Breaking The Freeze
Before the first punch is thrown in a fight, several things happen. When an opponent begins his "interview" they will posture and verbalize agressively to test your sense of courage and self defense potential. Remember they probably chose you as a target already because you may have been giving off signs of vulnerabilty. At first you may feel like this is incredulous. Your brain asks this question; Is this aggressiveness really happening to me or am I mistaken? Being the do-gooder, a well mannered person and a person that learned fighting is wrong, you can't believe that people could be so mean [silly you]. After almost a decade bouncing in bars I learned to tune myself into the concept that I could be attacked anytime, anywhere and always had my mindset tuned that way. In previous years I had been a victim of the "freeze" when a confrontation started and also felt this a few times in tournament sparring. It's like your compute...