Throwing Techniques and Takedown Techniques

I've decided to write an article for submission to the semi-academic journal, Journal of Asian Martial Arts (JAMA). This is not your usual martial arts magazine, but a periodical for serious academic articles on various aspects of the martial arts.

The article I'm writing concerns the distinction between throwing techniques and takedown techniques. It's in two parts due to the scope of the material. Part 1 presents 'the problem.' There is no definitive distinction between the two types of techniques. There is a lot of opinion, most often not in the martail arts literature which tends to ignore the issue, but there is NO definitive distinction - until now. Part 2 of my series presents the definitive distinction.

Part 1 also addresses the important issue of why bother classifying:

One response that Q did not receive, and one which I continually received when discussing this issue with senior instructors and students of the Jan de Jong Self Defence School was: 'Who cares?'; 'It doesn’t matter'; 'What’s the point in classifying these or any other techniques?'; 'Students are only interested in how to do the technique, they are not interested in how it's classified'; and my personal favourite: 'It's just intellectual masturbation.' This scepticism is common within the martial arts community, and it is not unreasonable. Before we even attempt to address the issue of the distinction between throwing techniques and takedown techniques, we need to address the issue of the usefulness of classification itself.

I'd like to thank the person who provided the 'intellectual masturbation' quote as it is gold.

I present a case, a strongly supported case, that the question more rightly becomes, why not classify:

'Why classify martial arts techniques?': when this question is raised, it is most often raised with the question raiser being unaware of the centrality of this activity to our intellectual processes. Apart from the issue of intellectual laziness, I would also suggest this question is often raised because the questioner may not be able to see the similarities and differences between the different techniques. Hofstadter believes that 'gist extraction, the ability to see to the core of the matter, is the key to analogy making — indeed, to all intelligence' (1995: 75). 'Gist' refers to the essential part of something. Maybe those who question the value of classification of martial arts techniques cannot see the gist or essence of their techniques.

I review a raft of martial arts to see how, or indeed if, they distinguish between throwing techniques. I can count the number of distinctions I have found in the literature on one hand. All of them flawed.

I review books dedicated to the 'throwing and takedown techniques' of this or that martial art which are 'cashing in' on the popularity of these types of techniques generated by the mixed martial arts competitions - fruitlessly. For instance, Thompson's The Throws & Take-downs of Judo does not contain a distinction between the two types of techniques. In fact, all of the techniques described in the book are referred to as throws. Where are the takedowns of judo which Thompson suggests the book covers? Or, is Thompson and others who refer to 'throwing and takedown techniques' creating a new term to refer to all techniques that cause a person to fall to the ground - 'throwing and takedown techniques'? This new term replaces 'throwing techniques' and 'takedown techniques' which are often used interchangeably anyway. This is not a facetious question/suggestion. But this begs the question, why are there these two terms? They must suggest there are two different types of techniques. If so, what is the difference, or technically, the basis of classification? The characteristic that groups the similar and distinguishes the different between throwing techniques and takedown techniques.

Does judo teach takedown techniques? Kano developed a classification of judo techniques. There is no separate class of takedown techniques. This does not mean judo does not teach takedown techniques, it could mean they just do not distinguish them from other techniques. This then raises the questions, in which class of the classification are takedown techniques included? Why are they not a class of their own? The answer to the latter question could be because they do not understand the characteristics that set them apart from other techniques. They do not understand the essence of this class of technique.

Kirby, in Jujitsu: Basic Techniques of The Gentle Art, is one of the very few to attempt to distinguish between the two types of techniques:

Takedown: A technique, hold, lock, etc., designed to bring the attacker down without throwing him; the lock, hold, etc., is maintained throughout the technique and after the attacker is down.
Throw: A technique or hold designed to unbalance an attacker and physically lift him off the ground until he is down.

However, a review of the techniques included in his book reveals techniques that are referred to as throws that are not designed to physically lift the opponent off the ground.

Kirby is nearly there, but not quite. A takedown is defined by exception. A takedown is designed to cause a person to fall to the ground but is not a throw. A throw is designed 'to unbalance an attacker' - so a takedown is not designed to unbalance an attacker? Can you physically lift an opponent off the ground without unbalancing them? I would suggest that Kirby is referring to kuzushi, unbalancing methods that facilitate not only the execution of throwing techniques, but all techniques. You do not need to use kuzushi to execute a throwing (or takedown) technique, but it helps.

A takedown is defined as being maintained throughout the technique and after the attacker is down. Where does this place ushiro kata otoshi (rear shoulder drop) in which an opponent is pulled/pushed (a distinction for another day) to the ground onto their back by their shoulders from behind? The same technique is seen in aikido where it is sometimes refered to as a variation of irimi nage (entering throw). The technique causes the person to fall to the ground. They are not physically lifted off the ground. The technique is not maintained after the opponent is down.

I'm only singling out Kirby because he one of the very few to at least attempt to provide definitions for the two types of techniques. Most simply avoid the issue and use the terms interchangeably and inconsistently.

The picture at the beginning of this blog is of a book dedicated to the throws and takedowns of sambo, judo, jujitsu and submission grappling. Scott, the author, provides a distinction, commonly espoused, based on function. Throws are designed to end the fight while takedowns are techniques used to take the fight to the ground.

