tacit conspiracies

I recently stood in a line-up. The socially dictated lineup of a receiving line. I don’t like them. I don’t really know anyone who enjoys standing in a tidy row as everyone else walks by to a) make some level of physical contact and b) mumble scripted praises or condolences. And as much as the banal socially scripted interchanges are irritating and boring, the opposite can be worse in the receiving line ritual. That one person who stops in front a specific person in the lineup and dives into a heartfelt conversation. This isn’t the ritual and everyone is left uncomfortably flat footed while traffic progressively backs up on down the line.

This is an odd ritual when you think about it. Most people don’t enjoy the process whether in the giving or in the receiving of the scripted touch/remarks. But it happens anyway. Most often in funerals and weddings. Two of our biggest rites of passage are marked by receiving lines.

The people in the lineup are on display and the people who come to have a look carry their own expectations of what they want/need to see. These expectations are distinctly driven by culture and tribal protocols and it took me a few minutes to realize I was breaking one. My own discomfort with being on the display line blurred over into small gestures of discomfort on the other end so I didn’t catch it right away. It was a well-attended funeral, I had a lot of time to figure it out. In polite society the cues signaling awkward discomfort are less blatant. People smiling or tilting their heads in gestures of familiarity with fleeting bracing at the jaw. One shoulder tipping away, or making eye contact but breaking it and looking quickly down or off to the side to the next person in the line. To name a few.

The offending gesture was me extending my hand out for the expectant physical contact. I did not know 98% of these people and the obligatory hugs are generally held for people who can at least demonstrate a degree of facial recognition. Some of the elderly women reached for the pat-pat hug anyway. They skipped right over my extended hand. Okay. No problem. But the other two responses were most dominant and followed the rules of polite, Southern, conservatively religious society. Don’t touch the strange woman.

Particularly the men. My extended hand was usually ignored by the men. When it was received there was no handshake. Take just the fingers, hold them for just a moment, release them. It took a particularly awkward guy for me to realize I was the source of the discomfort specifically – beyond the general no one wants to be here business.

Oh. I get it. I’m doing this wrong. That was the revelation – I can be a bit dense sometimes.

The rest of receiving line wasn’t any more comfortable but at least now I had something to do. Try and read the body language ahead of time. Who is going to shake my hand, who isn’t? This is not a place to trot out personal expectations.

On the long ass drive home the next day, I had a lot of time to think. A question materialized.

When is tacit consent [to a tribal protocol] and act of kindness and when is it conspiracy?

The receiving line at a memorial service is a no-brainer. This isn’t about me. It’s not about acknowledging women as equal partners in a productive, advancing society. Forcing the men to shake my hand just makes me an asshole.

What about in other environments? Just taking the handshake rule, male uncomfortable touching female = no handshake. Reading the body language that says “this is wrong” gives me, us, a choice. I can extend my hand and leave it out there and the person who doesn’t take it is the asshole. It’s obvious if not to anyone else but the two of us. How do you choose? Who’s the asshole? I have answers and places I use the handshake rules as a litmus test. It is an instantaneous data dump about the other person. Will they shake my hand? At what level of grip? What level of contact? For how long? What’s the eye contact? Posture? Structural positioning? So much information.

There is a new series coming out – don’t remember which network is producing it. The title is The Handmaid’s Tale. Based on a book* I read well over a decade ago. Disturbing book. Disturbing because it takes this gray zone decision making and demonstrates what happens when tacit consent to a protocol/rule/expectation slowly becomes conspiratorial agreement to participate. It’s not unconscious. The monkey self-justifies the agreement. Go along to get along. Don’t make waves. It won’t be that bad. This isn’t a hill to die on.

And then we wake up one morning and discover the entire social structure has shifted and to go back on that conspiratorial agreement will cost you everything. The book is disturbing because it is entirely possible.

Which hill you die on, is your decision. Key word here – decision. It’s a choice. Your choice. If you, me, if we don’t take the time when time offers itself up for a good think – if we don’t take the time to consider the hills, and upon which ones we want to battle to the death, gray zone ambivalence wins. And like it or not, whatever shackles you find about your ankles, you agreed to it.

