Fear Factor

 Fear is a topic covered by some in great detail, yet seldom touched upon in training where it needs to be addressed.

How many techniques one knows is not going to do a lot of good if one is frozen to the floor and relieving their bladder or the contents of their stomach in the face of life and death.

The legs become heavy, somewhat numb, the mouth dry, vision blurry or tunneled, hearing distorted, sometimes, thoughts seemingly disjointed, self doubt, or none at all… Sometimes… Maybe one turns and runs away without even a single thought until they are wondering how they ended up where they ended up??

Fear that has not been honed to work as it should is a dangerous loose canon… To you.

Worse still, fear can overwhelm those with an arsenal of one hundred different techniques and ‘Bunkai’ at their disposal, thus defeating to purpose of… Well… Everything.

Fear is a tool, it helps you notice when something is off BEFORE something goes down.

An early warning system that tells you to get the hell out of dodge when you can, to bring your weapons online when you can’t, to be hyper alert, to be on guard.

Everyone has it, like a sixth sense that draws from queues around you, intuitively you know, but many don’t trust it, ignore it, or don’t know what to do with it at all.

Sometimes people are so ruled by social norms that they shove it aside so as not to appear rude, which can lead to some seriously bad outcomes.

What if you have to fight your way through someone to get away? What if, even then, you can’t get away without dishing out some of those seriously bad outcomes before they are fished out to you?

Are you afraid? Everyone is afraid, the people who say they aren’t are either liars or psychopaths.

What do you do when your hands get shaky? Your legs get heavy? Your breathing and heart beat become swift? You find it hard to focus? 

What do you do? Is there a Kata or Bunkai for any of this? Is there a technique you can learn to apply? 

Can you apply it under duress? Especially if those you love depend on you?

No pressure.