Relaxed fighting and sparing in the flow state.

[TSDTexan]

Lerdsilla is my favorite MT fighter of all time.
Because he has jettisoned winning or losing in favor of having fun. This is the flow state.

 

[_Simon_]

Lerdsilla is my favorite MT fighter of all time.
Because he has jettisoned winning or losing in favor of having fun. This is the flow state.

Absolutely incredible.... wow! Love it!

 

[Tony Dismukes]

Saenchai has many of the same characteristics. It’s like they’ve brought functional capoeira into the MT ring.

 

[skribs]

"Teep"
"Tae Kwon Not-a-Teep"

Love it!

 

[FriedRice]

I don't think he's abandoning the goal of winning, it's just his style. I fight & spar like this, until I'm losing and keep getting caught...or on my way to getting KO'ed.....then the hands goes way up into high guard and stays there. It's a kill or be killed strategy of baiting for openings to counter. It works but if you mess up, then it's usually KO city.

 

[TSDTexan]

I don't think he's abandoning the goal of winning, it's just his style. I fight & spar like this, until I'm losing and keep getting caught...or on my way to getting KO'ed.....then the hands goes way up into high guard and stays there. It's a kill or be killed strategy of baiting for openings to counter. It works but if you mess up, then it's usually KO city.

Actually I think you are wrong.

What lerdsilla is doing is entering what the Japanese call Mushin, or what western neuroscience calls Flow state.... which is detached from expectation or outcome.

it's a level of relaxed, mindless reaction based on intuitive pattern recognition and opportunity.

 

[dvcochran]

Lerdsilla is my favorite MT fighter of all time.
Because he has jettisoned winning or losing in favor of having fun. This is the flow state.

Ala Muhammad Ali.

 

[FriedRice]

Actually I think you are wrong.

What lerdsilla is doing is entering what the Japanese call Mushin, or what western neuroscience calls Flow state.... which is detached from expectation or outcome.

it's a level of relaxed, mindless reaction based on intuitive pattern recognition and opportunity.

Very interesting. I never heard this explained before nor knew that there was terminology for it.....very cool. This is exactly what I go into when I spar or fight and I teach my students this. But I call it, the "I don't give a **** " state, and what ever happens, let it happen. For little kids though, I have to call it something else.

But he still wants to win though. Because when you start getting clobbered, you can quickly go out of this state, LOL. Especially when caught in a submission move....you'd have to exit this state of Mushin, otherwise.....SNAP = bye bye career or hobby.

 

[TSDTexan]

Actually I think you are wrong.

What lerdsilla is doing is entering what the Japanese call Mushin, or what western neuroscience calls Flow state.... which is detached from expectation or outcome.

it's a level of relaxed, mindless reaction based on intuitive pattern recognition and opportunity.

In many martial arts, the term Budō is used to describe psychological flow.[45] Mixed martial artschampion and Karate master Lyoto Machida uses meditation techniques before fights to attain mushin, a concept that, by his description, is in all respects equal to flow.

The Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix, explained: "I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel."[46]

Former 500 GP rider Wayne Gardner talking about his victory at the 1990 Australian Grand Prix on The Unrideables 2 documentary said: ''During these last five laps I had this sort of above body experience where actually raised up above and I could see myself racing. It was kind of a remote control and it's the weirdest thing I've ever had in my life. [...] After the race Mick [Doohan] and in fact Wayne Raineysaid: ''How the hell did you do that?'' and I said: ''I have no idea.''''[47]


There is a lot more on this wiki

Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia

 

[_Simon_]

In many martial arts, the term Budō is used to describe psychological flow.[45] Mixed martial artschampion and Karate master Lyoto Machida uses meditation techniques before fights to attain mushin, a concept that, by his description, is in all respects equal to flow.

The Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix, explained: "I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel."[46]

Former 500 GP rider Wayne Gardner talking about his victory at the 1990 Australian Grand Prix on The Unrideables 2 documentary said: ''During these last five laps I had this sort of above body experience where actually raised up above and I could see myself racing. It was kind of a remote control and it's the weirdest thing I've ever had in my life. [...] After the race Mick [Doohan] and in fact Wayne Raineysaid: ''How the hell did you do that?'' and I said: ''I have no idea.''''[47]


There is a lot more on this wiki

Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia

Ah cool thanks for sharing. Yeah it's bizarre when it happens, has happened during meditation for sure, but during training it's as though you're witnessing body do what it's doing all by itself, without effort. There's no longer a 'you' that's deciding anything. And yeah even though you can meditate to help the conditions for it to arise, you can't really 'make' it or force it to happen. When you let go of all resistance and all sense of control it sort of comes about on its own.

