OT But Self Defense related

Why is it that many people go in to a state of "panic" when put in a potential violent confrontation? It seems that a person can be very physically trained in hand to hand combat and proficient in weapons, yet, when faced when a potential attacker, or aggressive person, all of their training goes out the window, and they go in to panic mode, and start wildly flailing, or can't seem to react to draw their weapon, or something along those lines.

It would seem that if a person could somehow train themselves to remain calm and collected when faced with such a scenario, so the individual is able to think with a much more clear frame of mind.

Imagine a hypothetical situation

Mike actively trains in martial arts and often goes to the shooting range. He feels pretty confident in his abilities to fend off an attacker, regardless of if it's life threatening, or an intoxicated man trying to instigate problems.
Mike is at the gas station late at night, when an enraged man pulls up and accuses Mike of cutting him off and "beats him to the pump". The enraged man approaches Mike, and Mike's adrenaline starts pumping, his heart starts beating at 150 beats per minute, his hands start to shake, and all of his training and knowledge has pretty much gone out the window. It seems as if his adrenaline has taken over him, and if faced with a violent aggressor, he panics, and starts flailing wildly at the guy to defend himself, rather than relying on his already known techniques and maneuvers.

What causes this? How does an individual train themselves to handle a situation accordingly, and NOT go in to a state of adrenaline overdrive that prevents them from being able to properly think, assess the situation, and act accordingly?

No Mind No Sword

That is because Mike has trained himself on all of these techniques, but has not actually trained himself on stress management, building intestinal and mental fortitude. Attempting to program reactions into ones brain under controlled conditions does exactly that, programs the brain to react and act under THAT condition. One must actually become attuned to stress, real stress, real panic, real adrenaline and learn mental focus under those conditions. In the infantry, we would train under grueling conditions: wet, muddy, cold (or too hot), tired, and stressed, in an effort to learn how to think clearly and utilize our training under extreme circumstances.
- Now, some food for thought. The Japanese Samurai had a technique they called "no mind no sword". The basic idea behind it was to have ones soul so engrained with their training that they in essence would flow through their situation neither thinking or "trying" to win, or concern about consequence of loosing. They essentially became the flow of movements to embrace the essence of the weapon, and land a strike. To think about the movements, or think about the weapon, to think about winning or losing was considered a step towards death.
- So, back to Mike.... he freezes, or flails, or does other random "things" because he has no means to manage the stress in and of itself. He has not in fact trained for anything except what he would do in a controlled environment. One must endure repeated ventures into stressful conditions before he/she gains clarity of thought in those conditions. Simulating stress is not "fun", and thus most people do not subject themselves to it.
- Go dig a 6 foot hole in the back yard, in the rain, at night, while your friends yell at you and throw nerf footballs at you..... Then jump out, practice your drills - tired, cold, pissed off and wet .... That’s about 30% of what it feels like when you’re in a 30 second confrontation where you may end up dead at the hands of some crack head joker...
- In a confrontation, you will experience: random overwhelming emotions, tunnel vision, cannot look away from the enemy, shaking hands, "fat" hands (all thumbs), modified time: "slow motion" or may happen too quickly. sick to the stomach, vomiting, modified hearing, modified color perception, un able to focus on small objects or details, etc, etc, etc ..... You may experience some, none, or all of these, and in varying degrees. It all depends on your personality, ability to manage stress, and training that you can apply during stress.

- I hope that provides some insight...
Bat

Excellent reply Bat. I had an experience similar to that, and I simply held up the gas nozzle and a BIC lighter and said "you might want to reconsider"
He reconsidered.

Great insight..

or you could be like this guy....

Craigslist seller wields gun to stop men who tried to steal his phone

http://blog.thenewstribune.com/crim...gun-to-stop-men-who-tried-to-steal-his-phone/

A man who'd met two potential buyers for his cellular phone Thursday night ended up holding the two at gunpoint in Tacoma after they tried to rob him, Tacoma police report.
Tacoma police arrested both suspects, ages 16 and 18, on suspicion of second-degree robbery.
The incident began just after 10:30 p.m. a parking lot in the 4300 block of Tacoma Mall Boulevard. The victim told police he'd advertised his iPhone on Craigslist, the popular classified advertising website.
The victim met two potential buyers in the parking lot. He showed them the phone. One of the suspects grabbed the phone while the other pushed away from the victim, police reported.
The suspects started to run off. The victim pulled out his handgun and ordered the two suspects to stop.
The suspects complied. The victim, who had a valid concealed weapons permit, held the suspects at gunpoint until Tacoma police officers arrived.
Officers booked the 16-year-old boy into Remann Hall juvenile jail. The 18-year-old man was taken and booked into Pierce County Jail.

Situational Awareness = No Freezing Up when it counts.

If you are totally blindsided by the confrontation, then you will improvise (which is the opposite of a trained response). If you see the problem develop in front of you (even if that is only for half of a second), then you will have that amount of time to formulate and put into play an appropriate reaction. Mindset is at least 75% of the battle.

