In part one, I talked about the accelerator and the brake, and how most martial artists learn very early how to press one but are never shown where the other pedal is.

For me, the first real clue that there even was a brake came through being broken down rather than through insight. Years of living on the accelerator eventually pushed me into bodywork and shiatsu, and it was there that I first experienced what a deeply settled nervous system actually felt like.

The problem was that I could not access that state on my own.

Once I knew the brake existed, the next question was how to use it deliberately.

Like many martial artists, my first instinct was to attack the problem head-on. I assumed that accessing calm meant doing what people usually associate with it. Meditation. Stillness. Quiet.

That turned out to be the wrong starting point.

WHY TRADITIONAL MEDITATION OFTEN FAILS AT FIRST

When your nervous system is already highly activated, sitting still can be surprisingly stressful. The body fidgets. The mind races. Attention jumps. Instead of calming down, everything feels louder.

This was exactly my experience.

Once I realised there was another state available, I became obsessed with finding it again. I tried every meditation method I could find. Chanting. Mantras. Breath-focused practices. Long sessions. Short sessions. I was constantly experimenting, constantly doing something.

What my teacher Steve Rowe eventually pointed out to me was that I was exciting my nervous system even more. I was treating stillness like another performance target.

His instruction was blunt and simple. Stop trying to do anything. Sit still. Don’t focus on the breath. Don’t repeat anything. Don’t visualise. Just sit there and do nothing for thirty minutes.

It was absolute hell.

My nervous system was so wired that doing nothing felt almost unbearable. Being a martial artist, my response was to muscle through it and, predictably, to overdo it. I doubled the sessions. I forced it.

Eventually, something shifted. The same quality of calm I had previously only experienced through bodywork began to appear again. Not because I forced it, but because the system finally stopped resisting.

That experience taught me something important.

The brake cannot be forced.

And most people will never persist long enough through that level of discomfort to reach it this way.

RECOGNISING THE BRAKE THROUGH BODY-LED ATTENTION

Because of that, when I’m working with students now, especially those with busy or intense minds, I don’t start by asking them to sit still and meditate.

It’s not that those practices don’t work. It’s that they are often unrealistic entry points for nervous systems that are already over-activated.

Instead, I look for ways to help people experience the parasympathetic state first, without having to fight their own minds.

This is where body-led practices become important.

Practices such as Yoga Nidra and body scans work not because of the tradition they come from, but because they shift how attention is used. Instead of trying to quiet the mind directly, attention is guided through the body in a structured way. Sensation becomes the anchor.

In practical terms, this matters because a highly activated nervous system is constantly scanning, evaluating, and deciding. That constant background activity keeps arousal high. When attention is given a clear, physical task, much of that scanning drops away on its own.

Muscle tone begins to reduce. Breathing naturally slows. Heart rate settles. The parasympathetic nervous system is allowed to come forward without being forced.

Yoga Nidra is a particularly accessible example of this approach. It is a guided practice where attention is systematically moved through the body while the practitioner remains awake and still. There is no effort to concentrate in the usual sense, and no attempt to suppress thoughts. The structure does the work.

Body scans operate on the same principle, even in simpler forms. By placing attention on different areas of the body in sequence, they stabilise attention and reduce mental drift. When attention stops jumping, arousal tends to drop.

For many martial artists, this becomes the first clear experience of parasympathetic dominance they have ever had. Not sleep. Not exhaustion. But a settled, coherent state where awareness remains present.

That experience is critical.

Until the nervous system has actually felt the brake engage, regulation remains theoretical. Once it has been felt, it becomes something the system can recognise again. From that point on, training regulation becomes possible.

There are many good guided versions of these practices available online. For most people, starting with a simple, well-structured guided session is far more effective than trying to invent something from scratch.

LEARNING TO RELEASE

Once someone can recognise a settled nervous system state, the next step is learning how to release tension deliberately.

Many martial artists are very good at generating tension. They can brace, stabilise, and apply force effectively. What they often lack is the ability to let that tension go once it is no longer needed.

Progressive muscle relaxation is one of the most direct ways to learn this.

In this practice, muscles are deliberately tensed and then released, with attention placed on the sensation that follows when the tension is let go. The contrast is important. It teaches the nervous system what genuine release actually feels like, rather than relying on an abstract idea of relaxation.

For people with busy minds, this physical process is far more effective than being told to relax. It makes the experience concrete rather than conceptual.

In internal arts, this quality is often referred to as Fàng sōng (放松). Not limp relaxation, but intentional release without collapse.

Once this sensation is clearly learned, the process can evolve.

The same release can be produced without first creating physical tension. Instead of contracting the muscle, the practitioner simply issues the intent to loosen and observes what happens. The nervous system recognises the familiar pattern and responds to it.

