Oddbean

yeah, it's quite interesting to watch video of incidents like this at low speed to see exactly how they roll with it... there is also a mental discipline with it, though alcohol helps it... it even talks about this simplification of reaction in the writings of Chuang Tzu about how drunk people are more natural than when sober, and there is the fable of the Taoist Butcher and the story of ... i forget who it was, but it is something of an initiation ritual for Taoism to float to a waterfall and to learn to let go in that same way a lot of words to say... if you practise chi gong and stuff like Ba Gua Zhang and Systema (russian martial art a lot like aikido and ju jitsu) training yourself to crumple and relax in the face of a strike is really powerful to protecting you automatically before i had even done 10 lessons of Systema, for me the iconic training session of Systema at the beginning is the solar plexus punch soak training... basically, you get a partner, and you face up together so they are in perfect reach, if you don't move, to land a hard punch right on the middle of your sternum, possibly one of the most painful places to get punched maybe just a little less than the funny bone on the elbow... and you learn to take it, not the actual impact, but to arch your back and bring your shoulders and head forward so the peak force of the punch misses you and you basically at most feel a bit of a bump this, for me, was a really good lesson in letting go in the face of a collision with something, and i have trained it and when i am in a better state of mind i find it very easy to do, i rarely strip over anything, i rarely bruise myself on things i didn't see