THE FORWARD DRIVE MENTALITY
by
AL BECKETT
During our Instructional Enhancement Program the instructor-candidates are asked to present a short lecture. Al Beckett chose “The Forward Drive Mentality” as his topic, and it was such a terrific presentation that I asked him to give the same lecture at the International Seminar in 2005…..where it was acclaimed by all attendees.
This material deserves wider readership, so Al has given me permission to share it on this website.FORWARD DRIVE MENTALITY This is an area of training that we often over look to our great peril.
Most of your training is physical, that means that you are training for a situation that either has or is about to kick off.
You have gone beyond all the posturing, all the loop holing and all of the de-escalation techniques, the fight is on and if you are not going forward, you are going down.
So you practice your techniques, you drill your techniques and you test your techniques under pressure so that you can develop the ability to drive forward physically.
[Mark shows masterful forward drive under pressure]But forward drive is not just physical, it’s more than that, it is a state of mind, an attitude, if you fail to develop a forward drive mentality all of your aggressive physical training will be missing one essential element, the will to win , the ability to keep on going when other people would give up.
So to help develop a forward drive mentality I have broken the subject down into three simple areas, A, B and C.
Assertiveness .
Body language
Conditioned reflex
We will explain each of these in detail.
Assertiveness.The dictionary tells us that assertiveness is, expressing yourself forcefully to achieve a favourable result.
Expressing yourself forcefully is a good first step in developing that forward drive mentality.
Letting people know that you deserve some respect, that you will not be walked over, that you are not an easy target.
Remember you have a right to live your life without fear, without being put down, without being ordered and pushed around, you deserve quality of life, don’t let anyone take that away from you.
Your opinion is as good as anyone else’s, don’t be afraid to put it forward.
Don’t be afraid to take responsibility, some people never take responsibility because they don’t want the blame if something goes wrong as a result they never get any credit when things go well, these people do not have a forward drive menality, so be the one that steps forward and takes the lead.
Some people think that they will be safe if they hang back and blend in with the crowd, in truth it is the ones who push themselves forward and seem to be more confident that are less likely to be attacked or picked on.
As an exercise try not just asking questions but giving some answers, not so much “are you” as “you are”, not so much “what are you picking on me for” as “don’t you start with me”, this often puts the other guy on the back foot giving you the chance to step in and take control.
Expressing yourself forcefully to achieve a favourable result.
Body language When I talk about body language I don’t mean other peoples, I don’t mean studying others looking for cues or signals that will tell me what they are going to do.
Whatever they do it is not going to drive me forward, only I can do that.
Body language is intended to create a balance between inner feelings and outer appearance, often when you feel scared, you look scared.
You can physically shrink, hunching your shoulders, looking at the floor, trying to blend in with the furniture, this is easily spotted by the bully and quickly taken advantage of.
So hold yourself erect, keep your head up, don’t hold eye contact but do not be afraid to make it, practise walking a little faster, like a man with somewhere to go.
Most of us practise the fence in one form or another, there is a lot of good body language in there, hands up, pacing, pointing, pushing and posturing.
All designed to put the other guy on the back foot and instill in you that forward drive mentality.
Conditioned reflex A conditioned reflex is one that can be taught/learned as opposed to one that is inborn such as jumping when you hear a sudden loud noise.
Basically Ivan Petrovich Pavlov studying salavation in dogs noticed that they would salivate whenever food arrived, he then began starting a metronome when he delivered the food, eventually the dogs would associate the sound of the metronome with the arrival of food, in the end the dogs would salavate just at the sound of the metronome even if no food arrived. That is a conditioned reflex to a given stimulus.
We can use the same method to help build our forward drive mentality.
By practising an appropriate response to a given stimulus until it becomes a reflex.
With practise you can use another persons body language, aggressive verbal or even a raised voice to act as a stimulus to trigger your own conditioned response, which should be ….....