experiences in other MA dojos

[oneya]

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Yes, just as there are Painters and Sculptors or Painters and Decorators.. one is creative and the other is a cover up.

oneya

[majin29]

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Yes, just as there are Painters and Sculptors or Painters and Decorators.. one is creative and the other is a cover up.

oneya

Very well put.

[Tim49]

As painful experiences go Tim; that has to be the worst I have read so far in my life.

WH,
Please don't tell me you actually believed the story.

Tim

[oneya]

Not many shaggy dogs along the Welsh border..??

oneya

[Wado heretic]

Assumed as much but even made up it sounds painful and is the worst one I've read so far still. On shaggy dog stories; it depends on how close you are to the Welsh border. There are enough indecent sheep stories to make one wonder whether their is a grain of truth to even the strangest stories.

It could be that the compulsion to fight is much stronger under real pressing circumstances thus blocking out the usual thinking or concerns I face when sparring. The fight or flight reflex would be at it's peak and working as intended, where as it tends to just emerge as stress with sparring as it's controlled. Perhaps that is why I get nervous sparring but not fighting.

I am not a fan of competition but I come from a small town and there are not many adults in the clubs I attend regularly. It’s just one of the ways to expand my experience pool, wouldn’t call my self a fan of it but it is a means to an end. Basically If I didn't have to compete to find sparring partners, I wouldn't. Plus I don't mind losing to an opponent but if I didn't compete out of occasional nerves then I'd have lost to fear and that'd bother me.

[kyudo]

Plus I don't mind losing to an opponent but if I didn't compete out of occasional nerves then I'd have lost to fear and that'd bother me.

Facing fear is a great way to overcome it.

I used to be afraid of dogs, when I was young. I overcame it by exposing myself to increasingly bigger and meaner dogs. Until I was with the biggest and meanest dog of them all. I didn't flinch. Nor did the dog. That pretty much did away with my fear of dogs.
BTW, the interesting thing about dogs is that they are very sensitive to fear. When I was afraid, even tame dogs could become quite agressive. Some dogs would attack me, much to the surprise of the owner.

When you're afraid, there's often good reason for it. When you cease to be afraid, the cause disappears. Cause and effect in reverse. And possibly one of the most important lessons in budo.

[oneya]

Plus I don't mind losing to an opponent but if I didn't compete out of occasional nerves then I'd have lost to fear and that'd bother me.

Facing fear is a great way to overcome it.

I used to be afraid of dogs, when I was young. I overcame it by exposing myself to increasingly bigger and meaner dogs. Until I was with the biggest and meanest dog of them all. I didn't flinch. Nor did the dog. That pretty much did away with my fear of dogs.
BTW, the interesting thing about dogs is that they are very sensitive to fear. When I was afraid, even tame dogs could become quite agressive. Some dogs would attack me, much to the surprise of the owner.

When you're afraid, there's often good reason for it. When you cease to be afraid, the cause disappears. Cause and effect in reverse. And possibly one of the most important lessons in budo.

Is it just me or does this make anyone else think Dogs really measure superiority in this way....??

oneya

[kyudo]

Is it just me or does this make anyone else think Dogs really measure superiority in this way....??

As far as I'm concerned, superiority has nothing to do with it. It's about levels of stress that get increased step by step so that you learn to deal with it. I do the same in the dojo. Though it doesn't involve dogs. :-)

[steveig]

Is it just me or does this make anyone else think Dogs really measure superiority in this way....??

As far as I'm concerned, superiority has nothing to do with it. It's about levels of stress that get increased step by step so that you learn to deal with it. I do the same in the dojo. Though it doesn't involve dogs. :-)

Does not stress in one create stress in another.

[Wado heretic]

Actually dogs are incredibly sophisticated animals when it comes to their social structure. In wild dogs it has been observed that it is aggressiveness, not size, that determines the pack leader and that dogs have the cognitive capacity to judge their ability to win a potential fight. This is also the standard behaviour among domestic dogs when meeting a stranger dog for the first time. Yet in the domestic setting, seniority has been seen as the more powerful variable among dogs in how they decide the pecking order. The evidence suggesting that this is an artificial behaviour potentially copied from humans over thousands of generations of domestication. That though is not topic drift, but a topic pulled out to sea never to be seen again.

Hans Seyle did some interesting work on the physiological mechanics of stress which suggest that extreme stress is simply a prolonged state of the fight or flight reflex. However there is evidence it is more psychological and possibly has something to do with the concept of 'learned helplessness'. Anyway to get back onto the topic; any one had any peculiar experiences when visiting other martial arts clubs from a psychological point of view?