This conceptualisation of the difference between the two types of techniques, a not uncommon one at that, is that throws are an end in themselves whereas takedowns are a means to an end. This is a classification, and it is neither right nor wrong. However as Mills suggested, the merit of a classification is dependent upon the purposes it serves. Does this classification facilitate teaching and learning? Does it help in identifying specific takedown techniques and specific throwing techniques? The answer may be reflected in the fact that all of the chapters and all of the techniques included in Scott’s book dedicated to 'throws and takedowns' refer only to throws. Are any of Scott's throws takedowns? Why refer to takedowns if specific techniques are not identified as takedowns? The use of both terms suggests there is a difference, but what is that difference?

To end this blog, I am in the editing stage of this series of articles to be submitted to JAMA. Secondly, I'd appreciate it if any reader could refer me to any literature that makes a distinction between these two types of techniques.

Women's Self Defence/Self Defence/Combat and Injury Science

I received the following comments via email based on a blog on women's self defence (WSD) I posted.

'What a treasure to stumble into your blog!' Thank you. I had to share that comment as it's a lonely task writing, with little encouragement or support.

How can WSD help AFTER the attack? Ideally, of course, she would have been prepared before it happened, but that is not always the case. Obviously there has to be therapy, but I am wondering if it would not be beneficial for anyone to have some sort of 'anger training' afterwards? I wonder what that would look like?

Good question un-named commentor. I said I would answer via a dedicated blog based on that insightful question - here it is.

Followers of my blog would have seen me refer to a relatively new science which studies injuries. Despite the detractors that suggest 'there is nothing new under the sun', I'd counter that with, 'there is always a first time for everything.' It is a relatively new science, albeit applying 'old' science in a new way to understand a particular phenomena - injury.

William Haddon is usually referred to as the father of injury science. He provides a matrix to analyse injury, and thereby a means to avoid or reduce injury.

Neo: What is the Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it’s looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

Haddon recognised that injuries have multiple causes and conceptualised the multiple factors involved in injury using the elements of the epidemiological triad: host, agent, and environment. These elements interact to cause injury. The host is the person injured, the agent is necessary to cause the injury, and the environment is the environment in which the host and agent find themselves.

I've discussed in previous posts the phenomena of 'one punch deaths'. The host is the person who is hit (and dies), the agent is the person punching the victim, and the environment is the surface which the victim's head strikes resulting in the death. These three factors interacted to cause this unfortunate tragedy.

James Gibson and Haddon independently identified the agent of injury in the epidemiological model as being physical energy. For our purposes, that means kinetic energy (KE). All those who refer to the concept of momentum to explain martial arts techniques now need to reconcile the concept of momentum with KE. Otherwise, you are simply referring to theoretical concepts that have no practical application. And yes, I am deliberately being provocative.

I am sick to death of the books, articles, blogs, and posts that analyse martial arts techniques in biomechancial terms. So what? If it does not facilitate our understanding and study of those techniques, to paraphrase Attilio Sacripanti, then it is, to quote a black belt from the Jan de Jong Self Defence School, 'intellectual masturbation.' You have to reconcile these theoretical concepts with practical purpose, otherwise, it is intellectual masturbation.

This is where I found myself when attempting to use biomechanics to understand and explain martial arts striking techniques. I couldn't do it with the available explanations and literature. It was all 'wank'. So, I approached the issue from another direction. I asked myself, 'what causes an injury?' Viola, I found injury science. No more theory that didn't apply to practice. Rather, theory explained practice. If facilitated the understanding and study of techniques.

Haddon also introduced the idea of 'negative agents' of injury to account for situations where injuries occur due to the deprivation of necessary elements needed for normal health( e.g. lack of oxygen). He also added 'vehicle' or 'vector' elements to the epidemiological model which are the carriers of the injurious energy.

Haddon took the epidemiological method of studying injury a step further. He divided the injury event into phases and separated the injury from the events leading to and following from the injury event itself. These phases are often referred to as pre-event, event, and post-event, or, pre-injury, injury, and post-injury.

The pre-event phase refers to the period prior to the interaction between host and the agent of injury; the event phase refers to the period when the host and agent of injury interact; and the post-event phase refers to the period after the host and agent of injury have interacted. The epidemiological factors and the temporal phases were cross-tabulated to form a 3 x 3 matrix which is known as the 'Haddon Matrix'.



This is a subject worthy of a book in and of itself; surprisingly enough which I'm writing. Normally, the injury science theory and concepts are used to understand the causes of injury in order to prevent injury. However, uniquely to the activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, these same theories and concepts can be used to understand why and how injuries are inflicted by the techniques taught within those injuries. Injury science is the study of both sides of those activities: avoidance and infliction.

Returning to our un-named commentor's question. Self defence courses, and all instruction associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, should consider the three temporal time frames (and the three members of the epidemiological triad). Before, during, and after the injurious event. Most WSD courses consider the before and during, what about the after? What advice do they provide in terms of limiting the extent of the injury (physical and/or psychological) when the injurious event was unable to be avoided?

This systematic way of thinking about injury is very, very useful. Instructors, how do you demonstrate that you were not negligent if one of your students are injured? By showing that you considered Haddon's Matrix.

Instructors, how do you demonstrate that you were not negligent if one of your students are attacked and injured? By showing that you considered Haddon's Matrix.

Before, during, and after, the injurious event.