My response to your question is similar to bat's the answer is STRESS

However a very large part of the reason for there being stress at all owes itself to psychology (hear me out before you call me a tree hugger or whatever)

Basically the mind handles stress (uncomfortable situations) differently in different people. Some people could not be any less affected by stress and others are stressed by their nail getting broken (my ex wife)

ONE of the ways to help acclimate yourself to stress and MINIMIZE its response is (unfortunately) to stress yourself out (again hear me out here) and still perform complex tasks.

Ever wonder why there is so much yelling in bootcamps? It is because the vast majority of people view loud noise 2 inches from your face where you can feel the guys spit landing on you as stress. Bootcamps try and CREATE stress and then TEST recruits under that stress and make sure they can "hack it"

So one of the ways to get yourself acclimated to this stress is to have a buddy go with you to the range (outdoor with no one else around preferably) and as you are shooting (ONLY at the targets) have him call you and your mom and your dad and your sister and anyone else he can think of the absolute worst things he can think of while yelling as loud as he can.

Ok got that mastered now? Now try doing it while moving, incorporate running into your drills, all the while having your buddy continually make you feel like a tiny tiny insignificant person. All of this (running and yelling) PROMOTES stress and helps to train your body and more specifically your mind, how to deal with it and handle it.

This will not get you all the wy though, now that you have a solid background and know some serious stress can feel like you need to start playing random what if scenarios in your head as you go about your daily life. Dont become one of those paranoid-there's-a-guy-around-every-corner types, but imagine if you were walking into Dennys (when you are doing it) what you would do if someone did ________. Mentally practice your responses.

This all together will make it EASIER for you to deal with stressful situations, will it completely get rid of the stress? Heck no, but every little bit helps right?

G20-IWB24/7 said:

Situational Awareness = No Freezing Up when it counts.
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I was asked just recently about an incident I was involved in and if I realized it was going to happen before it happened. I told the person that I could see the situation playing out to its unfortunate conclusion. Situational awareness. Green, yellow, red, black alert. I think that when you visualize, run through scenerios in your head in response to different levels of alert, you prepare yourself for the fight that might come your way. Only the actual fight will really prepare you, because the abstract becomes reality, but it is better than nothing.

Personally I have always been a basket-case when it comes to day-to-day living, but when SHTF I am crystal clear in the moment, not emotional (emotion is there, but takes a back seat...BTW, emotion is a dangerous thing in an already volatile situation), logical, and believe in the training, and knowledge that I have acquired. I leave doubt, fear, etc. for later, post-incident where I will be intact, and have plenty of time to pick apart every second of the incident.

I would recommend to people that when SHTF, that you focus on the steps you trained to take. If you do not believe in your training then you have trained wrong IMO.

When at the range, visualize a perp/animal attacking you...that's what I do.

As an additional element in most every case involving a stressful and/or life threatening situation even with training most people will never be prepaired and remember very little if any of thier training most movements become improvised and unclear, it is true unfortunately one of the only ways to overcome that is to be in a stressful situation and learn first hand how to control and calm yourself to be focused and thoughtful of what you need to.

Another thing ive seen and heard about is many people with training especially becoming overconfidant in thier abilities used in a controlled enviornment is that they believe that they will know exactly what to do in any situation when fact being no matter what you have trained for every situation you enter will be different and 99.9% of the time will not be any thing like your direct training, i guess what im trying to say is people need to make sure especially with the more training you get you need to keep your mind open and ready not set on being #1 in a situation that arises because that thought may be exactly what gets you or someone else hurt or worse.

BrownC6 said:

i guess what im trying to say is people need to make sure especially with the more training you get you need to keep your mind open and ready not set on being #1 in a situation that arises because that thought may be exactly what gets you or someone else hurt or worse.

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IMO, no one wins, neither the person implementing a self-defense response or the perp, just a crappy situation all around. Walking away might be a win, but it also comes at a cost.

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Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves.

Sheep do not think wolves exist, do not prepare for the day that the wolves come calling, are in denial that anything bad can or will happen to them.

Wolves choose the weakest, the smallest, the seemingly easy prey, a sheep that wanders too far from the flock, alone, helpless, defensless.

Sheepdogs are always on the alert, always watching, sniffing the air, waiting for the arrival of the Wolves.

It can happen, it will happen, acknowledging that fact will put you one step closer to controlling your own destiny and being able to respond when the time comes.

USMC1911 said:

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Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves.

Sheep do not think wolves exist, do not prepare for the day that the wolves come calling, are in denial that anything bad can or will happen to them.

Wolves choose the weakest, the smallest, the seemingly easy prey, a sheep that wanders too far from the flock, alone, helpless, defensless.

Sheepdogs are always on the alert, always watching, sniffing the air, waiting for the arrival of the Wolves.

It can happen, it will happen, acknowledging that fact will put you one step closer to controlling your own destiny and being able to respond when the time comes.

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I always laugh when I see the 'sheepdog are always on the alert' type statements.



What you don't see in this picture are the two sheepdogs resting in the shade next to my truck, while the shepherd has to climb the hill after the strays.

