Stuck in the Past? Get into Real Time

What is real time and why is it important when fighting multiple opponents?

You typically only enter into real time during a life-threatening event where your fight/flight response is activated.

It’s no coincidence that ‘running for your life’ when your flight response is triggered, reduces the processing of the sensory inputs from vision, hearing, touch, etc. The logic for this is simple enough; the normal input and processing of sensory information that could distract you and slow down your headlong rush to safety is reduced. The result is that people experience a period of blankness.

In comparison, past time is where your thoughts are always lagging in relation to what is happening in the ‘now’. The more time you spend on waiting for your vision etc. to pick up information and for your brain to process that information, the more you are working in past-time. Past time is where we typically spend our time assessing the opponent's actions and making plans to defeat them.

Why are we stuck in the past? Well, we usually want the world to slow down so that we can see what is happening. We like to take control of the situation and implement our plans and strategies with confidence. The problem with measuring and thinking is that you hesitate before you act.

Hesitation is dangerous when you face a group of attackers. If you can measure your opponent, then they can measure you and the last thing you want when facing multiple opponents is for the group to be successfully measuring and targeting your progression.

When playing the part of a member of the 'attacking group' during training, you are always hoping the individual makes the mistake of wanting to battle one of the attackers. For an active group, this should be a signal to double their efforts and take the individual to ground.

As for the individual, acceleration is one of the key elements that enables you to get into real-time where you force your mind to suspend the processing of sensory information and therefore experience a moment of darkness. If you accelerate at an opponent then it is likely you will take that person into real time and darkness as well.

Taking your opponent into darkness will effectively nullify them for the rest of the encounter as you are accelerating onto the next attacker in a line of progression to an exit, and they cannot recover in time. Accelerating through opponent's rather than going around them will disrupt the rest of the group member's measuring and targeting of you.

So the key to dealing with multiple opponents is to disrupt the group's focus on you. If you can do that, then your chances of success start to improve dramatically. Real time is one of the concepts to help you achieve this.