Welcome to Gaia! ::

I come to this topic with a decade of strange expereinces I intend to share, and also see if its just me, or if this is a real, common happenstance.

Its of little seacret of my liniage - I'm rather proud of it actually, Scottish/Irish/Scandinavian/Comanche.

Now, two of those bloodlines had warriors known as 'Berkserkers', they were said to be able to work themselves into a frenzy in which they seemed to be nigh invunerable for a short period of time - but often killed themselves in the process.

Now I know the general idea of this is to dismiss this as 'pure mythology' but I would like to share a few occurences.

When I am fighting - it usually must be either when I've truly immersed myself into it, such as with Dan level sparring trials, or when I am seriously fighting for my well being.... something strange tends to happen.

Now when this first happened I attrubuted it to pure adrenaline... but it seemed awefully different from the rush I got from moutain boarding or dirtbiking... I'll describe the first time it happened.

My yellow belt level, TKD, I was about nine or ten years old at the time, I had just earned the rank high enough for full contact sparring, but since I was the largest member of the class (Around 5'5-5'6 or so) I was not paired up with the smaller kids of my level - rather I was set against a red belt. Now I assumed that this kid was going to walk all over my a** like I was a dance floor at a German Discotech.... and for a minute he was.

I took some SERIOUS hits starting off, for most a rather b***h'n roundhouse kick to the left kidney, and a Axe kick to the side of my head, hurt like hell, but then I did something I RARLY do in combat.

I got PISSED.

It was strange... it was like a button switched over in my mind, everything seemed to slow down, move at a crawl, a strange, azure hued haze seemed to fill my vison, alternating between shades of blue and red.... and it was like I stepped outside myself.

Suddenly the blows didnt hurt so bad - and these GLARING gaps in his torso blocking suddenly jumped the ******** out at me, I couldnt belive I missed them.

At this point I went absolutly ballistic on his a** - all the CQB techs I had learned thus far just started rattiling off like a M2 machine gun, lunging punch, circle sweep, backfist, inverse elbow strikes, I saw an opening and I put a fist, knee or elbow there, Before I knew it I had him beaten, brusied and pretty much on his a** at the floor beneath me, and Master Cho was screaming 'Time out' In korean.

I had beaten the ever loving ******** out of someone who was EIGHT belt levels more skilled then me... and it seemed so easy.

Now this Has happened progressivly many times through my life since, I still can only remember hazy bits from it when it happens, its like a partial black out, then I come to and there are punks bleeding on the ground around me.

Now for the question - is this pure adrenaline talking, am I just going into Neruo-overdrive? Or is this the fabled 'Battle Frenzy' of legand?

Post your thoughts or similer experiences here, And I aplogize if this seems like Bullshitto to you.... its just something that has occured in my life, and it would GREATLY aid in my contiued training if I could get a firmer grip on this latent....'talent' for asswhup.

It scares me a litte bit though - Since actually during one of these little 'frienzies' I got into a figth with the school bully in 8th grade.... and actually broke his jaw in four places, and gave him a major concussion with just my bare fists... Now this may seems a little cowardly - But I train for self defense, I REALLY dislike hurting people.

It's adrenaline.

When you were getting beat on your adreniline went into over drive and your body went into "fight or flight" mode. At that moment in time you instintively choose fight and tore into your opponant.

If your adreniline hits fever pitch memory loss is quite common.

I've been in situations (multiple attacker) where i've had to hit every thing that moved and during that period and for hours afterwards I would feel no pain from where i'd been hit until I come down from the effects of adreniline and their by-products (endorthines).

When I looked back to the event i'd only remember parts of what happened but not the whole picture.

The human body is capable of amazing feats under the right circumstances.

Seems to me to be a potent mix of adrenilin and anger. Adrenilin has to be one of the most powerful drugs known to man, there's not many things that can reduce me to a gibbering, shaking, pain immune wreck in about five seconds... the effects are powerful and numerous. A lack of fear or conversely lots and lots of fear, immunity to pain, shaking, inability to think or speak coherantly, tunnel vision, memory loss, cold sweats, stomach cramps, the need to urinate and/or defacate. And the good old going to a quiet place or the calm within the storm as I like to call it, that I believe you've mentioned, like everything slows down and you have moments of sudden clarity where you can almost predict whats about to happen. Its moments like that I live for in sparring 3nodding biggrin
And as for berserkers I believe there was a number of contributing factors:
a) adrenilin and pure mind bending rage
b) they were psychos blaugh
c) I believe that quite often they used to get steaming drunk or even eat flaegaric mushrooms... equivilent to your modern PCP head

And as for invulnrability, its to do with a lack of fear of death. Someone who isn't afraid to die is a lot more dangerous than somebody who is, I believe the samurai used to try and achieve something similar just in a less frenzied way.
Its also why people are scared of mentally disturbed people, if someone see's someone shouting and raving to themselves, they fear them, that crazy person might be totally harmless but the lack of fear they show by not caring about looking crazy means they might have a lack of fear about going completely nutty and killing every mo'fo in the room. They are scared by the lack of fear

Until they sober up.

Actually, they ate Mushrooms as Darkling said, which induced a frenzy into them. That's about the only distinction, besides the fact that after they came down, they had bloody peni (or is it penises sp?) and their enemies ran away... in fear.

The worst is fighting someone on PCP, though thankfully I've only had that experience once. Wouldn't want that again in a hurry.

Or shoots you from a foot away...damn that stings...

The word Berserk actually comes from two viking words meaning bare serk. Back then an armored shirt was called a serk, and the bravest, toughest warriors would fight armorless and shirtless, and were called berserkers. They would eat roots and work themselves into a violent frenzy, litereally breaking flood vessles in their eyes, (where the term "seeing red" comes from) and got to the point where they were in such rage that they were impervious to pain and completely reliant on instincts.