Remembering Your Training

[Kieran-Lilith]

I understand where your friend is coming from exactly. I've always been one of those real good kids, and I'd never ever been in a fight. Never. Not even close. I'd duke it out with words and I can win because I'm smarter. But in the middle of last school year, a classmater tried to choke me. Granted, I had pulled his headphones off, but that was because he couldn't hear what I was saying and I didn't want to get into a fight. Obviously, all did not go as planned. The boy had his hands around my neck, and I froze up totally and completely. I was lucky because I had one of my fellow martial artists with me at the time, and she launched at him. Said friend got into fights when she was younger.

Really, some people are not fighters right off. It's one thing to spar and to practice in the dojo, but nothing is like the reality of having hands around your throat while your back is in a corner. It could be your friend is much like myself and will freeze because of inexperience, unexpected fear, a bit of panic, and total shock that a fight's actually happening.

[Jiffy]

This has to do with attitude and grade.

Attitude

Fear affects all of us differently. Myself for example, I thrive on highly stressful situations. I used to work well in emergency situations in my previous employment. Many others however would fold under the pressure. The important thing here is to give people simple answers to various situations.

Grade

Grade here is not so much the issue as is time. Once we have the answers to certain scenarios, we need to rehearse them over and over and over so that when the time comes, we don't need to think, we just act.