Welcome Fear!

© COPYRIGHT 2009 BY BRADLEY J. STEINER - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Sword and Pen – April 2009 Issue

[Reprinted With Permission]

American Combato
Seattle Combatives

SO often people take up the study of self-defense because they do not want to be afraid. "Be silent and fearless" one well-known taekwondo school in this country advertises. The appeal is understandable. Fear is unpleasant, and many males feel humiliated and ashamed of being afraid and of experiencing the manifestations of fear when they confront a troublemaker. So, when the claim is made that by training in such-and-such one will no longer feel fear, the sale has been made!

The truth is, however, that not only will you not "become fearless" (unless of course you become deluded, go insane, or die), but you REALLY DO NOT WANT TO BECOME FEARLESS; not, in any case, once you understand what fear really is, what it does for you, and how lifesaving it can be in a dangerous or difficult situation.

All you need to do first of all is recall any time when you felt real fear — of anything, not necessarily physical assault — and observe that the fear came on you instantly, in a flash. It also produced a definite physical reaction. Your body changed. You were "charged up" suddenly; your entire organism in a tiny fraction of a second became "ready" for something.


Recall also that the fear was involuntary. It charged you up and "readied you" (albeit very uncomfortably) with no need on your part to take conscious steps of any kind.

Then recall that fear quite possibly left you feeling a bit confused. You didn't know whether to plunge ahead or to withdraw. (Had you had some kind of previously set plan or decision in place regarding what you would do if "such a situation" came up, then you perhaps remember going ahead with that plan with vigor and speed.

Fear eliminates any need for deliberately preparing to face a crisis — for "warming up", if you will.

Fear powerizes your entire system — inside and out — because the fear energy (a term we coined years ago, when writing for a popular gun magazine) provides you with three or four times your normal strength, resilience, agility, and speed. And this happens involuntarily.

Fear allows you to carry out whatever planned and practiced response you possess (ie which you have acquired through decision, or through training and practice) without a second's hesitation. Thus you are able, thanks to fear, to undertake the most effective course of action when you are hit by the "FIGHT OR FLIGHT" response. (This is the response that causes you to experience the capacity to plunge ahead or to withdraw from the situation, and — without training and preparation that has produced a specific decision about what you'll do — you might possibly feel confusion and a kind of "stymied" or "stuck" sensation.)

Fear is only harmful to you if and when this phenomenon of "being stuck", or of being frozen and unable to decide right away whether to plunge ahead or to withdraw takes hold of you. THIS STATE IS CALLED "P A N I C". Panic is what blocks you from effective or decisive action, not any fear that you feel! It is your reaction to fear and not fear, that might potentially be a problem for you in any emergency or difficult situation.

Please reread that last paragraph.

Observe that what fear does (ie warm you up, charge you up, increase your strength, resilience, agility, and speed — and in every way greatly facilitate your ability to make the involuntary "fight or flight response" work for you, is ALL BENEFICIAL AND HIGHLY DESIRABLE!

You want to be afraid. It feels unpleasant, but like any necessary, powerful, foul-tasting medicine, it is good for you!

What proper combat training must do is:

• Train you in what you need to do when you find yourself immersed in a dangerous situation of physical violence so that you have a predetermined, effective decision already in place regarding what you will do and how you will react when the "fight or flight" reaction to sudden danger manifests, and avoidance is not a possible option. This will eliminate panic. You will not only know what to do . . . you will have decided that you are going to do it, well ahead of time.

• Acquaint you personally and deeply with the nature of the fear reaction, and condition you thoroughly to embrace, welcome, and be grateful instantly for the onset of fear — realizing what it is doing for you, and understanding how it will serve you in your carrying out of the decision you have made concerning how you will handle a violent emergency.

We do all of this during the course of training people in American Combato, and we urge anyone needing self-defense instruction and pursuing it on his own or through a program that may not be sufficiently attuned to this need, to compensate by addressing the subject himself!

Physiologically, fear eliminates the body's ability to render fine motor moves. Gross (ie "big", major muscle-group type) body movements are enhanced enormously, however. Thus, effective combat/self-defense movements are gross, major muscle group type actions. Low stomping kicks, elbow smashes, head butts, biting, chopping with handaxe blows, heel of the hand smashes, clawing and gouging, kneeing, hammerfist strikes, and front kicks, etc. done with fierce, aggressive followup and determination — particularly in combination sequences — are the ticket. Occasionally a simple, basic throw or a stranglehold might be useful . . . but the heart, soul, and essence of real world unarmed combat is BLOWS. Applegate, Fairbairn, O'Neill, Brown, Begala, Leather, Hipkiss, and virtually every notable real world instructor of the justifiably respected "world war two methods" knew this, taught it, and saw the validity of it demonstrated time and time again in real combat, during wartime. To dispute these facts today merely marks one as being uninformed about what works in real hand-to-hand combat.

