Practice! Part 3

Recapitulate

 

Reflective learning enables you to reflect on how you would use your skills for future situations.  I recommend keeping a “reflective learning journal” where you “collect” your ideas and interpret what you have learned previously.  This way you are always linking the skills you have learned to some type of active application. 

It is also useful to discover what methods of training benefits you the most.  This could be through private training, small group training, seminars, personal experimentations with friends and training supplements such as DVDs and books, etc. 

 

Stringing Simple Ideas Together

 

All combat scenarios are just simple ideas put together!  Much of this is achieved by starting with the fight and working your way backwards, breaking down the individual components involved for accomplishing your mission.

These “ideas” are not confined to the technical, but also the tactical, conceptual and interpersonal skill sets that you need in order to survive a violent encounter. 

 

Understanding – Repetition – Short Term Memory – Long Term Memory

 

Understanding the skills that you are attempting to learn is the first step.  If you don’t understand the who, what, where, when, why and how, you will find it increasingly difficult to make steady progress.  However, all the “understanding” in the world will not produce any movement.  As Einstein once said, “Nothing happens until something moves.”  With this in mind, “understanding” is merely a tool in which we set our sights on to reach our target.

"Nothing happens until something moves." --Albert Einstein

Trial and error enables you to refine particular movements that you are learning.  Repetition allows for visceral-reflex long term motor memory.  This is often referred to as muscle memory, which is a flow of physical and mental reflexes rather than individual bodily and mental instructions. 

Once you learn how to do something is when you will have it in your short term memory.  Have you ever gone to seminar and trained through a series of drills and techniques, only to forget everything you learned a few days later?  The reason for this is that you didn’t transfer this knowledge into your long term memory.  One simple concept for transferring material into long term memory is building up your ability to train at real-time speed.  Remember, to do this effectively you have to have already spent some time working out whatever it is that you are practicing – an exercise, a drill, a combat scenario – in a slow and deliberate manner.  Speed practiced effortlessly increases and deepens your long term memory.

Relax- Don’t Become Obsessed

 

Scientific experiments have shown that it is impossible to feel negative emotions such as frustration if the muscles in the body are relaxed.  There are many ways to evoke this relaxed awareness, which include breathing exercises and visualisation.  The key though, is to apply a relaxed feeling throughout your actual practice time and to become aware of it.  This is where a coach comes in handy to point out when you are tense; the most common cause of this is holding your breath while performing a move.

Break things down into small chunks and loop them into a drill.  Once you are able to perform that particular chunk, isolate the next three or four movements in the same manner.  There are definite advantages to working on a combat scenario in this way:

1. It keeps your practice interesting
2. It keeps confusion and frustration at bay
3. Allows you to absorb the practice session subconsciously

 

After Action Review

 

Always finish your session by reviewing what you have been working on.  In fact, an effective method is also starting each new practice session with a short review on previously learned skill sets.  Just touch on it, don’t spend hours on this! 

You can also insert review sessions in between successive learning modules within your one to two hour practice session; constantly moving from new material to old material.  This is a great way to insure the addition of the new material to the previously learned foundation material.

Hopefully the ideas presented in this series of blogs will be a helpful guide when organising your practice regime.  By utilising just a portion of the material listed will lead to leaps and bounds in your day-to-day progress.  The reason?  Most people do not practice!

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Practice! Part 2

 

 

Motor Memory

Once you understand the basic movements required for the attributes, skill sets and applied combat scenarios that you are learning, it is then advisable to commit the understanding of these movements into your long term motor memory.  This is the way forward to internalising whatever it is that you are learning- maintaining it and making it functional.  It is at this level where you will be able to start “improvising on a theme” while making your ideas flow seamlessly, regardless of the range you find yourself in.

Many reality based fighting systems often talk about a concept called “gross motor movement.”  This is an often misunderstood principle, in that, most people translate this into believing that every part of a tactic they learn is a separate physical and mental event.  This results in a common misconception that they will not be able to perform more than 2 to 3 physical movements within the all out chaos of a real fight.

