Rory Miller's Blog, page 23

CofV Lesson 3: The Second Model

Again, this is adapted from the upcoming Conflict Communications book.

There will be some scientific details in what follows.  Feel free to ignore it.  Unless you are doing research, the background science is not important.  The concepts are.  And you know what?  I’m not a scientist, so don’t take my word on anything.Again, like Maslow, this is a model, not a theory.  Many models are useful, none are TRUE.  For our purposes you have three brains, which we will call the Lizard, the Monkey and the Human.
The Lizard is the oldest part of your thinking brain, the hindbrain.  Your survival instincts (particularly fight/flight/freeze responses) are triggered here.  This is the part of your thinking brain most closely tied to your physical coordination, to your physical body and your senses.  This is you, the animal.The Lizard also has an affinity for ritual and rhythm.  Habits are laid down in this part of the brain, as are the little rituals that become mannerisms.  I always add a little dash of coffee grounds to the pot, no matter how carefully I measured it.  A mutual friend starts every conversation with, “How’s it going?”  Our black cat meows when he can see the bottom of the bowl.  Habit and ritual.Rhythm is often used to get in touch with this old part of the mind, as in tribal drumming and ecstatic dance.  I noticed it another way, though.  When a criminal was getting adrenalized, losing his ability to reason as he got angrier and angrier, closer to exploding in violence, he would often develop odd little tics that were often rhythmic—shrugging his shoulders or bouncing on his toes.
The Monkey brain corresponds to the limbic system, the emotional brain.  The Monkey is completely concerned with social behavior, with status and what other people might think.  The Monkey cannot distinguish between humiliation and death.For much of our evolution, being cast out of the tribe was to be sentenced to a slow and lonely death.  The Monkey knows this and fears being ostracized above all things.  Soldiers could not be relied on in wartime if the fear of being laughed at as a coward didn’t override the fear of death.You will see the power of the Monkey in dangerous situations.  In natural disasters or major events such as the Twin Towers destruction, people were milling around, talking to each other, seeing what the other monkeys were going to do.  In Baghdad, when an explosion went off near by, some people would hit the floor.  Some (who had been there a while and could judge distance and safety) pretty much ignored it.  Most looked around to see what they were supposed to do.Because most of the conflict we experience comes from this level, the Monkey scripts drive a lot of current human conflict behavior.
The neo-cortex, what we call the Human brain, is the new kid on the block.  It is thoughtful, usually rational (but only as good as its information).  It is also slow.  Gathering evidence, weighing options and possibilities takes time.  It tends to find a good solution, but usually one of the older sections of the brain has a decision all set to go before the neo-cortex has fully explored the problem.
You have three different brains with three different priorities.  They evolved to deal with different kinds of conflict.  They work using different scripts.  They also have a very clear seniority system.The Lizard’s only concern is your individual survival.  It is utterly ruthless.  It is also conservative and extremely resistant to anything new.  This is why it is so hard, especially for people who have lived dangerous lives (such as victims of chronic child abuse) to change.  The Lizard only cares about survival.  No matter how hard life has been, how dangerous it is, or how clearly it seems that a bad ending is inevitable, all the Lizard knows is that you what you are doing hasn’t gotten you killed yet.  Any change might.This can be especially obvious in moments of extreme fear.  When a rookie officer tries the same wristlock again and again even though it is not working; when an officer repeats over and over, “Drop the weapon, drop the weapon,” when it is clear he has no choice but to shoot, the Lizard is freezing them into a loop.  The Lizard assumes it is a survival loop because it hasn’t gotten you killed yet…Most people only experience the Lizard in moments of extreme terror, if at all.  This means that they associate it with the Survival Stress Response, the cascade of stress hormones that flood your body under extreme threat.  The stress hormones affect your vision and hearing, your memory, your coordination and your judgment.  The stress hormones may make you clumsy, tunnel-visioned, functionally deaf, stupid, stubborn and incapable of remembering anything.People who have only experienced the Lizard under these conditions assume that the Lizard is clumsy and stupid.  Not so.  An elite athlete “in the zone” is functioning almost wholly in the Lizard brain.  Watch a kid playing a video game he or she has mastered and you see the lizard brain, totally absorbed in a task.As the oldest and concerned with the very highest priority, survival, the Lizard brain has the chemical power to completely take over your brain.  It can hijack you whenever it feels the need.  This hijacking is usually (only?) triggered by fear of imminent death.
The Monkey is concerned with social survival and status.  It literally cannot distinguish between humiliation and death.  This is a key point in many very serious issues.  At a low level, you can see it in action by taking a group of friends out bungee jumping.  Fear of falling is one of the two fears that appeared to be hard-wired into human infants (the other is loud noises).  In bungee jumping there is a small but real risk of injury.  It usually takes a few minutes of cajoling to get a timid person to jump. A risk taker or adrenaline junkie will not need much encouragement but will usually hesitate just before making the leap.  It takes an act of will, of some degree, to overcome one of the deepest genetic fears that humans have.Afterwards, take the same group of friends out to a karaoke bar and try to get them to sing.  Some absolutely won’t.  A few will, if they have performed before.  For most it will take alcohol, insults, teasing all to overcome a fear of… what?What a bunch of drunk strangers will think?  Not even that, because two beers later the drunk strangers won’t even remember your singing.  Why is this fear, this imaginary fear of what other people might think so powerful?Make no mistake, it is powerful.In “Machete Season” Jean Hatzfeld documents a man in the Rwandan genocide who went out every morning to hunt Tutsi and hack them up—men, women and children—with machetes.  The man said that the taunts and jeering and laughter if he didn’t join in were much worse, ‘like a poison.’The monkey is powerful, and it explains some very deep, very dangerous puzzles in human behavior, conflict and trauma.The physical injuries from rape often heal quickly.  The psychic scars take much longer if they heal at all.  Because the monkey brain’s view of how the world should work, the things that can and can’t happen, how people treat each other are shattered.That people stay in a clearly abusive relationship is a puzzle, but not for the monkey.  