mean that at all. I mean that some people's psychological distress is paradoxically heightened by the very practice they took up karate to relieve. Because if the underlying conflict is s sense of smallness or weakness or vulnerability that they try to overcome by "proving" to themselves over and over again that they are not small or weak or vulnerable then karate study can at best be a temporary fix. If I did well in a class or a tournament, or a fight for that matter, I may feel temporarily reassured that I am not small or weak or vulnerable, but since I have never addressed the origins of those feelings in the first place it will only be a matter of time (and not much time, either) before that little hobgoblin is whispering in my ear again and I have to go "prove myself" again. And again. And again. And the progression escalates; one opponent, a bigger one, two bigger ones, etc, ad infinitum. You could see how this progression paradoxically leads to retraumatization and even more hypervigilance and PTSD. I am also not aying that people shouldn't study martial arts, just that they shouldn't expect the martial arts study to completely erase the basic insecurities.
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RACastanet
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gmattson
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From what I know of PTSD
I don't think you are a candidate Rich. Unless a person has other problems, simply serving in the military shouldn't cause a problem.
If I understand what Paul, Ian and Van are saying, PTSD is triggered by involvement in actual physical violence, where your life is in extreme danger. Depending on the individual, I would assume the amount of violence and time involved in fighting is a variable that is different in everyone.
As martial artist, we should be trained to identify the danger signals and have recommended guidelines for working with students who may have problems. Most importantly, we should know what to say to these people and where we should recommend they should go for expert help.
If I understand what Paul, Ian and Van are saying, PTSD is triggered by involvement in actual physical violence, where your life is in extreme danger. Depending on the individual, I would assume the amount of violence and time involved in fighting is a variable that is different in everyone.
As martial artist, we should be trained to identify the danger signals and have recommended guidelines for working with students who may have problems. Most importantly, we should know what to say to these people and where we should recommend they should go for expert help.
GEM
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
"Do or do not. there is no try!"
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Bill Glasheen
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Agreed 100% that trauma - and not training - is the SOURCE of the problems here.
We teachers deal with individuals in fixed time periods of their lives. They walk in the door with or without "baggage" (preexisting conditions). I would venture to say that a significant portion of my female students through the years walk in with some preexisting conditions. The training may help. Or the training may make it worse. Or maybe things don't change. I don't know what the net is.
But...the REASON some folks are there is because of the preexisting condition. Do we owe these students any consideration?
As for students who suffer trauma DURING our watch, well IMO we need to anticipate PTSD as the military does. That doesn't mean we all need to be Dr. Paul. But we certainly need something there.
The very least we need is anticipation and/or recognition skills.
- Bill
We teachers deal with individuals in fixed time periods of their lives. They walk in the door with or without "baggage" (preexisting conditions). I would venture to say that a significant portion of my female students through the years walk in with some preexisting conditions. The training may help. Or the training may make it worse. Or maybe things don't change. I don't know what the net is.
But...the REASON some folks are there is because of the preexisting condition. Do we owe these students any consideration?
As for students who suffer trauma DURING our watch, well IMO we need to anticipate PTSD as the military does. That doesn't mean we all need to be Dr. Paul. But we certainly need something there.
The very least we need is anticipation and/or recognition skills.
- Bill
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Stryke
Not to over simplify , but dont we just need to recognise that MA does not have the answers to such problems .
I see the mystical , emotional , spiritual crap as being the only thing that could make said situation worse .
If a student of mine was displaying emotional problems out of context , and struggling with there martial arts , I`d discuss as a freind and recomend seeking help , if they didnt and were a threat to themselves or others I`d insist they did and remove them from training until progress was made .
we are not counsellors and even a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, we have no place diagnosing or treating students .
be a good human being , and seperate the martial arts from anything else .
I see the mystical , emotional , spiritual crap as being the only thing that could make said situation worse .
If a student of mine was displaying emotional problems out of context , and struggling with there martial arts , I`d discuss as a freind and recomend seeking help , if they didnt and were a threat to themselves or others I`d insist they did and remove them from training until progress was made .
we are not counsellors and even a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, we have no place diagnosing or treating students .
be a good human being , and seperate the martial arts from anything else .
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Bill Glasheen
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That's a defensible position, Stryke. But it isn't one I share.
To start with, what we have is the Venn diagram that includes the circles of self-defense, martial arts, combat, fitness, and mind/body training. One generally does not exist without overlapping somewhat on the domain of the next.
