So all this "chemical cocktail" and "dump" business was pretty much up my alley. It was just a matter of applying the same basic knowledge to another field. Physicians are interested in detecting and preventing diabetic autonomic neuropathy so a middle-aged diabetic can still react appropriately to various life situations. LEOs and warriors want to stay alive and functional under the Survival Stress Response. And cyber warriors just want to play armchair expert.
What does frustrate me though is to see people take a half-baked understanding of human physiology and carry it forward to half-baked training ideas and style preferences. I truly believe what saves most folks is that we often do OK in spite of rather than because of our training methods. But efficiency and quality of effort should be valued propositions.
Along those lines...
Just the other day, I was watching Rich training some newbies in the art of ukemi. Training is training and practice is practice, so a certain amount of this just needs to follow the Nike approach. (Just do it!!!) But an understanding of a valuable piece of the martial equation is something we can carry on to other aspects of our training so we can be equally successful in these other areas.
Make no mistake about it - the "flinch" or "low road" response to falling is NOT a good thing. Oh sure, it may work 80% of the time. Sticking your arm out when you are about to meet some high-speed dirt can sometimes keep you from smashing your head. I suppose that's not bad. But what of the risk to the forearm bones? The shoulders? I have seen a lot through my training years. I've seen a white belt slip on a floor while attempting to do a simple front kick, and shatter his radius and ulna. Go figure... The flinch response didn't help him much there, did it? And because it was a newbie, the "high road" alternative (the break fall) hadn't kicked in yet.
And yet... I recently had a student come back to the classroom with baby in arms to thank me for saving her baby. Apparently she had tripped on something in the garage with her baby in her arms. Because of her training in ukemi, she managed to twist herself in mid-air and breakfall with baby above her. The result was a safe mom, a smiling kid who wanted to do it again, and only a little bit of diginity lost. Not bad, eh?
This "high road" stuff we do works - period. When we are well-trained, it works at speeds faster than we can think. The "low road" stuff is still there, but training and practice helps the brain develop a different perspective. For example, someone who never came out of the woods might wildly throw the hands up with a screaming grounder coming at him, whereas I would patiently scoot in front and catch it with my glove. What caused the first person's amygdale to take over is something that my higher brain decided it would rather handle.
That's good training!
And a good style is a group of "high road" methods that transition easily from the "flinch" or "low road" responses. If you squint your eyes, you can almost see the flailing arms coming up when someone puts their hands in sanchin. If you squint your eyes, you can almost see that arm trying to reach out and protect the body when someone does a break fall. But not quite... It's a simple matter to go from one to the next. And all is in order when your body transitions from one state to the next without you even thinking about it.
That's both good MA and good training!
A certain amount of faith is needed in this business. It's sometimes good to keep "the traditional" in mind as we "smart" people who have it all figured out try to separate out the "good" from the "ill informed." Sometimes history repeats itself here. Like a typical adolescent, we reject the past with our newfound knowledge, only to realize later in life how much smarter our elders got.
Go figure...
Yes, question. Question and verify. But realize there is a lot of good material out there still waiting to be fully understood.
- Bill
Is there any more detail on his heroics? I'd love to hear his detailed account. Excellent training and a brave heart is almost unbeatable.
