While everyone wants to jump immediately into the punching, kicking, joint locks, and sleeper holds, itâs critical to take the time to think about and understand the underpinning of defensive tactics. Consider this section as the cement foundation of the house. Without it, there isnât a lot of support for the walls, the beams and the ceiling. So that you donât end up under a pile of lumber, read this section first.
Chapter 1
Thinking Ahead
It pays to plan ahead. It wasnât raining when Noah built the ark.â - Anon
Beside throwing each other down on the mats and wrenching arms beyond their intended range, itâs valuable to prethink about engaging in a physical force situation. Here are a few subjects to ponder in your car as you cruise the hood on a slow, rainy Wednesday night.
Adrenaline Response
As we discuss accelerated heart rate and surging adrenaline, keep in mind that not everyone experiences these in a street scuffle or even in a shootout. You might experience them today but if you were to get into the same hairy situation tomorrow, you might not. Whenever this is discussed there is a risk of a self-fulfilling prophecy. You engage in a violent situation and, because you think you should be experiencing these things, you do. The idea is to understand that they can happen so they donât surprise you and affect your performance, while at the same time being cautious that knowing about the possibility doesnât make it happen.
Much of the following information is taken from On Combat, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and me, and from Bruce Siddleâs Sharpening the Warriorâs Edge.
Your ability to function deteriorates when your heart rate accelerates to around 175 bpm, though youâre going to fare much better if you have trained to perform in this realm. Keep in mind that this type of rapid heart rate is caused by excitement, fear and a desperate need to survive. Itâs not the same as one accelerated from jogging or pumping on the Stairmaster. Here is the difference:
- An accelerated heart rate caused by exercise flushes your face (turns it red, if youâre light skinned) as blood vessels dilate to allow blood to surge to your muscles.
- An accelerated heart rate caused by fear pales your face (turns it white, if youâre light skinned) because of vasoconstriction, the narrowing of blood vessels that constricts or slows blood flow.
Should you run in desperation, adding physical exertion to your panic, your body will require additional fresh, oxygenated blood, just as your fear-induced vasoconstriction shuts down or constricts the vessels that deliver this much-needed supply. The result: an even higher heart rate.
FACT
Your heart rate can go from 70 bpm to 220 bpm in less than half a second.
Letâs take a quick look at the stages of an accelerated heart rate, data based on an article by researchers Bruce Siddle and Dr. Hal Breedlove entitled âSurvival Stress Reactionâ and from Siddleâs excellent book Sharpening the Warriorâs Edge: The Psychology and Science of Training. When we talk about fear-induced accelerated heart rate, weâre talking about Survival Stress Reaction (SSR).
- Around 115 bpm, most people lose fine motor skills, such as finger dexterity and eye-hand coordination, making it virtually impossible to, say, type in a code to unlock a door or find the right key in a cluster of keys. Multitasking also becomes difficult.
- Around 145 bpm, most people lose their complex motor skills, movements that involve a series of muscle groups, such as eye-hand coordination, precise tracking of movement, and exact timing. Executing complicated self-defense techniques becomes difficult if not impossible.
- Around 175 bpm, most people experience numerous negative effects: tunnel vision (meaning a loss of depth perception) and loss of memory of what happened (though there is usually a 30 percent recall after the first 24 hours, 50 percent after two days, and 75 to 95 percent after three to four days).
- At 185â220 bpm, most people go into a state of âhypervigilance,â sometimes referred to as the âdeer in the headlightsâ mode. This is often characterized by performing actions that are useless, such as continuing to desperately twist a doorknob on a locked door. People in this condition are often unable to move or scream. When they do move, they sometimes do so irrationally by leaving their place of cover.
Trained people have an advantage. Your Survival Stress Reaction (SSR), whether itâs in the 115 bpm range or 220, happens without conscious thought. Siddle and other researchers of SSR tested police officers and soldiers, people in high-risk jobs who engage in considerable training that is far greater in quantity and sophistication than what the average person gets who works in an office or warehouse. Their research has found that a trained person can function with an accelerated heart rate of 115 to 145 bpm and, when it climbs higher, a trained person can lower it consc...