As a postscript, Nakayama, in his karate classic Dynamic Karate, analyses stances in terms of these temporal phases. Pre and post execution of a technique, stances should emphasise mobility; during the execution of a technique, stances should emphasise stability.

The Gift of Anger

This post was inspired by correspondence with a friend who has emerged from a long term abusive relationship. It is inspired by my application of the knowledge I've gained from researching Beyond Fight-or-Flight to an unrelated real-world experience. This is not to be unexpected because it is often suggested that the lessons learned in studying the martial arts help us live our daily lives in a more functional manner.

Gavin De Becker wrote, The Gift of Fear. It is a '#1 National Bestseller' and the front cover suggests that 'this book can save your life'. 'The Gift of Fear' is followed by: 'And Other Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence.'

What does martial arts training, stress training, stress inoculation training, stress exposure training, combat fear inoculation training, aim to do? To either reduce the intensity of the experience of fear when involved in a violent encounter, or to change that emotion to another emotion conducive to surviving a violent encounter while engaging in that violent encounter. The 'gift of fear' is not considered so much a 'gift' by those involved in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter. In fact, Bruce Siddle's Sharpening the Warrior's Edge, whose theories are so often espoused by those ostensibly interested in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, is all about the negative effects of fear on cognition and combat performance.

As per previous posts, women's self defence (WSD) courses often teach turning fear into anger. Why? Because the action tendency of anger is 'fight'. The subjective feeling of anger has a distinctive physiological reaction that prepares the body for the behavioural response of 'fighting'.

I refer back to previous posts and a paper written by James Gilligan titled 'Shame, Guilt, and Violence.' He suggests that, based on his 20+ years experience with inmates in prison and prison hospitals, that shame is at the heart of most violent behaviour. I'd suggest his insights are biased based on his experience, just as Geoff Thompson's insights on self defence are biased based on his door security experience. However, Gilligan's insight that shame is a painful emotion that is emotionally coped with by eliciting the emotion of anger which is then expressed, or coped with, by violence, is indeed insightful.

Shame -> anger -> violence. Recall that I wrote about my analysis of a violent episode of a 7yo girl. Jealousy -> anger -> violence. These are all instinctive reactions. While fight is often associated with fear, I'm more and more of the opinion that fear, when flight is restricted, turns to anger and is expressed as fight: fear -> flight restricted -> anger -> fight. WSD teaches to manipulate our emotions in order to elicit the physiologically charged fight response: fear -> manipulation -> anger -> fight.

Nature does it. WSD does it. The military does it. The 'enemy' are 'bad' and should be 'punished', hurt, and/or destroyed. Dave Grossman writes about how to overcome the instinctive inhibition to kill another human being. One way is to get angry.

DO NOT JUDGE anger, as you should not judge any emotion. Emotions, despite the highjacking of the idea and anger by the religious who suggest it is a 'gift from God', it is an evolved trait that is designed to increase our chances of survival and reproduction. It is designed to be functional, and it obviously has been successful based on our existence here today. But, it can also be dysfunctional given the circumstances in which it is experienced and how it is expressed.

Aristotle, who is often quoted as stating that 'anger is a gift', is quoted as saying:

Anyone can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person at the right time, and for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not within everyone's power and that is not easy.

Functional anger - get angry at that f**ker that is trying to rape you. Get angry at that f**ker that is trying to hurt of kill you. Get angry at the enemy that is trying to kill you, and your comrades. Overcome your fear by getting angry. Engage your evolved 'fight response' which includes a physiological response that is designed to prepare your body to fight by getting angry. This is a strategy that utilises evolution's survival mechanism.

Now, lets extend that combat-related training to daily life. Anger is not inherently bad, despite societies characterisation.

Anger can ... power long-range, constructive striving, as in the attempt to show a critical parent that you are competent and diligent rather than incompetent and lazy. And the mounting of plans for long-term revenge may motivate the acquisition of useful skills and generate impressive accomplishments that survive longer than the anger.

That quote is taken from Lazarus and Lazarus', Passion and Reason: Making Sense of Our Emotions, a book written for laymen and which should be essential reading for all those involved in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter.

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to conserve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmuted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmuted into a power that can move the world. Mahatma Gandhi

When we are anxious or scared - get angry. Get angry at being anxious or scared. Get angry at the circumstances that made us angry or scared. Let the anger motivate us to move forward rather than away from things. That is one way emotions have been categorised, as approach or avoidance. Anger is approach; fear and anxiety are avoidance. BUT, you have to be careful. What can make you angry can also make you scared. A WSD course that teaches turning fear into anger suggests thinking about the worst thing this b**tard will do to the women participants and their children. It is designed to elicit the emotion of anger, but, it could also elicit fear, if not extreme fear: 'Oh my God, this guy is going to do this and that to my children.' While Aristotle suggests it is easy to become angry, it may not be that easy. We need to understand anger, but we don't understand it from a functional viewpoint because the focus on anger is on the negative/dysfunctional aspects of anger.

Check out the faces of the tennis players when they are 'geeing' themselves up. Isn't there at least a large degree of anger expressed in their face and body motions. Plutchik talks about blends of primary emotions producing other emotions. For instance, anger and anticipation produces aggression. Major Mawkes, formerly of the Australian Special Air Service Regiment wrote that they train their SAS troopers to have controlled aggression. It could be argued they are manipulating anger to produce elite warriors.

