I was more eager to review Scott Sonnon's Fisticuffs: Peak Performance Pugilism set than other tapes I've reviewed for these pages.  That's because Fisticuffs deals with a topic I think most of us find more intuitive:  striking with the hands.  Something about hitting someone or something with your fists just resonates more with the average person, I think.  It's hard-wired into us.  In the Fisticuffs series, Scott does for arms what he did for legs in the Leg Fencing series.

TAPE 3.1:  FLOW STATE PERFORMANCE SPIRAL
"Enter The Zone and Impose the Vortex"

This is a conceptual tape, in which Scott speaks at length about performance spirals, psychodynamic profiling, flow state characteristics, the "zone," and the "vortex."  If you are confused, don't worry.  Those unfamiliar with Scott's other work may be intimidated by the lengthy lists of complicated terms presented, but these terms comprise what are ultimately simple concepts.  Those with fighting experience will be able to relate to these concepts almost immediately.

There were no production issues on this tape, apart from some intermittent buzzing and audio fuzz during one brief segment.  The chalkboard Scott uses is not as visible as is the white board to which he turns at one point, but I generally didn't have much difficulty taking notes from the material.

I will start with the larger picture of what Scott is presenting.  Those of you with martial arts experience or who've done any significant sparring or fighting will know precisely what Scott means by "the zone" when I tell you that he's not really using the term differently than any of us do.  Think about it. When you're fighting or sparring, when you're in the zone, you experience a feeling of being on, the "mind of no mind."  Seeing everything and focusing on nothing individually, feeling as if you need not think about what you must do before you do it, perhaps not even really looking at your opponent, you are on, simply there, confident and dispassionate and dominant in the exchange.

Sound familiar?  I know I've experienced this before in full-contact sparring.  It is also the basis for my teacher Dave's emphasis on the meditative aspects of the martial arts.  It need not be anywhere near so mystical-sounding, however.  Scott breaks down the components of the zone -- the upward performance spiral -- and explains in scientific and physiological terms how to gain, regain, or remain in this state of flow while pushing your opponent into the vortex, the downward performance spiral.  

You are an integrated fighter, whose breathing, movement, and alignment work together, free of focus on technique, of intentional and conscious effort.  Your task is to remain this integrated fighter while disrupting your opponent's effort to be the same.  Some speak of taking the initiative in a fight, which is what Scott is teaching you to do -- but it's more comprehensive than this, more involved than simply having more momentum.

Think of the vortex as that sensation of total loss of control and helplessness that comes when you are overwhelmed by an opponent.  If you've ever sparred or fought someone who was suddenly all over you, forcing you to cover up and hang on for dear life, you have felt the vortex.

Scott uses a simple grid to explain psychodymanic profiling, the process of evaluating your opponent's awareness.  This breaks down as follows:

External Focus, Broad Concentration = "Attending"

External Focus, Narrow Concentration = "Intending"

Broad Concentration, Internal Focus = "Strategizing"

Narrow Concentration, Internal Focus = "Fantasizing"

In fighting, you wish to have an attending profile.  Your broad awareness and external focus enable you to be aware of what is happening and to react automatically to it with a minimum of distraction. 

When you are intending, you have become vulnerable in a fight, because you must recover from that intention to be able to do something else. Intention thus blinds you to what is happening. When you are strategizing, you are likewise engaged in an activity that may leave you vulnerable. If you're focusing on a given strategy you may be distracted by it, by the need to accomplish the end goal of that strategy. Focus on the process, not the product, when fighting, Scott repeats.

(In a great example of the emotional arousal that can hinder flow, my Shanliang Li green sash test culminated in a single command from my instructor:  "Okay, put me on the ground."  Focusing on the need to accomplish this task, the desire to be successful in this end goal, could quite easily have distracted me from the process of fighting properly.  A good fighter must overcome that emotional arousal or risk entering the vortex.)

Fantasizing is the exact opposite of what you wish to experience in a fight, and corresponds to the vortex, the downward performance spiral.  An opponent who is trapped in fantasizing -- about what he must do, or about how badly he is performing, or about the different techniques he must consciously apply in order to overcome your capture of the edge -- is yours to defeat. 

Force your opponent out of attention and into intending, Scott says.  When you force him to think and internalize what is happening, you move him downward into that fantasizing stage.  His emotional arousal interferes with his flow and creates density -- the tension, both psychological and physiological, that you can manipulate to your advantage.  You are, after all, seeking to manipulate his fear reactivity through somatic profiling.  (Remember that somatic profiling is determining whether his fear reactivity is concentric, isometric, or eccentric.  Is he flinching?  Is he bracing?  Is he resisting?)