Let's get back to the basic articles that were the start of all this. The military exists to train men and women to fight wars. When you fight wars, you kill people and witness unspeakable atrocities. It's the nature of the beast. And if you study Uechi's style for any length of time and open your eyes, you realize that the material in the kata is NOT about sport karate and fitness. As I showed my own students in classes this weak with multiple (home grown) bunkai of our own kata, these moves aren't "playing nice." We don't practice a gentleman's art. We practice sequences that are designed to set up permanently disabling or killing movements. I see these patterns again and again and again throughout the forms.
Perhaps it gets down to basic ethics. Particularly with professional schools, they attract clientele via their very martial nature. Many people come in to learn to fight or to defend themselves. They want to do this because they have experienced a traumatic event (an assault of a physical and/or sexual nature) or they fear they will be assaulted. So fine... We teach them human movement and how to execute our strategies against uncooperative partners. Great, we're done, right? I don't give a damn about your personal problems, right?
There's a lot of good literature on this stuff. From WWII to Korea to Vietnam, firing rates of soldiers went from about 15% to 50% to 90%. Through research and the use of operant conditioning methods, we learned how to teach people to go against their pre-programmed nature and take the life of another. And with each successive war, the psychological casualties from it all increased in similar proportions.
Great... Johnny shot some gooks. We give him some pay, a GI bill to educate him, and send him home. The taxpayer is done with him, right?
IMO, no. The military has caused psychological harm as debilitating as physical harm. Don't believe me? Take men suffering from PTSD and men who have suffered physical injuries. Give them an activities of daily living survey instrument such as the SF-36, and see how functional they are. Guess what? You might as well have shot these PTSD men and women and sent them to the hospital. They are no more functional than those that have suffered physical injuries. Since understanding and defining these real conditions in the early 1980s (post Vietnam), the medical community has come to understand more and more about the burden of illness involved. This affects the individuals, their families, their friends, and their employers. Everyone loses until the conditions are dealt with.
I'll give you a few anecdotes.
Anecdote 1:
An 18-year-old college student is in my class on a Thursday evening. She learns a simple self-defense technique that involves removing someone's grip (from behind) by grabbing and pulling back the pinkie finger. Everyone practices it, and registers it in their memory. Twenty-four hours later, she is walking home alone (like a dummy) down Rugby Road (fraternity row). Apparently her friends wanted to stay late and get drunk with frat boys, and she wanted nothing of it. She comes around the corner of Rugby and University Avenue, and someone comes out from the bushes of the president's home and grabs her. The large, powerful man is dragging her up the front grounds towards some large boxwood bushes. She suddenly remembers the last thing she learned in class. Finger is pulled back, and something snaps. They both fall down rather clumsily. He gets up and runs away.
No problem. We have a karate class hero, right?
Wrong.
To make a long story short, she ends up dropping out of life for about a year. She cannot go out on dates, does poorly in classes, and is afraid to leave her dorm room. She becomes more and more withdrawn.
Why didn't I see this coming? Frankly because few knew very much about PTSD then. I did not know that after the fight, the fight often just begins. Imagine this woman not losing a year of valuable college life (maybe more...) if only she had sought early treatment in anticipation of the psychological aftermath.
Did I have a responsibility to that student after teaching her how to engage someone in an assault? I think so.
Anecdote 2:
I have soooo many like this one. Basically I have a woman in karate class who appears to be a great student. But there is something not right. It doesn't take long for me to realize this individual has eating disorders. I run into said individual in the grocery store buying laxatives. Busted!! Over time I found out that (pick your individual in family or amongst friends) sexually assaulted this person (pick your time period in the past).
Do I owe this dedicated student special attention? If I shrug my shoulders and wash my hands of it all (I'm only a martial arts instructor, after all...), I very likely will lose her. And meltdown is happening right in front of my eyes.
I've also been involved with suicide attempts related to PTSD. Long story... A psychologist whom I approached about one individual told me she thought I deserved a medal for intervening like I did.
Get Panther to talk some time about the aftermath of his own assault situation. And Panther is no half-assed slouch. Pretty scary looking, frankly...
I don't buy that we wash our hands of this. That's like saying we teach people how to kill or hurt others, but don't discuss the legal perspective of it all. I believe that in life, you finish what you started, and you take responsibility where it can make a difference. That's me. I believe it's a matter of ethics.
- Bill
To start with, what we have is the Venn diagram that includes the circles of self-defense, martial arts, combat, fitness, and mind/body training. One generally does not exist without overlapping somewhat on the domain of the next.
