Adopt a Combatives mindset - Kelly mc Cann

[** Serge **]

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/adopt-combatives-mind-set-street-fighting/archives/925

Last month, I discussed fitness, one of two essential prerequisites for self-defense performance. This month, I’ll discuss the second: mind-set. What a shame it’d be to develop the fitness and master the techniques necessary to prevail in a violent street attack only to fail because you were mentally unprepared.

It’s important to become intimately familiar with the conditions present in a street fight so you’re not surprised when you experience them firsthand. Too often, people form opinions about what constitutes a violent attack based on anecdotal information or cinematic representations. That’s a dangerous, ill-informed way to develop a self-defense foundation.

There’s no shortage of attack videos and fights online. Repugnant as it may be, sort through the contrived footage and—believe it or not—the recreational-street-fight videos, and you’ll discover actual surveillance camera clips of attacks, as well as fight footage captured by eyewitnesses.



Evaluate a representative sampling to fully understand the speed with which attacks occur, the setups used to initiate assaults (which reveal pre-incident indicators), common striking techniques thugs rely on, patterns of vulnerability you can exploit and, lastly, the raw viciousness and ruthlessness of these animals.

You’ll find yourself growing increasingly pissed off as you watch kids get bullied, innocent people get beaten, and senseless violence, humiliation and injury being unleashed. Even worse, you’ll hear morons laughing at the victims or urging the attackers on.

Now visualize yourself, your spouse, your children or anyone you care for being victimized this way. It just may be that the most important element of a combative mind-set is indignation—after all, you should be indignant and angry that these scumbags subject innocent people to serious physical and emotional trauma. It’s these visceral feelings that provide the foundation for your mind-set. The emotions enable you to tap your dark side on demand when you have to fight back against an unprovoked attack.

The rest of the requirement for viciously, yet lawfully, unloading on an attacker is that you characteristically seek to avoid confrontations, don’t smart-mouth (even when you think you’re justified) and routinely let the small stuff roll off.

It’s an art in itself to maintain a demeanor that enables you to virtually disappear into the backdrop of societal “white noise.” This mind-set is so passive that it’s actually aggressive. When you’re facing an imminent attack, it will be immediately and exceptionally clear. You’ll be unencumbered by doubt or uncertainty and can resolutely rely on violence of action to defend yourself.

Developing the “switch” that allows you to go from zero to 100 mph is simply a matter of accepting the fact you could be attacked, internalizing the consequences of that and resolving to prevail if it happens. No victim of terrible violence ever wakes up thinking it could happen to him or her, but it can and does—frequently. Once you’ve embraced this, an inevitable sense of resentment follows. That’s a useful sentiment, one that can make you exponentially more dangerous when you fight an attacker.

Being situationally aware for pre-incident indicators reduces your chance of being surprised and rendered unable to flip your switch quickly. But even if you’re caught flat-footed, having spent some time visualizing yourself being attacked and successfully responding prepares you more completely than if the thought never occurred to you.

Couple this mental preparedness with your underlying rage and indignation—aimed squarely at anyone who commits these heinous crimes—and you’ll find you can instantly tap ferocity, resulting in explosive and effective responses.

You shouldn’t get paranoid and walk around ready to “go off” at any moment or be twitchy. That’d make you just plain uncomfortable to be around. There aren’t potential bad guys around every corner. Just live your life guided by rational caution, be situationally aware and take action early to prevent having to deal with trouble. Well, actually you are dealing with it—appropriately.

By the way, don’t ever question what you feel. In other words, don’t talk yourself out of your own attack. Don’t think out loud, expressing your uneasiness over what you feel is happening. It’s likely someone will try to assuage your concerns—don’t let that happen.

If you suddenly find yourself in that sickening “Oh sh**” moment, blow through the surreal feeling and the denial, and act immediately. The only way to take control of a situation that’s ambiguously threatening (or outright threatening) is to act. Left unchecked, threats evolve into attacks; you have to break the chain of events before the attack fully manifests.

