Have a partner holding a long screw push and pull on you first using the flat end and your work is twofold. First keep breathing and avoid matching your breathing to external stimulus. Second don’t move away from the pressure but move a part of you that is not under pressure toward your partner or if we are working two on one choose a direction without running away from the pressure.
There is no logical reason to run toward the knife if the blade is all you see. Once your mind reaches to understand every knife comes with a handle you will know why we do this drill. We must learn to pay attention or we may pay dearly for it. A death or life confrontation in your community is the most acute example of it but it lives with each of our breaths.
Month: February 2013
Counting leaves
Start counting leaves of a bush or a tree of any other natural thing such as rocks and lines in the ground. Keep breathing and have your partner walk freely behind you and from time to time he will push you or attack you in any way he or she wants. Act naturally to distinguish between a push and an attack and work to keep breathing and keep counting at the same time. The purpose of the drill is to remove the thought people have that we need a special frame of thought to work with other people’s violence and when we are not sure how to act.
Be mindful that being able to keep your analytical mind working will do wonders with practice to keep you calm and working well under pressure and that working in nature has a healing affect on us and it brings us more to ourselves than spending time what we think is a controlled environment.
The Martial Art of Walking 