Scott, using a whiteboard, speaks of the relationship between psychodynamic profiling, somatic profiling, and visceral profiling.  Your visceral profile consists of the physical manifestations of your fear reactivity -- an elevated heart rate, accelerated breathing rate, higher blood pressure, and so forth.  These are the internal distractions that lead a fighter to the vortex.

Your performance in a fight, Scott explains, is inextricably tied to your psychological, somatic, and visceral orientations.  What is your state of mind?  What is your state of fear reactivity?  How is your muscular tension, your heart rate, your breathing?  

Your primary strategy is to move your opponent from the broad concentration of attending to the narrower concentration of intending.  The performance spiral, therefore, can be expressed as a strategy for combat.  It can be expressed in terms of flow state characteristics.  This is not as complicated as it sounds.  When you flow, you are doing precisely what you must do to be in the zone.  Scott explains the flow state characteristics in detail:

Perception of control.  Your ability to seamlessly transition from one aspect of awareness to another, to match your psychodynamic profile to the task at hand, to broaden or narrow your focus internally or externally as needed, gives you a sense of control of the situation.

Predictability. This is the natural outcome of your broad awareness and your ability to respond automatically to what is offered.

Indistractability. This is perhaps the most important manifestation of the upward performance spiral.  When you are not easily distracted, your recovery time from the unexpected and from perceived errors is minimized.  The longer an opponent is distracted, the greater is his reactionary gap.  As Scott says repeatedly, performance overrides precision.  Focus on recovery time to increase your toughness, your ability to gain and remain in the zone.

Time warp.  In times of stress our sense of time becomes distorted.  Our sense of time likewise changes when we broaden our focus and become aware of as much as possible around us.  When you see more, when you are aware of more, time seems to slow.  Your opponent, who -- in the downward performance spiral -- is aware of less, experiences a sense that time is moving faster and that he has less time to react.

Pre-conscious processing.  This is a difficult abstract concept for some.  I tend to think of it in Eastern terms;  that is, the mind of no mind, the state of awareness and of immediate doing associated with flow and with a non-technique, non-intentional focus.

Scott goes on, appropriately, to speak of non-intentional striking -- the ability to deliver force without focusing on specific blows.  Our strategy is one of attentional saturation, accounting for all variables and behaving almost proactively in acting automatically.  Pre-conscious processing is the ability to respond instantly.  "Fast isn't soon enough," Scott says.  "It has to be instant."

Psychospatial acuity.  This is the sense of looking at nothing while seeing everything.  It is the difference between, say, focusing on the opponent's hands, or his shoulders, or even his center, and seeing all parts of him while focusing on no one portion.

Performance expectation.  This is something with which I grapple often.  When my preconceived notion of how I will perform does not match my actual performance, I become distressed and distracted.  A fighter in flow state has realistic expectations of his or her performance.  In the zone, your performance exceeds your expectations, whereas in the vortex, your performance comes up short compared to those expectations.

Scott next defines the vortex, the downward performance spiral, in detail.  A mistake or the unexpected triggers a narrowing of focus.  Visceral arousal results in internal distractions, which prompt the fighter to apply conscious effort to overcome them in executing techniques.  Psychospatial and psychotemporal distortion cause the fighter to develop an inaccurate picture of what is happening and how quickly it is happening.  This results in the fight becoming unpredictable, which produces anxiety, worry, doubt, fear, and other negative emotions.  This in turn triggers further narrowing of focus, and the downward spiral continues swirling into the depths of the vortex.  It's a negative feedback loop.

You can halt the downward performance spiral, Scott explains, by letting go of distractions and mistakes.  Broaden your focus to bring about visceral control.  When a fighter in the zone experiences a mistake or the unexpected, he or she broadens his or her focus.  This leads to visceral control and indistractability.  These, in turn, permit pre-conscious processing and psychospatial/psychotemporal acuity.  The result is that the exchange is predictable, which produces confidence and courage.  This leads to a greater broadening of focus, and the upward performance spiral continues on.

Wrapping up this lengthy discussion of the theory behind peak performance pugilism, Scott compares the zone to the vortex:

Aggression -- intention -- prompts a fighter in the vortex to find an opening (an opportunity) and, using his delivery system, apply a specific weapon to it using conscious effort.  He is tense, experiencing density.  A fighter in the zone, by contrast, is aware and relaxed.  He or she is capable of determining what is and is not a valid threat, neutralizing whatever is presented.  The integration of breathing, movement, and alignment leads to plasticity, the state of fluidity attainable by human beings.  (We have articulated skeletons and therefore cannot be completely fluid, but we can be plastic rather than dense.)

This simple comparison sums up quite well the difference between what Scott describes as the zone and the vortex.  It is the difference between being distracted and being aware, between being tense and being relaxed, between being defensive and being confidently dominant.

The Fisticuffs series concludes with Tape 3.2.

Read my review of Fisticuffs, Tape 1

Read my review of Fisticuffs, Tape 2