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That doesn’t necessarily mean using force. It may mean crossing the street to remove yourself from immediate danger or to correlate a thug’s movement. It may mean verbally warning off a potential attacker. If you’re unable to escape, it could mean assuming a harmless-appearing index position that prepares you to pre-emptively strike … dunno, it all depends on what you see during your moment.

Bottom line: You want to achieve an empowering mind-set that supports taking action based on a reasonable assessment of the threat and your right of self-defense. Maximize your ferocity by channeling your outrage right back to the attacker. Rage is powerful, so remember to “rage with reason.”



Don’t go too far and belly-flop into the gratuitous-violence quagmire. Use only the force necessary to stop the threat; any additional use of force is malicious and criminal. Don’t act tenuously. To the contrary, if you’re attacked, go off like a hand grenade and ruthlessly turn predator into prey.

Honestly? Honestly, it sucks having to even discuss this stuff, but feeling that way doesn’t diminish the need to be able to protect yourself. Every day, law-abiding people are attacked. Maintaining the physical and mental fitness to deal with that is simply the responsible thing to do.

© - BlackBeltMag - Kelly Mc Cann

[** Serge **]

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/combatives-conquering-fear-pain-kelly-mccann-way/archives/972

Combatives: Conquering Fear and Pain the Kelly McCann Way

By by Kelly McCann

There’s always a winner and a loser in any fight. Sometimes, even if you just look like you got the worst of it, you still lost in many people’s eyes. Maddeningly, even if you acquitted yourself well against a superior opponent, it’s a loss just the same. In front of lots of people. Which just plain sucks.

Thugs, on the other hand, delight in humiliating their victims. It heightens their excitement and increases their enjoyment—and it makes a good beatdown worthy of YouTube. Why attack someone without provocation if not for the twisted exhilaration of sheer physical domination and the intentional humiliation of an unprepared victim?

Ever seen the beating, verbal harassment or taunting of a person that was so complete it concluded in an awkward, uncomfortable moment—a moment that left everyone present feeling a little sick, a lot guilty and kinda dirty? Compare and contrast that with the attempted subjugation of an unwilling victim who, despite being grossly mismatched, refuses to quit and ultimately loses the physical fight but prevents the theft of his dignity.

My point is that humiliation results from someone saying or doing something that embarrasses or shames a person. People have power over you only if you give it to them. We can suffer real humiliation only by our own hand. If I looked at myself in the mirror after getting my ass beaten and knew I punked out, I’d have to own my humiliation. Even if I tried to maintain the illusion of bravado during the fight but didn’t really go all out, introspectively I’d know shame.

On the other hand, if I knew I did my best to defend myself and really did go for it but still lost—well, the way I see it, I didn’t do anything shameful or embarrassing. In that case, any one of us should be proud of not folding under pressure. If you lose but were all in, hold your head up, look everyone in the eye and get back to the gym—back to getting better and hating to lose even more.

Lastly, fighting causes pain and injury. How apprehensive pain makes you depends largely on how frequently you experience it. One thing that’s comforting (literally) is that your body’s physiological response to imminent danger diminishes felt pain during a fight. You simply aren’t as aware of it. A hard punch to your cheekbone may feel like localized warmth. You may notice some immediate swelling and nothing more until later, when you sport your “peeper,” “shiner” or “black eye” (periorbital hematoma). So what.

Contact training and an arduous fitness regimen are essential to your development of self-defense skills. Both familiarize you with pain and condition you mentally and physically to push through it. It’s simply mind over matter: I don’t mind and it doesn’t matter. Training this way will diminish your apprehension of pain and keep it from becoming a factor that’s likely to hamper you during a fight.

No one likes to lose, get hurt or look boned up—that’s a fact. An old coach of mine used to say: “Look, when you fight, you’re gonna get hit. Sometimes you’re gonna lose, and sometimes you’re gonna win. You have to learn to like getting hit as much as you like hitting back. Take it without emotion, and never let anyone see they got a good one in on you. Just get mean, then hit them more often, harder and better. That’s called payback.” He was an honest man, and a smart one.