The monkey knows that it is still a relationship.  That you have a tribe and a place, no matter how painful, is less terrifying than to be alone or to be uncertain of your place.Listen to those words: painful, terrifying.  The Monkey is the seat of emotions.  There are deeper emotions.  The Lizard understands a pure joy in the physical world that rarely makes it to the conscious mind.  The lizard also understands a primal fear of extinction.The Monkey, however, lives on the social nuances of emotion.It is less afraid of dying than of being seen as a coward, of shame.  The Monkey turns honest grief into self-pity.  Sometimes it turns Lizard fear into rage, and that can be a profound survival strategy, but the Monkey can also produce rage in response to an imagined insult.It is not always negative.  The connections with family, friends and our sense of belonging to any group triggers at the Monkey level.  It allows compassion, patriotism, self-sacrifice and a desire to make a better future for others.  The monkey is the one who can feel the concept of a community.Sometimes, guided and influenced by the Human brain, it is rational and altruistic.  Even when it is not, the Monkey mind feels rational.  This is a huge danger.Studies have shown that when people who label themselves ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ are asked to explain their political views they feel logical.  They sound logical.  But their neo-cortex (where logic resides) isn’t even active.  The activity is in their limbic system, their emotional centers.  Their Monkey brains.When you label yourself, whether by nationality or creed or political party or business affiliation or social club, you are in your Monkey brain.  No matter how rational you feel, the label has the specific purpose of identifying you within a tribe and preventing you from thinking rationally.Because, if you notice a pattern here, all of these obviously silly or inefficient Monkey Strategies (staying in bad relationships, hacking up others, fear of humiliation, labeling) dowork.  They just don’t work for you.  They work to keep the groups together.The Lizard, the Monkey and DeathThe Lizard is only concerned with survival and outranks the Monkey, so how, as mentioned earlier, can there be soldiers?  Why doesn’t the Lizard keep people from getting into the position of choosing between status and survival?Because the Lizard cannot deal with abstract concepts.  The idea that a mortar might hit you has no meaning, no immediacy to the Lizard.  Once the Lizard has heard the whistle and seen an explosion, the example becomes real.Then, though it might run, it also learned that the training worked.  Once the lizard trusts the training, you can get a hyper-efficient soldier.
We like to think that our Human mind is who we really are.  We like to think that we spend a lot of time there.  Get over that.The Lizard and the Monkey both work at a level below words.  You can think of it as subconscious.  Words are symbols, imprecise and slow.  The Human mind is the master of words and symbols.  Words have great power in explaining our actions to others.  And to ourselves.Research has shown, very consistently, that in many cases decisions are made subconsciously before the conscious (Human) brain has even finished evaluating the question.If someone asks, “Which of these shirts do you like best?”  Your subconscious mind will have chosen one before your conscious mind really starts to compare them.  When you are asked why you chose one, your conscious mind will have an answer—an answer completely invented well after the decision was made.Much of the time spent in our Human mind is spent making up reasons for what we already believe or have already decided.  Sometimes we are explaining it to others.  Often we are explaining it to ourselves.  As long as there is no friction, as long as our explanations work well enough that our map of reality isn’t obviously whacked, our brains don’t care if our explanations are accurate.That’s right.  We only care if we are lying to ourselves if it gets us in trouble later.  Frankly, the Monkey and the Lizard don’t give a damn about explanations.You know this.  Think of a time when someone made an incredibly stupid decision.  Didn’t that person have a very reasonable sounding explanation?  That’s the Human covering for the Monkey.  Now think of a time when you made an incredibly bad decision…Despite its slowness, its capacity for self-delusion and the ease with which it can be hijacked, the Human brain is extremely powerful.  The Human brain solves problems.  That’s what it does.Using abstract reasoning (something the Lizard can’t comprehend) and juggling symbols (something the Monkey often can’t distinguish symbols from what the symbols represent—the probable basis for hypnosis and much of primitive magic) the human brain brings relatively new and unheard-of powers to solving problems:How do we get these supplies over the border?  Why isn’t the car starting?  What do these symptoms mean?  How do I reach my goal?Only the Human mind can understand an abstract goal and work towards it.  The Monkey and the Lizard, despite their strengths, are purely reactive.
What this means for martial artists and self-defense and people interested in responding to violence (and this isn't in the current edition of the manual.  We'll see if it gets added:
Skilled fighting, self defense training, is a very human brained activity.  Good training is logical.  It works.Unfortunately, the lizard doesn't believe in training.  Which means that on the edge of survival, you won't use your skills.  the lizard will push the human away, "Back off, kid, adults be talkin' now.  I been handlin' this since T rex roamed the earth..."  Usually, the natural reactions have to fail before the hindbrain will relent and let you use the trained skills.  If and when that happens, however, and when the hindbrain begins to trust the training... the hindbrain will back you a hundred percent and you will come to fight with both the skill you have trained and your efficient essence as an animal.  that is levels beyond what most people have ever experienced, but it is incredible.Except, if your monkey brain is triggered.  Which it often will if you are facing another human.  The monkey will not necessarily recognize a potentially lethal assault situation.  It will see another human being.  It will likely (unless you have ben raised or trained to not see people you don't know as humans) want to respond as if this was an in-house problem.  Which means the monkey will instinctively not injure (because that will weaken the tribe).  The monkey will posture-- trying to look big, squaring up, flexing muscles, possibly the worse possible way to stand in a fight.  And when the monkey does hit, it will hit to communicate.  Most women slap, most men do a looping punch at the head.  Neither of those will do serious injury, and sending a message without serious injury is the monkey's intention.  Does this make sense?  Not for self-defense. But if you look at it clearly everything you do instinctively in a fight are the exact things that would impress a female chimp.  they want to see strength and endurance and aggression, not sneaky ruthless efficiency.So two levels of deep wiring can completely subvert years of training.