Let's get back to the basic articles that were the start of all this. The military exists to train men and women to fight wars. When you fight wars, you kill people and witness unspeakable atrocities. It's the nature of the beast. And if you study Uechi's style for any length of time and open your eyes, you realize that the material in the kata is NOT about sport karate and fitness. As I showed my own students in classes this weak with multiple (home grown) bunkai of our own kata, these moves aren't "playing nice." We don't practice a gentleman's art. We practice sequences that are designed to set up permanently disabling or killing movements. I see these patterns again and again and again throughout the forms.
Perhaps it gets down to basic ethics. Particularly with professional schools, they attract clientele via their very martial nature. Many people come in to learn to fight or to defend themselves. They want to do this because they have experienced a traumatic event (an assault of a physical and/or sexual nature) or they fear they will be assaulted. So fine... We teach them human movement and how to execute our strategies against uncooperative partners. Great, we're done, right? I don't give a damn about your personal problems, right?
There's a lot of good literature on this stuff. From WWII to Korea to Vietnam, firing rates of soldiers went from about 15% to 50% to 90%. Through research and the use of operant conditioning methods, we learned how to teach people to go against their pre-programmed nature and take the life of another. And with each successive war, the psychological casualties from it all increased in similar proportions.
Great... Johnny shot some gooks. We give him some pay, a GI bill to educate him, and send him home. The taxpayer is done with him, right?
IMO, no. The military has caused psychological harm as debilitating as physical harm. Don't believe me? Take men suffering from PTSD and men who have suffered physical injuries. Give them an activities of daily living survey instrument such as the SF-36, and see how functional they are. Guess what? You might as well have shot these PTSD men and women and sent them to the hospital. They are no more functional than those that have suffered physical injuries. Since understanding and defining these real conditions in the early 1980s (post Vietnam), the medical community has come to understand more and more about the burden of illness involved. This affects the individuals, their families, their friends, and their employers. Everyone loses until the conditions are dealt with.
I'll give you a few anecdotes.
Anecdote 1:
An 18-year-old college student is in my class on a Thursday evening. She learns a simple self-defense technique that involves removing someone's grip (from behind) by grabbing and pulling back the pinkie finger. Everyone practices it, and registers it in their memory. Twenty-four hours later, she is walking home alone (like a dummy) down Rugby Road (fraternity row). Apparently her friends wanted to stay late and get drunk with frat boys, and she wanted nothing of it. She comes around the corner of Rugby and University Avenue, and someone comes out from the bushes of the president's home and grabs her. The large, powerful man is dragging her up the front grounds towards some large boxwood bushes. She suddenly remembers the last thing she learned in class. Finger is pulled back, and something snaps. They both fall down rather clumsily. He gets up and runs away.
No problem. We have a karate class hero, right?
Wrong.
To make a long story short, she ends up dropping out of life for about a year. She cannot go out on dates, does poorly in classes, and is afraid to leave her dorm room. She becomes more and more withdrawn.
Why didn't I see this coming? Frankly because few knew very much about PTSD then. I did not know that after the fight, the fight often just begins. Imagine this woman not losing a year of valuable college life (maybe more...) if only she had sought early treatment in anticipation of the psychological aftermath.
Did I have a responsibility to that student after teaching her how to engage someone in an assault? I think so.
Anecdote 2:
I have soooo many like this one. Basically I have a woman in karate class who appears to be a great student. But there is something not right. It doesn't take long for me to realize this individual has eating disorders. I run into said individual in the grocery store buying laxatives. Busted!! Over time I found out that (pick your individual in family or amongst friends) sexually assaulted this person (pick your time period in the past).
Do I owe this dedicated student special attention? If I shrug my shoulders and wash my hands of it all (I'm only a martial arts instructor, after all...), I very likely will lose her. And meltdown is happening right in front of my eyes.
I've also been involved with suicide attempts related to PTSD. Long story... A psychologist whom I approached about one individual told me she thought I deserved a medal for intervening like I did.
Get Panther to talk some time about the aftermath of his own assault situation. And Panther is no half-assed slouch. Pretty scary looking, frankly...
I don't buy that we wash our hands of this. That's like saying we teach people how to kill or hurt others, but don't discuss the legal perspective of it all. I believe that in life, you finish what you started, and you take responsibility where it can make a difference. That's me. I believe it's a matter of ethics.
