Bill-
I may not be understanding your pothole analogy. It seems that you are saying that you have a choice and can skip that step. The essence of "NO TIME" is that you have taken damage before you are aware you are threatened... I think that time frame has to be survived, I'm not sure how it can be avoided.
Did I misunderstand?
Rory
We ARE about high road training
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Bill Glasheen
- Posts: 17299
- Joined: Thu Mar 11, 1999 6:01 am
- Location: Richmond, VA --- Louisville, KY
I guess several things are getting jumbled together here.
1) Whether the thalmus sends the direction to act to the amygdala (low road) or cortex (high road). Or maybe some combination of the above, since we know that the two areas anatomically communicate with each other.
2) The degree of neurohormonal stimulation.
I agree with you that low road is not necessarily bad. It wouldn't be there if it wasn't useful. Low road would handle the surprise attack that came so fast that we have no time for the cortex to recognize and respond. It kicks in and does its thing until the brain gives permission (so to speak) for the cortex (consciously or unconsiously) to kick in.
We walk down a path. We see a curvey thing move. We jump back because thalmus/amygdala thinks SNAKE!!! Eventually the thalmus/cortex kicks in and figures out Oh...stepped on a stick. Silly me...
However lets take a baseball coming at us. If I had never seen one before and was standing at shortstop, I believe the low road (flinch) would kick in. Thalmus sends signal to amygdala, and hands frantically fly up. But if I was a professional shortstop, I wouldn't "flinch" in the least. I might even move into the baseball's path so I could get my body in front of it just in case the ball took a bad hop. And a good deal of the mechanics of that would happen unconsciously because it was so well programmed into the brain. It is done with no thought. (mushin)
The only issue is making low and high road responses look like each other. (convergence)
To the extent that we have time and can recognize, we want high road to take over because we can do so with better accuracy and precision - even if we are gross motor. A PURELY low road response is going to be fairly primative (sensitivity and speed over specificity and precision) and thus less than optimal given what we would prefer to happen if we had time.
As to the degree of neurohormonal stimulation, well you know that those various chemical and electrical mechanisms begin to kick in when threatened, and we can go past optimal operating condition. We can get so stoked that we freeze like the wren did in my hands. I could see the eyes dilated and feel the heart pounding. All the symptoms of autonomic overdrive were there along with the paralysis. It was deer-in-the-headlamps or brain fart syndrome.
So perhaps two likely coexisting forces come into play at the same time, and both can be considered to be "potholes" of a sort. We want to maintain optimal neurohormonal stimulation when Survival Stress Response kicks in. Not too stimulated, and not too lax. And we want high road to take over as soon as it can so all our training can kick in. When either or both of those "issues" have happened (low road response and neurohormonal overshoot), we are in the pot hole. IMO, it's best to avoid that if we can succeed outside it. And it's best to get out of it ASAP once we're capable of responding appropriately.
Make sense, or do you want to critique?
- Bill
1) Whether the thalmus sends the direction to act to the amygdala (low road) or cortex (high road). Or maybe some combination of the above, since we know that the two areas anatomically communicate with each other.
2) The degree of neurohormonal stimulation.
I agree with you that low road is not necessarily bad. It wouldn't be there if it wasn't useful. Low road would handle the surprise attack that came so fast that we have no time for the cortex to recognize and respond. It kicks in and does its thing until the brain gives permission (so to speak) for the cortex (consciously or unconsiously) to kick in.
We walk down a path. We see a curvey thing move. We jump back because thalmus/amygdala thinks SNAKE!!! Eventually the thalmus/cortex kicks in and figures out Oh...stepped on a stick. Silly me...
However lets take a baseball coming at us. If I had never seen one before and was standing at shortstop, I believe the low road (flinch) would kick in. Thalmus sends signal to amygdala, and hands frantically fly up. But if I was a professional shortstop, I wouldn't "flinch" in the least. I might even move into the baseball's path so I could get my body in front of it just in case the ball took a bad hop. And a good deal of the mechanics of that would happen unconsciously because it was so well programmed into the brain. It is done with no thought. (mushin)
The only issue is making low and high road responses look like each other. (convergence)
To the extent that we have time and can recognize, we want high road to take over because we can do so with better accuracy and precision - even if we are gross motor. A PURELY low road response is going to be fairly primative (sensitivity and speed over specificity and precision) and thus less than optimal given what we would prefer to happen if we had time.
As to the degree of neurohormonal stimulation, well you know that those various chemical and electrical mechanisms begin to kick in when threatened, and we can go past optimal operating condition. We can get so stoked that we freeze like the wren did in my hands. I could see the eyes dilated and feel the heart pounding. All the symptoms of autonomic overdrive were there along with the paralysis. It was deer-in-the-headlamps or brain fart syndrome.
So perhaps two likely coexisting forces come into play at the same time, and both can be considered to be "potholes" of a sort. We want to maintain optimal neurohormonal stimulation when Survival Stress Response kicks in. Not too stimulated, and not too lax. And we want high road to take over as soon as it can so all our training can kick in. When either or both of those "issues" have happened (low road response and neurohormonal overshoot), we are in the pot hole. IMO, it's best to avoid that if we can succeed outside it. And it's best to get out of it ASAP once we're capable of responding appropriately.
Make sense, or do you want to critique?
- Bill