Attributes, Grace and Self-Defense

Been out of touch for a couple of days.  And I'll get back to the class.  But there are other things to write about.

Finished the second day of Logic of Violence in Edinburgh.  The students derived about 30% of what I know (as opposed to 80% in Granada Hills).  That is still a six year reduction in what it took me.  Loving this as a teaching method.

One of the first things that everyone derives, so far, is exploiting momentum.  It's not new.  Every realistic combative method teaches it.  But until people get exposed to the dynamics of assault, it's an intellectual knowledge.  Not a feeling.  Not an understanding.  Exposed in the right way it is seen for what it is-- a crucial aspect of self-defense.

Old school stuff required it.  The civilian self-defense that arose over time knew that the essence of self-defense was to be outmatched in size and strength and weapons and whatever else the bad guy had arranged.  The old military systems (when sword and spear were king) realized that the unarmed arts were poor, last-ditch efforts against a superior and armed opponent.  Early sport, like my beloved old-school (pre-weight class) judo relied on the concept as well.

Sport has changed that.  Being stronger, faster and more endurant are keys to winning.  Are they?  Or are these attributes simply the easiest to develop when you are a young male?  Compared to mat sense and timing and awareness-- which all add up to 'grace under fire'-- are they the best skills?  Or merely the easiest to develop in that demographic?

BJJ reversed the trend for a time.  In the early UFCs we saw grace under pressure defeating size and strength.  But the competition mindset and the drive to create something exciting to watch drove a very particular kind of change.  Add to that the fact that competition appeals to a very specific group of people-- young men with something to prove.

I'm not disparaging that.  Young men are driven to know who they truly are.  They want to be tested under pressure.  MMA is the latest stage of a long evolution of finding a relatively safe way to test the limits of identity.  I applaud the people who play and I am a little appalled and very unimpressed by those who watch and talk and don't test.  Because an even bigger demographic than young men who test themselves is the demographic of young men who want to, but are afraid.