*The Handmaid's Tale was published in 1985. Author: Margaret Atwood.

are you sure you want to teach that?

I'm probably earning myself a special place in martial arts hell with this post but sometimes the ridiculous needs to be addressed even if it means tipping sacred cows.

Watch this. At least the first few minutes-
https://www.facebook.com/CrosleyGracieAc/videos/1326850224020125/?pnref=story

I get it. Meaning I understand it. Understanding does not make it good. It is a popular attitude in the martial and combat arts training world Popular does not make it right.

This is bad business.

I don't mean bad business as in poor financial and organizational strategy/implementation. It's actually maybe good business for that. I mean bad business in the idiosyncratic use of the phrase.

The system I am affiliated with just duked this one out per policies in the U.S. Think about this. We had debate and argument about setting policy about who you could and could not train with and where you could/could not do this training. The reason for the debate in the first place was a policy that was put in place limiting who instructors were permitted to train with - as in - you can't train with anyone who teaches anything similar to what we teach.

(Pause. Let that sink in long enough to gauge how you both think and feel.)

The policy has been repealed. So that's the good news. Humans prevailed and the monkey brain possessive territorial chest beating took a back seat.

Look, I get this. I understand the sentiment because I see it everywhere. And I get the context of loyalty. And I get the feeling of pouring into a student. I have a twinge when I lose one to a different training program. That twinge happens because my emotions in the moment run binary. You train with me, you respect/like me. You don't train with me you don't like/respect me. Even in my language "lose a student" you can see the monkey wanting a say in the conversation.

I also get this: You are not on the mat as an instructor in any training system for you. That's the hard reality. You are a service provider, a teacher. A true master feels the bitter sweetness a parent feels when their kids take wing. When they fly and mature and move on. It is bittersweet. Revel in it. It means you did a good job.

One of my younger female students is getting ready to test for her fifth rank. She's been training with us for over 2 years. She is super talented and smart. I am proud of her. All of the instructors are proud of her. She is so smart in fact, that she realizes a lot of her Krav could get her expelled (high school kid). She also realizes that even though BJJ (hello Master Gracie), is more complicated to learn, she sees that it has solutions she might get away with at school without risking expulsion. This is significant because she plans on going to college and getting expelled for violence does a real number on your chances of college acceptance.

So she now adds in a little BJJ to her training. And there's that little twinge. My monkey looks up and looks around. But if we look at our students as sons and daughters (not only in the video, I have heard this language used in other systems...like my own), then we must truly long for the moment when our children, oops - students take wing. This is not metaphoric, not really. Take the girl at our school getting ready for this 5th level -

Her elementary school had frequent lockdowns due to shootings near the playground. She goes to high school in the same area. Shit happens in the hallways. Kids are smart, sneaky and good at knowing where the holes are. Where the adults are not. Her krav, what she gets from us, will work. It may also kill her chances of getting into the universities she wants. She's smart, intelligent and has enough training to be able to discern. She looks at her BJJ as critically as she looks at her Krav.

She is taking wing. I have male students who do this too, btw.

Gracie's lecture speaks to our loyalty needs. Our need to be loyal and our need to be honored by someone else's show of loyalty toward us - big needs. Dangerous needs in the context of self-defense.

I respect Mr. Gracie. Deeply. I can both respect him and see the deep, dangerous flaw in his mindset. As a student, if you tell me I betray you by learning everything I can from anyone I can - including instructors who teach the same thing you teach, you are telling me I am not smart enough to be able to operate under my own agency. Legislating my loyalty will not produce a warrior willing to go shoulder to shoulder with you in battle. Legislating my loyalty will render me incompetent. I will only be able to act if it pleases you. I will be able to defend myself, my loved ones only if that defense measures against my master's accepted policy.

again: legislating loyalty perpetuates incompetence and punishes power with banishment.

are you sure you want to teach that?

rookie mistakes, monkeys, mongrels

disconnected. poorly planned, long-ass thoughts to ensue-


Monkey brain

1. Monkey brains don't like making rookie mistakes. Human brains see them as tremendous opportunity.

          a) monkey brains whine and fuss and generally worry about "how it looks"
          b) human brains wonder things like, why did this happen? what created the problem? what are the solutions? are any of them permanent fixes? and so on

2. Multi-Conscious events are funny experiences. Funny "ha-ha" funny and funny "odd" funny. Monkey brain and Human brain co-existing at the same time in the same experience and conversation ... that's a funny experience.