In actuality, most of the combat skills that you will learn are based on what is called “compound skills.”  This literally means skills built upon the foundation of previously memorised skill sets; building one skill upon the next while perfecting each foundation skill before adding the next skill sequence.  Once this process takes place, the skill set will operate automatically without any forethought attached to it.  This is exactly what enables us to begin combining new skills with other previously memorised skills in order to produce functional “compound skills” that are extremely effective under the pressure of a real fight.   

Quality Outweighs Quantity

It’s important to make good use of your time.  One or two hours, day-by-day for several years is far better than attempting to cram too much in, too soon!  Remember, the process, or the journey far outweighs the end product.  Your mission is to improve quickly, absorb what you are learning and then remember and internalise what you have learned.  An important rule of thumb is to always remember to enjoy the process above all else.  It is all about YOUR self-discovery!

 

Daily Practice

Daily Practice is the cornerstone to fostering gradual improvement.  This doesn’t always mean you have to burn yourself out physically everyday as there are a variety of related topics to work on day-by-day, spread out across each week, expanding monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly and annually.  Of course, if you are really planning ahead, this process can steadily expand much further into macro-management.  But, all of this has to start in the present tense with repetitive daily practice in the crystal moment that we call “NOW.”  Start with an hour a day and within a month you will notice a vast difference in your skill level.

Shorter Practice Sessions

Many people attempt to calculate their goals by saying to themselves, “If I put in 6-8 hours a day I will get to a black belt level sooner than everybody else.”  Focusing too much on the outcome rather than the journey may cause frustration, impatience and eventually complete disinterest in what you are working on.  I recommend that all of my guys practice between one to two hours per day at the most.  Any further time devoted to your goals should be in the form of reflective learning- recapitulating what you have worked through so far.  Most of this reflective learning can be accomplished through the aid of visualisation techniques and keeping training notes in a reflective learning journal.

Remember that consistent daily practice is far more important than the amount of hours you put in.  Slow, steady and committed always wins the race in the end!

Until next time…

 

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Practice! Part 1

What does mastery actually mean?   It defies classification, but is always recognisable.  It comes in many varieties, yet follows the same successful principles.  It bears many rewards, but is not so much of an end goal or a destination as such, but rather a journey of self-discovery.  As the axiom goes, “It’s not about the end product, but the process that really counts.”

When referring to the term “mastery”, we tend to assume that only the so-called over talented or the chosen few who were born with exceptional abilities are able to walk in such elite circles.  In truth, mastery isn’t just reserved for the super-talented or even those fortunate enough to have gotten an early start in life.  Mastery is assessable right now for anyone – regardless of gender, age and/or previous experience – who possesses the right combination of desire, dedication and determination.  But what’s the secret ingredient that will enable you to achieve all of your goals? Practice!

 

The Secret Revealed

 

You cannot memorise anything without repetition and conversely, you cannot repeat anything without memorisation!

 

If you can grasp and apply this simple sentence, then you really do not need much more information about practicing other than making sure that you always finish what you start.  For those of you who still need a few pointers, the following tips may come in handy.

Challenge Yourself

Learning requires skill, the development of attributes and contextual application for proper physical and mental development.  Learning to protect yourself takes effective practice and focused repetition is the key to success.  You need to challenge yourself daily in order to make a significant improvement.

Imagine the practice routine of a pro basketball player.  There are hundreds of repetitions to every aspect of scoring the shot: offensively, defensively, on the move, assisting the set-up and then learning to combine them and flow seamlessly.  And… when the shot is finally perfected in all of these different areas, the perfected version is now practiced hundreds of more times to inculcate this information into long term motor memory where the player will be able to effortlessly recall the information while under pressure.

Accelerated Learning

The first sentence stated in “The Secret Revealed” addresses two basic suppositions: the need to make fast improvements when practicing and the need to functionalise and maintain the information you have learned into your long term motor memory.

Without making ample accelerated improvement can lead to frustration, discouragement and eventually disinterest.  This is why many people lose their motivation and simply give up-   they have a limited time to produce the positive results they desire before consciously or unconsciously resigning themselves to just being perpetual beginners for life.

Please do not misunderstand the “accelerated learning” tag I am suggesting for rushed, impatient, sloppy practice by cutting unnecessary corners.  This has nothing to do with a logical progression towards YOUR immediate improvement.  You can accomplish “accelerated learning” by focusing your attention on “full-spectrum prioritisation.”  This requires a heightened attention to detail, self-observation and a relaxed awareness.  This is truly the path of the tortoise, not the hare.

