In the martial arts everything starts from physical contact: touching, grasping, catching, striking, fighting, sweating with and against the "other".
Does it seem easy ?! Immediate?! Do all the puppies do it ?! And yet it is precisely here that the first resistances, the first difficulties, meet.
Modern society is increasingly based on verbal and audiovisual communication, in essence, a culture of non-contact .
There is a science called proxemics that deals with this. Of the way, that is, in which man uses the space around him, of how he reacts to it and, of how, by using it he can communicate certain messages through a non-verbal language.
An example?!
Think of a situation: semi-deserted underground.
In classic conditions people are automatically distributed at great distances from each other, creating almost equilateral triangles between them.
Now think of the same situation with someone invading you.
A person who, although there is a lot of space, is positioned next to you, practically stuck.
What would you do ?! No, don't say it, the answer is physiological:
The heart rate increases, adrenaline is released into the blood, the muscles contract and prepare for an attack.
It is an answer to a situation in which we feel in danger.
Classically, at this point, we begin to transmit a series of preliminary signals to indicate our discomfort (swinging a leg or moving in the chair).
Immediately afterwards, the closure becomes more evident, the chin flexes and the shoulders close.
If all these signals, consciously or unconsciously, are not perceived by our "invader" then we move away from the place.
Each of us has our own "proxemic bubbles", spaces within which we feel safe, spaces that increase or decrease based on the familiarity and the emotional level we have with the interlocutor or the person next to us.
They are part of us and of our socio-cultural background (North African populations have short proxemic distances compared to European ones).
Think of the distances that are necessary for an autistic boy to feel safe from the "invasions" of the people around him, different realities, different needs.
It therefore becomes immediate how the experience of confrontation (and confrontation) experienced in martial disciplines is a training opportunity to learn more about oneself and highlight one's behavior in stress situations.
Accepting another in your "proxemic bubble" becomes a way to analyze yourself.
Self-analysis, if competently managed, becomes an excellent exercise where "training" to make the best use of one's potential, a real brain training . Learning new behavior patterns, to be used in the moment of confrontation, is like taking a leap into the void. It is necessary to trust those around us.
