Perhaps we are thinking a bit backwards here. The time constant phenomenon of peripheral vascular bed response is a two-way affair. Just as it would take half a minute or so to notice an ischemic response, so too it would take an equal amount of time (or maybe more) to go from rest to fully functional. There's something our foot-dexterous TKD friends forget from a self-defense perspective. In a typical workout, a student doesn't bow and then start doing flying spinning hook kicks. Generally there is a reasonably extensive warm-up period. When I am doing squats and getting to the end of a training phase where I am going fewer reps with higher weight, I have consistently noticed how I need to lift heavy before I can lift heavy. It is literally impossible to do my max weight for three to five reps without having gone through three or so sets of ever-increasing weight. Once the muscles are literally primed with blood, then I can get serious.
Leg dexterity is a relative thing. I'm a relatively flexible guy and have taken good care of my legs. I can kick reasonably strong, reasonably high, and can do most of the TKD kicks. But when I wake up at 3 AM and have to pee, I'm lucky if I can walk a straight path to the bathroom. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote
found himself under sudden attack by a gang of punks with knives in an open field ... "my legs felt like lead, I could barely lift them to run, some of them caught up with another and me, I tried some wheel kicks and sidekicks, but all I was able to throw was front kicks. My legs felt like mush."
I am not surprised for two reasons. First, the front kick requires the least flexibility and the least amount of coordination. The bad guys had a chance to warm up to the strike; their hearts were probably pounding for a good while before they surprised our friend here.
They were primed for the fight. Our friend was mentally there in seconds, but compared to his mind, his body was lagging far behind. It wasn't ischemia, it was lack of hyperemia. He didn't have the luxury of that long stretch and warm-up. And the overloaded brain probably wasn't availing him easy access to the stored information (and subsequent nerve firing patterns) needed to do the more complex motions. But any damn fool can do a front kick. <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote
The LFI instructors will call your mother all kinds of nice names, if they catch you try to release the slide of a Colt .45 in any way other than grasping it tight in your palm and yanking it back so it can slam forward. They know your fingers will not work and you will fumble.
This is a really good example. I have had the "gift" of a tremor in my hands and fingers. I was born with it. It is very sensitive to sympathetic stimulation. Over time I have learned to deal with it quite nicely. I had a gift in our cardiac research lab; not even the cardiac surgeons could do the kinds of techniques on a beating heart that I was doing. But I knew my limits. There were several procedures that required exacting dexterity. Once false move and we had a very short day. They really messed with my brain, and I had to take careful measures to see that I was in my "Zen mind" before proceeding. For several years I wouldn't even let anyone watch me. I finally found a way around that one; I would talk to the observer about an entirely different subject while doing the delicate maneuver that they wanted to watch me perform. It was a big head game. In many ways, it taught me a lot.
My tremor has other interesting manifestations. Most who know me understand that I am rarely short of words. At family gatherings, I'm guaranteed to be one of the folks that give a toast and speech. But I have learned always to have an empty glass when doing the toast. If I have the least amount of liquid in my glass and I know 50 or so people are watching me while I talk, my hand will go into an uncontrollable quiver and suddenly everyone is watching the glass with the contents spilling everywhere. It's a vicious cycle. So...I do it with an empty glass. Suddenly everything is fine.
The interesting thing about the semiautomatic example is that the muscles that control the gross motor movements that shape the palm are in the exact location as the muscles that do the fine motor movements with the fingers - the forearm. Everything is connected by a complex series of tendons. But the information content of a sequence of nerve firing patterns that would operate the fingers is far more detailed than the same that would do a simple grabbing motion with the whole hand. Oh and one other thing...the hands will be sweating under stress. The greater the surface area that grabs the slide, the less likely one will fumble and/or slip.
By the way, the same goes for the feet and toes. All the muscles are in the calf region, and the connections are made via long tendons.
This "gift" has helped me understand my limitations under stress. I know not to get cute when I am stressed. I've dealt with that all my life. Almost anyone can get the same tremors I get when they are stressed enough; I have the advantage of "having been there."
By the way, Van, this idea of distracting the brain from obsession with the "threat" (my talking to avoid thinking about screwing up the surgical technique when being watched) intrigues me. It reminds me of a situation where I apprehended someone attempting to remove a tapedeck from my car. Only after the police came and I turned the slug over did I suddenly go into spine rattling, whole-body tremors. A guy that came by to help me experienced the exact same phenomenon at the exact same moment. Interesting, no? It makes me wonder about what we could do to similarly engage the mind so we could avoid the mental breakdowns that happen when it all comes down.
- Bill
[This message has been edited by Bill Glasheen (edited May 18, 2001).]
