The Anatomy Of Fear and How It Relates To Survival Skills Training

[ladyhawk]

Hi All,
Someone posted this link on an Isshin list awhile ago for an article entitled "The Anatomy Of Fear and How It Relates To Survival Skills Training" It's definitely worth reading.
http://blackwaterusa.com/btw/articles/anatomy.html

[darlph]

Very interesting. Good reading and informative. But I was wondering something other than your intent. My father was police officer, and he always told me before he would go into a cell with a prisoner, no matter what, he had to call for back-up.
I know this is not the point of the article, but it is an observation.
As stated in the article training helps a person survive an attack, in the way he was trained. And it's really interesting to see the chemical changes to the physical body. But that training needs to be constantly reviewed and practiced to get those results. So people with a 2 hour seminar on self defense may stand a better chance of surving an attack in perhaps a weeks time than those that didn't? Confidence, skill, and the will to survive seem to be the key here.
The will to survive is inherent. Skill comes from knowledge and practice, and confidence comes from skill.
Looking at the military, they train constantly and believe in themselves. So anyone in the self-defense field, should remember to remind those people who come to their seminars,
they should refresh their information and do hands on at the least, once a year to keep it "alive" in their memory.
I am going to followup on these great articles.
Thanx

[ladyhawk]

You made some good points Darlph.
I would like to add that most people don't consider self defense training until after it's needed. I think that a mandatory awareness and self defense class should be taught in the public school system as part of physical education taught by a qualified instructor. Start with the early grades and continue right on thru to graduation. The US has been plagued with child kidnappings recently so it's never too early to educate our children about awareness, safety and defense. The schools teach sex education and personal hygiene because chrildren were not receiving this information at home so why don't they teach them how to protect themselves.

[darlph]

Great question, why doesn't the school system teach self defense? I do know some occasionally do when the weather doesn't permit for gym. Alot of other countries teach military strategies required. Look at the terrorist countries.
You know aome schools are afraid of religious problems, being sued for accidents ecetera and those are the two biggest reasons alot of them will not allow martial arts in their classrooms. But if that was the real case, in this case--the uninformed, why is it people are flocking to martial art schools for self defense? Alot of people have the misconception that if they take kickboxing at the Y it's the same as self defense. Maybe, but probably only if it's some one who has a background in self defense. If it's an anerobic person chances are they are there for the cardio and flexibilty and the students have no idea what part of their foot would be best to hit with without geeting themselves hurt or even be able to set themselves up for the next move to defend or fly.
Or how about if someone was to attempt to grab you. Would you let them, step away. or or deflect?
Let's think about it.

[LilBunnyRabbit]

I hear that one art is working on developing a GNVQ qualification to officially train college students in becoming instructors. For those not in England, a GNVQ is a vocational qualification, two years worth, and supposedly equivalent to two full A-levels.

If/When it finally goes through it should be an interesting experiment if nothing else.