Side note-- I asked a young man if he had ever served in the military.  Very primly he said, "I have never had that honor."  Bullshit.  There is absolutely an honor to it but you don't get it handed to you.  You want that honor you get off you lazy, cowardly ass and volunteer.

Anyway, the ones who are driven to certain kinds of training are both the ones least likely to need it (who are you going to pick as a victim, a 200 pound martial athlete or a 120 pound elderly woman?) and the ones who get the most from attribute training.  If I catch you young enough, especially before puberty, I can make you incredibly strong, endurant, flexible, able to withstand pain... all that good stuff.  And, unfortunately, that is more true for males than females.  Biology speaks.

When you don't have those?

Logic of Violence makes it incredibly clear that physical self-defense is all about recovering from a position of disadvantage.  And that, simply, requires better physics (and some things conditioned to reflex).  Mat sense.  Timing.  The stuff that old guys use in class every day to show the young pups that it is not all about size or strength or aggression.

Within that context, young men start to see the value of the old school basics.  So that's my goal, and my advice to you.  Train your body, your physicality, like you are a fit young man.  But train your skills like you are a sneaky old women.  That's the best of both worlds.  And it is the best option when a predator chooses you.

CofV Lesson 2: The First Model

Graphic courtesy KZ Miller, Wyrd Goat Press What follows is from a draft of the upcoming Conflict Communications Manual:

The idea is simple.  If you are in danger of dying—starving, thirsty, sick or about to be killed and eaten-- that is your highest priority.  Until you have taken care of your immediate survival needs you don’t give a damn, and you don’t waste resources, on anything else.Once your immediate physical needs are taken care of, you can start thinking about your physical security.  How do you arrange to have food and water tomorrow and next week?  How do you get shelter to protect you from the elements and from predators?  The next stage is the awkwardly titled “Belongingness” need.  Humans in the wild are poorly adapted to live alone.  Providing all of the physical security needs are easier with a group, with tasks divided among several people.  This is compounded by the fact that human children cannot survive alone.  We are born into a family group of some sort and spend the rest of our lives in groups.  Not only are few humans fit to survive alone, most can’t even truly imagine being alone for any length of time.Almost as important as being in a group is knowing your place within that group.  Maslow linked this to status in the group, being loved and respected.  That’s nice, but the need is deeper and less logical than that.  Even being low status, a pariah, is less stressful than being unsure of your status.  Most people have felt this uncertainty joining a new job or new team or a new school.  You’re on board, maybe even have a title and official status… but you need to see where you fit with the social groups, the unofficial status hierarchy.  Again, fitting in somewhere is far more important than where you fit in.Lastly, according to Maslow, if all of these needs are fulfilled an individual can self-actualize.  You can live your dreams.  Follow your heart.  Write poetry or sculpt or do philanthropic charity work.  Or you can live out your serial killer fantasies.That’s important.  Not everyone shares your dreams.  Not all humans draw joy from the same things.  The pattern (whether of Maslow’s hierarchy or the scripts we address later) are nearly universal.  Their expression, however, can run the entire spectrum of human thought and feeling.  If you give a man everything he needs, he will start looking for what he wants.  What he (or she, men have no monopoly on this) wants may be to dominate or to destroy.  You cannot simultaneously ignore this fact and deal with it.
You cannot simultaneously ignore problems and solve them.
Maslow’s Hierarchy creates a pyramid.  The more vital something is to survival, the closer it is to the base.As a theory, it has some obvious holes.  It implies that there could be no art without a steady food supply.  There is no mechanism in the theory for either heroism or death poems.  It also implies that these levels are something we work through from the base upwards when, in reality, our ancestors took care of the two lowest levels long ago and we are almost all born into a group.So, in my opinion, as a theory it’s crap.  As a model, however, Maslow’s pyramid is extremely useful for anyone who deals with conflict.  If someone has multiple problems, they will deal with the lowest level first.  When a tiger is chewing on your leg, you really don’t give a damn about your relationship issues or unresolved maternal relationship problems.Conflicts stemming from different levels have different patterns.Survival Level. If you are drowning or under attack with a knife, the skills you need are unrelated to the skills you need for a promotional exam.  The resources that your body and mind can bring to bear are also very different.  They are completely different problems.Nothing you have learned about sales or mediation will help you hunt, grow or steal food.  Conversely, if you go into mediation as a hunter or thief, it will probably not work out so well.For most people in the industrialized world, the bottom two levels of the pyramid have never been a concern.  It has been almost a century since Americans had to worry about winter starvations or an epidemic killing thousands of people.  It has been sixty years since Western Europeans have experienced invading armies.Security Level.  Shelter, food, water.  Also savings accounts, insurance and retirement plans.  There is not a lot of fear at the security level in our society, but there is a lot of anxiety, and that drives some conflict.  You can see Union/Management issues this way, as well as some arguments between spouses.When big problems, like starving or being eaten alive by bears fade, energy goes into other concerns. 
The Social Levels (Belongingness and Esteem)For most people, the conflicts they have been exposed to originate exclusively from the social levels of the pyramid.  People trying to work their way into a group (and others trying to prevent this), people bucking for position within the group and people breaking or disrespecting the rules of the group.Social conflict rarely leads to serious violence.  It would be counterproductive, after all, to destroy a group you wanted to be part of or to create so much hate and fear that you couldn’t enjoy status.  When it does lead to extreme violence, such as a workplace shooting, the shooter is aware that he will not be getting a membership invitation from the group afterwards.This is the one area where people have extensive experience with conflict, and it is easy to base beliefs on this experience.  Status struggles at work to “that’s my seat” at the bar, the patterns are predictable.  This is the level where ego gets in the way.  Where it is not enough to solve the problem, but you need to get credit for solving the problem.  Where you need to ‘teach a lesson’ or show who is boss.Generally, the Self Actualized conflicts should be the easiest to resolve because there are no survival or esteem issues at risk. As long as both people are working from that level.  If you are writing in your free time after you have put in time at work (paycheck covers the survival needs) and are writing for joy, unconcerned about what others think (no esteem issues) there is no rational problem.  And no one working from a similar, self-actualized level will have a problem.Unfortunately, someone who feels a need to dominate (social levels) will be driven to tell you to quit wasting your time and do something useful.There is an exception to this.  Some of the most violent people in the world are fully self-actualized.  They are not killing and raping out of need or desperation, nor are they committing violence out of some deep psychological pain.  They kill or rape because they enjoy it.Kill or rape is an extreme example.  Less extreme, there are people who destroy other people’s careers when they have no need and people who seduce and abandon who do it simply for pleasure.
Conflict or violence can be triggered from any level.  

