In my other thread about philosophy in the martial arts I talk about patience. There has been much discussion about it and I see how patience is important but how about this, what if you're desperate? What if you're in a desperate situation in the martial arts or in anything else in life? How can you be patient if your desperate?
Desperation
- Thread starter PhotonGuy
- Start date
- Status
Desperate for what?
I don't think you'll find a single answer that fits all circumstances, so you need to be more specific to have a meaningful discussion.
Are you in a desperate confrontation in which you fear for your life?
Do you merely perceive some danger, and are desperate to enable yourself to handle or avoid it?
Are you just frustrated and desperate to accomplish or prove something?
It is odd that "desperation" should come into a discussion about martial-arts, or that it should be contrasted with patience. In any case, the right answer will very much depend on the specifics of the situation. I'd wager, though, that barring immediate physical danger to your person, it's not generally healthy or productive to be "desperate."
I don't think you'll find a single answer that fits all circumstances, so you need to be more specific to have a meaningful discussion.
Are you in a desperate confrontation in which you fear for your life?
Do you merely perceive some danger, and are desperate to enable yourself to handle or avoid it?
Are you just frustrated and desperate to accomplish or prove something?
It is odd that "desperation" should come into a discussion about martial-arts, or that it should be contrasted with patience. In any case, the right answer will very much depend on the specifics of the situation. I'd wager, though, that barring immediate physical danger to your person, it's not generally healthy or productive to be "desperate."
RTKDCMB
Senior Master
Are you desperate for answers to your question?
Desperation is an emotion, not a circumstance, which is why acting on it is generally not productive. If you need to act with haste, and sometimes you do, evaluate as fully as you can and make the best decision you can based on what you can determine, rather than based on feelings of desperation.
Also, patience is the regular practice of your skills/good habits so that when you need to use them promptly, you don't have to consciously think or don't freeze while you sift through all of the possible choices. By patiently practicing good habits and patiently training, you are prepared for a moment of what would be desperation for an untrained or unprepared person.
A desparate situation in the martial arts? Like having lost your job but the MA studio refuses to stop hitting your bank account?
Feelings of desperation can arise in different circumstances. When you say, "... anything else in life?" I can think of no circumstance where someone acting impatiently out of desperation has benefited from doing so. A person desperate for love who impatiently acts on desperation will tend to end up in unhealthy relationships. A person desperate to get out of a job who acts impatiently on that desperation tends not to find a new job that fits them any better, and which may actually be worse than the one that they have.
I am in a desparate situation.
I assess the situation and I make a decision and I react.
What goes into making the decision?
All my training. So if I have been impatient and not studied and jumped to advanced techniques because they are cool I will make a mistake and most liekly hurt myself or get myself killed.
Yet if I realize I have not the skills to charge, I retreat. I look for ways out. I avoid the situation in the first place with awareness and other training. Sometimes it is only learned through making mistakes and hopefully one survives the situation.
I have to ask, Where you or someone you care about recently attacked or assaulted? Are you looking at your training or theirs and thinking that it might not be enough. Are you wondering how do you get 'SAFE" now ?!?
There is no one move that always works. There is no one thing you can do to make yourself always safe. Accidents happen. Random acts happen. Yet one can reduce the odds of that risk.
One can avoid bad areas of town. One can avoid bad people. Always keep your gas tank on half to full so you will not ahve to stop in a bad part of town to get gas. Do maintenance on your vehicle so it does not fall apart. Move to a better area of town or better city. Get a better education so you can have more job opportunities and hopefully if you choose the right degree make more money so you can make all of this happen quicker or easier.
Immediate steps:
1) Access the situation and stop what you can that is adding to the risk
2) Look for firearms training and investigate CPL or CCW type classes.
3) Pick up new training that concentrates on self defense
4) Look at something that teaches weapons and how to defend against them emptyhanded.
5) Be open and honest with yourself and those around you. If you are scared talk to someone about it. Stress from an assault or attack is real.
6) Do not overreact and or go looking to prove somethign to yourself or others. Here is where any patience would come in hand.
7) ...
