In a great many reported cases of lycanthropy, better known as Werewolfism, the accused were said to have used “black magic” to unleash their inner beast, transforming their outer appearance, and to have committed acts of terror that no normal man would. There were certain Viking warriors who donned the skins of wolves and bears and ingested powerful hallucinogenic and psychotic substances in order to achieve the same, and they utilized this inner beast to fight in battles, often fighting so furiously it is said that they killed many men and yet came out unharmed themselves. The enemies’ weapons “would not bite.” In some peoples with shamanic traditions, animal totems are found for people to empower them with the spirit of the animal.
The theory of the Triune Brain, which states that we have three levels of our brain, Reptilian, Mammalian, and Human, is very much related to this phenomena. The specific section we are concerned with here is the Reptile Brain, the Brain Stem, consisting of the medulla oblongata, the pons, and the mesencephalon. It controls motor, sensory and reflex functions. The pons is a liaison between different parts of the brain and facilitates coordination between left and right sides of the body as well as those of the face and jaw. The medulla oblongata connects the brain and spinal cord, and controls several involuntary functions such as heartbeat, breathing, and temperature regulation. The mesencephalon, or midbrain, controls some seeing and hearing reflexes. The reptilian brain is concerned with survival; fight, flight, or reproduction.
What does this have to do with lycanthropy? In the sense of shape-shifting and “black magic,” nothing at all. But when it comes to the mind-state of animals, it means a lot.
According to Erle Montaigue, in his book Advanced Dim-Mak: The Finer Points of Death-Point Striking , after he published information on the Triune Brain and its relevence to martial arts training, a man wrote him, claiming that he had “…visited a part of Borneo where a native priest was able to place young men into trances that caused them to be like wild boars and allowed them to enter their reptilian brains. This was a rite of manhood, and it’s purpose was to enable the young men to understand the animal world by becoming animals themselves.” While in this mind state, the young men were able to eat things deadly to humans with no ill effects, and supposedly do other things as well that were not listed, though I expect them to be along the lines of legends of werewolves and Berzerkers, such as acts requiring improved strength and reflexes.
LaVey’s essay, How to Become a Werewolf; The Fundamentals of Lycanthropic Metamorphosis; Their Principles and Their Application , begins, “Anyone is a potential werewolf. Under emotional stress civilized human qualities regress to basic animal reaction, and a threshold of potential physical change is reached.” He then goes on to list requirements for metamorphosis, including a preparation phase which involves inducing extreme emotional changes, meant to alter the state of the mind enough to unleash the power of the reptilian brain. The emotional triggers he lists as causing this altered state are the three principle emotions of sex, sentiment, and wonder. Which correspond to reproduction, fight, and flight repectively.
Now, we in the martial arts are able to enter this mind state without the outside aid of a shaman or drugs, and we only need to touch upon the emotional aspects LaVey focuses on.
Physically, we affect postural changes which allow us to enter the reptilian brain. A slight widening of the eyes, drawing the ears back, bowing the back, hollowing the chest, spreading the fingers, opening and sitting the kuas, etc. These things are all done to bring Yang energy up so it can be utilized, especially things like spreading the fingers.
The written Classics passed down to us by past masters, like, Chiang Jung-chiao, tell us to do specific physical things. We are told to move like a dragon, gaze like a monkey, sit like a tiger, and overturn like the eagle. Stuck in there with instructions for movement, are instructions for what to do with the eyes. For those who practice animal forms, watch a television special on monkeys, and the next time you practice your monkey form do with your eyes what the monkey does with his. Remember when you change directions, to look out of the corner of your eyes before moving in that direction without turning your head. If you pull your ears back (provided you can) a bit, do so.
Also on the physical level, we train in natural flowing movements so that they become second nature to us, programming our reptile brain to use those movements instead of others. Have you ever finished a good session of double push hands and felt your arms wanting to move on their own? Have you ever finished your forms practice and can’t remember practicing your form, though you know you’ve done it, or felt like you left movements out and remembrance of them seems more like a dream than actually remembering? Those are signs that indicate that the “internal” part of your art is coming to bear. Here, we are turning control of the body momentarly over to the part of the brain that controls reflexes.
Mentally, we clear the mind of extraneous thought as we train the body to move without concious command, as thought is a hindrance to reflex action and instinct. If you put your hand in an open flame, you can force yourself to keep your hand there despite the pain. But if you simply get too close to the flame accidentally, or brush up against a hot coal or something, your body reacts instantly without thought, and the reptile brain, controls your movement, bypassing the concious mind.
The two emotions that seem to stimulate the quickest physical response are fear and aggression. When surprised or already fearful, we tend to react lightning fast without thought. The same thing happens when we are in an aggressive or angry mood; we react without thought. When we are born, we already have certain subconcious defensive actions. Generally, they do not have any real defensive capability. Things like cowering and putting your hands in front of your face only attempt to minimize physical damage. They do not neutralize the attack. These things are what we react with when we are fearful or aggressive. But these movements can be deprogrammed out of our system, or at least written over with useful movements. And that’s where the martial arts come in.
We train in certain methods designed to replace useless or ineffective movement with useful movement. Training methods such as push hands are an example. For instance, we train in the Plough method of push hands to turn a cowering movement where we simply raise the hands to cover the face, into an aggressive reaction where we thrust the hands forward into the attacker’s throat.
A side note here: I was teaching a student the Yang Taiji San Shou two man set, and we came to the neutralize and push section. I was describing what the movement was used for and demonstrated, and then asked him to do the movement to the attack I was going to do. He reacted with the opening method of Plough push hands, barging in and thrusting his hands into my throat! He apologized… but I was ecstatic!
We can’t just train these methods without the proper mindset. We must be doing the right things physically to access the reptile brain. This includes clearing the mind of concious thought. Thought is a hindrance between the subconcious and movement, and eliminating it opens the door both ways, so that we can both react quicker with proper defenses, and program better movements for reactions. In Taiji, this kind of training comes to bear later on, when we begin practicing the San Shou set with the movements out of sequence. By the time we begin doing this, we are supposed to have already started actually trying to strike our partner with full power during the set. So a proper reaction is necessary.
To deal with the emotional part of this, we should focus more on harnessing the reaction caused by fear than anger. Aggression can easily come from either in an instant, but striking someone out of anger is not really a good thing. To incorporate this into our training, we should incorporate a sort of “hide-and-seek” method. Many now train with hard contact to get used to hitting and being hit, and also how to handle someone who knows how to fight. Self-defence courses now include training to turn fear into aggression. We’ve all seen the training with the oversized helmet for rape defence classes. These things are necessary for learning how to handle real situations and how to utilize emotion instead of being hindered by it. However, I feel that the final test given to students of this kind of training should not be a one-time thing. I think that test, or something similar, should be incorporated into training. I have experimented with a friend of mine, though he does not know it, and have taught him a few blocking and attack techniques with no obvious connection to each other, the Bagua square stopping method being the main one. Over a period of 6 months after teaching him these methods, I would attack him “out of nowhere,” and most times he would react with a proper block or strike. He has gotten so good at blocking now that I can rarely get in for a strike. I believe that this sort of conditioning or reaction training should be a little more serious in that fear and/or surprise should be a factor, with the trainee thinking he might actually be hurt if he doesn’t react with something good. Personally, I tell my students to actually try and strike me during training so I can get this kind of training. I have found that certain techniques just happen for me, and that certain target areas are natural for me to aim for.