Classifications of Violence 1: Violence and Conflict

I'll try, but the language won't always be clear.  As a default, I will probably use the word fight when I mean assault or counter-assault, and things like that.  But the blending of violence and conflict is huge.  It is not a division, nor is it a precise scalar.

One example that may be useful is bullying.  If my friend wants to go to fast food and I drive to a nice restaurant instead, is it bullying?  I'm taking charge, disregarding wishes, showing that my desires are more important than his or hers, dominating.  THAT IS ALL IN THERE.  Is it bullying?  Does your assessment change if I pay? If I insist on splitting the check even though I chose? If I say I want things my way?  If I don't say it? Do I need to say a mean thing?  What if I know the only reason my friend wanted fast food was for economy and I'm trying to be nice?  Is paternalistic dominance any different than the other kind?

And, quick experiment but I doubt if one person in ten is honest enough to truly answer the question-- if we reversed the initial premise and I force us to go to fast food, do your political sensibilities around fast food make that choice worse and therefor more bullying than the other way?  Is it not bullying if it is "for their own good?" And isn't that self-righteous bullying the most dangerous of all?

Point is, no two people will have the exact same line on what constitutes what behavior.  And no person will be completely consistent  either.

Conflict is natural and endemic.  It will never, ever go away.  Tropical plants poison and strangle each other for sunlight.  No two people will ever agree on 'best.'  If we want the same concrete things, we will compete for them.  If we want different abstract ideas, we will compete there as well.  It would take an infinite amount of resources to make concrete competition go away and an insect-like hive mind to make the abstract competition go away.

And that creates conflict.  And almost every aspect of human behavior and language, on some level, is about managing conflict.

So where does conflict become violence?  My answer would not be yours.  Marc likes using a dictionary definition just to show that the definition of 'violence' is so broad as to be meaningless.  A violent emotion, a violent storm, a violent outburst, a violent assault.  In practice, I find that people define violence as conflict that scares them or really offends them.

My example-- there are acts of physical force that I don't find violent.  Spin the guy, shove him against the wall and cuff him.  I see no violence in that. I know that other people do. Spin the guy, sweep his legs out from under him and cuff him, I see a glimmer of tiny violence in the takedown, but it's borderline.  Yet I see a huge amount of violence in grooming a child to be a victim personality.  In that entire process there might not be even a harsh word... but I see it as profoundly violent.

Everyone will see and feel that line in a different place.  Don't sweat it.

For our purposes, this is why we need to think about this:  In what follows we will be talking about the motivations and patterns of beatings, assaults, muggings, rape and murder.  But the exact same patterns will show up in other kinds of conflict that never rise to the physical level.  A violent group will punish a member who betrays with an orgy of violence, with all of the loyal members participating.  It is the exact same pattern as a group of high school girls starting a gossip/character assassination campaign because one of them started dating the clique leader's ex.