Until next time…

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Danger Indicators

In general, most people do not instantaneously switch from being a non-violent person into a raging lunatic overnight.  Garden variety non-violent people do not “snap” or decide on the spur of the moment to solve every problem with full-on violence.  Instead, the road towards violence is an evolutionary one, with numerous “danger indicators” along the way.  In The Gift of Fear Gavin DeBecker talks about the warning signals that you should watch out for before the outcome of an incident becomes violent.  A threat is just one observable behavioural trait; others may include the feelings of hopelessness, deep depression or fantasies of destruction and revenge observed in behaviour, writings, conversations, drawings and other actions.

Threats are usually classed in a range of 4 different categories:

1) Direct

2) Indirect

3) Implied

4) Conditional

Direct Threat: This indicates a specific attack against a specific target and is delivered in a clear, explicit and straightforward manner:  “I am going to kill you!”

Indirect Threat: This type of threat is vague, but still threatens violence: “If I really wanted to, I’d bust your face open.”

Implied Threat:  An implied threat strongly implies, but does not openly threaten violence: “The world would be a much better place without you around anymore.” 

Conditional Threat:  Often, this is seen in many terrorist, blackmail and robbery cases.  You would be warned that a violent act will happen unless you comply with certain demands or terms: “Give me all of your money or I will cut you!”

The behaviour that leads one along the evolutionary road to inflicting violence can be numerous and is often not paid attention to in advance.  These behavioural traits can range from intimidation, rage, unreasonable expectations to stalking and harassment.

Steam boilers have pressure gauges that reveal when the pressure is reaching the danger point.  By recognising the potential danger, corrective action can be taken that will increase your safety.  Everybody has there own built in “danger indicators” that can help us to stay clear of danger if properly utilised.  Many accuse me of being a bit paranoid, but this is the only way you will ever develop your skill for threat recognition.

Recently, somebody even implied that I was “fear mongering” by espousing these very same principles to my students.  I had to point out that all cars have “danger indicators” placed directly in front of the driver to warn you when the petrol (gas) is too low, the engine is becoming too hot and when the oil pressure is too low.  To simply ignore these “danger indicators” will possibly result in a breakdown or unnecessary damage to your vehicle.  To pay attention to these warning signals in advance imposes no great hardship; you simply pull into a service station and take positive corrective action to adjust the fault. 

However, as a driver of an automobile, you do not fixate on the panel in front of you willing one of those little red lights to go off.  Instead, you fixate on where you need to get to, occasionally glancing at the “danger indicators” from time to time making sure that everything is in working order.

Being cognisant of these warning signals in our day to day life will enable you to become sensitive to the “danger indicators” that will alert you to a threat and also allow you to take immediate action to stop violence before it happens, while it happens and after it happens.

Practicing this concept in time will create a visceral reflex which will become part of your inner guidance system- intuition.

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Hard Target with Soft Skills?

All threats are not to be treated in the same fashion.  With that said all threats should be taken seriously and dealt with quickly and efficiently.

In today’s environment, many close protection operators tend to adopt a “one size fits all” approach to any signs of potential danger.  The response to every threat becomes the same, regardless of the credibility or the likelihood that the threat will be carried out.  In the recent attacks on Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi and Condoleezza Rice, this approach may be understandable, but it is dangerous; leading to the potential of underestimating more serious threats, overreaction to less serious threats and reacting unfairly against those who clearly pose no real threat in the first place.  Operators who treat all threats the same unfortunately fall into the category of always using a hammer to solve every problem that arises.  As the axiom goes, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”   As Mohammed Ali used to say, “You don’t need a sledge hammer to swat that fly.”

 

A conundrum within the security industry is incorrectly labelling all of the elements that actually make us a hard target by calling them soft skills.  I have always been puzzled by this terminology and personally view everything from pre-contact to post contact as hard skills development.  You need to be able to identify the threat, but this does not always equate to engaging the threat.  Engaging the threat is always the last line in your concentric layers of defence, but the “contact” or engagement part is what is commonly called “hard skills.”  Why not refer to everything as “hard skills” as our ultimate goal as a street survivor is to become a hard target.

