To be re-edited when more time is available. Just drills and random memories for now as a placeholder to that point in time.
Saturday:
- Pushups/situps/squats while holding the breath. Gradually excites the psyche as holding the breath becomes harder. Learning how to calm the psyche after doing these exercises by breath work.
- Falling exercise. Partner stands straight and tall, and falls backward, not bending their body. Partner catches them at the neck about 2-3 feet before hitting the ground. Learning how to calm the psyche after a very quick excitation.
- Falling exercise. One person is on all fours, the other is standing on them. The standing person stands straight and tall, and falls backward, not bending their body. Two people catch them about 2-3 feet before hitting the ground. Reinforcement of previous falling drill.
- Studying an attacker without becoming emotionally involved. One partner approaches a few times without attacking. Then after a while they do irritating/jarring things: slapping, punching, etc. The other person has to remain aware of the person but not become psychologically involved in the attack. This is to find the state of the psyche where one can respond to the full situation, rather than hiding inside themselves, or becoming a slave to the attacker's movements.
- Falling/getting up with one breath cycle. Exhale while falling, inhale while getting up. Losing one's breath while doing this indicates excessive tension.
- Free movement on the ground with no thought. Thought interrupts the free movement. Some movements may appear beautiful when planned, but the transition to the next movement may be awkward, or some other aspect of movement/breathing may be crippled from planning the movements.
Sunday:
- Throwing a person drill. Four people grab each limb of the fifth person. They swing him and release on the count of three. The thrown person lands and regains a good psychological state through breathing. Repeat with the person being thrown while face-down. Additional challenge is to throw the person against a wall or pillar.
- Intermixing of social and physiological fear. Partner approaches a few times, calmly putting their hand on the person. Then the partner does something irritating and sharp: punching, slapping, etc. Then the partner goes back to calmly putting their hand on the person. There is often more fear in the partner approaching after being hit, even though intellectually the person knows that they will just calmly put their hands on them. We can develop social fears from physiological ones.
- Hitting a person standing on the wall (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFsMa5DuSFs). Experiencing deeper excitation and then overcoming it through breathing.
- Laying on the ground, holding the breath after exhale, then partner push/punches on your stomach when you start to recover from breath holding. After a few minutes or if they sense you've had enough, they let you breath and recover. After recovering, hold your breath on exhale, and they will slap your face/chest when you start to recover from breath holding. They stop after a few minutes or if they sense you've had enough.
- Stick swinging. KK swings the stick back and forth. Our task is to walk towards him and past him without getting hit AND while not changing our pace, being hesitant, thinking too much, or getting excited.
- Walking around randomly with eyes closed. Then walking faster and bumping into people/things. Breath work required to reduce excitation. Then holding hands out and touching those who walk by instead of avoiding them, to experience and overcome various social fears.
Random concepts from KK:
- The proper "state" is similar to a runner experiencing their body in motion w/o the nasty feelings experienced when running. They are just doing the work.
- The psyche has natural flows, like a wave, of highs and lows. A low would be waking up in the morning, transitioning to high when driving to work. There are thresholds for the highs and lows, which can be seen when a person "snaps" and doesn't remember what they did because they were so excited. What we try to do is increase our thresholds to remain aware during high levels of excitement.
- Admitting to being afraid is often socially discouraged, but the truth is that everyone feels certain levels of fear all the time. "I am afraid all the time, but I'm not a coward".
- We all have certain animal/chemical reactions that we can't necessarily work against: adrenaline, final stage of accepting death when attacked (like an antelope). Those exist for evolutionary reasons and often can't be trained away. Our goal is to either work around them or simply accept them as possibilities and move on.
- Advice for shock: slap them on the back a few times to get their attention. KK made the analogy of them being in their house (inside themselves), and someone needing to knock on the door (slap on the back) to get them to get up. Make them look up, and try to get them to follow your finger moving back and forth, to connect them with some external stimulus. Ask them their name to engage them on a social level. Look them in the eyes. If they aren't injured, this may be enough. If they are injured, this may need to be continued to prevent them from going back inside themselves. There was an anecdote about a soldier dying from a broken arm because he went into shock.
Shooting w/ KK:
Konstantin divided us up into two groups: those with significant or professional shooting experience, and the less experienced.
The first drill was to shoot three rounds from a classic one
- Watching him shoot was incredible and unreal. Watching him handle the AK was like seeing a shark being dropped into the water: powerful and natural.
- Difference between guns that are made for shooting from a static position, and those that are made for shooting on the run. He said it was hard to nail down the differences, but a lot of the older WW2-era pistols are made for the on-the-run type shooting.
- Shooting is mostly a result of a clean psychological state, resulting in smooth calm movement and a focus to keep the pistol from deviating even slightly on its aim, even while walking or pivoting.
- Fire at the end of the exhale, extend the step maybe by 6 to 12 inches and fire right before the foot hits the ground. The extending foot must go at the direction of the target, but the movement of the shooter can continue in the original direction after firing. When approaching from the left, if right-handed, the whole body has to face the target.
- Repeated emphasis on knowing where the bullet went. Missing the target is one thing, not knowing where the shot went prevents one from re-adjusting for the next shot, or from receiving valuable feedback during training.
- Two-handed shooting, while providing a more stable platform and allowing for an easier sight picture, makes any re-adjustment in a rapidly changing environment difficult. Running is difficult, both hands are occupied which hinders dynamic movement and getting around obstacles.
- The pistol should be held like a bird that one doesn't want to escape, and the wrist should have enough tension so that it doesn't break from the recoil. The rest of the body should be relaxed so that it can adjust to provide a dynamic platform for each discharge.
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