But yeah it's so cool that Grand Prix racers experience it too

 

[TSDTexan]

Ah cool thanks for sharing. Yeah it's bizarre when it happens, has happened during meditation for sure, but during training it's as though you're witnessing body do what it's doing all by itself, without effort. There's no longer a 'you' that's deciding anything. And yeah even though you can meditate to help the conditions for it to arise, you can't really 'make' it or force it to happen. When you let go of all resistance and all sense of control it sort of comes about on its own.

But yeah it's so cool that Grand Prix racers experience it too

Masters throughout Korea, Okinawa, and Japan say this is the desired or optimal state for combat.
Sometimes they don't speak on point but in a roundabout veiled manner.
Such as Hwang Kee here.

But Flow State is kind of like the place at which the challenge is so high that to succeed, one must have a highly developed skill set under total focus in the moment of now.

There is only so much bandwidth for the brain to process events with.

When the challenge is really extreme, a lot of things get turned off by necessity. The future, the sense of identity, goal settings... winning or losing. They become ghosts forgotten.

And the body is running on intuitive pattern recognition, and responding with a huge amount of muscle memory pathways.

All the countless repetitive drills and movements simply fire off when they match up.

_______

Mushin No Shin or the "Mind of No Mind" state.

The legendary Zen master Takuna Soho said:
The mind must always be in the state of 'flowing,' for when it stops anywhere that means the flow is interrupted and it is this interruption that is injurious to the well-being of the mind. In the case of the swordsman, it means death.
When the swordsman stands against his opponent, he is not to think of the opponent, nor of himself, nor of his enemy's sword movements.
He just stands there with his sword which, forgetful of all technique, is ready only to follow the dictates of the subconscious. The man has effaced himself as the wielder of the sword. When he strikes, it is not the man but the sword in the hand of the man's subconscious that strikes.

Mushin is achieved when a person's mind is free from thoughts of anger, fear, or ego during combat or everyday life.

There is an absence of discoursive thought (chatter) and projections of values or judgment, so the person is totally free to act and react towards an opponent without hesitation and without disturbance from such thoughts.

At this point, a person relies not on what they think should be the next move, but what is their trained natural reaction or what is felt intuitively.

It is not a state of relaxed, near-sleepfulness, however. The mind could be said to be working at a near full capacity of bandwidth, but with no intentions, plans or direction.

In Japanese zen analogy: a clear mind is compared to a still pond, which is able to clearly reflect the moon and trees.

But just as waves in the pond will distort the picture of reality, so will the thoughts we hold onto disrupt the true perception of reality.

A martial artist would likely have to train for many years to be capable of maintained mushin.

This allows time for combinations of movements and exchanges of techniques to be practised repetitively many thousands of times, until they can be performed spontaneously, without conscious thought, thus changing your natural reactions to be more effective in combat or whatever else you may be doing.

If he is capable of truly listening to his teacher, however, he could attain this level in only a few years. Of course it requires a teacher who understands this.

Some masters believe that mushin is the state where a person finally understands the uselessness of techniques and becomes truly free to move. For the first time.

In fact, that person will no longer even consider themselves as "fighters" but merely living beings moving through space.

 

[_Simon_]

Ah well said .

Yeah I liked that quote about the mind flowing. Otherwise it gets fixated and stuck, and creates it's own house of mirrors .

It's amazing how much we can sabotage ourselves through believing thoughts. Even when finding evidence to the contrary we can still find ways to convince and delude ourselves! But yeah, there's always something deeper to that, a core reason we hold onto certain beliefs.

But anyway, mushin is something that's always resonated with me, and works in well with other spiritual teachings I read from and practice. And yeah I've definitely found, as I came from quite an intense and challenging style, that in the midst of that fire, whether it be hard sparring, doing kata a crazy amount of times, or just great deals of conditioning, that it can sometimes take alot for you to break through a barrier of resistance, and something within you just denies it and wants to maintain control, but it's like there's a breaking point and you finally are pushed to let go of all resistance, then everything feels magic and flows so well.

It's like you no longer have a burden of being 'tough' and resisting reality. You never needed to. Ego was just denial of what you are. There's a part of you that's tapped into (call it what you will, higher self, spirit, Self) that is always present, safe, and is the support that you rest on. When you drop into that it feels like you could train for days easily nonstop haha...

That's something that draws me to training... meditation is always there, but there's something sublime about training and the process, it really pulls something out of you huh

 

[TSDTexan]

Ah well said .

Yeah I liked that quote about the mind flowing. Otherwise it gets fixated and stuck, and creates it's own house of mirrors .