Smart Sheepdogs ?

USMC1911 said:

Smart Sheepdogs ?

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All sheepdogs need a bone every now and then.....:banana:

USMC1911 said:

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Sheep, Sheepdogs and Wolves.

Sheep do not think wolves exist, do not prepare for the day that the wolves come calling, are in denial that anything bad can or will happen to them.

Wolves choose the weakest, the smallest, the seemingly easy prey, a sheep that wanders too far from the flock, alone, helpless, defensless.

Sheepdogs are always on the alert, always watching, sniffing the air, waiting for the arrival of the Wolves.

It can happen, it will happen, acknowledging that fact will put you one step closer to controlling your own destiny and being able to respond when the time comes.

Click to expand...

I think the sheepdogs are in on it.

Leatherneck said:

I think the sheepdogs are in on it.

Click to expand...

Smart Sheepdogs !

I feel the answer is a little more primal then others have posted thus far.

There are those that will choose to flee to submit and those who are willing to attack and this comes from with in.
As when it comes to engaging into a conflict either you are all in or all out and that will come within a split second.
We have heard Mothers protecting their children from harm by willing to step in the way or attacking the threat.

The choice of to or not reacting when threaten, I believe is a result of being ingrained into their physic by their family or society, if you are going to be that sheepdog you must have an attitude of Do Not Tread On Me!

We have been told and told through out time, fighting is bad, do not do it, you will get in trouble and unfortunately they left out that defending yourself is lawful and kick their ass.

Seeking training and along with that practicing will help move toward this attitude, just seeking training will not give you the confidence one needs.

I knew a Black Belt in Karate some years back, he was young and a kid of his age and size started picking on him and he just let him and even to point of being beaten by him and did not respond, his response was that he felt he would hurt him, instead he took a beating.
In reality he should feel he would have been fully with in his right to defend himself and end the attack and he would not have been prosecuted over it.

Use that controlled rage that is deep down when you are defending yourself to use the tools at hand.

I have had some experiences that taught me how to handle stress, especially when I was doing whitewater kayaking in the Southeast. One thing that I learned is to be totally focused in the moment; when I was sitting at the top of the rapid picking my line to run it, there was absolutely nothing else on my mind. The river is very unforgiving, if you don't pay attention you get munched. I experienced the adrenline rush afer I got through the rapid, not while I was running it. I was never an "adenline junkie", never did care for the shaking after running a hairy rapid. I also learned to trust my training and I learned to TRUST MYSELF, that I had the means and the intestinal fortitude to do what I had to do. All the training in the world won't do you any good if you don't trust yourself to implement it.

Down to the basic systems...

If a stimulus is perceived as a threat, a more intense and prolonged discharge of the locus ceruleus activates the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system. This activation is associated with specific physiological actions in the system, both directly and indirectly through the release of epinephrine (adrenaline) and to a lesser extent norepinephrine from the medulla of the adrenal glands. The release is triggered by acetylcholine released from preganglionic sympathetic nerves. The other major factor in the acute stress response is the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.

These catecholamine hormones facilitate immediate physical reactions associated with a preparation for violent muscular action. (Gleitman, et al., 2008) These include the following:

* Acceleration of heart and lung action
* Paling or flushing, or alternating between both
* Inhibition of stomach and upper-intestinal action (digestion slows down or stops)
* General effect on the sphincters of the body
* Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body
* Liberation of nutrients (particularly fat and glucose) for muscular action
* Dilation of blood vessels for muscles
* Inhibition of the lacrimal gland (responsible for tear production) and salivation
* Dilation of pupil (mydriasis)
* Relaxation of bladder
* Inhibition of erection
* Auditory exclusion (loss of hearing)
* Tunnel vision (loss of peripheral vision)
* Acceleration of instantaneous reflexes
* Shaking

This set of autonomic responses are inherent in ALL mammals, including humans, and are essentially part of the human "firmware" (instinctual) response to fear/danger often referred to the Fight or Flight (or Freeze) reaction.

It just happens, and in part is what repeated training and practice try to work around.

Hope that makes sense. It is something we should expect to happen.

WOW somebody was paying attention in psychology class!

basically it can all be boiled (dummied) down to chemical reactions in the brain.

The same way the brain "gets used" to drugs (legal or illegal doesnt matter) and it takes more of the drug to achieve your maintenance dose (desired effect of the drug) is the same way that training attempts to overcome stress.

the theory is that by allowing your body to become accustomed to the release of epinephrine norepinephrine and dopamine (sometimes) you are trying to make it take more of those chemicals for the reactions previously mentioned to occur.

This is why adrenaline junkies always have to go "bigger and better" (Travis Pastrana comes to mind here)

While the symptoms Tomas listed are inherent in all species of mammals, it is BELIEVED that some of those symptoms can be overcome by requiring more of the associated chemicals to produce the same effect, thereby minimizing the chances of SEVERE symptomatic responses.

although that being said, what with psychology (especially nueropsych being what it is) YMMV.