- Bill
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Stryke
I`d not advocating washing my hands , I`m advocating refering them to proper helpI`d discuss as a freind and recomend seeking help
I dont think a martial arts instructor no matter how well read , or how well intentioned has the capacity to deal with this .
debreifing a student after conflict could be helpfull , anyone who`s been studying martial arts long enough to be teaching should have a basic awareness of the physcollogy and aftermath of confrontation , all you can do is tell them anything is normal and understandable and point them in the right direction of counselling .
Ive read much on ptsd , and grossman , and debecker , but this in no way puts me in a position to offer any assistance other than recomending thy seek proffessional help.
anything else IMHO is negligent and unethical .
I write it as approaching as a friend and suggesting they seek some help and offer suggestions .
this is not washing hands in any way , just is a more of a human touch then having a corporate policy , or required Uechi ryu policy ...
as i wrote it`s about being a good human being , and not about trying to be counsillor , phsychologist , and preist ... realise our parts as MA instructors , we are little more than arms dealers in the wider context
yes that last sentence is inflammatory and not my personal beleif
good to see
..I think this talk is extremely relevant and very nice to see you martial artists together agree that an obligation to a student is more than just to teach the art they came in the door for but also to be a guide in a much bigger sense and recognize that there are some who may need different answers and possibly intervention..I think the worst thing any person can do is turn their head when they have a strong feeling someone is in need even if it's a slight need.I really like what Bill said about the fight or struggle really begins after the fight and I agree that during it's all instinct and reaction with no time to think then after if you're lucky enough to make it out ok it's anticipation and constant thinking about how to sort it all out and how to avoid it again..I think the actual confrontation is much less of a struggle most times in people than the aftermath and the questions..it can unbalance and disturb any person and I do believe it needs to be recognized and people need to step in as friends with solutions...I liked also what Paul said about people with disorders looking to prove themselves with bigger or more fearful situations and I'm no doctor But I really think they do this sort of thing in a way to say ok I'm tired of worrying..Worrying is fare more torturous than getting it over with so I'm looking for danger so I can just end this nonsense and have actuality instead of wondering ya know...
Jeff
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Bill Glasheen
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This is a fascinating comment, and I'm glad it was made.Stryke wrote: I`m sure if not on this thread , soon Van some will accuse you off fearmogering or aiding PTSD
With respect to this thread on PTSD, I think it's important to understand causality vs. association. Hypervigilance is a potential symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
At home, he found he couldn't sleep more than three or four hours a night. When the nightmares began, he started smoking cigarettes. He'd find himself shaking and quick-tempered.
"Any little noise and I'd jump out of bed and run around the house with a gun," he says. "I'd wake up at night with cold sweats."
The disease causes the symptom. The symptom does not cause the disease.
Yes, there ARE fearmongers out there who are that way because they suffer from PTSD. As Paul describes earlier in his anecdote, such people cannot satisfy their desire to protect themselves. It becomes a never-ending obsession that is not satisfied.
Yes, sometimes it’s worth calling the question when someone is obsessed with vigilance. And as I have repeatedly found, many such people have demons in their pasts. If that is the case, what is more important - dealing with the demons or trying constantly to prepare for the next catastrophic encounter?
It takes all kinds to make a society. Sometimes a vigilant person is just a vigilant person. Sometimes it's a symptom of something else going on. But in no way can the symptom cause the problem.
- Bill
I`m sure if not on this thread , soon Van some will accuse you off fearmogering or aiding PTSD
That always brings a smile to my face.
You see it’s like this, Marcus:
Martial arts training is about tuning up an engine made up of many critical components.
The in depth analysis of violence dynamics that takes place on my forum is just one of the critical components, a ‘specialty’ aspect of these forums that has made my page so popular on the web.
Yet some people will become obsessed with what we discuss and dissect_ you may recall some of the past sorry examples of this.
These same people have the underlying conditions I have outlined elsewhere, only they don’t know it yet, and they have not yet settled their psychic accounts with such demons.
Because of some traumatic childhood memory, pouncing in their skulls, they become very uneasy when perceiving threats to their physical and emotional being by our inquiries, explorations, questions, etc.
They hear every comment, every word, as an assault, criticism, or censure that slaps their oppressive self-image.
An image that is reflected back by a ‘mirror with two faces’ _
And so a look gets them this nightmarish likeness back from the mirror of the mind.
And their charges of fear mongering and aiding PTSD, echo the dismay that engulfs them in the grip of the ‘flashing demon’ in the mirror.
Van
