Ken Gullette of Internal Fighting Arts interviewed Ari Kandel for this podcast:

http://internalfightingarts.audello.com/internal-fighting-arts-6-guided-chaos/


and blogged about it here:

http://internalarts.typepad.com/ken_gullettes_internal_ma/2015/01/is-your-internal-arts-class-preparing-you-for-real-world-self-defense-podcast-interview-with-ari-kan.html


Ken's a great guy and has a lot of online resources for those interested in the internal martial arts.

Our conscious mind puts artificial limits on our abilities.

I remember what Lt. Col. Al told me many times during contact flow, when I felt "stuck": "You can always get looser than you think you can."

It was my conscious mind's deciding that I was "stuck" and unable to move that actually made me stuck and unable to move. Once Al paused and pointed that out, he made me aware that I still had more slack left in my body, and it was a simple matter of slightly sinking and allowing everything to unfurl that enabled me to not only negate his attempt to control me, but also counterattack in the same motion. Conscious judgement distorts perception of reality.

Many students during simple weight shifting exercises "think" they are fully rooted on one leg, but when they're challenged to isolate and move the unweighted leg without changing the rest of the body or creating tension, they find that they haven't actually shifted their weight far enough. But their conscious mind had been telling them that they had gone as far as they could go!

This is yet another reason why the conscious mind cannot be relied upon to perceive and control combative movement. Even if it were able to perceive the true nature of chaotic movement in real time (which it can't), it places artificial limits on what's possible based on experience and a tendency to stay in the "comfort zone". 

The subconscious knows no such limitations. It will allow and enable the body to move to its fullest ability within its true structural limits to accomplish whatever is needed for self-preservation. This is where creativity, the ability to make or do something new, springs from.

Today my first grader, when confronted during her homework with a math problem she did not immediately consciously recall how to solve, stated, "I can't do it!" Doubtless that's what her conscious mind was telling her. A brief break, including a brief explanation of why saying "I can't" is not a good thing, then she looked at the problem again and spontaneously remembered how to solve it. Doubtless her subconscious was recalling or formulating a solution behind the scenes even while her conscious mind was stopping her progress by telling her she couldn't do it.

In training and in life, pay no heed to the conscious mind's self-imposed limitations. You're capable of a lot more than you "think" you're capable of, when the doubting conscious mind is able to step aside and allow subconscious creativity to manifest.

Happy non-thinking!