Context: participated in 3 days of training and several exhaustion drills. Day 3, final exhaustion drill - pushed hard and pushed to a failure point. Found it. Showed up as rookie mistake in a skill I have (oops - thought I had) down cold. Have taught the "correct' pattern so many times I can literally do it with my eyes closed and recite the checkpoints with zero concentration required.  I can apply it, adapt it and respond to the Threat on the fly - correctly.

And yet there it is -bigger than Dallas - on film for the world to see (gotta' love Facebook) -rookie mistake.

Too many thoughts and rabbit trails and possibilities to chase down, including how I feel about training and public videos. I'm only going to hit a few, for which you will be grateful; I'm sure.

Running down the ins and outs of the rookie mistake, the monkey/human split in the AAR was a cool moment. Both brains formulating my conversation simultaneously makes for a somewhat schizophrenic conversation during problem solving.  Monkey is whining - Human is playing with the puzzle pieces. 

Discovery.  Big guy - by comparison to me - REALLY big guy. Big guy who knows what's coming in the defense to the threat and compensates. Avoids the reality of an incoming strike by structuring out and leaning back so the strike inherent to the defense can't land (mostly because a little bit of leaning back with all that long-ass range is all it takes to get away from me). Big deal.

But it is. Because the rookie mistake could cause serious injury to the defender - in this case, me.

Back to the co-existing brains. Human brain says...does this need to be fixed? This is a training dynamic - maybe an artificial artifact. My partner knows the skill and knows the defense equally well. He can anticipate my every move because he has trained it at least as deeply/often as I have. We are all in the stress/exhaustion drill. He's as tired as I am and just doesn't want to get hit. As we debriefed the FUBAR moment he says "at that point I'd taken a lot of shots already in that drill and I was just done getting hit".

Avoiding the strike is easy with me - the range difference between us is huge. Just lean back but leave the weapon fully extended at arm's length ( the weapon I now have a hold of) and viola! I am in a very bad position and add to it the exhaustion drill - I make said rookie mistake.

Debriefing with my training partner, he ticks off correlations for the mistake.  In a real situation the Threat isn't standing there with exact knowledge of every move before you make it. With this kind of size differential, he's not expecting you to get into this position (for the strike) in the first place. This is happening because we know you're going to hit us/me so we're moving out of the way first, before the strike - so there's no way you can make contact. Training artifact because the "attacking" partner isn't doing anything else to avoid the strike. He's letting the rest of the defense play out from this odd body position and the weapon hanging out there in space with no efforts at retention or adjustment. So - yeah - weird artifact.

Okay.

Human brain says maybe it's not something to dig into, fixing a training artifact so the skill "looks right" may create a deeper problem in a real circumstance. Monkey brain says ... no, wait. We HAVE to fix this. It's a big-ass rookie mistake. And I shouldn't be making those mistakes any more. It looks bad.

Where's the linchpin? find the pivotal moment in which the mistake comes to life and fix it. You know, so we don't ever get caught on video making this mistake again. So...we start picking it apart. Find a potential solution. And this is a little human brain action too because human brains like to solve puzzles but the human is kinda' working for the monkey.

At the Meta Level the solution venture has merit because it speaks to rapid adaptability and creating a deep physical program that cannot be degraded by exhaustion or deep stress. -AND_

The harder I train. The tougher the training will be. The tougher training, the harder the drills and the more mistakes I should be making. If you, me, if we never do anything in our physical training that is a mistake, we never learn anything new. And the rookie mistakes in an advanced practitioner are the best. This is human brain awareness.

In the moment of the mistake - I saw it happening and my reaction time v. the visual input...you're fucking this up....couldn't catch up to each other so I laughed (and swore) and kept going. It was fun. The drill kept going and the drill continued to be fun.