It's amazing how much we can sabotage ourselves through believing thoughts. Even when finding evidence to the contrary we can still find ways to convince and delude ourselves! But yeah, there's always something deeper to that, a core reason we hold onto certain beliefs.

But anyway, mushin is something that's always resonated with me, and works in well with other spiritual teachings I read from and practice. And yeah I've definitely found, as I came from quite an intense and challenging style, that in the midst of that fire, whether it be hard sparring, doing kata a crazy amount of times, or just great deals of conditioning, that it can sometimes take alot for you to break through a barrier of resistance, and something within you just denies it and wants to maintain control, but it's like there's a breaking point and you finally are pushed to let go of all resistance, then everything feels magic and flows so well.

It's like you no longer have a burden of being 'tough' and resisting reality. You never needed to. Ego was just denial of what you are. There's a part of you that's tapped into (call it what you will, higher self, spirit, Self) that is always present, safe, and is the support that you rest on. When you drop into that it feels like you could train for days easily nonstop haha...

That's something that draws me to training... meditation is always there, but there's something sublime about training and the process, it really pulls something out of you huh

This is from an older post of mine, but I thought you might appreciate it.

Kata trains the body, and the brain, the physical movements and non-movements (of those that would be used within a fight) at a deep neurological level.

Done long enough the brain develops serious neurological pathways that significantly speed up complex movements.

For an example please watch:

The young boy started performing his cup stacking kata called “The Cycle” (as in the cup stacking cycle), and in the beginning it took him between 120 to 150 seconds perform the task. (2 to 2 & 1/2 minutes)

After a number of years (and in about 3600 total hours), his practice of the routine had reduced the time down to 5 seconds.
Even blind folded.

This an efficiency gain (percentage rounded to 2 decimal places).

95.83% reduction of his best starting times by shaving off 115 seconds.
And
96.67% reduction of his worst starting times by shaving off 145 seconds.

There is some other amazing gems about the brain in Dr David Eagleman's series on the human brain.

Stuff martial arts should know and inform their training methods.

Practicing the repeated kata allowed him to shave an incredible amount of time off the performance of complex body movement.

And also move it from conscious effort to unconscious effort.

Which has enormous value in a martial art setting. Especially if you hardwire defensive or offensive actions into one’s involuntary response.

Your body will react to the threat before your conscious mind will have time to consider options.

 

[_Simon_]

This is from an older post of mine, but I thought you might appreciate it.

Kata trains the body, and the brain, the physical movements and non-movements (of those that would be used within a fight) at a deep neurological level.

Done long enough the brain develops serious neurological pathways that significantly speed up complex movements.

For an example please watch:

The young boy started performing his cup stacking kata called “The Cycle” (as in the cup stacking cycle), and in the beginning it took him between 120 to 150 seconds perform the task. (2 to 2 & 1/2 minutes)

After a number of years (and in about 3600 total hours), his practice of the routine had reduced the time down to 5 seconds.
Even blind folded.

This an efficiency gain (percentage rounded to 2 decimal places).

95.83% reduction of his best starting times by shaving off 115 seconds.
And
96.67% reduction of his worst starting times by shaving off 145 seconds.

There is some other amazing gems about the brain in Dr David Eagleman's series on the human brain.

Stuff martial arts should know and inform their training methods.

Practicing the repeated kata allowed him to shave an incredible amount of time off the performance of complex body movement.

And also move it from conscious effort to unconscious effort.

Which has enormous value in a martial art setting. Especially if you hardwire defensive or offensive actions into one’s involuntary response.

Your body will react to the threat before your conscious mind will have time to consider options.

Ah now that is very cool

Yeah always been a big fan of kata... but yeah amazing how efficient the brain can organise things huh!

 

[FriedRice]

But then Kata might be a bad idea as it may cause you to start thinking about using patterns during real fights and/or hard sparring when it really counts.

 

[TSDTexan]

But then Kata might be a bad idea as it may cause you to start thinking about using patterns during real fights and/or hard sparring when it really counts.

not really.

in mushin, your body executes techniques or sequences ie snippets or sequences from the two man bunkai when the subconscious mind recognizes positional landmarks.

When we are both in this position, there should be a certain familiarity and urge, and you flow into that.
it's not planning and deliberation... its reaction.

If you are trying to deliberately focus on remembering all the kata movements, and then trying to force kata to fit... you are not going to do well. Because You cannot consciously remember fast enough and will you body fast enough.

like the great philosophy Mike Tyson said
Everyone has a plan, until you get punched in the face.

The point is... you actually get to a place while fighting where you aren't thinking, but feeling.

Like Bruce said. Expression of yourself.

Like music... if you have spend 10 years learning music. and you have worked sheet music endlessly, but eventually you know the music well enough that you dont need the sheet music because you know it by heart.