This is what I refer to as passive muscle relaxation.

It is not imagination in the casual sense. It depends entirely on having already learned the sensation of release through physical means. Without that reference point, there is nothing to recall. With it, intent alone becomes enough to reduce muscular tone.

There are many excellent guided progressive muscle relaxation sessions available, and most people find it easiest to learn the sensation of release using one of those. Passive muscle relaxation, however, is much less commonly taught as a standalone practice, and clear guided resources can be difficult to find.

In practice, many people adapt other methods instead. A guided body scan can be used by intentionally allowing each area to soften as attention moves through it. Even more effective is adapting a familiar progressive muscle relaxation practice by simply skipping the tension phase and going straight to the release, using the previously learned sensation as the reference point.

At this point, regulation becomes portable. It no longer requires lying down or following a guided session. The same process can be used standing, moving, between rounds, before engagement, or after impact.

This is where release stops being a recovery exercise and becomes a usable skill.

BREATHWORK AND ACCESSING BOTH SIDES OF THE SYSTEM

To function well, we need access to both sides of the nervous system.

Breathing is one of the most effective ways of learning that access, because it sits at the intersection of voluntary and involuntary control.

Almost all internal martial systems include breathwork in some form. Over time, I’ve found that deliberately exploring breathwork practices outside of my own system has deepened my understanding of what those internal methods are actually doing.

Different breathing patterns bias the nervous system in different directions.

Methods such as Buteyko-style breathing focus on reducing over-breathing. Many people habitually breathe more than they need to, particularly under stress. This keeps the nervous system biased toward sympathetic activation. Slower, lighter breathing increases tolerance to carbon dioxide, reduces baseline arousal, and improves regulation.

Wim Hof-style breathing works differently. It deliberately stimulates the sympathetic nervous system through cycles of deep breathing and breath holds. When paired with calm recovery afterwards, it teaches the body that intense internal sensations such as breathlessness, tingling, and elevated heart rate are survivable and manageable.

Used appropriately, these approaches train both sides of the system. One calms. The other challenges. Together, they improve confidence and control.

There are many good guided breathwork sessions available online, and starting with a well-explained guided practice is usually the safest and most effective approach.

COLD EXPOSURE AND REGULATION UNDER STRESS

Cold exposure works on a similar principle, but with a very direct stress signal.

Cold showers and cold plunges trigger an immediate physiological response. Breathing sharpens. Heart rate increases. The nervous system reacts quickly.

The common mistake is turning cold exposure into a test of toughness. Fighting the cold, bracing against it, or relying on willpower simply reinforces sympathetic activation.

The value comes from learning to regulate within the stress.

When breathing is controlled and resistance drops, the nervous system adapts. Panic subsides. The body reorganises. What initially feels overwhelming becomes manageable.

This makes cold exposure valuable not just physiologically, but psychologically. It teaches regulation under pressure rather than avoidance of discomfort.

As with breathwork, there are plenty of good explanations and guided approaches available online. The key is understanding what you are training, not how long you can endure it.

HIGH-INTENSITY INTERVAL TRAINING AND ACCLIMATISING TO COMBAT

High-intensity interval training is usually discussed in terms of fitness, but its nervous system role is just as important.

HIIT simply means alternating short periods of very intense effort with brief periods of rest. This can be done with weights, bodyweight, aerobic work, or short, explosive martial drills such as pad or bag work.

From a nervous system perspective, its value lies in acclimatisation.

Combat is rarely continuous. It is almost always a series of short sprints. Explosive effort, brief pauses, then another surge. If the body is not accustomed to operating at that level of arousal, the system overloads. Stress escalates. Perception narrows. Performance degrades.

HIIT mirrors this pattern closely.

Repeated exposure to intense effort trains the nervous system to tolerate high heart rates, breathlessness, and fatigue without interpreting them as danger. Over time, these sensations stop triggering disorganised stress responses. Activation becomes familiar rather than threatening.

HIIT does not remove adrenaline, and it should not. Adrenaline is part of effective combat performance. What HIIT does is reduce the likelihood that arousal will tip into panic, freeze, or collapse.

There are countless ways to structure this kind of training, and many good examples available online. The specific exercise matters less than the pattern of effort and recovery it trains.

BRINGING IT TOGETHER

Each of these methods plays a specific role.

• Some help you recognise the brake.

• Some stabilise attention.

• Some teach release.

• Some build tolerance to stress.

• Some make regulation accessible on demand.

Taken together, they give martial artists practical ways to experience and train the nervous system rather than leaving it to chance.

In Part Three, we’ll look at how all of these methods can be applied within a specifically martial context. How regulation, arousal, and recovery affect technique, fine motor control, and decision-making under pressure.

That is where nervous system training stops being background work and becomes part of how we actually train.