The fun I had training into drenched-in-sweat-breathing hard-no time to think reaction work disappeared when I saw the rookie mistake broadcast out later as part of a public montage of the training event. This is not a fault conversation. It's an internal one and it's fucked up but it does a beautiful job reminding me of how strong the monkey can be.

Annoyed. I want to fix the mistake. Permanently. And am fully aware this is my monkey brain's desire to avoid public finger pointing and all the status games martial artists play (because we have nothing better to do?) The monkey convo stands in direct opposition to my human brain that finds the greatest lessons in mistake-making.

And it all boils down to this one question - does the rookie mistake require fixing?
yes.
no.
Yes - be aware that the situation creating the golden moment of fuck ups could happen in a real encounter, albeit the possibility is rare due to the artifact that created it. Yes, because I want the level of nano-second adaptability that would have allowed my brain and body to work more simultaneously in seeing the mistake before it fully bloomed. This is about training. I like to train. This is easy.

No - it's a training artifact. The stimulus - response combination is a by-product of working with someone from within my system who knows the technique, is equally tired, and creating an artificial stimulus rarely seen in the wild. Creating a fix may make a real encounter fail at a faster and more dangerous level.

Then down another rabbit trail I go. Can we train past training artifact mistakes in a way that makes both brains happy? Possibly. Maybe. I think the only way to train past or through an artifact-driven mistake like this is to train with a group of people who all have the same deep respect for the rare opportunity created by a rookie mistake.

Why I think this is the mandatory element for rookie mistakes to become awesome learning events? Even the most senior black belts in a system have to be comfortable enough with the psychological safety of the training space that they can make an error in a rookie level skill - and be okay enough with the mistake to poke around at the whys and hows of it and ask all the questions and never judge the mistake (or the person). Without that, the mistake gets buried and tucked away like a mongrel tail between the legs of a shamed creature. Nothing gets learned. No discoveries with the exception that deep practice is punished.

Only problem is, I suspect in many organized systems in the martial/combat world - this culture doesn't exist. As long as there are people drawn to martial training who need their egos bolstered by standing on the mistakes of their colleagues, the monkeys win - the humans lose.

I'd rather poke a Jaguar

Finishing.

Finishing is hard. We say starting new things is hard – our monkey brains resist anything that destabilizes the norm. New is unpredictable because, well, it is new. New means the unknown. This is why we say the monkey resists change. Fears it. Change is the ultimate in risk because unlike staring down the hungry lion equipped only with a spear, change is not nearly so defined.

Change is staring down the hungry invisible ghost armed only with your spear. Given the choice, the monkey will prefer the lion. At least the lion is capable of being studied and that study capable of producing predictable patterns.

There is another place we fear. A different kind of unpredictable. The finish line. Spend a significant amount of time navigating the waters of change and risk and unpredictable possibilities and that becomes the comfort zone. It’s possible that is not true for everyone. Possible even that it is some form of adaptation that sounds a little off.

It is what I find comfortable. It is an uncomfortable comfort. Waking up facing unscripted possibility on a frequent basis is weary-making sometimes. It can get annoying and I can be known to say things like “I’m all done with X”. When X is the murky unpredictability of uncharted water. But being honest, All Done usually translates into just dropping anchor for a while to get my bearings.

So the finish line creates its own monkey struggle. If the uncharted oceans are where you –me – feel comfortably uncomfortable, finishing means the chart is complete. We now have sailed the expanse of these oceans, we have charted the shoals and the where the winds are variable and the deepest channels.

The monkey asks now what? When change isn’t the Threat in the common expression, when the change is evidenced by all the uncharted space becoming known, there is a risk we might go looking for big cats to poke with a stick. Just to see.

The challenge – the discipline – is to let the stick lay. To leave it be and to finish charting the territory.

…I’d rather poke the jaguar.*

A few years ago there was a viral video of a game keeper relocating a Jaguar. *The cat wouldn’t get out of the carrier in the new location so the game keeper prodded it with a stick through the opening of the carrier. It worked. The cat was not amused. It bolted from the carrier and in a flash turned on the game keeper. In our house, it became a meme “don’t poke a Jaguar with a stick”.  I never said I was the sharpest crayon in the box…

don't trust the wings

Don’t trust the wings-

I am all down with finding powerful and creative ways for women to live safely. I struggle though with band aid solutions to personal safety.