By mastering and incessantly training in the types of techniques decribed above, proper use of the involuntary fear response will be boosted and greatly enhanced.

FOCUS — visual and mental — describes what fear does to the individual's psyche. Exactly what is needed to win in serious combat. Something known as the "peripheral optic disfunction phenomenon" occurs (ie tunnel vision, or the tachy-psyche effect). You visually lock on to your enemy. This assists in the proper zeroing in on the enemy's most vital target areas!

Desperation grips one in serious combat, and produces a mindset that excludes one's own awareness of pain or injury (providing one has predetermined to ATTACK and to utilize one's fear energy properly when combat cannot be avoided and when one must stop one's adversary).

All to the good!

The great heavyweight boxing champion Floyd Paterson once wrote that if he didn't feel fear as he entered the ring, he knew he was in trouble. However, when he did feel fear as he entered the ring, he had no doubt that the outcome would be favorable to himself. That's because Paterson, like every great boxer, came to understand and to embrace fear as his ally.

Do the same. It will serve you, too.

When you learn how to utilize fear another great thing happens to you, psychologically. You develop confidence in and you perfect reliance upon that part of your mind that takes over in any emergency: ie your subconscious. Here's an example:

If you drive a car then you doubtless have had the unfortunate experience of having someone suddenly run out or walk in front of your vehicle while you were driving. Perhaps they entered a crosswalk without looking, or possibly they simply ran out into the street. In any case, remember how your foot slammed instantly on the brake pedal as a sudden fear gripped you? You did not make a conscious decision to step on the brake. A long time ago you learned that when a sudden stop was needed you had to quickly step on the brake. After years of driving (and of course, using the brake pedal thousands of times) the process became motor-memorized and reflexive. In the emergency, your SUBCONSCIOUS mind took over, and without the delay of conscious intervention, undertook to carry out the action required to avoid hitting whoever was in the path of your vehicle.

It is exactly the same in quality self-defense training. Simple moves are motor-memorized and committed to reflex by endlessly repetitive practice. Mental conditioning to attack immediately establishes in your psyche the decision to use those skills if you ever must use them. Then, in a sudden emergency, your subconscious mind takes over, and without any delays caused by the interference of conscious deliberation, you GO!

The subconscious mind works in a manner similar to a computer. Stored in the computer's memory is, say, a certain item of information. Tap the right key and the computer kicks out the item of information instantly. When you master skills of combat and drill sufficiently with the proper mindset, those skills become buried permanently in your subconscious mind. Although you may not have been consciously thinking about it a moment prior, if and when you are attacked, your subconscious ("computer memory") kicks out the necessary actions that you require, and you simply do them.

When once you begin to get fear under control (not eliminate it, or try to eliminate it, but get it, and the energy that it provides, under control through the correct process of mental conditioning) you will then be ten times more formidable in any violent encounter than you believed possible.

None of this is magic. None of it is mysterious. None of it is outside your reach or beyond your ability to acquire. Believe us, please!

We learned much of that which we now teach through our studies during the late 1960's, and throughout the 1970's of psychology, psychiatry, mind control, and hypnosis. We have been a licensed hypnotherapist for 20 years now, and we are convinced that hypnosis is one of the most valuable tools for conditioning the mind of the combat arts trainee. The entire method of Class instruction that we developed and utilize is based upon the incorporation of mental conditioning via principles employed in hypnosis to the group training environment.

We caution readers at this juncture that they should use a great deal of discretion before accepting any "combat instructor" as a qualified hypnotherapist (something that we fear many might begin to resent themselves as, after reading this article!). We would add, regrettably, that they might be wise to use a great deal of discretion before accepting anyone purporting to be a "combat instructor", period!
But that is an aside.

We wish simply to point out that hypnosis is an extraordinarily valuable tool (we call it weight training for the mind) and readers might wish to explore the subject further. Books by LeCron, Caprio, and Arons are a good place to start. Certainly make the effort to learn about hypnosis before entrusting yourself to anyone presenting himself as qualified to work with you as a hypnotist!

Back to our thesis:

Fear is your ally. If you are serious about developing real ability in self-defense and a reliable, practical knowledge of close combat with and without weapons, then this is a subject of enormous importance to you.

Everyone who is sane feels fear. But there are few people who have learned to appreciate fear's great benefit, and the fact that anyone aspiring to practical proficiency in combatives should welcome and embrace fear, while training hard on the proper skills through which fear's energy may be put to its finest and most reliable use.

We sincerely hope that we have helped you through this presentation.