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Old 01-08-2010, 09:32 PM   #49
Dan Rubin
Dojo: Boulder Aikikai
Location: Denver, Colorado
Join Date: Feb 2002
Posts: 372
United_States
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Re: Martial Ineffectiveness

Quote:
Kevin Leavitt wrote: View Post
I don't think you really ever stop fear. Heck I am just as fearful of dying as I was before I had all my training. Maybe even more so. I think you learn through training how to drive through fear by developing coping mechanisms and habits to allow you to push through it.
I agree completely. I've always been afraid of heights, but my first time on the Confidence Course at Quantico (many many years ago) I learned that my ideas about fear had been wrong. I had thought that facing danger meant one must stop being afraid, or must "overcome" being afraid, or must suppress the thought that one is afraid. What I learned that day is that facing danger meant one must act while being afraid. I think that that is what a successful warrior (of any sort) must learn how to do.

However, when I participated in the stress training that I mentioned earlier, I knew that my "opponent" was not trying to injure me, let alone kill me. That by itself distinguishes dojo training from fighting.
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