Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
There IS a profound physical reason not to compete in training -- and it has to do with the adrenal-dominated response of the competitve fight or flight mode and a copmpeting and more poweful hormonal response. Oxytocin. Oxytocin is the "love hormone , but much much more. It is the "protective instinct" hormone and has powerful effects on physical endurance and demonstrable structural strengthening. Adrenaline does NOT provide these. Oxytocin's pathways both dominate and modulate the adrenal response, so its advantages are not lost -- but it is sublimated and reined by the dominant oxytocin.
But this hormone acts only in the context of self-sacrificing protection of others whom we love --- and not in conditions where personal survival or triumph is the motivating factor. Adrenaline is a linear response and runs out; Oxytocin, is a psotivie feedback system the more that is in your system the more that is produced. As long as the conditions provoking it do not lapse you do not run out before you run out of all convertible energy in the body. This is one reason why Medal of Honor winners really become physically different, both more capable of possible survival and of enduring almost unimaginable damage in accomplishing their objective before their deaths -- because they are neither living nor dying for themselves anymore -- and this actually makes their bodies more powerful and harder to destroy.
If one views aikido training as a way to create an environment where that protective response to threat becomes dominant and the enemy is seen as someone to protect (from himself), rather than a threat to be eliminated -- an entirely different manner of biochemical and structural responses exists, and which MMA -- as an expressly competitive art (however effective) -- CANNOT promote nor train to use...
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With all due respect Eric... I think you're chasing your tail here... It has been argued by many with great success that Human Beings inherently do not like to kill or harm each other... Aikido in a Martial Context exploits this...Competition is a game with rules...War is not...The natural response to threats is "fight or flight" Military Systems all over the world train their soldiers to deal with this natural response so that they may continue to function under extreme duress...
No one enters the Octagon or steps on the Mat
thinking it's "kill or be killed"
As for the Medal of Honor meme Well...Every
soldier I have ever met or served with... including folks like Lew Millett ( MOH who just passed away) said the natural default response was to protect others...They did not "train" for it they just did it.
I would be interested in reading any sources you cite however.
May I suggest we start a separate thread so that we don't let this thread drift?
William Hazen