***
If you push someone into a corner who has nothing to loose, they will give up and just colapse or they will come at you with everything they have knowing they have nothing else to loose but their life and at that moment it might not seem like anything they want.
So avoid cornering desparate people. Give them a way out. And if you have too, step back let the professionals do it for you.
***
Are you desparate
for a fix?
for a latte double fat/choco vente smoothie?
for relief from stress from PTSD?
for a way to cure cancer or some other disease?
for a better way of life?
for a GF/BF ?
***
Most of the swear words in english are four or seven letters long (not all, just many). And so are many of the PAINful one as well. Such as TIME.
"Time heals all wounds" - Rose Kennedy
TIME is a painful word. It is slow when things are bad. It is fast when things are good.
Note: (* Joke - see above and that Husband and Wife are 7 and 4 letters *)
***
Are you depressed? Go see a professional. Also do things that make you happy before. They might make you happy now.
***
And yes my reply is all over the place becase I have no frigging clue what you are asking.
Good luck!
- Thread Starter
- #6
I will give an example of a desperate situation. In my other thread I was talking about Boy Scouts and the top level of Boy Scouts which is Eagle Scout. To be an Eagle Scout you have to do it before you turn 18 since 18 is the cutoff point for everything you do in Boy Scouts up to and including becoming an Eagle Scout if that's what you want to do. So here would be a desperate situation. Lets say you want to be an Eagle Scout and lets say you're 18th birthday is fast approaching and you're still not an Eagle Scout, so in a case like that, how would patience fit into the equation?
I think you're confusing desperation with urgency. Desperation is like a drowning man who grabs at anything to keep him from going under.
Urgency on the other hand sees that something requires quick and decisive action.
In the case of Eagle scout. Talk to the troop leader and find out what your options are. If it's able to be done, he will lay out a plan for you and then the balls in your court, but it requires urgency on your part.
If, however, you find out that eagle scout is not achievable, no matter how urgently you act, then it becomes a matter of accepting that fact and moving on. BTW, look into Venturing as an option.
This is not desperate by any definition of the word. If you feel desperate over merit badges, then you need to reexamine either how you're using the word or the kind of value you're placing on what amounts to a school age achievement.
So how does patience fit into a time sensitive circumstance?
Take the time to find out what is needed. Is it action on your part? Or on someone else's part? If it is action on your part (missing merit badges, or some other unmet requirement) then you need to determine a plan of action to meet the requirement(s) within the aloted time. If there's just no way, then as Yak Sao said, you may have to let it go.
If it is action on someone else's part, you need to ask them to follow through at their end within the timeframe that you're working with. Again, you may have to let it go, as you cannot actually control the actions of other people.
Cirdan
Senior Master
Okay.. a desperate situation. The plane you are in is going down, the fuselage is breached air pressure dropping your child screaming and you feel conciousness slipping away because of lack of oxygene.
Without patience: Save the person who means more to you than anything! You grab an oxygene mask and attempt to put it over the face of your child who is crazy frightened and does not cooperate. You pass out before being sucessful. You both die in the crash.
With patience: You put your own mask on, knowing you will have time to attend to your child after. Sucessful, you then strap yourselves in and brace for impact covered some luggage or whatever is available. You are heavily injured in the crash but survive and recover to live normal lives.
Without patience: Save the person who means more to you than anything! You grab an oxygene mask and attempt to put it over the face of your child who is crazy frightened and does not cooperate. You pass out before being sucessful. You both die in the crash.
With patience: You put your own mask on, knowing you will have time to attend to your child after. Sucessful, you then strap yourselves in and brace for impact covered some luggage or whatever is available. You are heavily injured in the crash but survive and recover to live normal lives.
Try hard to reach the goal before the time is up, or, accept the fact that you may not be one. In life, more often than not, we won't get things that we really want, be it a job, a promotion or a date with the hot girl you see in a club. Rejection and not getting things is a fact and part of life.
