Fluidity of Action, No Mind, Aware Mind.

It is a great feeling when a trained skillset suddenly clicks on without having to actually think about engaging it.
Sitting here at my desk earlier this evening I heard some strange noises outside and after listening for a few minutes decided to go check it out.
I grabbed a flashlight and a rifle (a lever action .30.30) and went out. I didnt chamber a round in the rifle, as I suspected it was just cats being cats and not an actual threat, some sort of predator skulking about. Indeed, I was right, or so I thought, and right away found a couple of cats knocking about in things.
As I looked around where they had been to make sure they hadnt done any damage there was a sudden rush of noise behind me, something moving and fast. From the amount of noise it sounded like something large.
I turned, very quickly, to come facing the threat-potential with a balanced fighting position. As I turned I worked the lever action of the rifle, chambering a round, and turning the rifle top-line inwards at a 45 degree angle I tucked the stock up under my firing arm, establishing a stable one-handed close-quarter firing position. My left-hand, with the light, went out to the side and a little high, angling the beam towards the source of the sound, so I wasnt "painted" by the light.
Two little kitty eyes shined up at me, reflecting in the glare of the light, from within a pile of scrap-metal. The source of all that noise. Nice to know.
It was then that I had to pause - the process I described above had come so automatically, so smoothly, that I actually had to go down the checklist and make sure I had done everyting I thought I had. Indeed, I had.
This is how it should be with fighting skill, survival skill. Your training, your repetition of drills to reinforce that training, should come to that point where when your skills are needed they come naturally and without thought, just like breathing. Your body, your mind, has natural actions and reactions to things such as possible attack, your training, drilling, is simply evolving those reactions into something that better guarantees "hard survivability", especially in the initial contact. These correctly improved actionary/reactionary (action is always faster than reaction, the closer togather you can bring the two, the faster you go through the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act Loop, the better) skillsets for survival are what let us respond to immediate attack with a proactive, positive, counter-attack, instead of just throwing up our hands and getting pummeled.
It is a good feeling to know that all that training, all those hours of drill and practice, really do work and have given you that ability, the fluidity and "no mind" to automatically deal with a possible threat, protect your own life.

And before anyone screams I am a reactionary paranoid freak, please note - I safely and intelligently searched for the source of the noise, and when surprised by something else, although I reacted with a fluid preparation for violence, I further observed and oriented to the situation before taking any action.
A paranoid, a violent person, would have simply whirled and begun firing, caring not for life or limb. If you wish to ascribe such traits onto me, or those like me, perhaps you should look instead at yourself and see if your feelings that others are such un-controlled violent people dont actually stem from feelings about yourself, your own fears about your inability to control your actions, emotions and fear.