By understanding our emotions, which includes an appraisal, subjective feeling, distinctive physiological reaction, action tendency, and possible behavioural response, we may be able to better prepare a person to survive a violent encounter by utilising rather than fighting against our evolved survival mechanism. By understanding our emotions from a non-judgemental perspective, we might gain a more complete and useful understanding that better prepares us to survive a violent encounter.

Beserker Warrior Tradition

From previous posts, we have aggression and violence categorised as affective/emotional and instrumental aggression and violence (hereafter referred to as 'AaV'). Affective/emotional AaV are motivated by emotions, and instrumental AaV uses AaV instrumentally for non AaV goals which are not motivated by emotions.

'Fight' is the evolved action tendency of our evolved survival anger emotion. Some suggest that fear can motivate the fight behaviour when its action tendency of 'flight' is frustrated. I'm looking into that, but a biologically based evolutionary argument would suggest that fear turns to anger when we need our body mobilised to fight when we need it most.

The martial arts, law enforcement, and the military tend to strive to instill in their practitioners the capacity for instrumental, emotionless violence. Women's self defence (WSD) often teaches female instructees to change fear into anger if attacked in order to decrease the inhibition to be violent, to elicit the behavioural response of fight, and, unbeknown to them, to avoid the evolved fear-based survival behaviours of tonic immobility and fainting.

Using anger to get people to fight is not restricted to WSD. The American politicians and media encourage anger with respect to whoever they are fighting at the time. The Yugoslavian breakup and its 'ethnic cleansing', the Hutu radio and television broadcasts that preceded the Tutsi genocide, the anger that characterises both sides of the seemingly never-ending Palestinian-Israeli conflict, are all examples of anger being used to get people to fight.

Anger is used to inspire regular troops, but not elite troops. Elite troops are trained for instrumental violence. So, in this way, the fast solution to get people to fight is to use Mother Nature and generate anger. With more time, and training, instrumental violence is the preferred mode of violence for 'warriors'.

However, there is an elite warrior tradition that used, not anger, but 'rage', to devastating effect. They would deliberately inflame their emotions to become 'mad warriors':

Berserks — blustering, mad warriors scorning wounds and death — embody the spirit of reckless attack. ... the berserk warrior tradition spans some three thousand years. (1)

Spediel (1) describes 'berserk warriordom' as a long-lived, cross-cultural phenomenon:

By 1500 B.C., Indo-European speakers held sway from Northern India to Western Europe: east, north, and west of Assyria. Before their dispersal, their ancestors had shared a language, a religion, a heroic poetry, and, what is less well known, some striking warrior styles. Their wolf-warriors, for example, fought with wolf hoods over their head and howled like wolves, while their horse-slashers dove beneath attacking horsemen to stab the steeds. Berserk was one of their characteristic fighting styles, hence one may indeed ask whether Tukulti-Ninurta's mad warriors were not Indo-European berserks.(1)

Spediel refers to the beserker warrior tradition existing from 1300 B.C. to 1300 A.D. He refers to Celtic and Germanic beserks who, 'in the grip of fury ... contorted their faces and bodies in frightening ways.' He refers to the Aztec quachi warriors: 'They were called quaquachictin, which is the name for deranged albeit valiant men in war.' (1) He refers to the 'no-retreat societies of North American Plains Indians' and the Malabar amoks. He also refers to the beserkers of Scandinavia:

Icelandic sagas often tell of berserks as wild, howling fighters, sometimes as high-born champions of kings, sometimes as lowly drifters. One of the last-known berserks, however, was a woman in North America. One day in the eleventh century, the Greenlanders who under Karlsefni had come to settle in Vinland saw a huge host of Skraelings (Indians) bearing down on them. As the Skraelings flung rocks at them from slings, the Greenlanders retreated between boulders to make their stand. The woman Freydis had first stayed indoors, but then went outside to follow the men. When the Skraelings made for her, she snatched the sword of a dead Greenlander, 'pulled out her breasts from under her clothes and slapped the naked sword on them, at which the Skraelings took fright, ran off to their boats and rowed away. Karlsefni's men came up to her, praising her courage.' Insofar as Freydis fought bare-breasted and frightened her foes with unwonted courage, she was a berserk.(1)

WSD - turn fear into anger. Freydis beserker WSD - turn fear into rage, by acting in the Freydis beserker tradition vis-a-vis exposing body parts and the beating thereof. Now that would be a different WSD class.

The beserk tradition is alive and well in modern combat. Shay, in Achilles in Vietnam, writes:

A soldier who routes the enemy single-handedly is often in the grip of a special state of mind, body, and social disconnection at the time of his memorable deeds. Such men, often regarded by their commander's as 'the best', have been honoured as heroes. ... I believe the word beserk is the most precise term available to describe the behaviour that I call to the reader's mind' (3)

Going 'beserk' involves eliciting, inflaming, fury or rage:

To do deeds of berserk daring, one had to be raging mad. Homeric warriors fought best in a powerful rage, and Gaulish warriors could not help falling into the grip of battle madness. Shouting and singing were ways to rouse such rage. Early Greek and Roman warriors screeched like flocks of raucous birds—a mark of manhood. With a song of thunder and wind, the young Marut warriors of the Rig Veda awakened Indra's prowess. Husky Thracian, Celtic, and Germanic war songs, like crashing waves, heartened warriors.(1)

Beserkers would dance: 'Dance would enbolden more' (1). They would snort like animals, beat their chest, bite their shields, discard their armour, contort their faces, shout and sing, brandish their weapons. The Maori haka has been described as initiating a beserker state of mind and body.

