Common Sense Self- Defense Lesson VI: Breaking The Ice

Note: This post covers some rather extreme training

It happens. It has happened to all of us at one time or another. We are faced with a situation and we suddenly freeze up. A stimulus of some kind is introduced and for just a moment we are paralyzed. You are driving down the street. You are doing the legal speed limit. Suddenly someone runs a stop sign or traffic light and is barreling straight toward you. You automatically… slam on the brakes. The on-coming car crashes into you. The entire thing could have been avoided if you had only floored the gas and gotten out of the way. Some people call this the “deer in the headlights” effect.

This effect is the result of sudden and unexpected fear. In most cases FEAR takes two forms:

Scared. Of the two forms, scared is the most common and the least prohibitive of the two. We have all been scared. It is natural and happens to everyone. Being scared is not being frozen. You experience fear and being scared is like a feeling in the back of your mind. You know it’s there and you accept it. Your brain processes it. In most cases when you’re scared you have time to deal with it and react.

Terrified. This is the bad one of the two. Being terrified is a lot different from being scared. When something happens to terrify you it usually happens suddenly. When terror strikes you, you have no idea how to react. Your brain almost slows to a stop and refuses to process. This is when the freezing up happens.

Of course TIME is a huge factor in both of these and plays a huge role as to how you react. You will react differently if you are SCARED and have NO TIME to react. You will react totally differently if you are TERRIFIED and have TIME. Why? Your brain is reacting differently to different circumstances and stimulus. Certain chemicals are being released into your system and effecting your reactions. The major hormone released by the brain is adrenaline. The way this affects the individual differs a bit from person to person and there are four levels of stimulation.

• Normal. This is the day-to-day function of your brain. You’re not at all prepared for an attack. You don’t even entertain the thought of it. You aren’t anticipating any form of attack and should one occur, your brain freezes for a while attempting to understand what is happening and how to deal with it.

• Optimal. This is where you are operating at a heightened level. You are aware and alert. You are mentally prepared to meet a challenge. Your skin may take on a pink or red color (flushed).This frame of mind is like that of a boxer getting ready for a match or a karateka preparing to compete in a tournament.

• Bad. This goes far beyond the Optimal state. You may feel some of the things you would feel in the before mentioned levels but your mental and physical skill degrade seriously to the point of freezing up. Your skin may go pale.

• Horrible. The worst possible of all four. You freeze mentally and physically. Some bodily functions are lost such as bladder or bowel control.

I had actually planned to go through those in a future post but decided they fit pretty nicely on this subject so I went ahead and added them.

We are going to look at this from the absolute worst combination case scenario. TERRIFIED – NO TIME – HORRIBLE. You are attacked. You seemingly have no time to react. Your brain freezes. Unless you mentally think to act, you do not act. Some people will freeze in a situation but when the attack comes they flinch which breaks them out of it and they react. In this situation you do not even get a flinch reaction.

I don’t think I have to actually put into words that this combination is the toughest to train for. It is hard to respond to something when you don’t even have the flinch reaction to snap your brain out of the cycle your hormones have induced. But you can train for it.

Your training partner is a critical factor in your training. You need someone you can totally trust yet at the same time be very forceful and unpredictable. You want to do the best you can to bring on the combination and put yourself in the state. You want to do everything possible to trigger that state. You don’t want to “try” to trigger it. You don’t want to simulate triggering it. You need to actually bring it forth so you know and recognize how it feels. You cannot do the same thing over and over again to trigger it because your mind and body will get used to it or expect it. This training will HAVE to be extreme. You may want your partner to slap you when you don’t expect it or shove you hard from behind , really trying to put you on the floor. If you feel this is too extreme then spar. But do not spar lightly. Glove up and have your not-so-nice-best-training-partner in the world go HARD on you. Trust me, your matches will not last very long but you will learn to feel yourself moving into the state of mind that reflects a real attack. While you’re doing this training consider introducing a knife or gun into the scenario, you should NOT plan this. It is not knife -defense training. You want the weapon to come as a complete surprise. No attack is even needed if the weapon is introduced in this manner. Remember, it’s the FEELING you are trying to trigger.

Once you get to the point that you recognize the feeling you can begin to do things to break the freezing up. You see, in all of this, recognizing the state is the goal. Once you do and you can try little things to break it. Breath. Move. Flinch. Throw your arms up. You goal is to get your body to do something, anything, that your brain is telling it to do. One of the best things you can do is quite simply YELL at the top of your lungs. A scream can break your mind out of the freeze and the rest of your body will follow suite

Admittedly this is not typical “karate” training. You have to be willing to admit that you NEED to do this. You can practice repetition all day long for years and years. Repetition will do you no good at all if you freeze. Freezing is a natural reaction. To defeat it, you have to train like you do with anything else. To train to beat it you have to recognize the feeling itself AND things that trigger it. You can’t recognize it if you never feel it so you have to practice putting yourself into the state.