Having come across a link sent in this reality based forum of downloadable articles I came across an essay about fear entitled 'Fear As Your Ally'. The article, perhaps like many of you will find, hit very close to home.
Despite much machismo that is sometimes present and often exaggerated in internet forums relating to physical violence and confontations, and what to do in these situations, I am far from embarassed to say that I, myself have frozen in fear, or succumbed to 'hypervigilance'. The point i'm making is that i am confident that many of you, reading this have also. Perhaps this is why you took up martial arts in the first place, but i am merely speculating.
The main issue that has to be addressed is that no matter how much training you have done in your chosen art/s, unless you learn how to utilize your fear and turn it into an advantage rather than the opposite, you too will be helpless, in my honest opinion. I say this because fear is a natural involuntary reaction and in the majority of cases when we feel threatened we fall victim to hypervigilance. In fact last week i was walking home and two boys attempted to rob me. Despite that they were much smaller than me, one was carrying a brick and both seemed very aggressive (obviously), so i felt that i was at a disadvantage. Had i not been so close to home i am sure that i would have frozen in fear instead of utilizing the flight option. This brings me onto the next point of 'what if?'. What if you were no where near your home, or safety, and had no options but to either fight or hypervigilate? The point about the use of the word 'But' in terms of seeing the aggression as a challenge not a threat fits in nicely here. Personally i view this as an excellent article as to how to approach confrontations. Many may say that one art is more effective than the other, however I, like many are tired of this inconsequentual, uneventful argument. Despite kung fu's perhaps short comings in katas rather than sparring (a lot of the time it is too dangerous to spar with a given style), it is undeniable that kung fu has been proven to be effective. Reality based training and cross training ground fighting, clinching, take downs and ground work/grappling alongside sparring/competitions do indeed give you an advantage when approaching a confrontation, however when at a serious disadvantage the practitioner may still hypervigilate.
Sorry for the life story, i was merely trying to put across my views and opinions and further spread the value of this article.
To conclude I would like to hear of any confrontations/accounts that you, fellow members may have had in relation to fear and utilizing your given art, and more importantly your mindset in order to achieve success in the face of violence. This is merely to gain more of an insight and varied viewpoint on real life threats of violence.

Regards,

The Leemeister