I’ve written about martial intent and martial intent the wrong way before. But here, I’d like to show you some other aspects of it.
However, this is a difficult topic to talk about as so many people have their own ideas about what martial intent actually is, these can then get in the way of looking at it differently. But also, I probably have a different take on it for a variety of reasons I won’t go into just now. What I will say is this:
When I was a young man, I read something about KGB agents in training having to go to the zoo and stare big predators in the eyes to learn what a true killer is like. Now I have no clue if the Russians actually did this or not but I did find it an interesting concept and tried it out. There could be a long blog post about those experiences alone but again, not today. The key is this: I learned a lot about intent, fighting and myself by staring down tigers and panthers and them being totally unimpressed. But when they did pick me up on their radar, things got interesting… It sounds too woo-woo even to me and I was there so I’ll save that for another time as well (there’s a theme here…)
Anyway, I highly recommend you try it out when you have some time. If you’re lucky, you’ll experience some amazing things and gain important insights. If you can’t, here’s the next best thing, a couple videos of animals in action.
The thing about animals is this: animals are as close to “no mind” as it comes when fighting and violence is concerned, so you can take a cue or two from them. You don’t see them second-guessing themselves when they attack. Nor do they delude themselves that deadly violence isn’t happening. That’s what we humans do.
Warning: It is possible to get lost in this type of training and do some serious damage to your mind and if you believe in it, your soul. I consider some of this training part of the “dark side”, for lack of a better word. Those of you who have experience with this know what I’m talking about. Those who think I’m full of it, I wish you well.
That said, here are the videos: [Read more…]