Recall from previous posts, emotion is more than just subjective feeling. It involves cognition via appraisal, and a physiological reaction as well, all designed to increase our chances of survival. Spediel describes the physiological effects of fighting with fury:

The psychological and physiological state of fighting frenzy with its rise of adrenaline levels could foster such a belief, for adrenaline 'dilates the airways to improve breathing and narrows blood vessels in the skin and intestine so that an increased flow of blood reaches the muscles, allowing them to cope with the demands of the exercise. ... During surgery, it is injected into tissues to reduce bleeding.' Buoyed by this 'adrenaline rush,' frenzied fighters may well have thought themselves stronger and less vulnerable than others.(1)

Beck sums up the emotion associated with the beserk warrior tradition:

When the murderous rage is brought on, one becomes immune to pain or fear and strength and speed become greatly enhanced. Once this transformation occurs, the beserker lusts only for combat and will fight until either the beserker or his enemy is dead. (2)

1. Speidel, M.P. 2002. Beserks: A history of Indo-European 'Mad Warriors'. Journal of World History, 13:2, 253-290.

2. Beck, A.A. 2008. Blood or mead. Xlibris.

3. Shay, J. 1994. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat trauma and the undoing of character. New York: Scribner.

Fudoshin

Catharina Blomberg is an academic that was (or is) with the University of Uppsala (Northern Sweden). I accompanied Jan de Jong and taught with him in Uppsala. (1) A big hello to the wonderful people I met in Uppsala. (2) I'd appreciate it if anyone can inform me as to Blomberg's current whereabouts.

Blomberg wrote: The Heart of the Warrior: Origins and Religious Background of the Samurai System in Feudal Japan. We need to encourage professional academics like Blomberg, Karl Friday, Cameron Hurst III, and Paul Varley to study and write about warrior traditions, Japanese and other countries/cultures. We have enough poorly (or nil) researched texts dealing with various aspects of the martial arts.

Blomberg describes fudoshin as 'immobility of heart', and explains:

The warrior stood in special need of an unperturbable mind which could remain calm and collected regardless of his surroundings and circumstances or the pressure of events, and fudoshin became a central tenet of swordsmanship.

Referring to the writings of Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Tajima no Kami Munenori, both celebrated Japanese swordsmen of the 1600s, Blomberg explains that 'technical skill without the correct mental attitude was a waste of time.' You can hear this sentiment echoed in the commentary of the Australian Open (tennis) being played now. Emotion is the thing that wins and loses matches; emotion is the thing that wins and loses violent encounters. When you become attuned to emotion words, the aforementioned commentary is very often focusing on the emotional state and its effect on performance. Is this suggestive of what to focus on when preparing someone to survive a violent encounter?

Technical skill is about biomechanics. Mental attitude is about emotion. Most people involved in preparing a person to survive a violent encounter know a great deal about technical skill. What do they know about emotion?

Fumon Tanaka, in Samurai Fighting Arts: The Spirit and the Practice, explains that the essence of fudoshin (unmovable heart) is having no fear. That is to say, that no matter the circumstances (stimuli), the appraisal of that stimuli does not elicit the emotion of fear.

Emotion is a process. A stimuli is appraised, and if that stimuli is appraised as being harmful, threatening, or beneficial, it elicits a subjective feeling, physiological reaction, and an impulse to act which may or may not result in a behavioural response which is intended to deal with the initiating stimuli. Fudoshin training is targeting the appraisal process in the emotion process. Modern fudoshin training is termed stress training, stress inoculation training, or stress exposure training.

Gavin De Becker's (author of The Gift of Fear) organisation offers Combat Fear Inoculation training. 'Stress' is such a nebulous concept. It does not explicitly identify the emotion it focuses on, fear, and its close cousin, anxiety. Becker gets to the heart of the matter. He also highlights the fact that the stress discipline and emotion discipline are studying the same survival process, but the stress discipline does so in a limited way. As Lazarus suggests when arguing for the integration of the two disciplines, stress should be considered a subset of emotion.

Lawrence Kane and Loren Christensen are two well known authorities on use of force training, with a particular emphasis on law enforcement in the latter case. In Surviving Armed Assaults: A Martial Artist's to Weapons, Street Violence, and Counterveiling Force, they discuss 'combat mindset necessary to carry you through a battle.' They suggest there is a concept called 'the fearlessness of no fear' which is 'the quintessential martial mindset.' They provide a Japanese tale which they suggest is 'an example of what the Japanese call fudoshin or indominable spirit.' In the same 'breathe', they advise:

When your life is on the line, fight not only for yourself but also about those who care about and depend upon you - your children, your spouse, your family, and your friends.

Firstly, this is not an example of fudoshin. Fudoshin is instrumental violence which is violence involving no emotion. Kane and Christensen's advice concerns turning fear into anger. One emotion into another emotion, but emotion-based violence nonetheless.