Happy-Papi
Green Belt
I've heard about people who were desperate to learn MA due to their situation. One good example that I know is a guy back in high school who wanted to learn MA because he was always being asked money by or being bullied and thought that if he learned MA fast that he can easily kick the bullies behind. Another example is a girl who got off a bad relationship with a weirdo who still goes after her and she wanted to learn MA to defend herself from being physically abused. They did took steps trying to learn MA and self defense but time wasn't on their side and ended up going to the authorities for help. Their teachers tried hard but due to the lack of time both got beaten up again and their premature skills in MA basically just made their enemies more furious when they tried to retaliate. I don't know about the girl after that but the guy joined the Army after high school and said that his training there got him more prepared in a shorter amount of time compared to his short stay at the dojo.
These are just 2 sad stories but I have seen guys who learned very fast and was effective enough to defend themselves even when their fighting skills are very much premature.
Unfortunately, martial arts are not generally a good path to learning SD quickly.
Claude La Marche wrote a book called "Le Epee" in 1884. In the last chapter, he discusses "the lesson the night before." Throughout the rest of the book, he discusses how to build one's skills, choose a good weapon, and in general, how to become an excellent fencer. In the last chapter, he describes how he worked with gentlemen who had no experience whatsoever who would come looking to learn how to hand a weapon for a duel scheduled the following day.
Needless to say, the method of instruction is very, very different from the rest of the book. He focuses on a much smaller number of techniques, as the gentleman in question would have to remember them the next day. He wrote the chapter as advice to other instructors on how to teach such a person, with the caveat that there really is only so much that you can do with a person in a few short hours.
While usually not as immediate, a bullied child or a gal with an abusive ex needs applicable skills rapidly. Teaching pedagogy in most martial arts is not set up that way. It is set up to feed you a small number of basic skills which you learn and then slowly build on, usually beginning with how to move. Many don't even get into practical self defense until much, much later.
des·per·a·tion
ˌdespəˈrāSHən/
noun
noun: desperation
- 1.
a state of despair, typically one that results in rash or extreme behavior.
"she wrote to him in desperation"
So it is my guess you want to do something fast and people have told you to slow down.
You think they are holding you back just because. Or to punish you or to control the siutation.
So quit the martial arts as it is not for you. Or accept the situation. Or review all the data presented and actually try to change somethin in yourself or the situation to your advantage.
If the art you are training in just does not do it for you, then go cross train into another.
Otherwise, think about growing up age wise as well as maturity and persepctive.
Happy-Papi
Green Belt
I agree with you. Yes the teaching method is very different in MA and SD. Sad thing is that many non-MA practitioners often think that MA and SD are the same. In my country (Philippines) back in the days when I was young, there are no dojos that I know of who advertised SD only so it was basically MA=SD. Instructors do include some SD techniques from time to time but the teaching style revolved generally around MA. A normal person who needed to learn SD fast has limited option compared to today where there are schools that teach SD as their main.
- Thread Starter
- #16
So by the same principle let's say there's a martial arts student who wants to be a black belt before they turn 20, their 20th birthday is approaching and they're still not a black belt. They could talk to their sensei and find out what their options are and get a plan laid out and get the ball in their court for meeting their goal although it would require urgency on the part of the student. So the same principle would apply.
drop bear
Sr. Grandmaster
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2014
- Messages
- 23,943
- Reaction score
- 8,688
Patience is a virtue. But so is zeal.
There is no issue with hustling to achieve something.
- Thread Starter
- #18
You're right, on both calls.
Patience is a virtue, but the problem is when somebody requires you to be patient when you don't have to be. When somebody requires you to take longer to do something just because they want you to be patient.
For example. I once knew of this fellow who, at his dojo, his sensei might not let a student test for or promote to black belt even if the student is skilled enough because he wanted the student to be patient and take longer. In such a case the dojo should be shut down and the sensei should be barred from teaching Karate.
Hot Lunch
Master Black Belt
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2023
- Messages
- 1,316
- Reaction score
- 648
Was he enforcing a time in grade policy that was already in place, or was he targeting that one student?
Flying Crane
Sr. Grandmaster
Barred by whom? Who has the authority to issue that decree, and how is it enforced?
- Status