Then the next thing happens... you can improvise on the fly, naturally. Effortlessly, it is no longer dead music, frozen in time and unchanging.

It becomes a blend of self expression, and the music that was written long ago.

 

[FriedRice]

not really.

in mushin, your body executes techniques or sequences ie snippets or sequences from the two man bunkai when the subconscious mind recognizes positional landmarks.

When we are both in this position, there should be a certain familiarity and urge, and you flow into that.
it's not planning and deliberation... its reaction.

If you are trying to deliberately focus on remembering all the kata movements, and then trying to force kata to fit... you are not going to do well. Because You cannot consciously remember fast enough and will you body fast enough.

like the great philosophy Mike Tyson said
Everyone has a plan, until you get punched in the face.

The point is... you actually get to a place while fighting where you aren't thinking, but feeling.

Like Bruce said. Expression of yourself.

Like music... if you have spend 10 years learning music. and you have worked sheet music endlessly, but eventually you know the music well enough that you dont need the sheet music because you know it by heart.

Then the next thing happens... you can improvise on the fly, naturally. Effortlessly, it is no longer dead music, frozen in time and unchanging.

It becomes a blend of self expression, and the music that was written long ago.

Learning lengthy Kata is still a waste of time if you're training to fight. To earn belts, then it's fine.

 

[TSDTexan]

Learning lengthy Kata is still a waste of time if you're training to fight. To earn belts, then it's fine.

think of kata as sheet music.

This guy is given sheet music for a completely unknown piece "nyan cat" and stumbles through learning it in about 4 minutes, even has to slow the tempo of the piece to get it.

once he has a grip on, he starts to inject blues and ragtime. It becomes Live. He is in flowstate.

 

[TSDTexan]

Learning lengthy Kata is still a waste of time if you're training to fight. To earn belts, then it's fine.

You are expressing your opinion.
Care to offer some evidence?

Choki Mutobu said Nihanchi kata contained everything you needed to learn if you wanted to fight. This is a man who defeated a western boxer who had been beating up judoka most of an evening at a club or bar. And he was 52 years old.

When he did nihanchi... its was all three nihanchi as a single form. And he drilled it over and over and over. So much, that outsiders assumed he only knew one kata.

He later whooped up on the All Japan western boxing champ, who couldn't land a clean blow once.

When we think of the most remarkable of Japanese fighters we rarely mention the legendary Tsuneo "Piston" Horiguchi (142-26-15, 87) who recorded more wins and more knockouts than any other Japanese fighter in history. He was never a world champion but he amazingly fit in more than 180 bouts into his career. A career that lasted just over 17 years, from 1933 to 1950, and ended when he was in his mid 30's.

in Fact, Piston enrolled at the daidokan because he saw western boxing wasn't enough to take that Old Man.

Why would Mutobu Choki who so seriously stressed real world fighting insist on Kata training, and make it a huge part of his training methods...

Maybe, a lot of westerners don't really understand kata. It's easy to criticize a fool when it's not used correctly.

 

[FriedRice]

You are expressing your opinion.
Care to offer some evidence?

Choki Mutobu said Nihanchi kata contained everything you needed to learn if you wanted to fight. This is a man who defeated a western boxer who had been beating up judoka most of an evening at a club or bar. And he was 52 years old.

When he did nihanchi... its was all three nihanchi as a single form. And he drilled it over and over and over. So much, that outsiders assumed he only knew one kata.

He later whooped up on the All Japan western boxing champ, who couldn't land a clean blow once.

When we think of the most remarkable of Japanese fighters we rarely mention the legendary Tsuneo "Piston" Horiguchi (142-26-15, 87) who recorded more wins and more knockouts than any other Japanese fighter in history. He was never a world champion but he amazingly fit in more than 180 bouts into his career. A career that lasted just over 17 years, from 1933 to 1950, and ended when he was in his mid 30's.

in Fact, Piston enrolled at the daidokan because he saw western boxing wasn't enough to take that Old Man.

Why would Mutobu Choki who so seriously stressed real world fighting insist on Kata training, and make it a huge part of his training methods...

Maybe, a lot of westerners don't really understand kata. It's easy to criticize a fool when it's not used correctly.

I like to go by what MMA displays and proves, today....rather than go by obscure single stories, whether true or untrue, a long, long, long, long *** time ago. Like Boxing is even 1/10th of what it has evolved to, today.

You can watch recorded videos of MMA fights every week and make way better assessment for what works better to best, vs. stories. Where are all the great Japanese fighters in today's MMA? They don't like world wide glory for their family name, their school, their style(s), their country and a lot of $$$$$$$$?