Don't think of violence as exotic.  It is just more magnified.  The patterns of conflict change very little even with extremes of expression, you just have to look at the pattern.

So, you DO have experience.  Just at a different magnification.  Take any examples or categories I give and look for the corollaries in your life.

And, second, as a favor-- just because something follows the pattern, please don't try to pretend that they are equivalent.  Being bullied is not the same as being murdered, words do not cut like knives.  This is something that people cling to in order to make their personal lives and experience seem more special.  That's a trap.  Whenever possible, personally, I take a step back and realize how very simple and comparatively easy my life has been.

Classifications of Violence and Conflict Part 0

Soon we begin the on-line free class (although there is a donation button).  No idea how often I will post these or how long each will take to write.  It will probably be collected into a stand alone e-book when it is done, along with expansions inspired by any questions.

So, this is lesson zero. Which means an introduction.

The class is going to cover different types of violence.  The underlying drives of the different types, the patterns and some hints on avoidance, prevention and de-escalation.  At the end of the class you should be able to tell them apart.  It should also point out some common blindspots.

Most of the material isn't new, but it is spread out.  I'll be drawing from sections of "Facing Violence" "Violence:  AWriter's Guide" a series of articles I did for Concealed Carry magazine, and the Conflict Communications material.  And if it comes together...

It won't be comprehensive.  For two reasons.  First, the subject is vast and my brain and experience are both limited.  Second, this is the blog, not how I make a living, so it will not be my first writing priority*. Going into advice, specific strategies... that would make my poor little typing fingers (I only have two, my left index and right middle finger) very tired.  I'll try to answer relevant questions unless it starts to take up too much time.

And there might be homework.  Haven't decided yet.

*Current writing project (won't be long enough for a real book, so expect an e-book) is about how to teach cops.
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Added material.  Occurred to me that I might lose the bar napkin the lesson plan is written on, so just so I don't forget (and, of course, subject to change) the basic lesson plan:

Lesson 1: Conflict vs. Violence
2: The first underlying model
2.1: The second underlying model
3: Survival Violence
4: Social Violence Overview
5: MD
6: GMD
7: EBD
8: SSS
9: Asocial Overview
10: Resource Predators
11: Process Predators
12: ID of Danger
12.1 Adrenaline signs, skilled and unskilled
12.2 Distinguishing social and asocial
12.3 Special cases- Cyclic violence and both date rape dynamics
13 Comfort Levels (may go earlier in the lesson plan)

Sheffield Snow

Sheffield seminar done.  Two good days with a roomful of good men.  We covered the A&T (Ambushes and Thugs, the Introduction to Violence) material.

It was frustrating for me.  Knee brace, cane and strict orders not to play.  I love rolling with good people.  Getting into the toilet stalls and practicing environmental fighting.  Doing the mass brawl in the concrete fire escape stairwell.  So I played a little. Don't tell my doctor.  And had a great time.  But there are a few things, like fighting, martial sports, football and naked dancing that were never meant to be spectator sports.  The fun is in playing, not watching.

Still, for career reasons it's good to know that I can teach even when I'm crippled up.  That the message still get through.  Some good feedback.

Some repeats from last year including one who'd been at Edinburgh.

And, as always, the talk and camaraderie at the pub.  And anyone who says English food is terrible really needs to try gammon.  And bacon tomato sandwiches. And hunter's pie.  And their pub snack pork rinds are way more like New Orleans cracklin's than grocery store chicharrones.  I'll have to try to bring some back if DHS will let a packaged meat product through.

Rambling.  Karen and Garry are wonderful hosts and good people.  Watching them banter really makes me miss K.  Got to see John again and Mick and Mike and Mike, all of whom left an impression last year.

The eight hour time difference is exactly wrong for calling home.  K is leaving for work as the seminar winds up; I'll be asleep when she gets home.  Slight possibility she will still be awake if I get up early enough in the morning.  The twelve hour difference in Iraq actually made calling much easier.

A&T-- covered One-step, seeing and efficient movement; Context of self-defense (the '7' talk); blindfolded infighting; SD Law (shortened version, I'm not in the US); power generation, power stealing and power conservation; Violence Dynamics; Counter-assault; Ground movement; ethics and application of pain; striking from the ground; dynamic fighting; using walls and geometry; environmental fighting; groups; fighting to the goal.  Plus a debrief each day.  And the end of class ritual.

Lots of thinking.  Looked like some lightbulbs went off.

Next up: Edinburgh.  Unless someone wants to do something during the weekdays.