Threat analysis has to include situational awareness, intuition and human intelligence.  These precepts, often referred to as “soft skills” are the most ignored factors in most operations.  In other words, when an op goes wrong, the answers usually lie within these areas.  Just look at the Jean Charles de Menezes killing; if there had been adequate situational awareness, intuition and decent human intelligence on the ground, this guy would not have been killed.

Next week we are going to break down the individual components of a threat, so you will get an idea of what to look for.

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Establishing a Belief System

Your values and belief system contributes significantly towards how you will respond to the threat of a violent attack.  Your attitudes about self defence, the defence of others and the defence of your property all begin here. 

All people are shaped by what they have experienced in the past; by what they have seen and by what they have learned.  Your values and beliefs towards self defence form the very core identity of YOU, the rock upon which everything else stands, especially when confronted by sudden violence where you will be forced to make crucial decisions under extremely stressful conditions.  Values such as duty, respect, personal courage, integrity and honour will give you the building blocks to discern right from wrong in any situation.

 

Developing a few core beliefs about empowerment towards your own self protection is the key in understanding all the variables of self discovery.  Avoid all beliefs that inflate one’s ego and strengthen your own sense of self importance.  Please do not confuse self importance with possessing a confident self image.  A confident self image is what you need in order to believe in yourself in the first place.  Many men start to learn a self defence system with the desire of becoming tough guys who lust after kicking ass and taking names, while others simply think that they want to be able to fight like their favourite action hero.  We must ensure that whatever belief system we adopt helps to solve the problem, rather than becoming part of the problem.  Here are a few sample guidelines for empowering yourself with when it comes to establishing a belief system towards your own self preservation:

• I believe I have the right to protect myself, my loved ones and my property.
• I do not have to respect the rights of someone who is trying to hurt me.
• I have the right to learn to fight back using the necessary force to ensure my safety at all times.
• I believe it is critical to react within seconds of being threatened with imminent physical or mental danger.
• I believe if I fight back, my chances of survival will increase exponentially.
• I believe – based on actual statistics – I can survive and fight on past the broken nose, past the stab wound and past the gun shot wound.
• I believe that I will only be dead when I am dead!

 

As a street survivor, you must not only understand your beliefs, but you must believe in them wholeheartedly.  Model them around your own call to action and learn to live by them on a daily basis.

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Threading the Needle

Have you ever tried to thread a needle?  If you have, you may have noticed that your hand was perfectly steady until you were very close to the eye of the needle and suddenly your hand starts to shake uncontrollably.  The pressure of getting the thread into the very small opening of the needle causes an “over-carefulness” that is referred to as “purpose tremor” in medical circles.

The old board game Operation causes the very same effect.  Each time you try to take the tweezers and insert them into the small cavity on the board to extract a body part, for some strange reason your hand starts to quiver and shake and the buzzer sounds- doh!

 

The condition occurs in normal people when they are trying too hard or are being “over-careful” not to make a mistake in accomplishing a specific task or purpose.  Under extreme circumstances such as the threat of imminent danger, purpose tremor can become very pronounced.  Someone who opens the door to his house everyday with a key will keep his hand steady as long as he is not trying to accomplish anything specific.  But while under the threat of danger, the “purpose” becomes more apparent and his hand may zigzag back and forth as much as up to six to ten inches from the lock.

In the world of Combatives the condition of “purpose tremor” is often misunderstood as a motor movement issue when in fact it is a focused and relaxed concentration issue.  Over-carefulness and anxiety are closely connected in many ways; they both have to do with too much emphasis on possible failure, doing the wrong thing and making an overly conscious effort not to make a mistake. 

All of our negative feelings – fear, anger, anxiety, hostility, self-importance– are caused by our own responses.  Over-response equals too much tension.  Focused-response equals relaxed awareness and focused concentration.  Bruce Lee often mused about the four fighting ranges – kicking range, boxing range, trapping range, grappling range – in relation to relaxed awareness versus turning up the intensity with focused concentration.  Lee taught his students to relax in the long ranges of kicking and punching, but to turn the intensity dial up to eleven when they closed the gap and secured trapping or close quarter range.  If the fight suddenly went to the ground, relaxation again played key issue in securing a dominant position in order to finish the fight with a dose of focused concentration.