In violence and aggression literature, violence and aggression are often categorised into affective or instrumental violence or aggression. Affective violence or aggression involves motivating emotions, hence why it's also called emotional violence or aggression; instrumental (also referred to as predatory) violence or aggression involves no emotion, and the violence or aggression is instrumental in realising a non-violent goal, e.g. economic reward, food.

Secondly, why turn fear into anger, IF, fight is a behaviour associated with fear? Read Siddle. Grossman, and others who refer to the fight-or-flight concept, and academics who refer to evolved mammalian defence strategies, and the fight response is associated with fear. Why change the emotion? The action tendency of fear is flight, but the aforementioned authorities are suggesting fight is also associated with fear. The more serious authorities refer to a sequence where fight is only undertaken when flight is frustrated. So, why not advise to think that you cannot escape and you are going to die? That should, in theory, turn flight into fight without having to generate a new emotion, i.e. turn fear into anger.

Thirdly, note that the abovementioned advice is about providing your own mental stimuli in order to elicit an emotional response, which, if you recall, includes a behavioural tendency. Fudoshin is concerned with the appraisal process within the emotional process, and not with the stimuli that initiates the process. Emotion is about personal meaning; change the meaning, change the emotion, or even the very elicitation of an emotion. The 'dramatic plot' of fear is a 'concrete and sudden danger to our physical well-being' (Lazarus). If you embrace the Zen philosophy that life and death are one and the same, the appraisal of a threat to your well-being is to deny any personal meaning to that stimuli, and therefore, no fear is experienced.

Fourthly, Kane and Christensen's advice echoes the advice I've heard and read relating to women's self defence. Turn fear into anger. Anger's action tendency is fight; and the fight response is supported by a physiological response designed to mobilise our body to fight. However, does not suggesting a person think about the worst thing the attacker can do run the risk of turning fear into terror rather than anger? If you believe that people, males and/or females, will always fight to protect their love ones, you are naive. 'Always' does not exist in the real world when dealing with human behaviour. We need to know more about anger. What is the 'dramatic plot' (Lazarus) of anger? Most involved in activities that prepare a person to survive a violent encounter know something about fear, and focus on fear, but what do they know about anger? Stress training, by whatever description including scenario or reality training, focuses on fear. What do they know about any other emotion, including no emotion? Very little, I'd suggest. They know where they don't want to be, but do they know anything about where they want to be?

Fifthly, what is the cost of fudoshin, or instrumental violence? Everything has a cost. What is the cost of none emotional violence? Fear and anger have a physiological reaction which results in a 'cascade of hormones' that are designed to help us fight or flee when threatened. That includes shunting blood to the muscles associated with the behaviour in order to increase our fight or flight capabilities. It includes adrenalin to help us become stronger and faster. It includes hormones that increase our pain tolerance so we are not distracted if injured when we are fighting or fleeing. Blood is shunted away from the periphery so that limited bleeding is experienced while fighting or fleeing. No emotional experience means all these evolutionarily designed advantages in fighting and fleeing are not received. That is the cost. Nobody mentions that cost - do they understand that there is even a cost to fudoshin/instrumental violence?

Lastly, we have emotionally-motivated violence and fudoshin/instrumental/no emotion violence. It is suggested that fear can produce 'defensive violence' - that proposition is under investigation. Women's Self Defence teaches to turn fear into anger; anger having an action tendency of fight which is supported by a physiological response. We can experience the evolved defence emotion that is designed to help us survive; or we can manipulate our evolved defence emotion turning fear into anger; we can control the intensity of the emotion, and while feeling fearful, our training can use will to fight instead of flee; or we can train to achieve fudoshin. Are there any other options? Yes there is. One which tends to go against all the conceived wisdom. One which has been successfully used by warriors from different cultures for millennia. What is that approach, that tradition?

That is the topic of the next blog.

PS: Rafael Nadal was just asked what he thought about Australia's Bernard Tomic. His very first comment concerned his emotions. He ended the interview with a comment linking emotions with champions.

Do you really want to neglect emotions in your training? You study technical skills, you may even study biomechanics to understand technical skills better; do you study emotion? Stress looks at fear and anxiety, but this is what you don't want; do you know anything about what you do want?

Shock and other comments on my research - reply to a comment

I received a comment to my previous blog that I thought would be better replied to in a dedicated blog.

Thanks John for the great posts on this subject recently, its certainly provided plenty of food for thought and discussion.

Thank you for your kind words and support. I do aim to provide 'food for thought and discussion', as well as to inform.

I was having a discussion with a couple of training partners just the other day with regards to your work in this area [(Fight and Defence)] and we came to a couple of interesting questions where your expertise would be very welcome:

'Expertise'? Hmmm. False humility has never been an attribute that has been often associated with me, but I confess to being a little uncomfortable with the label 'expert' - at this point in time. I do consider myself a bit of a pioneer, as I am attempting to shine a light on physical violence (defensive and offensive) which has traditionally been left to 'masters' or 'instructors', who have no real study of the theories and concepts they espouse. I gain confidence that I'm moving in the right direction, authoritatively wise, because my contact with experts in the various academic fields has been met with a collegial reception. For instance, a biomechanics professor and author invited me to co-author a book with him, even though I have absolutely no biomechanical formal training or qualifications. I've been invited to submit a paper, any paper, to be presented at an predominantly biomechanically-based academic seminar for judo. I've been invited to submit an article, any article, to a semi-academic journal dedicated to the martial arts. A US military organisation has expressed an interest in the work I'm doing on 'stress training' for Beyond Fight-or-Flight. Etc.