Freudian Slip

Driving my kids around last week I saw a sign for "Little Nippers Daycare."
I absolutely read it as "Little Snipers."

Wouldn't that be fun?
"Tommy, I saw you move.  It's only been an hour."
"Sarah, I can hear you breathing.  You aren't quiet enough."
"No, Billy, you can't go to the restroom.  That's what your empty canteen is for."

Easiest, quietest job with kids ever.  The gift shop would have little ghillie suits for toddlers.  Of course, you could never take them on a walk in the park.

When my kids were little we would sometimes play a game I learned from my parents-- Hide and Don't Seek.  I'd send them to hide and remind them to be extra still and extra quiet and that I would not only find them but stalk them silently.  Then I would get done whatever job I needed the peace and quiet for. After that I would go look.  "You guys did so good!  It took me almost an hour to find you!"

I was not a good father.

Three Things

Some of you are working on your list of Principles.  Cool.  Refer back to that link to see where I'm going next.

I'm sure there are more, but for my purposes, there are three distinct modes of teaching and learning:

ConditioningTrainingPlay
To make this useful, we have to define them.
For our purposes, 'Training' is verbal teaching, explanation, patterns and repetitions.  Almost anything that you learn as a step-by-step process.  Practicing basics is training.  Going over the mechanics of a particular submission is training.  Kata is training.  Shadowboxing a specific pattern is training.  Whiteboard lecture on SD law or violence dynamics is training.

Conditioning is pairing a stimulus with a response.  Through immediate reward (punishment also works but can have some side effects) it can bring action up to nearly reflex speed.  It has limitations-- it's very difficult if not impossible to condition a complex response. The stimulus must be realistic, etc.  But conditioning is what you need in very fast situations.  And (proper) conditioning does come out under stress.  Responses that have only been trained seem to require experience before they can be accessed under stress (the 3-5 encounters that Ken Murray mentioned in "Training at the Speed of Life").

Play is getting into a chaotic environment with the fewest possible restrictions and getting a feel for what works.  Randori, sparring, live training and competition.  But there are also a lot of games in different things.  And nothing beats reality.  No one has become a good driver just through classroom lessons or simulators.  You can memorize all the vocabulary and grammar rules but until you can bargain and argue and flirt, you don't really know a language.

Conditioning is limited, but it has a critical aspect that is invaluable.  It is not only effective under stress but it is fast when done properly.  How many reps does it take to learn to throw the perfect reverse punch?  That's training.  How many reps did it take for you to learn not to touch a hot stove? That's conditioning.  It is powerful.  And conditioning is always on.  Your hindbrain is constantly learning lessons, getting a feel for what works and what hurts.  It is incredibly common for an instructor to teach something different than he is conditioning.  You teach pulling punches, you will yell at the student who makes contact.  Punching is taught but missing is conditioned.  The student will miss under stress.

Playing is critical because not just improvising but improvising subconsciously (the conscious mind is too slow) is possibly the most critical skill when things go bad.  Playing is how your skills become 'nothing special.'  Just a normal way to move.  Playing moves what you have trained from your too-slow neocortex to a deeper part of your brain.

Training is the aspect I find myself questioning.  Some stuff is complex and almost everything interconnects.  Your higher brain is the only part that can grasp that, so training is critical.  But almost by definition, training wires skills to the part of the brain that is least effective in a crisis.  Critical.  Especially critical for talking about, challenging and improving your stuff.  You can't share information easily or clearly by the other two methods-- so without training everyone is in the trap of their personal experience and personal lives.  I believe it was Kano who said, "We must learn from the mistakes of others because we will never live long enough to make all the mistakes ourselves."

So is training necessary?  How necessary?  How much?  When and how is it counterproductive?  Does rote repetition actually make you worse under stress?  I know it does if the environment is too different. I know it can get you killed if you don't recognize when you are staying on a script and the world is changing.  So is training good?  Sub-optimal? Bad? A necessary evil?  How necessary?  And do most people spend most of their time with that aspect because they believe it works?  Or because the other two are too simple to satisfy our monkey minds?  Or because we all know, on some level, that training is easier, more controllable and often safer than conditioning or play?  And humans love control, safety and ease.

Real quick, the next step in our program, as the students identified the principle became:
Is there an aspect of the principle that can or must be conditioned?  How?
What needs to be trained to understand and apply this principle?
Can we come up with a game that relies on the principle so that it becomes natural, easy and fun?

Note- Play includes conditioning.  Instant feedback to what works and what doesn't; immediate reward and punishment.  And play also provides 'teachable moments' where you can, with a few words, evoke a principle and increase efficiency.