Relaxed awareness and focused concentration are both powerful survival activators when faced with imminent danger.  A progressive approach towards practicing your street survival drills will help you in overcoming this condition of “purpose tremor.”   As I have mentioned before, I recommend filtering what you learn through the stages of learning to include the theoretical, static, dynamic, low level combat scenarios to high level combat scenarios.  Coupled with the understanding of solo practice, partner practice (with equipment), cooperative partner practice and resistant partner practice; this is where you will be able to learn to foster correct habits calmly without the pressure of always getting it wrong.  There is no more “purpose tremor” because there is no more over-carefulness or over-anxiety for positive results.  After thousands of repetitions, the student will find that they are able to attain the relaxed awareness and focused concentration needed to successfully withstand a sudden violent attack, under pressure, while maintaining the proper mental attitude, but going through the same deliberate physical motions successfully.

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

First Boot Camp Successfully Completed!

On Sunday December 6^th, 2009 my first Certified Professional Combatives Instructor Boot Camp was successfully completed.  Six hard-core participants grafted week-by-week through some of the most gruelling 6-hour sessions I have ever taught; definitely not for the faint or the weak hearted!

All of the lads on the course passed their assessment with flying colours and are now Tier 1-3 Instructors and fully qualified to teach my Street Survival 101 course.  They were all presented with beautiful certificates that are time sensitive.  All instructors must train with me at least once a year in order to retain their certification credentials.  This ensures that quality control and training standards are upheld, reviewed and assessed regularly.

Let’s all give these boys a big round of applause for all of their sweat during training in order to avoid bloodshed on the street!

-       Brandon Jon Stephenson

-       Glen Bullen

-       Richard Boardman

-       Steve Davidson

-       Kevin Harkin

-       Ben Glampson

In the next few days I will post an instructor’s list on my website.  This will include all of the instructors currently training with me.  All previously certified instructors, who have not trained with me in the past year, will be “pruned from the tree” and their instructorships will be invalidated- effective immediately.

The next Certified Professional Combatives Instructor Boot Camp will start on Sunday February 8 – March 28, 2010.  This course is limited to 6-people only; therefore the price has gone up to £800 for 8-weeks.  Each weekly class lasts for 6-hours.  I know it sounds costly, but when you weigh up the difference between courses like the one Geoff Thompson runs; he runs a similar self-protection course over 8-weeks, charges £1200.00 per person, teaches for only 4-hours per session and the class consists of 30 students.  After a complete review, my offer doesn’t sound too bad after all!  But, the bottom line is what you intend to get out of a course like this; an essential cornerstone to this program is that you will be able to actually “do” – for real on the street – what you are taught in the gym, classroom and/or the range!  In my course you won’t get lost in a sea of 30 people.

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Controlled Aggression

Controlled Aggression is a term used to describe a survival mind-set mechanism that allows you to channel a vicious, devastating counter assault that far exceeds the violence presented by a deadly committed attacker while following the principles of justice and the valour of war.  These principles include, but are not limited to: having just cause, possessing the right intentions, having a reasonable chance of success and the end being proportional to the means used.

Controlled Aggression is all about having the courage to accomplish your mission quickly and efficiently in the face of danger.  In the world of bullfighting, there are many bullfighters who can work very close to the horns displaying brilliant technique, but the ones who are really recognised as being exceptional, are those who are able to handle themselves when their lives are actually “on-the-line” by neutralising the bull quickly and efficiently with focused concentration.

Controlled Aggression allows you to phase out anger and elevate your power of focused concentration to achieve an aggressive, goal-orientated, self-determining attitude in the presence of real threats and serious danger.  It allows you to become dispassionate about your attacker and suppress irrational rage.  It has ensured man’s survival against the hostile elements of nature as well as from one another going back as far as the time of the caveman.  In today’s civilised societies, the cruder elements of human behaviour have evolved and as a result have been polished and refined.  With that in mind, the idea of possessing the attribute of controlled aggression has become distasteful in today’s modern society and has thus been suppressed exponentially.  Controlled aggression is still part of our overall genetic coding and therefore this instinct remains intact deep within us all.  All we have to do is reacquaint ourselves with it through proper drills, conditioning and training. 