The fingernail polish that is going to detect date-rape chemistry in your drink

or the latest sensation sweeping the ‘net, Angel Shots

Angel shots consist of a series of code phrases representing a specific drink at the bar. When you order a specific “shot” it tells the bartender you are in various types of trouble. One signals the need for a cab or Uber, one signals “call the cops”, another signals “I need an escort to my car”. I think there are a couple more in there, can’t remember.

And that is the one of a couple problems with calling on these wings to save you from a situation breaking bad. If I can’t remember after reading 3 different articles about it – and I am writing about it, am sober, not in a highly distracting environment, and not the least bit adrenalized - 

then a stressed, distracted, possibly intoxicated woman who hasn’t studied and rehearsed the drill isn’t going to remember the complex code either.

On the list of memory issues, the bartender needs to be up on the code as well. All the bartenders, actually. In all the bars. Everywhere. If Angel Shots are going to be truly useful you can’t expect me to remember the code names for all the different Angel Shots and remember which establishments they will work in while I am adrenalized, intoxicated, distracted, frightened –

It’s a nice idea, this code. The nail polish is a nice idea. To my knowledge, it’s still just an idea. You can’t buy the stuff.

Like band-aids on a 3 year old’s invisible boo-boo, nice ideas make us feel better. They don’t create useful change.

You’ll stop trying to get one over on me when I make it evident the consequences will cost you dearly (maybe - if you don't move on to an easier target then I have learned something important about my options). If my code words at the club make you nervous, you weren’t a real problem to begin with. Band-aids work crazy-well on invisible boo-boos.

Sexual assault is not an invisible boo-boo. Imaginary angels will not wing themselves down from the sky and shelter me from harm. Not going to wing down for you either. Rocks are hard, water is wet - fiction doesn't fix reality.

Don’t rely on angels and mood-ring fingernail polish you can’t yet buy. Don’t play make-believe when the stakes are real. And high.

sigh - what you see sometimes is not actually what you're gonna' get

Another round of assumption-making and the problems it creates.

context: long term, chronic, injury? finally getting aggressive about treating it, specialists involved this time and maybe -dare I hope? a measure of success.

Primary specialist says, let's do some PT in the meantime but not the strength building normal PT - you don't need that. I want you to get xyz - and would prefer you use our people because they'll do what I want. Translation: they work with our patients primarily and know me as a doc so they won't run off on a rail.

Now. I have my own guys. Close to home, close to our gym. As a Krav instructor over 50, I'm a frequent flyer. But here's me thinking...well, you're already going one step further with this whole thing, go all the way and use her people instead.

Fail.

Problem 1: PT is deciding the doc's orders aren't correct for the problem. Hmm.
Problem 2: Oh you definitely need the strength work - of course you do
Problem 3: and this is the big one. Making an assumption about who I am because of my age instead of who I actually am.

Addressing Problem 1. ME: okay - you have to make the decisions that you feel medically, ethically are correct. I get it. Before I come back for the second appointment, talk to the doc and explain to her why you're not following her script. Because I'm going to an unhappy camper if when I do my follow up with her in January - she says "no, no, no - you were supposed to do xyz, I need you to go for another round and do what was prescribed". So you talk to her before I come back, cool?

PT: silence (eventually she capitulated to the orders of she was going to NOT follow).

Addressing Problem 2: now this was interesting. We did the strength work. And I am definitely not anywhere I should be having paused all strength work over 6 months ago due to said chronic condition just getting aggravated by everything. Immediately maxed everything out and when I asked "how far" I was supposed to compress a round resistance circle thingy and she says "just as far as you can" and I collapse the thing on all 40 reps and she says..."oh".  And then, "well, next time we'll had some weights, I guess -if you want you can add weights at home"

Addressing Problem 3: on a stretch she asked for, I commented -"no stretching really but it's wanting to cramp and tighten the hip flexors and that's a problem...I've been working diligently to get that flexibility back and I can't afford to start over again" PT says..."well that's okay, sometimes you have to compromise for what needs to be done"
ME: not going to happen - this is not a viable option - I need all the flexibility I can get (at this point I have already explained what I do for living most days)

PT finally says after Problem 2 elements walk themselves out...tell me again what you do? ME: again brief explanation PT: what does that mean? ME: more explanation  PT: oh, so it's a little intense sometimes? ME: sigh.

