Intimidation ( The oh S**T Factor)

Re: intimidation; I find I get intimidated sometimes, expecially by one guy in my class ( he is really good, and I always know when he gets this certain *smile* well - uhoh!)

Anyway, in my Wing Chun class, the higher sashes practice blindfolded freestyle sticky hands (we tie our sashes around our eyes) *I am WC and Tai Chi Chuan stylist*

I find that in the begininng I am a bit nervous, but after we get moving my techniques tend to flow better when we are blindfolded........

My Sifu told me he can see my Tai Chi coming out during the blindfolded moves -----

KFG

 

There is no room for intimidation in any MA class. If it is there, the instructor sucks and deserves to lose respect if he/she does not teach respect to others!
Yes, it is easy to be nervous about someone who has 'attitude' and is better than you, but anyone like that should have been weeded out long before he learned anything useful to him! (There is, of course, a quite different argument for putting you under pressure which is appropriate to your grade. That's fair - it ain't tiddleywinks.)
Of course, if someone does use intimidation, a good instructor might think it is OK to teach him some humility - again and again, in public, until he gets the message!

 

"My Sifu told me he can see my Tai Chi coming out during the blindfolded moves -----"

i hope thats a joke

 

I have only 1 tip for 2vs1 sparring, when it starts pick the biggest one with the highest belt and steamroller him/her

not only does it hopefully take the fight outta them it puts the fight into you, silencing that little wuss fear

"There is a guy at class I spar with. He is higher in rank, as well as bigger than me, so I can't be half-hearted when we spar. He'll ask me if I'm 'scared' before we spar, then he spars lazily with me at first like I'm not even worth the effort. Then after a bit of him doing that with me sparring hard, he'll say, "Oh, so you really want spar?" and pick it up until we're hammering on each other. I usually don't make contact (not allowed under bb at my dojang) but with him I find if I don't, he'll try to run right over me. (Try being the key word.) He has the advantage in training and being physically bigger than me, but I make up for it with determination. After the match he'll make sarcastic comments for the rest of the night."

i suggest here that during that 1-5second preamble at the beginning of a spar you just have a go at him, wake him up, ur doing him no favours by complying with his lazy sparring, and you certainly dont enjoy it, so let him know right away you mean business. As for the sarcastic comments he sounds very immature, fellow students should be looking to help each other out. For this i suggest you let your instructor know about it, if he`s doing this to you, chances are he`s doing it to others students and people outside the dojang, your insructor will feel obligated to knock him down a few pegs

 

Are you saying that anyone who is naturally intimidating should not be allowed in class? Is there a benefit to kicking out people with that "edge"? Would you not just be handicapping students, keeping them from ever facing a genuine fighter until the time when it would be the worst to do so? One of the biggest aspects to a real fight IS psychological domination.

I don't mean to sound hard or anything, but I'm one of those people. I've had people repeatedly confess that they were nervous about sparring with me, and it's pretty routine for people in other aspects of my life to be timid about talking to or being direct with me. It's not something I do on purpose or to feel big, just what I feel is a natural extension of aggression and focus. Maybe it's because I'm a Leo, or whatever. The point is that most people, if they're going to be training martial arts, would do well to pick up some additional mental toughness along the way.

If you're in a Tai Chi for Health class, I can understand why it would be a problem. But in a normal martial arts setting, if such a person is careful not to hurt others and shows everyone the proper respect, I think it can only be an asset to everyone involved.

 

You said it yourself: 'careful not to hurt others and shows everyone proper respect'. That's an excellent definition of good dojo behaviour. IMHO in the dojo aggression chanelled internally into energy is very positive, aggression directed externally isn't. Outside the dojo and inself defence, aggression and kiai are superb weapons when facing a physical attack, but should never be the cause of the attack in the first place.

Hurting 'weaker' students physically or mentally and enjoying it isn't - it's a cue for the instructor to sort the offender out - I recommend a very public lesson in pain and humiliation for the bully. ( I know, hypocritical, but bullies sometimes need it.) By the way, we tend to use two words to distinguish what is OK from what isn't in our style of aikido. Instead of hurt we use 'pain' and 'damage'. Pain is often an objective, damage never is. After all, if we want an attacker to do our bidding we use well applied atemi, locks or pressure points. In short, using pain to make your attacker do what you want is easily summarised: PAIN - BRAIN

 

in a fight, intimidation is half the battle...that counts for sparring to...if not more so.

 

Sounds good.

 

lmao!

Intimidation is the whole battle if it works!