The first was the condition of shock - shock is obviously a debilitating reaction, sometimes even deadly, and has physiological effects on people that are wide ranging - where do you fit shock into your understanding of responses people have when 'the sh@t hits the fan'?

Socrates said: 'The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.' Always, always, challenge 'terms' when they are imbued with some special meaning. What do you mean by the word 'shock'? ONLY to respond to this comment, I've referenced an unauthoritive source to progress the discussion - an approach that is definitely NOT representative of my work.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/emotional_health/mental_health/disorders_shock1.shtml

The most important distinction to make between the different forms of shock, is between psychological (or mental) shock and physiological (or circulatory) shock:
•Psychological shock can occur after a physically or emotionally traumatic experience but it effects your state of mind (although this can give you symptoms such as palpitations and feeling faint, it doesn’t usually lead to serious physical collapse).
•Physiological shock is a dramatic reduction in blood flow that, if left untreated, can lead to collapse, coma and even death.

My focus goes immediately to the 'emotional' reference. Emotion is considered more than subjective feeling. It is a process which involves an appraisal that may or may not elicit a subjective feeling and associated physiological response and action tendency, that may or may not result in a behavioural response. Emotions are evolved mechanisms designed to help us survive and reproduce. The behavioural response (and emotional expression) are designed to deal/affect the initiating stimuli of the process. The first question is, 'What emotion are we talking about?'

Stress training, stress inoculation training, stress exposure training - it has to be understood that the underlying assumption in these training methods is experiencing the emotion of fear. The training and theory tells us where we don't want to be, fear, it doesn't inform us at all about where we want to be. It is the blindman feeling the ear of an elephant and suggesting an elephant is like a fan (see previous posts re blindmen and the elephant analogy).

The 'shock' you are referring to might be, and I could be mistaken, the evolved tonic immobility (TI) strategy in the 'defence cascade' (see previous couple of posts). TI is an evolved fear response which is an involuntary catatonic state when fight (associated with anger and not fear?) has unsuccessful provided the option to flee.

How do you combat TI? Unbeknown to most women's self defence (WSD) course developers, they have built in a training method to reduce the risks of experiencing TI when threatened. How? By teaching their students to turn fear into anger; or to at least experience anger along with fear. TI is not associated with anger, only extreme fear. So, in addition to the many other aspects of the adaptive emotion of anger, and its strategic use by these WSD courses, manipulating our emotions to experience anger reduces the risk of experiencing TI. (By the way, anger is a fascinating subject - more on that later)

This leads once again to the question of training methods - will your work once it has outlined a model for what may be / is happening to people at these critical times go on to use this to improve the outcome for people at these times - do you see value in any singular or combination of training methods that can improve peoples ability to deal with things?

My work was intended to provide the knowledge to understand what and why the various methods taught by those activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter teach. It obviously provides the information to expose the charlatans, the ignorant, the misinformed or uninformed. And yes, it can be applied to either support or improve training methods and combat techniques. And as I will outline in future blogs, even at this embryonic stage, I'm finding my work is helping people to deal with aggressive situations, and post-aggressive situations. Stay tuned.

Lastly, and reflecting on the stories and statistics you recount in your last few blogs, and especially WSD, people obviously react in different ways - do you think an individual is prone to act in the same way? What I mean by this is for instance, if someone freezes at a critical point, will they usually freeze or is the response a lottery - are responses a bit like allergies - should you test for your predisposition to certain response types and modify your training accordingly? And at what stage do you think these are programmed - is it a wiring issue we a born with, do we settle on a response type in childhood etc - these questions could have a lot of ramifications in terms of targeted training, and depending on how these responses are programmed, identify critical early training times for children / young adults.

Firstly, great question. Secondly, regarding WSD. Often, my work leads me in very, very interesting directions. I'm now very attracted to the subject of WSD. Even for the simple reason it puts my theories into sharp relief. As life would have it, for me, circumstances have conspired to fuel my interest. I was tackling the problem of the associating with the evolved fight response with the evolved fear response. As I explained in a previous blog, I witnessed a normally pleasant, intelligent, 7 1/2yo girl attack an adult surrogate uncle in a fit of jealous rage. This provided the opportunity of applying my knowledge, theories and concepts, to analyse and understand the situation, and examine proposed methods of dealing with the issue. Then, as (morbid) luck would have it, I was contacted by an acquaintance who had just emerged from a decade plus long abusive relationship. Again, opportunities of applying my knowledge, theories and concepts, and one which provided food for further research. Research that is leading to unique explanations - more on that later.

I'm not a huge fan of opinion, unless it can be demonstrated it is informed opinion. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, 'opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one'. That's kind of true, the difference being, very few people have informed opinions. I don't know the difference between an informed and uninformed a**ehole. I don't tend to give opinions unless they can be substantiated by verifiable fact.

