Time
One topic which has fascinated me for years is why as a martial artist do I experience time differently and why does time slow down so much during fighting?
Are you a martial artist who has experienced that sudden slowing down of time right in the middle of a high-speed interaction, with time becoming slow enough for you to assess your options?
If so, you are not alone.
Time bends to the number of faculties being used
Humans experience time differently during experiences in which more faculties are being used. In short, if we increase our faculty use we increase our time. In martial arts training terms this means the more you push to expand your training capacity, the more of your faculties are available to you, and hence the more opportunity you have for slowing down your perception of time.
Time Theories
There are many theories why humans experience time differently from Proportionate theory to Metabolic theory to the rate of Information Processing we do.
In the Proportionate Theory time speeds up as we get older. As we begin to see the time left as a proportion of the time spent, we consider or experience time itself to be speeding up.
In Metabolic Theory time is understood that a fast metabolism has us running through time more quickly and hence experiencing more of it.
In Information Processing theory, time slows down for those of us who process larger amounts of information.
Whatever your perception of time is, fast or slow, minimal or abundant, it is relative to your experience of your action.
Time slows down
In a critical or high stress situation such as combat, the amygdala of the brain which is a collection of bundles of neurons located deep in the medial temporal lobe, maps down experience information in more detail to give you greater options to survive.
If you are trained to utilize these mappings, as most martial artists by Black Belt are, then your experience at the time of high stress combat is slower allowing you more options and a slower perception of time.
If you are not trained to utilize these mappings, then you experience this slowed down information later as a memory after the event, rather than an altered perception which can be useful to you at the time.
Perceptions of Activity relative to Time
Think of 90 seconds:
1) First think of 90 seconds sitting at your computer working.
In which 90 seconds did you get the most done?
If you are a black belt level or above martial artist and you answered number 3 then you’re correct because it’s during that activity you are utilizing the highest number of faculties. The amount of relative activity which can unfold increases with faculty utilisation.
The internal model creates a version of how we, each individual, sees the world. This model gets constructed of how we think the world should be, an amalgamation of past programming, experiences and learning / training. This model is constantly updating.
If you are presented with an experience which is different from your internal view, the internal model takes a fraction of a second to update. This lends us to understand why people get that “rabbit in the headlights” response to new or shocking experience, especially under high stress conditions, as they try to update their internal model under stress.
You can see now why scenario based training is so important because we don’t want the body to wait for the brain to catch up, we want to be able to access all our faculties synchronistically. If we’re already trained in the high stress scenario then our bodies already know what to do and can proceed without hesitation, in a unified way.
What we’re really doing in our training is therefore building relevant internal models so we can respond appropriately with all our faculties without hesitation.
This is the importance of training mind + body, and not just training the body.
Actions you can take to slow down time:
Are you a martial artist who has experienced that sudden slowing down of time right in the middle of a high-speed interaction, with time becoming slow enough for you to assess your options?
If so, you are not alone.
Time bends to the number of faculties being used
Humans experience time differently during experiences in which more faculties are being used. In short, if we increase our faculty use we increase our time.
Time Theories
There are many theories why humans experience time differently from Proportionate theory to Metabolic theory to the rate of Information Processing we do.
In the Proportionate Theory time speeds up as we get older. As we begin to see the time left as a proportion of the time spent, we consider or experience time itself to be speeding up.
In Metabolic Theory time is understood that a fast metabolism has us running through time more quickly and hence experiencing more of it.
In Information Processing theory, time slows down for those of us who process larger amounts of information.
Whatever your perception of time is, fast or slow, minimal or abundant, it is relative to your experience of your action.
Time slows down
In a critical or high stress situation such as combat, the amygdala of the brain which is a collection of bundles of neurons located deep in the medial temporal lobe, maps down experience information in more detail to give you greater options to survive.
If you are trained to utilize these mappings, as most martial artists by Black Belt are, then your experience at the time of high stress combat is slower allowing you more options and a slower perception of time.
If you are not trained to utilize these mappings, then you experience this slowed down information later as a memory after the event, rather than an altered perception which can be useful to you at the time.
Perceptions of Activity relative to Time
Think of 90 seconds:
1) First think of 90 seconds sitting at your computer working.
In which 90 seconds did you get the most done?
If you are a black belt level or above martial artist and you answered number 3 then you’re correct because it’s during that activity you are utilizing the highest number of faculties.
The internal model creates a version of how we, each individual, sees the world. This model gets constructed of how we think the world should be, an amalgamation of past programming, experiences and learning / training.
If you are presented with an experience which is different from your internal view, the internal model takes a fraction of a second to update. This lends us to understand why people get that “rabbit in the headlights” response to new or shocking experience, especially under high stress conditions, as they try to update their internal model under stress.
You can see now why scenario based training is so important because we don’t want the body to wait for the brain to catch up, we want to be able to access all our faculties synchronistically.
What we’re really doing in our training is therefore building relevant internal models so we can respond appropriately with all our faculties without hesitation.
This is the importance of training mind + body, and not just training the body.
Actions you can take to slow down time:
- Increase your wholisitic training of mind and body; at FRT we train physically, energetically, mentally and spiritually to address all parts of our human system
- Scenario based training to build your internal model
- Repetition training to build muscle memory
- Build neuropathways so you have strong connectivity between mind and body for flow of information and response
For training and coaching contact: www.fiveringstraining.com
Comments
Post a Comment