Positive and Negative

Several long talks with LLR last week.  In between conversations about martial arts and teaching, politics, ethics and history and layered interpretation of spiritual writing LLR brought up two schools of thought (literally, formal schools) of interpretation in a certain well-known holy book.  One, as she described it, focused on fulfilling the positive intent of the work.  The ritual existed for some good.  Do the good.  The other school focused on following the procedures strictly.  Don't do anything wrong.

Lightbulb moment.  One of those tiny epiphanies.  Not a real mind blower, but a lot of subtle implications:

When you are training (anything, not just martial arts or SD).  Do you try to do it well?  Or do you try to not make mistakes.

On one level, they seem to get to a similar goal.  If you never make mistakes, what you do, by definition, must be perfect.  So you are doing it well.  That's pretty logical.

But it's not.  Too often, flawless is lifeless.  Trying to create a positive impression feels different and looks different than trying to avoid a negative impression.  Good things happen when you try actively to do well.

But mistakes, especially in this field, can be dangerous or deadly.  Costly.  And so it makes sense to put effort into avoiding mistakes.

Either side can be toxic.  Enthusiasm is one step away from false confidence, and that is a stupid way to die with a penchant for horrible last words, like, "Here, hold my beer.  This is gonna be fun."  But fear of failure leads to a paralysis, sometimes from overthinking.  Sometimes from learned helplessness.

I'm of course thinking of martial arts.  The perfectionists overtly try to avoid mistakes, seeking a visible perfection.  'Form.'  And these often divorce form from use.  So things can look perfect and not work.  And I wonder sometimes if the tendency of the perfectionists to avoid rough and tumble testing is just an extension of the fear of making mistakes.  You don't have to count the mistakes you don't know about, right?  And there is a potentially toxic teaching style with this.  If you point out every flaw, if nothing can ever be good or good enough, the student conditions at a very deep level that the safest strategy is to do nothing.  Be passive.  Never take risks.  This is 'learned helplessness' and it is an important aspect of training someone to be a victim.

The other way may have no standards at all.  Do your own thing.  And to an extent, I support that. LLR and I are different sizes, genders and have different training backgrounds and life experiences.  It would be stupid to assume that we would fight the same.  But 'do your own thing' without a goal and a test for effectiveness is self-absorbed, pointless masturbation.  And people have a tendency to get self-righteous about this kind of thing. Especially when it is untested.

(This is an aside, since I'm thinking about the questions not the answers... but here's my answer.  Do your own thing BUT constantly get better, by working the physics and studying the problem and the context and use an outside source to test if the improvements are really happening.)

Even at the best, though, the positive/active side of this tends to be sloppy.  They can almost always use a tweak in their body mechanics.

Are these personality types?  Inherent to certain systems?  I know learned helplessness can be created through poor teaching; as can ridiculous overestimation of abilities.

Trying to do it right versus trying to avoid doing it wrong.  Huge difference.

That Went Swimmingly

The new seminar format went really, really well. Some old acquaintances, and some new that felt like we'd known each other for a long time.  A roomful of brilliant thinkers, varied experience and everyone was cool with not being spoonfed.

The big test was whether, given some background information and after reasoning out aspects of the problem the class would recreate a list of Principles and Concepts that would match mine.  Thirty years of martial arts and twenty of (mostly, usually, on my end) unarmed encounters with violent criminals, I have my list.  There are more-or-less precisely:

Eleven principles that make all techniques either work or fail

Sixteen thought processes or concepts that experienced people have that are unfamiliar to many civilians

About twenty classes of physical skills that fighters need

That's my list.  That doesn't make it exhaustive and it sure doesn't make it right.  But it is mine and it does make a good framework and it is transmissible, so that's all good.  And I'm not going to share them here.  Nope, not hiding information to be a dick.  The handful of you that really care and really get this are already making personal lists in your head.  I don't want my list polluting yours.  Happy to share when you are done, but people have this weird tendency to quit thinking for themselves as soon as they see a list of answers.

So, it took a little steering (but not much) and of the eleven principles, the students identified eight.  Two of the others are kind of esoteric (so broad that they are almost metaphors) and the third was so obvious it was probably just assumed.  So I'm happy with the ratio.

Nine of sixteen concepts. Two of the ones missed are actually really specific to law enforcement.  And one, I realized in the after-action this morning was right there, a perfect teaching moment, but I missed it too.

In two days we touched on some of the building blocks (classes of skills), but only as a way to show how skills could be taught separate from technique and improvised immediately or as they came up in the specific solutions.

In two days, this group of people got a huge chunk of what took 20+ years of trial and error to learn.
THAT is what teaching is all about.
Very, very good weekend.