Aggression - I have none!

[KushankuShoe]

After taking a 3 year gap from karate I have followed my dream and rejoined another club. My sensei kindly allowed me to continue from 4th kyu which is where I left off originally after an assessment to ensure I could handle it.

Now, I feel ok about it all, kata is all coming back to me, basic techniques are still in me (albiet a tad dusty) but my problem is partner work. I do not have, and never have had any aggression in me. My old instructor used to pull me up on it every time and now I'm struggling with it again.

In all honesty - I'm frightened of getting hit so keep a distance and flinch a lot and I'm frightened of hurting my partner, so my moves just look ridiculous.

Any tips of advice on how to get rid of these barrier? is it just practice?

I'm female and in my early 30s if that helps.

[AlwaysInTraining]

My advice is allow yourself to get hit and get used to it. You'll soon stop flinching and just hit back and work at it until you find what feels right and natural to you where you can hit and be hit. All it takes is time and practise regardless of age or experience.

Also remember if an opponent is going too hard in sparring say something. You dont get points for standing there and taking it and THEN complain to the instructor.

[Wastelander]

I'm in agreement with AlwaysInTraining. The people who flinch and are afraid tend to be that way because getting hit is "the unknown." The unknown pain is always more frightening than the known pain. If you can work on your body conditioning, and grow accustomed to being hit, and hitting someone back, then it won't be frightening anymore. It may also be beneficial for you to do some trust exercises with your partners, before hand, just so you aren't panicking during the conditioning training.

[tallgeese]

There are some things you can do to build it, but take it slow and balance the physical learning you're going to be doing on the subject with the intellectual side as well. Read the thoughts of people who have done combat mindset for a living, internalize them and study them. The Book of Five Rings, The Hagakure, both come to mind immediatly as source material on the classic level. Consider modern sources as well. On Killing and On Combat by Grossman, Leadership and Training for the Fight but Howe, Warrior Mindset by Asken, Living the Martial Way by Morgan. All of these speak to the mental development of the warrior. Delve into them.

On the physical side, a stair stepped approach to stress inoculation will be beneficial. You're already sparring, that's good. Now, put your self into spots that you CAN NOT retreat. Park against a wall. Now fight. You will only have lateral movement. This means that your distance will be predetermined. Once you're good here, move to a corner. Now you're tooth to tooth with the aggressor. You'll be forced to deal with it.

Start light, progress. You'll quickly see that the true skill in martial arts is not defense. Defending in these two scenarios to the exclusion of aggressive offense will get you beat up. To win, you must attack. This will drive not only this concept home, but will develop the intrinsic ability to defend BY attacking while staying as protected as possible (this is pretty high level stuff at this point, but you'll get there.)

The in your face fight will also breed aggression into your work. It simply is. It will teach you to dominate you're physiological responses and continue on despite them.

Once these more stationary drills are familiar, add a component of distance control to your open floor sparring. Tie a foot to a partners. Leave about three feet of line between you. Spar. In addition to the aggression you're building AND putting it together with you're foot work, you' be working on some great, tight skill development here as well.

Last, move into full on scenario based training. Start with being accosted from distance at the front. Then start making it harder, from odd angles, the rear. Now full ambush. This will teach you how important it is to aggressively fight thru the ambush. This will transfer.

There are drills to expand on this last paragraph as well, but you've got plenty to work on there. Hope it was helpful.

[Nidan Melbourne]

After taking a 3 year gap from karate I have followed my dream and rejoined another club. My sensei kindly allowed me to continue from 4th kyu which is where I left off originally after an assessment to ensure I could handle it.

Now, I feel ok about it all, kata is all coming back to me, basic techniques are still in me (albiet a tad dusty) but my problem is partner work. I do not have, and never have had any aggression in me. My old instructor used to pull me up on it every time and now I'm struggling with it again.

In all honesty - I'm frightened of getting hit so keep a distance and flinch a lot and I'm frightened of hurting my partner, so my moves just look ridiculous.

Any tips of advice on how to get rid of these barrier? is it just practice?

I'm female and in my early 30s if that helps.

It is ok to be hit in the dojo. The more times you get hit that fear will go away. Your partners in the dojo won't go out of their way to injure you.

For you face your fears and get into the midst of it, allow yourself to get hit. We all have had that fear when we have trained.

