- Use a sparring/grappling/self-defence demonstration to illustrate muscle
memory/automatic responses (ie: responding during frame and attacker, automatically blocking, reacting to a competitors attack in automatic ways, etc. Use your martial arts imagination to illustrate muscle memory).
- Extrapolate that to their brain – As we know from practicing these moves, we automatically default to what we have trained ourselves to do. When we are attacked, we automatically respond. It’s the same with our brain – our brain automatically responds as well. It automatically responds to angry people or sad situations or a funny joke. Sometimes we learn to automatically respond in unhealthy ways. Sometimes our brain automatically responds with anger or fear or feeling bad, but it doesn’t have to.
REACTING
Examples to use throughout the week to illustrate ways to appropriately deal with big emotions.
Using the example of – Getting angry/hurt/upset/sad/afraid/emotional when someone says
something we don’t like/when someone is mean to us/when we are starting to feel
emotional vs. responding appropriately (feeling those bad feelings but dealing with them)
with:
– Breathing techniques
– 1–10 scale (“I am feeling like a 6”)
– Distraction – sometimes we just need food (hangry), leaving the room, doing something different, talking to someone, do something we like, do 30 pushups until we cool down.
– Self–talk – talking yourself out of getting upset
-Choosing not to blow up – ask students, “what else can you do when you are feeling like you want to get mad or upset or afraid or anxious?” Do you get really mad? Blow your lid? Or what?
– Written by Scott Williams