Animal Instincts and Martial Arts
When I started my martial arts journey back in 1970 my instructor was not your typical Miyagi dojo type instructor, in fact, even Kobra Kai failed in comparison when it came to the tough guy, Personna that my instructor had. It was always nerve-racking when my instructor, Walter Godin, was going to do a demonstration of a certain technique, everybody would hold their breath, hoping he would not pick them to be his “attacker/victim". Because, depending on his mood, whoever he picked to be his victim, would either end up in some pain, or unconscious. Almost all of his self-defense techniques ended up with the attacker on his back, and he would finish them off with 10 or 12 punches, hammer, blows, heel, stomps, soccer kicks to the head, and then we would assume a fighting stance and back away from our attacker. Most martial arts systems, especially striking arts, like karate would do a short yell, while doing a strike, this is called a kiai. We were taught that as soon as we started, our "defensive" attack was more like a primal animal yell. While we were training, Godin would often tell us how we had to develop our animal instincts. He would tell us that is how we would stay alive if we were attacked. This was an early part of my training,
Since it's called instinct, I assume that we are all born with it to some degree or another. Seeing as many fights has I have in my lifetime I have seen many degrees of a fighters animal instincts, and I do feel like it is genetic for the most part, but a lot of it can be trained. Why would a civilized human being in the 21st-century, without the necessity of having to fight animals to stay alive, and having to hunt for our own food, should we have "civilized instinct" in place of our animal, or killer instinct, be a unlearned, and unnecessary instinct? Shouldn't we be trying to unlearn these primal instincts that we needed 2.5 million years ago, do we really need these in stinks now? Well, first of all our animal instincts were developed millions of years ago to be part of our hardwired DNA. We needed them on a daily basis way back in time. We needed these instincts to stay alive, to fight to the death, if we had to, to kill something, if we were hungry, or to kill some thing that was trying to kill us because they were hungry. You might not think that happens anymore, and it definitely isn't the same, but with well over, 2 million physical attacks in our country that happen every year, and that number is growing by the way, the people that don't practice, Train,, and nurture their animal, instincts won't do very well if they are attacked. In fact, often times your animal instincts will be your main weapon against your attacker. And, like I said, even though that is an instinct that we are born with, we need to train our animal instincts just like we need to train our power, strength, and cardio.
What is animal instincts, if you've ever watched a fight on TV and one of the fighters kept landing punches or kicks on their opponent and you could tell that they were visibly hurt, but the attacker that was landing the shots wouldn't follow up for the knockout, and sometimes you'll hear the announcer, saying that the fighter lacks killer instinct, because he won't finish his opponent. Well, that's killer instinct, or animal instinct, as we call it to a sport degree. Sport fighting, mainly MMA, is such a great, testing ground and proving ground for martial arts, and what will work and what won't work. So many techniques are proven, effective, or exposed for their weaknesses, in MMA, and to a smaller degree, we also see animal, instincts, and play. We see how important they are, and we also see how without them, it could mean the difference between winning or losing in sport, or living or dying in the street.
Watching my instructor, Walter, Godin, train, and fight. The way I've seen him do both, I realized that, besides his natural, and trained power were not his greatest asset to being a great fighter, his animal instincts were. And since I feel animal, instincts are so important for a martial artist to possess. I feel like they should train their animal instincts, along side of all the other skills and physical attributes that will make them a better and more efficient and effective martial artist, there is a huge caveat. This is 2023, and even though you wouldn't know it by the way, some people behave we are not in the Paleolithic period anymore. We are not being chased and eaten by 800 pound sabertooth creatures. We don't have to physically murder things to be able to eat. With that said, we are still under siege by evil people, and we do have to protect our lives, and our families lives, but we have to behave in a completely different manner. What I'm saying is our instincts that have been honed over millions of years Hass to be modified, until it doesn't. And it does when you're walking down the street and you're hungry, you can just kill whatever you want to eat like you could millions of years ago, but it is exactly the same if you have to stop a deadly threat against you or your family, that is when your true animal instincts have to come out. And believe me, even though we don't need these instincts on a daily basis, like we did, when we were cavemen, if you do ever need them to stay alive in a brutal street attack, you better hope that you have nurtured and honed your animal instincts, because if you haven't, it's too late, you're dead.
