[Jimmy Lee]

Why are you here then?

[dcohen]

A and B? Imaginary. It's two sides of the same thing.

Psychological work works with reflexes the human body has (not purely physical ones)...the need for "support" from an opponent, the fear of pain and not knowing where you are, the confusion when you know something is going wrong and can't figure out what is actually happening to you. These are fears that people have, and you can exploit them in combative situations.

Here - stand someone up, come up from behind, and whack them between the shoulder blades. Tell me you can't predict where they go. There's physical work.

Now have the same person standing the same way, but come from behind and put a hand over their eyes. Doesn't matter if they can see or not, it's annoying. Now whack them between the shoulder blades. Not only will you get a bigger reaction, but about twice as many new targets will pop up. Nobody likes to be cut off between steps 1 and 2 of the OODA cycle over and over again - it makes people freeze up, makes their muscles tense up, makes their minds afraid of not knowing where to move or what to do. Now laugh while you put your hand across their eyes and scream BOO right before you hit them in the back.

That's not the only kind of psychological work, of course, but it's what a lot of people think of. More reflex work and creating fear and helplessness than anything else. What I think of as 'real' psychological work can be seen in almost all good AikiJJ - when someone is in a very confused state, even a small touch will IMMEDIATELY be categorized as a big potential influence. It's up to you to make them see it as support, in which case they put their balance onto it and you take it away, or as a threat, in which case their body will do almost anything to avoid it, even if it's just your pinky pressing into the side of the trapezius or something like that.

The human body will (almost instantly) completely and violently take over the conscious mind when it thinks it is about to die and the mind is just getting in the way.

There's another kind of work, though. The more you play with little/no contact psychological work at full speed with full intent (IMHO the best way to train it), the more you'll come into this other weird aspect of the work. And then you'll know what it is and you'll stop asking about it on internet chatboards.

-Dave

PS - it always amazes me how people want to shoo away any discussion of more "psychic" work or equate it to other unrelated things (I hate the term, but it's NOT psychological work)...isn't it funny that almost every massively competent H2H figure from the days of feudal Japan on believe in this mysterious other part of martial work? And by competent, I don't mean "we trained real hard for 15 years and got real good and won some tournaments." I mean things more along the lines of "I've killed people who were really trying to kill me, over and over and over again, where it didn't matter how much training I had because it was still terrifying every time, etc." Funny how people who have actually lived a real martial life present a visible pattern...and yeah, there's lots of people out there trying to capitalize on it, but I still can't see a damn reason to ignore it.

PPS. I changed my mind - you CAN separate psychic and psychological. You do it by smashing the guy into unconsciousness, and then you got rid of the psychological part. Then you have reflexes and...oooooo...'psychic' work.

[CreativeFighter]

Heh. Jimmy, you're about to get throw into a world where saying such things as "Why are you here" to people who are trying their best to both have patience with you and help you, is not the best thing to do.

Not a terrible amount I can add to Dave's great explanation..
There's hundreds of different views of psychic work, and I personally like to assume:
All thoughts, reactions, preominitions are in the base form of energy. Raw, electrical charges. Therefore when a thought happen it is discharged into the surrounding environment. Our subconscious picks up on these "thoughts" but does not translate to our conscious.
Ever feel something before it happens? Have you ever had the same random thought as a person next to you? An atom will function the same way EVERY time it is subjected to the same environnmental stimuli. Whether it's other people's actions or the temperature of the room. If you can pick up on these stimuli and manipulate them to the best of your ability then you have a clear "psychological, or PSYCHIC" advantage.

For the record, this is MY personal theory.
Work with the concept. You can talk about it all day but the best course of action is to take a friend and experiment. If it comes down to it, yes, punch the shit out of them, but do what you have to do.

-Ilya

[Irish_Blood]

An atom will function the same way EVERY time it is subjected to the same environnmental stimuli. Whether it's other people's actions or the temperature of the room. If you can pick up on these stimuli and manipulate them to the best of your ability then you have a clear "psychological, or PSYCHIC" advantage.

Hey Matt... Bring back any memories? Biofeedback maybe? hehe

[dcohen]

Well, back from an interesting day, and I felt like dropping in again - don't mind me.

