Feeling Like a Low Rank

My taekwondo background and mixed martial arts workouts have prepared me well for krav maga.  Up until now, it has been easy.  Even when I failed my first rank test I only had to tweak my technique by hitting harder and performing my combatives faster.  Everything was more or less natural and familiar.  I knew I had a lot to learn, but I felt like a high ranking martial artist who happened to be starting over in a new, similar discipline.  Then came front bear hug with pain compliance.

Yes, pain compliance.  I'm learning how to inflict pain in order to gain an advantage over an attacker.  So if someone tries to grab me at the waist and wrap me up, I now know how to put them on the ground by grabbing their head just so and twisting their neck to make them want to fall to the ground. If that sounds scary to learn, it is!  Until the day before yesterday I had not done it on a real person.  My training partner (Mike) and I had watched the training video together and I practiced at home on my heavy bag hundreds of times, but when it came time to practicing with a real partner, it was awkward and unfamiliar. When I was 'attacked' I froze.  I didn't know where to put my hands, and my feet were all mixed up.  After I figured that out, I still couldn't bring myself to twist my partner's neck.  I thought everything in krav maga is supposed to feel natural, and throwing someone to the ground by the neck does not feel natural at all!  I even went second.  Mike had already sent me to the floor a half a dozen times and I still didn't want to do it to him. But eventually I did it, slowly and hesitantly, but I did do it and Mike is fine. 

I'm planning to ask my instructor if slow motion for pain compliance will pass testing, but I know the answer will be no.  Standards will be set as high as any other move and it feels like a test in and of itself.  Is this a predictable turning point krav maga training?  Am I learning this scary move now to prove I can do whatever it takes to protect myself?  Or maybe front bear hug with pain compliance is just relatively easy to learn and I am reading way more into it than I should.  Either way, I feel humbled.

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