Using Sensory Adaptation in Martial Arts
Techniques to Live by, Painful.. lol
Pain is all in the mind..
Sensory Adaptation and Pain Reception
Is sensory adaptation a form of pain control that is maintained or influenced by our motives, expectations and psychological state of mind? Since sensory adaptation is diminished sensitivity as a result of constant stimulation to an area of the body sensory adaptation and pain control can be used together to help each other. If you are wearing shoes for a period of time, you will no longer think of them, in other words you won’t feel them.
The shoes are one thing, but pain control is another. For instance, if you are minding your own business and someone starts some trouble with you and hits you, you are going to feel the pain. You are going to try to get away from it, because it is not a common thing to feel. You have not developed a sensory adaptation to that feeling, but if you are someone who trains in a martial art for instance, Ninjutsu, where you are constantly hit or constantly feel pain while you train, your body gets built up to it and if you get attacked and are hit, you will be used to feeling that pain and you can respond differently.
When people who train first start out and the first time they are hit or thrown or do an ukemi roll, they definitely feel the pain, however, throughout the training repeated hits, rolls, throws you are adjusted to it , you have developed a sensory adaptation.
Your motives are so that you could follow through with technique, sometimes, its pure stubbornness even though you associate with what is coming you are psychologically preparing your body for what it’s going to feel. This also proves true with meditation and slowing your heart rate down and calming your mind. If this can be used psychologically in a calm situation a person can utilize it with any on coming situations where he may feel pain. Instinct and motive will take over. He will go into survival mode. This takes constant practice and development but it can be achieved.
There is also a sensory adaptation to light. You are in a dark room and then the lights go on. Your pupils constrict and you feel a sort of pain from the light entering your eyes. After a while you get adjusted to the light. This is another form of sensory adaptation.
Our eyes are always moving and adjusting to different areas that they are looking at. We do not stare at any one object. When we are walking we are constantly darting our eyes to different areas in front of us. We cannot focus on something for a long period of time.
In conclusion, sensory adaptation and pain control is literally all in the mind. If a person has the means and necessitates a motive to not feel the pain, even if it’s for the moment to do what he has to do if he expects the results he desires for that one moment, psychologically he could do it.