I say, don't worry about this stuff. At all. Put it out of your mind. Forget it's there. I say, worry about learning how to kick ass. If you're not studying RMAs, but are interested in either information or possible training, these are not effective things to be worrying about. My opinion - find out what a style can do for you. Find out HOW you get to that point. What does the training involve? Why? Why is the methodology like this, and not that? How does this give me the skills to defend the shit out of myself when it hits the fan? How can I use this to preemptively use the art to diffuse situations that could end even worse than when they are under my control?

What are faults in training? Where are the loopholes? Why are they there? Are the acceptable? Can the students fight? Can they kick ass? Does teacher X regularly, quickly, reliably, and consistently build monsters at his/her school? Can some of the students kick the shit out of me? Do I understand why they can do this, and how they do it? What principles does the art base itself on? Are these principles always present in life?

How does the art transfer to using anything I pick up to change the world with? A pen, a garrote, a newspaper, a knife, a cane, my jacket, an M4 carbine...I don't care...does it transfer to all of them? Why? Why not? Am I satisfied with that? How will I fare if I use this art and have to stay around with police? Can I effectively use it against someone without harming them? Can I effectively use it to absolutely decimate, tear apart, crush, smash, and deconstruct someone? Do I understand why and why not? WHY? HOW? DEMONSTRATE FOR ME!

You have a right to know all of this, but you have to ask the right questions to get the right answers. Don't be satisfied with some nebulous bullshit that you can neither understand nor use to make yourself harder and much more annoying to kill.

-Dave

[Irish_Blood]

Good post Dave.

You might want to look for a "Life Art", not just a "Martial Art."

[dcohen]

Hah, funny that you mention it. The one we've stumbled on is both .

What can I say...I came for the breaking and I'll stay for the fixing. And who knows after that.

-Dave

[Arthur]

Gong Jau said:

Will you do it for both of us? I've seen plenty of "very strong" opinions there.

I'd hope so. opinions without a certain level of conviction aren't really all that useful. Strong opinions coupled with a mind ready and willing to change if presented with valid information are a beautiful and very useful thing. Of course thats just my strong opinion.

Jimmy Lee said:

Jimmy Lee

Didn't they recently have a huge blowout argument over there due to conflicts of opinion?

Isn't discussion centered around differences of opinion the entire point of having a web board? The death of internet boards happen when everyone on them agrees. the life blood of a board is discourse.

It sounds like super strong opinions to me.

If you have to ask if something happened somewhere, then it would seem you really aren't in a position to make a judgment on the thing. Proclaiming something is a "super strong opinion" when you have no knowledge of it seems to me... to be a bit of a super strong opinion in itself.

All that said... I have no clue what you guys are talking about in reference to rmaforum.com The only arguments going on are in the social section over politics. In the training sections it is one of the least argumentative boards I've ever been involved with.

Luckily there are people with differing opinions on a variety of training methodologies, and we have some very nice and enlightening discussions. We have been very fortunate to have the participation of high level practitioners from R.O.S.S., K-Sys, Systema and Sambo. As the administrator fo rmaforum.com I have receive letters from the organizational heads of many Russian martial Art organizations, thanking me for hosting an open and neutral forum.

Rmaforum.com welcomes strong opinions, especially those formed from strong experience. Feel free to come by and share your convictions.

Arthur

[Gong||Jau]

Originally Posted by Arthur

All that said... I have no clue what you guys are talking about in reference to rmaforum.com The only arguments going on are in the social section over politics. In the training sections it is one of the least argumentative boards I've ever been involved with.

Shh... the political section was my loophole . Creative, I want a plane ticket to Boston .

[bamboo]

Hmmm.....

You seem to assume a lot. Have a go at www.rmaforum.com

You'll find that contributors there range from Scott Sonnon to Matt Powell.

Find me one "strong opinion" and I'll fly you to the school of your choice out of my own pocket.

-Ilya

Arthur, the above is "why" the "opinion" discussion and answers your question below.

All that said... I have no clue what you guys are talking about in reference to rmaforum.com

cheers,

bamboo

All the useless name calling and whatnot has been deleted