 

When we are forced to survive under less-than-perfect conditions controlled aggression empowers us to take the proper actions in spite of ourselves, keeping us on a path of focused concentration or, as Hemmingway put it, grace under pressure.  Please understand that I am not condoning the initiating of any violent behaviour whatsoever, but if our enemies are incorporating controlled aggression – with the intention of victimising us and causing us harm – then we do not have the luxury of avoiding this topic.  Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military strategist who wrote the Art of War said, “Know yourself and know your enemy.  One hundred battles will then equal one hundred victories.”

Controlled aggression will definitely assist an individual to survive against all odds, but used incorrectly it can cause great destruction.  Just as a knife is a great utility tool and life without it would be a huge inconvenience, a knife can also be a deadly weapon that causes senseless destruction.   We should not be the ones who initiate fights for reasons of ego and self-importance, but we do need to acquire the specific skills sets necessary to finish them when threatened with imminent danger where there is no chance of a safe escape in sight.  When faced with sudden violence that threatens your life and/or the life of your loved ones, you must be able to offer greater violence than violence offered in order to neutralise the threat at hand.  Controlled aggression is a mental attribute that needs to be developed, but it has to be used with the strictest responsibility, again defining ourselves as a potential cure for the problem rather than becoming part of the problem itself.

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe

Progressive Resistance Part 2

Progressive resistance is a functional training method for developing combat scenarios in which the sensory and motor movement overload is regularly increased to facilitate adaptation.  Progressive resistance is essential for understanding how to operate successfully and adapt to your environment whilst in the heat of battle and be able to track and measure your improvement during training.  Each goal that is set and achieved serves as a servo-mechanism for adaptation under the stress of a violent confrontation.  The student needs to be constantly challenged in order to progress to the next pinnacle of their training model.  We must learn to foster a “training to win” approach in favour of throwing your students straight into a Tsunami with no life belt.

Navy Seals training for overkill

Training Overkill

Endocrinologist Hans Selye popularised how stress can be induced to the body way back in the 1930s.  After much research, Selye concluded that there are a similar series of responses to stress that are broken down into 3 categories: Alarm, Resistance and Exhaustion.  This became known as the General Adaptation Syndrome or GAS.

Stress is how the body reacts to a stressor- this is the stimulus that evokes stress.  An important point to mention is there is a continuum of stressors that progressively takes you from being slightly irritable all the way up to incapacitated. 

Alarm is the first stage.  When a threat is recognised, the body goes into a state of alarm.  This is where the adrenaline dump is produced to bring out the fight, flight or freeze syndrome.  What is often left out is that preparation in advance and the cultivation of situational awareness helps to negate just how “alarmed” the person put under stress will actually be when attacked or threatened.

Resistance is the second stage.  If the person under stress is overwhelmed by a physical attack, it becomes necessary to attempt some means of coping with that stress.  No matter how good one is at defence, the body simply cannot keep this up indefinitely against a committed attacker without going into complete exhaustion.

Exhaustion is the third stage.  At this point, the body’s resources become depleted and therefore it is unable to maintain its’ normal physical functions.  This stage is to be used as a ceiling for training purposes and to be progressively extended over a period of time.  By being pushed further through training the body is progressively able to adapt to being put under so much stress and begins to be able to function more readily while under stress in general.    

Exhaustion Training for Adaptation

Basics of Street Survival Training

Adaptation is the whole purpose of Street Survival Training against a progressively resisting opponent.  The process of adaptation is to progressively add both sensory and motor movement stress indicators to each phase of the scenario.  The stress should be sufficient enough to allow adaptation to occur, but not so severe that it causes a complete “arses and elbows” exhaustion breakdown which inevitably leads to unnecessary injuries. 

Most importantly always keep an eye on your end goals; once you achieve a certain level of competence, begin to set new goals that enable you to adapt even further.  Remember, practice improves skill and success not only through constant repetition alone, but through recognition of “survival successes” within the process of repetition.  If improvement were gauged only through repetition, then most people would become experts at “getting things wrong” as it takes many more attempts to start “getting things right.”  Therefore adaptation plays a big part in hardwiring successful attempts over failures.     By all means, learn from your mistakes, but then forget about them.  What you want to remember was that feeling of successfully surviving the encounter when you eventually get it right!

Dedicated to YOUR Survival

Joe