You don't need to fear about hurting your partner! hit them and they will tell you if it was too hard or not hard enough. So you can then adjust how hard you hit.

[sensei8]

You have to work through it! Don't allow it to dictate your mindset! You see, you must experience the technique, and that, imho, is important to do because as long as your flinching, you've not experienced the technique. Once you've experienced the technique, then you can begin to understand the technique. Once you begin to understand the technique you'll stop flinching. However, everything takes time!!

Understand the leading principles in karate....

Mizu No Kokoro...Mind like the moon

Tsuki No Kokoro...Mind like the water

Embrace them in their totality!! Aggression is a good thing, just as long as you can respect the aforementioned principles. Unchecked aggression isn't a good thing!!

[wagnerk]

The only thing that I can add to that is to have fun and not to "over analyse" everything... I also have very little aggression in me, but practice and having fun makes it easier for me to train and in turn spar

[OleOle]

There are some things you can do to build it, but take it slow and balance the physical learning you're going to be doing on the subject with the intellectual side as well. Read the thoughts of people who have done combat mindset for a living, internalize them and study them. The Book of Five Rings, The Hagakure, both come to mind immediatly as source material on the classic level. Consider modern sources as well. On Killing and On Combat by Grossman, Leadership and Training for the Fight but Howe, Warrior Mindset by Asken, Living the Martial Way by Morgan. All of these speak to the mental development of the warrior. Delve into them.

On the physical side, a stair stepped approach to stress inoculation will be beneficial. You're already sparring, that's good. Now, put your self into spots that you CAN NOT retreat. Park against a wall. Now fight. You will only have lateral movement. This means that your distance will be predetermined. Once you're good here, move to a corner. Now you're tooth to tooth with the aggressor. You'll be forced to deal with it.

Start light, progress. You'll quickly see that the true skill in martial arts is not defense. Defending in these two scenarios to the exclusion of aggressive offense will get you beat up. To win, you must attack. This will drive not only this concept home, but will develop the intrinsic ability to defend BY attacking while staying as protected as possible (this is pretty high level stuff at this point, but you'll get there.)

The in your face fight will also breed aggression into your work. It simply is. It will teach you to dominate you're physiological responses and continue on despite them.

Once these more stationary drills are familiar, add a component of distance control to your open floor sparring. Tie a foot to a partners. Leave about three feet of line between you. Spar. In addition to the aggression you're building AND putting it together with you're foot work, you' be working on some great, tight skill development here as well.

Last, move into full on scenario based training. Start with being accosted from distance at the front. Then start making it harder, from odd angles, the rear. Now full ambush. This will teach you how important it is to aggressively fight thru the ambush. This will transfer.

There are drills to expand on this last paragraph as well, but you've got plenty to work on there. Hope it was helpful.

That was great to read. Thanks for taking the time to write that, very informative, especially for people like me who have started not so long ago and are looking for mechanisms or approaches to help advance in the art and the gradings.

Much appreciated

[KushankuShoe]

Thank you for your replies. Funnily enough I can take a hit quite well really, my last instructor and club members tended to be quite rough so I ended up conditioned to being hit. That said, I still continued with this fear of hitting someone too hard (even though I was going home covered in bruises every week!!). I'm hoping it comes with experience, I'm trying to train as much as possible, it just worries me when my instructor mentions my next grade and 'not enough aggression' in the same sentence because I just can't see it changing. It hasn't so far and I've been involved in MA for years.

[Spartacus Maximus]

Often what is meant by a lack of aggression is that the mind and senses are not following the actions. To do this requires focus and a very high level of concentration. This is the driving force without which all techniques would be meaningless and unusable.

The purpose of mental training in martial arts is to develop, cultivate and control the natural sense of danger. By using the mind to visualize it is possible to produce the response to danger without actually being in any danger. The aim is to mentally create a danger that is real enough to provoke the same actions and reactions. Doing this provides an object on which to concentrate and focus. This is the first step to becoming able to use aggressivity as an advantage.

Aggressivity alone is very dangerous and it will always fail sooner or later. Only when it is controlled, measured and used with good judgement does it turn into an advantage. This idea can be explained in many ways, but I like to call it the "one chance total commitment principle"

When training one must perform each and every move as if one had only one chance and without a second of hesitation. Defense and attack are the same single move and the outcome depends entirely on that one single move. When one moves, it must always be forward, always advancing with focussed determination.