There are definitely predispositions to act in a particular way. For instance, males fight or flee; females tend and befriend (see previous blogs). But they are only predispositions, tendencies. It was reported in Perth this week that a female passenger bashed a 70yo male bus driver because he wouldn't driver her to the city at the end of that buses route. Not what you'd call tend and befriend behaviour. An article I will be referring to is titled 'We Are Not Prisoners To Our Genes'. Anything involving human beings is complicated. Nature and nurture are involved to varying degrees to shape our responses to environmental stimuli. This then raises the question, how do you cope with this variety. Do you have a selection methodology? Where do you aim your training and technique selection methodology?

Bruce Siddle's proposal's in Sharpening the Warrior's Edge provide an interesting case study. He suggests that fear produces a physiological reaction that has detrimental cognitive and physical effects that negatively impact on combat performance. So, he advises (a) selecting techniques based on gross motor skills, and (b) to provide stress based training methods to better prepare the combatant to be effective in combat. Let's examine that. The underlying assumption is the experience of a high level of fear. Therefore, we use the 'lowest common denominator' principle; every one will experience a high level of fear so choose only techniques that are based on gross motor skills. However, the stress training is designed to manage, reduce, or change the emotional experience when in combat - effectively cancelling out the underlying assumption in the technique selection process.

Traits are different to emotions. They are long standing tendencies. People have traits. Then of course we have 'interventions' such as alcohol and drugs which affect the normal tendencies. Excited delirium syndrome is a fascinating subject that I looked into. It is postulated that the experience of this condition has increased due to the use of certain recreational drugs.

There are no easy answers to your question. Having said that, it is a very intriguing question. It goes to profiling and specialisation. Identify characteristics and develop more specialised programs. WSD, again, is a wonderful example. The female experience of, and response to, aggression and violence is different to men. WSD courses SHOULD, but often do not, reflect this specialised focus.

As always John keep up the great work, its so sorely needed - looking forward to buying these books one day!

Again, thank you for your encouragement and support. Believe me, this is a lonely, unrewarding 'job'. The economic, social, emotional, and physical costs are not insubstantial. But what else am I going to do, eh? Maybe this will be my legacy.

Fear and Defence

I am not alone!

Recall from the last couple of blogs that I'm looking at whether or not our evolved fight response in Cannon's fight-or-flight is associated with fear. Cannon associated fight with anger, but those activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter (e.g. military CQC, law enforcement physical methods, martial arts, self-defence, and in particular women's self defence) who refer to fight-or-flight tend only to refer to fear. This should not be surprising given they are referencing the work of the stress discipline to inform their understanding. Stress is associated with anxiety (a close cousin of fear) and fear, either as a stimuli or a response, or as a stimuli, part of the stress process, or the output of the stress process.

While researching today, I came across a book review by Dr. Sergio Pellis, Department of Psychology, University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. He reviewed FEAR AND DEFENSE, edited by Paul F. Brain, Stefano Parmigiani, Robert Blanchard, and Danillo Mainardi. London: Hawood Academic Publishers, 1990.

Blanchard distinguishes between two types of attack behaviours: defensive attack and offensive attack. Defensive attack is associated with high levels of fear, while offensive attack is associated with anger.

Where does fear fit into this schema? Clearly, the implication in the title of this book is that 'fear' and defense go together and that such systems should be differentiated from aggression. ... But do you really have to be afraid in order to defend yourself? This question is rarely asked and is never adequately addressed.

This question is precisely the question I'm asking now. I would have to agree with Pellis though, it is a question that appears to never be adequately addressed.

Nonetheless, the question of whether it is necessary to be afraid in order to defend yourself remains unanswered.

Yes it does remain unanswered, however, at the very least I'm researching the question and bringing the issue to the attention of those who use fight-or-flight in a practical way - to better prepare a person to survive a violent encounter.

Interestingly, Pellis is an aikidoka (aikido practitioner). I obviously have a background in martial arts. Does this background predispose us to apply the theoretical to the practical and ask: is our evolved fight behavioural response associated with fear as many, academics and non-academics, would suggest?

Again, in reference to martial arts, the vast amount of training is designed so that defensive movements become automatic responses, in that they can occur independently of autonomic reactions and thoughts characteristic of fear. That is, you can block a blow that comes to within a few centimeters of your nose without having your heart thumping like crazy. I can certainly imagine that no matter how effectively I defend myself from a street mugger, I would certainly experience 'fear'.

Certainly experience fear? Sergio, my Beyond Fight-of-Flight investigates the fight-or-flight concept based on my attempt to understand why I did not experience fear when I was attacked by a knife-wielding attacker on a train in the south of France. It investigates why I didn't experience fear, nor any of the physiological responses that, according to Siddle, would cause catastrophic deterioration of my motor and cognitive functions, which decrease my combat effectiveness. Do not immediately assume you will experience fear when involved in an aggressive or violent encounter. I had only 3-4 years training when I had my knife attack. Don't be so sure you would have experienced fear - trained or untrained.

Why bother? I can hear that question being asked by the very same people who will refer to this knowledge to provide support for their own methods. Grossman, in On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, states that 'just as a fireman has to know all about fire, you have to know all about violence.'Agreed! But does focusing on fear-based responses allow you to know all about violence? Good God no. This fear-based understanding is obtained by one of the blindmen who are attempting to describe an elephant by touching just one part of the beast. That blindman is the stress discipline: Each in his own opinion, exceeding stiff and strong, though each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong!In Beyond Fight-or-Flight, I'm trying to gather all the blindmen's observations and present a more complete picture of the violence/combat elephant.