There’s debate in the industry as to whether innate survival-skill mechanisms are just as or far more important than most training that one can undergo. Actually, maybe it’s just me that’s debating it, as I often run into huge defensiveness, protectiveness, and resistance to the idea. And, to be clear, that top professional training that reinforces evolution, intrinsic survival-skills, and natural-instinctive response, I believe can authentically help. But, as I’ve stated countless times online, people survive the world over (daily) with their Evolution-given tools. Even when survivor/victim claims of past or current martial arts experience aiding in that survival, we often see it being almost completely anecdotal to the actuality, taking a very secondary role to instinctive-response to threat.

As we’ve noticed on the page for years, most people look truly awful when fighting. We see it on Youtube and in case study and on home-video…people, even trained people, look like fish out of water when fighting. Uncoordinated. Awkward. Flailing. Imbalanced. Entirely normal. Even highly-trained, reputable fighters, when put under the pressures of adrenaline, cycle. They repeat the same move over-and-over again. They loop. The good ones loop/cycle successfully and know how to make it work but little in the way of martial arts is present. That being said, people, while often looking awkward and uncoordinated and flailing while fighting, often tend to instinctively do just the thing that’s needed when surviving. They react much more efficiently, with purpose, and decisively when their very survival is hanging in the balance. (See System 1 vs. System 2 article that might at least partially explain this).

While I have little interest in opening this up for debate, as it’s admittedly my theory….but one that I’d say has more than a little validity from volumes of case studies….the question is whether knowledge of these innate survival tools can be incorporated into a training environment. I’m not entirely sure to what extent but it is a question worth discussing. That being said, I’d say it would be entirely useful to understand, learn about, and study how these survival skills work from a scientific perspective. Knowledge begets clarity and alleviates fear of the unknown and panic at their onset. I’m going to transfer the file from The Human Protection Collaborative page here. Maybe more civilians and citizens and normal everyday people will read it than set-in-their-ways professionals did. It’s a big database, unlike any I’ve seen previous, compiled on stories, case studies, science-based explanation on how the body works under duress. Worth the time investment, it was for me…

Brain stands guard while sleeping: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/21/474691141/half-your-brain-stands-guard-when-sleeping-in-a-new-place

Brain stands guard while sleeping: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sleeping-with-half-a-brain/

Flinch reflex: https://www.wayofleastresistance.net/2011/03/flinch-reflex.html

Saccades: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_y56PQvZZA

Human reflexes and natural instincts: https://listverse.com/2012/01/28/top-10-human-reflexes-and-natural-instincts/

Sound-encoding by human brain: http://debuglies.com/2017/11/13/the-brain-encodes-sounds/

Intuition blindspots: https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/08/03/the-intuition-blindspot-just-because-you-like-going-with-your-gut-doesnt-mean-youre-good-at-it/

Anatomy of Intuition: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/articles/199305/the-anatomy-intuition

Visual recognition: http://debuglies.com/2017/09/20/identified-signals-not-entirely-visible/

Visual recognition:
https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-terms/visual-recognition/

Amygdala/fear-learning: https://www.inverse.com/article/37657-amygdala-brain-fear-aversive-learning

Infection-detection:http://debuglies.com/2018/01/03/humans-identify-infected-peers-from-photo/

Stress adaptation: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320172.php

Pain perception: https://www.ucalgary.ca/pip369/mod7/tempain/theories

Effects of corticol release: https://www.facebook.com/ashtad.rustomji/posts/1700278030031872?hc_location=ufi

Eye-movement evolution: www.cogsci.nl/blog/bird-brains-and-fish-eyes/148-a-bit-about-the-evolution-of-eye-movements

Hand evolution for fighting: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/human-hands-evolved-for-fighting/

Evolutionary psychology of war: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1474704917742720

Human anger:https://www.pnas.org/content/106/35/15073.short

Aquatic adaptation: https://www.sciencealert.com/indonesian-bajau-genetic-changes-adapt-them-to-aquatic-lifestyle

Memories can pass between generations through DNA: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1319435594855362

Case study: adrenaline effects and superhuman capability: http://m.vs.bles.com/historias/el-increible-hulk-de-caballito-para-salvar-a-su-padre-levanto-el-auto-que-bloqueaba-su-cochera.html

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/06/21/humans-have-a-magnetic-sensor-in-our-eyes-but-can-we-see-magnetic-fields/

Fascia-nervous system correlation: https://www.doctorschierling.com/blog/fascia-acts-as-second-nervous-system

Physiological effects of exercise: http://debuglies.com/2018/04/30/link-between-exercise-and-appetite-loss-explained/

Object-size perception and light reflext:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5133426/

Anxiety/threat-assessment: https://theconversation.com/brains-transform-remote-threats-into-anxiety-33350

Lost survival skills: https://io9.gizmodo.com/here-are-some-essential-survival-skills-weve-lost-from-1732594841h

Personal space: https://neurosciencenews.com/personal-space-9283/

Voice-pitch control: http://debuglies.com/2018/06/29/humans-are-the-only-primates-that-can-flexibly-control-the-pitch-of-our-voices/

Brain biases: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/200306/our-brains-negative-bias

Flat-footed fighters: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215084113.htm

Propioception/low-light: https://renovahandcare.com/spooky-phenomenon-invisible-hands/

3-dimensional vision: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/brain-sense/201208/3d-vision-and-the-brain

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180628120111.htm

Everything You Should Know About Sound

Selective-noise assessment: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-09-brain-natural-noise-cancelling-circuit.html

Energy-conservation: http://time.com/4027942/lazy-walking-exercise/

Gut feelings/senses: https://neurosciencenews.com/hard-wired-gut-sense-9897/

Innate fear-hardwiring: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anxiety-files/200805/are-we-born-be-afraid

Darkness fear/adaptation: https://www.sciencealert.com/here-s-the-evolutionary-reason-why-we-re-afraid-of-the-dark

Legitimate/healthy fear: https://theconversation.com/why-well-always-be-obsessed-with-and-afraid-of-monsters-65080

Human senses: https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/think-you-have-only-5-senses-its-actually-a-lot-more-than-that

Fear: http://debuglies.com/2018/10/30/psychologists-examine-why-haunted-houses-creep-us-out/

Hyperactive Agency Detection

When humans were prey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_hl804lSfc

Mind-talk:https://marketbusinessnews.com/brain-learns-ai-development/193035/

Secondary visual system: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/12/412926/surprise-discovery-reveals-second-visual-system-mouse-cerebral-cortex

Evolutionary directional sense: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-apes/201806/why-only-some-people-have-great-sense-directionh

Pain tolerance & threshold: https://www.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/jn.00457.2012

Reflexive bystander intervention: https://aeon.co/essays/it-looks-like-human-beings-might-be-good-samaritans-after-all

Your brain is not a computer:
https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/hand-gestures-point-towards-origins-language.html?fbclid=IwAR3_L7gUv-tmjdoYdWL2MkRBtPcrsWrVyfAsQiv1fBwGKbvbx438lfMGA74 (hand-gestures and visual communication)