© - BlackBeltMag - Kelly Mc Cann

[** Serge **]

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/mil-spec-combatives-expert-kelly-mccann-shows-you-how-to-control-prefight-emotions/archives/954

Mil-Spec: Combatives Expert Kelly McCann Shows You How to Control Prefight Emotions

By Kelly McCann

The biggest hurdles you have to overcome immediately preceding a fight are fear, apprehension and anxiety. They well up inside, tightening your chest and muscles as the likelihood of getting hit in the face, hurt and humiliated becomes real. This month and next, I’m going to discuss a perspective on each that’ll make it easier for you to deal with these potentially dangerous feelings.

Yeah, I said dangerous. You see, to hit and hurt someone, you have to be within range, which means you can be hit or hurt. Fear, apprehension and anxiety can prevent you from transitioning quickly to the offense if your “gift of fear” spider sense didn’t detect a problem and you weren’t able to avoid a fight. You’ve got to attack and stay on the attack to break your opponent’s will, impose your own and gain the momentum to dominate him.

Interestingly, a recent issue of a mixed martial arts periodical ran the answers several top MMA contenders gave to the question, How do you feel just before a fight? Several admitted they feel nervous and nauseated—to the point of vomiting. They also agreed that managing pre-fight jitters is essential to initiating and sticking to their game plan.

Obviously, fighting to defend yourself is way different from fighting to win a competitive event. One difference is that the potential consequences of a street attack are much more serious and significant. Another is that on the street, concerns about the legal ramifications of using force, as well as the fear that you may have misjudged a perceived threat and are about to overreact, can paralyze you and prevent you from taking action.

On the street, attacks develop in seconds, and you’re hit with a torrent of emotions. It’s significantly different when a competitive fight card is announced. Although there’s more time for anxiety to build within the fighters, they have more time to get their heads around it.

Despite these differences, there are tangible, shared benefits that result from intense contact training, and they’re helpful for both situations. You can’t learn to paint without painting and getting some paint on you. Likewise, you can’t learn to fight without fighting and getting some blood on you. It should be obvious, but many people become emphatic about wanting to learn to fight and then lose their resolve as soon as they’re—yikes—confronted with contact training.

Fear of an unknown, imagined or unrealized danger is always greater than a familiar danger. To reduce your apprehension over getting hit in the face, you’ve got to confront it. That’s the only way to learn what a crack on your jaw feels like, how it affects you, and how you can reduce the frequency and impact; it’s called paying your dues. It’s the price of admission for learning to fight well and being able to defend yourself.

You won’t learn those lessons by reading this column, watching a DVD, dinking around with point sparring, practicing forms, watching MMA or talking about fighting on forums. You’ve got to get “in the pocket” to become inured to someone punching you, plain and simple. If you don’t, you’ll always be at a disadvantage when anyone whose training or life experience includes frequent contact decides to jump you.

Contact training develops your sense of range. It improves your speed and skill in recognizing and capitalizing on fleeting opportunities to hit someone. It tests your “chin” and develops your ability to take punches and keep fighting. Last, and maybe most important, it rewards being disciplined and not fighting emotionally, which usually results in losing your head and unnecessarily dropping your guard—making yourself more vulnerable. In my opinion, contact training is essential to building practical fighting acumen.

But for many people, the potential for injury and an aversion to discomfort and pain are greater than the desire to learn to fight. Consequently, they gravitate to schools or find partners who are comfortable in the delusion that contact training is unnecessary and usually end up in a simpatico group-grope with everyone assuring each other they can fight well despite not having to. Bull.

Fear of being humiliated or embarrassed can seriously inhibit performance in anyone. Competitive fighters willingly subject themselves to the potential for both every time they step into a ring or cage. Most would prefer a kick square in the package to losing a fight in front of thousands of spectators. Any loss is humbling, but more often, it’s just a miserable and personally humiliating experience.