 

So true man... all my life i've been a low profile, quiet, the expression is all in the eyes kinda person.. & that alone seems to make me less of a target for physical assualt then my "tank" of a friend.

 

I agree as well. Better to hide in safety then reign in danger. I also find wearing light coloured clothing and having the "deadpan" stare when walking through the bad parts of town help to cloak your existence. :Alien:

 

Being a different skin

I often times find that being African intimidates people. When I was in TKD back a while ago, the Koreans would judge me because I am black. Funny thing was I beat every Korean black belt in that school by the time I was a blue belt. Many people find me intimidating because of who I am because I am African yet I have a very big interest towards martial arts. Even in competitions I kept wining and wining yet the judges thought I was a rough guy. Many people are afraid black people will beat them up but in reality we don't. Just because your different makes you a intimidation. Even in weight lifting because I can do more pull ups they find me a intimidation. It’s not my fault I spend most of my day thinking about martial arts and training. Many people think black people are in to rap and they think I listen to it and find me intimidating. I don't care thou we are all going to die any ways think what they want but they will never beat me in a fight. I never get into fights because I am black and the white guys think I got one extra muscle. They fear me yet I have battles with the Koreans. I haven’t lost one because they can’t even speak good enough English to have any good disses unless they start yelling in Korean, so I just ignore them LOL.

 

Just kind of a funny tidbit along the lines of intidimidation.

One night Kwan Jahng Nim Frank Damato (I think it was him) was at an ATM, getting money. A man came up behind him to rob him. He quickly turned around, and shouted out a loud Ki Hahp, and his attacker turned and ran away.

 

Does that include Ninjas???

 

"There is no room for intimidation in any MA class. If it is there, the instructor sucks" - kiaiki

Exactly, the point of the dojo is to safely learn, so you will be able to defend your self properly on the outside of those training halls. But to take the quote out of context. I feel no one should be intimidating on purpose in class room enviorment. But the fear you get from a highly talented practioner or just a physically scary practioner, is a very good thing. Because once you can lose your ego and let go of your fears, you'll be more likely to deal with (or not be phased by) that kind of situation on the outside world when your arts value is most important. It might even help you deal with the dreaded fight/flight, which could be a bad thing. I think it is most important that you learn to access the situation, then it is to overcome the gripping fear that comes along with any potentially violent situation. Cause if you can overcome fear, what happens when the person your no longer afraid of (through training) has a knife, gun, right next to a loved one, ect...

Fear is always a factor and always will be, when you get on a adrenaline high.
That's what causes the adrenaline to begin with right? A potentially dangerous situation (or along those lines) that too is fear.

nuggests of wisdom that i hope can serve you well.

from your pal Geves (always prepared for an enlightening conversation).

 

Footballl (soccer) analogue.

I try and put a "horror" tackle in on there biggest player the first time recieves the ball. Then I help him up. Hopefully he's concerned about me arriving when he recieves the ball in the future and so will be marginalized for the game.

 

Didnt Bruce lee do something in this area with his bird cries, they were supposed to scare his opponents, making them drop their guard and leave him to attack them, personally, i though bruce lee look a right idiot with his facial expression everytime he did one... but that personally...

Psycout, it the best way to win over you opponent in any sport, because your opponent loses his cool, unless he has been strikely trained and can keep his mind set, in which case it would be render useless and you would get whooped

 

Back when i was at school I moved around a fair bit so I was used to playing the reputation game. The last school i started at was in the final period (yr 11) so I was well over the crap that teen boys attempt to look tough. It helped that I had been to some of the worst schools in the country and this was a quiet little surfer town but some of the guys still tried to prove their alpha male status with me.

I found the best tactic when being threatened was to stay silent while they were insulting me or yelling, smile politley, **** my head to one side, stare them in the eye and wait till they had finished. Then I would say "If you really feel that strongly about it hit me."

Never did i get taken up on the offer and i gained a reputation as a psycho. The truth was that I had been beaten enough times at another school that I could recognise the people who were capable of attack.

 

The quiet head tilt has worked well for me too.

 

That's interesting... I used to read a lot of John Douglas, the FBI guy who invented criminal profiling. He's a guy who's made a career of interviewing and "psyching out" criminals and serial killers in order to understand their minds.

When he was in college he'd get his football teammates all hyped up before a game - one strategy was to run onto the field and "practice" tackles on each other, making a lot of noise and making/taking really hard tackles.

The idea was that the other team would look at them and think "my god, if they tackle that hard when they practice with their own teammates, what are they going to do to us?!"