Conditioned flinch

[benos]

Paul,

My brother and I grew up with a "natural" interest in boxing/fighting. He was a few years older than me, and quite a bit bigger so he could pretty much whip my skinny little but, in the beginning. Being born with a "hating incompetence" attitude (at anything) motivated me to start buying books, training... I became a real student of boxing.

Anyway, that's not the point...  I was maybe about 12 years old or so, I remember my brother tell me to "always be ready." For some reason that really stuck with me. One of the first ways I began applying it was to immediately (consciously at first) assume a defensive fighting position any time I was startled (by a sudden movement or sound, for example). I remember noticing that it didn’t take long for the conscious activation of the defensive position to become to become totally reflexive. I remember realizing that you could indeed change your natural responses, and, that the natural response of freezing or tensing up when you were startled by a loud noise was not the best on for that situation.

I think it was you who asked me (in another thread, I can’t remember where now…) about the idea of accepting the body’s natural response and learning to work within it, instead of fighting it or looking for a way to avoid it. And then when you brought up the flinch response thing it reminded me – that’s why I started this. (Sorry, I’m just rambling at the moment.)

I’ve thought a lot about your question. I’ve studied my "body-mind’s natural responses" for pretty much my whole life. To me it’s the most fascinating subject, and a realm in which I’ll never stop learning. To sum up how I feel today – I believe, by way of personal observation, that often the body-mind’s natural responses are not the most appropriate for a given situation. So I apply that "filter" to as many situations as possible, and keep learning daily from it.

As an example - (if you done any meditation-type stuff, you might be able to relate to this) – you ever notice how your body’s natural reaction to feeling cold is to tense up? Does it really help you to become warmer? So, one day I was faced with a 40 minute motorcycle ride that I was totally unprepared for, clothing wise. I just knew I was gonna be freezing my ass off by the time I got home. For some reason I decided to try an experiment. But even more importantly, I DECIDED I was not going to give up, no matter what. I was going to keep my attention focused on breathing, specifically I was going to imagine the air coming in through the top of my head on the inhalation, and down through my legs and out through my feet on the exhalation. For some reason I was able to keep my attention focused on that activity. I would immediately notice if my attention wandered and just return it to my breathing. At right about 25 minutes I noticed a truly amazing thing – I was no longer cold at all. In fact I was actually warm. (I’m telling you – I would normally have been freezing to death.) I just kept up my attention, and by the time I got home I could not believe how warm I was, so I just kept riding around on the dirt roads and trails around my place. (Street legal XR-600)

Later, I realized that although I’d attempted "this technique" previously, (on many occasions) – I just didn’t stick with it long enough.

So I think often, the natural response is not the right response. I have this topic in my head (and have done some writing on it) "When is it right, and when is it not right"? It’s huge.

be

[Paul Sharp]

That topic would indeed be/is huge.  Will it be a chapter in the new book?  

I understand what you are talking about, particularly the gut-check ride.  It seems you accepted the circumstances and worked with it after realizing working against it was counter-productive.  In that case, you experienced literal moving meditation.  I have experienced a similar sensation during a full contact stick fight.  Strange how extremely uncomfortable situations (how's that for understatement), bring about this state.  

I'm still working this one out and it seems this will be a lifetime endeavor.

I think a mental barrier might be the association of aggression with tension.  Maybe the objective is relaxed aggression.  Acceptance of the "natural" response, now relax through it rather than work through it.  

Definitely lots to think about.  Thanks for your thoughts.

[George D]

Brian,

Many years ago I was talking to an Aikido Master who had trained in Japan. He told me that one of their exercises was to be put into an ice pit for an hour and they were required to keep warm using only their mind. He told me that he acheived this by visualising himself sunbaking on an Australian beach in mid-summer and focussing totally on that thought alone.

I used to suffer from migraine and was able to obtain relief using a similar focussing of the mind on the pain centre to the exclusion of everything else.

Interesting.

[gm iprod]

I also suffered from stress related migraine ( real bad ones ).

I disliked pretty much all the pain relief that was available, as they fudge up your thinking and you WILL become dependant, read that as opiates.

One of the guys at the range reminded me of the relaxation techniques that we use for bullseye style shooting and he suggested that I try them. It took a while but they work. I have been migraine free for 5 years and I get less general headaches than ever and I don't use the painkillers.

[kimel]

Meditation, thought control, whatever you wish to call it is a powerful tool.  John Cabat Zinn has written a couple very good books on the subject of using meditation to control pain, stress, etc.  He works at one of the large medical centers on the east coast using mediation to help patients deal with pain including burn victims and cancer patients.

I discovered meditation as a way to deal with stress.  During exams in college I would get so stressed that I would become physically ill, unable to sleep and had really rotten grades.  I started using meditation exercises and started sleeping and controlling the stress and the GPA jumped a full point the next semester.

Now I use these same exercises to control stress at work.  Without this tool, I would probably be a basket case somewhere.

The mind is an extraordinarily powerful tool.  99.9999% of us haven't even begun to tap it.

[SiG Lady]

Some more mind-over-matter stuff:

Having just had this rather radical hip-replacement surgery thing a few days ago, I experienced some natural (but very annoying) swelling in the thigh area near the affected hip. Doctor's handbook on this procedure sez the swelling could last as long as four weeks. Ha! You gotta be kidding!! How the hell was I going to walk about comfortably and get well if my damn' leg was too swollen to use for that long!!?? Soooooo, I meditated some very cold blue light onto the area for a little over 24 hours (visualizing a "cool-down" of the body's localized inflammatory reaction to being grossly invaded earlier in the week) and the swelling was gone in less than 48 hours. What can I say........?

You can damn' well bet I'll be using this handy-dandy, built-in mental tool to heal up this hip in record time and to rebuild what I need to rebuild. What's already been working well for some of my shooting technique challenges is obviously useful for other things as well. Because the sooner I get well the sooner I can get back to the range and do what I wanna do. (Which I fully plan to do next weekend.)

[benos]

Nice work, you SiG Lady!

Sticking with it with long enough to benefit - that's the good stuff.

[benos]

I think the whole trick lies in "bringing an area or realm of attention," which we were previously unaware of, up to the conscious level of attention. At first, we must do this consciously or "on purpose," but eventually, if practised long enough, it becomes the immediate response.

I agree with you TT, in that there's no psychological/physiological response that cannot be changed.

I've learned through meditation/inquiry to accept what's coming my way that I'm (currrently) unable to change. When, however, that leaves me with unpleasant residue, I begin to inquire into mentally-observable sequence of events that caused the discontent.

The only limitation, at that point, is attachment to our personal views, opinions, and beliefs.

Conditioned responses are the most difficult to change because they are "built" in an unaware state.

The activity of awareness functions with non-personal intelligence. Some call this wisdom. But it doesn't really matter what we call something, what matters is that we realize IT for ourselves.

be

[George D]

Brian,

This thread has put me in mind of the story of an old Buddhist monk who sat meditating for over an hour with a fly sitting on his nose. The point of the tale was to promote the idea of a conditioned response overcoming the natural impulse and the ability to focus on one task to the exclusion of all else; which is difficult when some old geyser is wriggling his nose and waving his arms all around you.

Be like the Fly.