Hey Folks, I'm putting this here in the off topic section as to me it encompasses more than Martial Arts. So feel free to use what you know! A couple of phrases to consider "Feel the fear but do it anyway" "To be scared in a safe environment" I certainly know what both of the above phrases mean to me. My job is to effectively scare people in a safe environment. Getting them to push themselves as far as they can without pushing themselves so much that they clam up. Taking them out of their comfort zone and showing them that they aren't made of glass. This has positive effects since people learn that they can do more than they think they are capable of. On the other side of it - I have dealt with clients who have been pushed too far and as such are now scared to push themselves into that area. Be it fear of heights, water etc. What are your feelings on the above two phrases? Have you been pushed in a way that, at the time you hated your instructor for but later noticed the positive effects? Or did that situation have a negative effect on you? Have you pushed someone to either a good or bad outcome? Would you now do it differently? Do you advocate using this in your instructor tool kit or do you see it as detrimental? Basically throw your thoughts this way. I'm very interested what you guys think, not only as instructors but as students. Especially if it relates to you as a child or you teaching children.
Live-fire exercises in the army spring to mind. Spent a week crapping myself beforehand and even tried pulling a sickie to get out of the first one. My platoon staff kept reminding us of the dynamics of a round hitting the human body to get the point across that we shouldn't muck about. Got to say, when the rounds started flying I absolutely shat myself. That first training exercise wasn't so good. We were "a bag of excrement" according to the staff and got beasted for an entire fortnight until the next one. Non-stop inspections, safety drills, contact drills and physical punishment. Next time the rounds started flying, it just "clicked." The platoon improved with every exercise after that. Got to say though, they were my least favourite part of training. But it all paid off when I went to Iraq. I was able to call on my training and I was confident knowing that I could handle myself in the situation. And I did.
