One of the challenges with fighting is it’s both the most natural and unnatural thing to do in the world. It’s natural to want to hit somebody when you’re angry. It’s not natural to throw an effective punch. It’s natural to want to want to defend yourself when someone is trying to punch you. But it’s not natural to defend yourself the way a mixed martial artist or a boxer defense against punches.
At a high-level, martial artists don’t try to defend punches by blocking. They defend by getting closer and keeping their eyes open. It’s natural to turn away. It’s natural to stay out of harm’s way. It’s normal to withdraw. So whether it’s defense or doing a proper armbar, martial arts is about training responses, training habits that are unnatural until they become natural. You do this be repetition, hundreds even thousands of them over hours and hours, years and years of training to develop muscle memory. You develop movement without thought. It makes you faster, more effective. You train reflexes, that don’t involve your higher conscious part of your brain.
One problem that can arise is sometimes you have to unlearn muscle memory. You have to unlearn habits that aren’t effective, that don’t work or aren’t as effective. In family and in relationships you can develop mental, emotional and behavioral habits in response to certain situations. And a vital task in healthy relationships, marriage and parenting is identifying negative communication, behaviors and relational habits that you learned from your family of origin or other experiences and relationships. And then develop new habits and patterns and form new emotional muscle memory.
It takes hard work, lots of it. It takes repetition and consistency. It takes humility and lots of problem-solving and experimenting, It also takes determination and support to stick with it because under stress we revert to our old habits.