Yes. I am over 50.
Yes. I am female over 50.
Your job is to see the patient in front of you regardless of the automatic assumptions and preconceived notions about what age and gender prescribe your reality to be. Maybe this autoscripted response is why so many woman remain physically weaker than necessary, more easily injured than necessary and more dynamically a workable viable target to a predatory Threat.

See each woman for who she is - where she is. That's a good start.

victimizing assumption

 

 

Humans love us some assumption – at an intellectual level we understand how dangerous assumptions can be – but our monkey brains just love the stuff. Like a Claymore, assumptions guarantee collateral damage. This is not a lightbulb moment. The scatter blast damage zone of an assumption is a foregone conclusion. Hence the “you know what you do when you assume, you make and ASS out of U and ME”.

 

Here’s one that gets me curious and when my monkey gets all excited, frustrated and annoyed. And pissed, if I'm being honest.

“All women who train in self-defense have been attacked and have issues.”

 

Both pieces of this assumption are a trap. They trap the assum-er and they trap the target of the assumption. The assumption traps these women into a specific reality and by nature of the assumption, victimizes.

 

If I am a woman who enjoys rehabbing my natural predatory instincts and have never experienced an assault (of any kind) and you assume I have been the target of violence, your assumptions shuts down an entire aspect of my liberty. I am not free, not really. By your assumption, I am not free to take possession of my future, I am not free to choose how and where I play. There must be a dark and scary driver, or I wouldn’t be here. My past is in control of my choices…not me.

 

Fact 1: women have the capacity to be damned effective tactical agents. Studies show women can be better equipped for combat than men due to a myriad of brain wiring natural to most females.

 

Fact 2: playing the way tiger cubs play – practicing the hunt, pounce and kill sequence is fun. Baby predators play the way predators function. We are predators and because we are humans, we learn to play throughout our lives.

 

If you assume I have been attacked = I have issues to work out you are going to expect me to quit my training at some point (because I'm all better now). I don't get to be good because I just want to be. Thanks for that.

 

Moving on. Let’s say I am a woman who does have a history of violence and I train in self-defense seminars, classes, programs. This does not automatically preclude I am doing this for fun. The history does not naturally prohibit me from choosing it because I enjoy it. At some point along the way there may be a process of testing social conditioning and programming from a violent encounter, conditioning equating to a belief of “victim”. Cool. Very cool, in fact.

 

To presume women with a history train only to work through issues is remarkably delimiting. The assumption means once the issues are resolved – training is done. She moves on. Okay, maybe that happens and it’s perfectly fine. But if she continues to train, indefinitely, the assumption is going to drive the you have issues label deeper and deeper. Making her more and more pathological. This is a good idea…how?

 

It’s not binary, folks. If Susie trains to overcome feelings of victimization and helplessness and then moves on to other things once that is accomplished, good on her. If Sally trains to overcome same victimization/helplessness and then discovers this is just a metric ton of fun, she gets to do that. But if we make it binary – then Sally’s issues just get bigger, worse, more pathetic the longer she trains. She is more victimized instead of less...

 

Really. Think about it. Do you really want to cast that on her?

 

The redundant habit of assumption is a monkey brain function and has the capacity to create tribal rules/protocols. Those protocols become beliefs and those beliefs become fact.

 

And all along that unfortunate timeline, the women who train become sentenced to deeper levels of presumed victimization.

 

So much for empowerment (which sucks as a word anyway as it is so overused).

 

Next time you have a thought about women on the mat – check it – teach your monkey a little humility and remind it assumptions are a sign of weakness. Strong people get curiosity is a higher order. Only strong people test their beliefs against assumption and trade tribal bias for curiosity.

 

Be a strong person. Let women who choose to train define their own reasons and prescribe their own futures.