© - BlackBeltMag - Kelly Mc Cann

[Sieg]

 Outre le fait que chaque texte soit extrêmement interessant, l'enchainement des 3 ensemble apporte un plus énorme niveau reflexion ( à mon modeste niveau en tout cas ) tant ils se complètent à merveille.

 Chapeau Serge ! 

 
 Sieg qui attend impatiemment le 16/04...

 

[Rod]

But for many people, the potential for injury and an aversion to discomfort and pain are greater than the desire to learn to fight. Consequently, they gravitate to schools or find partners who are comfortable in the delusion that contact training is unnecessary and usually end up in a simpatico group-grope with everyone assuring each other they can fight well despite not having to. Bull.

[Cleric]

Maximize your ferocity by channeling your outrage right back to the attacker

Si faire appel à une grande détermination/agressivité lors de la phase "confrontation physique" semble tomber sous le sens pour beaucoup, il est aussi possible et souhaitable d'appliquer ces qualités à d'autres phases. On doit aussi être capable de fuir  de manière déterminée/agressive, pareil pour le contrôle de l'environnement,...

Il doit en être de même pour d'autres phases mais la désescalade verbale (par exemple) n'est pas un de mes domaines d'expertise.

[Leif]

pareil pour le contrôle de l'environnement,...

c'est a dire?

[Leif]

ha en fait c'est normal quoi

[Cleric]

ha en fait c'est normal quoi

Si tu le dis....  

Par contre, si tu t'attendais à ce que je te livre les 77 secrets initiatiques de la Voie du Tigre qui ont été révélés à moi seul par le grand maître Ninja de l'Ordre du Dragon Flamboyant, sur son lit de mort =>

Ou alors, tu me MP et je précise d'emblée que je n'accepte que Paypal ou les chèques certifiés  

[soyot]

Merci Serge pour ces textes d'un grand intérêt.
Le passage ci-dessous me paraît particulièrement riche :

   "It’s an art in itself to maintain a demeanor that enables you to virtually disappear into the backdrop of societal “white noise.” This     mind-set is so passive that it’s actually aggressive. When you’re facing an imminent attack, it will be immediately and exceptionally clear.   You’ll be unencumbered by doubt or uncertainty and can resolutely rely on violence of action to defend yourself."

   "C'est tout un art d'adopter une attitude qui permette de se fondre dans la toile de fond, le "bruit blanc", de la société. Cette disposition mentale (mindset) est passive au point d'être véritablement offensive. Quand on se trouve confronté à l'imminence d'une attaque, celle-ci est alors immédiatement perçue avec une évidence absolue. On se trouve ainsi libre de tout doute ou incertitude et on peut résolument s'appuyer sur la violence de l'action pour se défendre."

[Leif]

auto shameless promo

ce week end il y a un stage combatives littéralement au centre de la France si on veut aller par la.

on pourrait débattre du pourquoi du comment de la combativité sur internet , mais a un moment a part le petit frisson quand on lit une réponse qui ne nous plait pas , bon il y a pas grand chose.

a un moment faut se mouiller , retrousser les manches et je ne parle pas du stage, mais de sortir de sa bulle de confort, se remettre en question,faire une chose que l'on ne fait jamais.

meme que pour les gros durs cela peut être prendre la main des gens qu'on aime et leurs dire.

partir a l'aventure et le faire.

se mettre un gros coup de pression et le faire.

la combativité c'est vivre et vouloir rester en vie, exister.

et avant que rico ne le fasse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvOuDdAYvcA

[Eric Lem]

et avant que rico ne le fasse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvOuDdAYvcA

Si on peut même plus rigoler... 

[** Serge **]

Rage with reason :

http://www.blackbeltmag.com/videos/265

Un court clip d'explication de Kelly Mc Cann à propos de l'utilisation d'une émotion comme alimentation d'un état d'esprit, en situation de combat.