>>4657
I only recently became aware of how these things work; in essence I already grasped the deeper principles of warfare when I did Ju-Jutsu 20 years ago. I kept coming back to that moment because it had a realization in it, which had value enough to re-iterate, but still didn't seem so important. But that is because principles need to be applied. They are the engine, it needs to be used, not kept on a shelf like a decoration. I kept losing my breath in mat fighting, and the coach kept telling me not to give up. The class only had few people so we all got to wrestle him directly while everyone was watching. Then one time I was thrown on my back and I suddenly just "got it", I did all the standard moves in a sequence and the teacher did some mild resistance to see if I could follow through and get him in a lock, and it all just worked. After that I knew how to relax and not overstrain, so that I could keep fighting. I've since applied this in any situation.

Thinking back I think this environment was as close as possible to the environment Ju-Jutsu was made for: the melee battlefield when surrounded by enemies and allies and you find yourself unarmed on the ground. If you then mentally give up, you're dead. It's meant to produce this one reflex to instead keep going while maintaining your calm.

I kept trying to identify what I learned form karate and when I actually grasped that, but the answer is equally mediocre; it came from reading a badly written compendium on how to kick in kick boxing (previously called full contact karate) where the method of kicking until you get too tired was explained. If you can't get it right, keep going until you can't do it, then if you try to do a few more moves, your body will have to move in the most effective way because you have no energy to waste.