How do you manage fear in a self defense situation?

What is fear is. “Fear is an emotional response to stimuli either external or internal. Fear has certain physiological responses such like increased heart rate and/or increased respiration.”
There are various mental responses to fear as freezing up. Not being able to move at all, though your mind may be telling to run, block or fight!

Anger and fear are very closely related. A reaction to fear of anger will at the very least help you to survive better than freezing up, but it could also inhibit your thought processes and get you even more in trouble.
If you trained to react on fear, your body relaxes, your mind focuses. Adrenaline increases your strength and speed making you a capable individual.

There are two ways of training to use fear. Place yourself in life threatening situations on a regular basis. I don’t really mean it. Or place yourself in life threatening situations on a regular basis mentally. This method has the advantage of extending your training career while at the same time possibly saving your life.
Many martial artists spend their lives learning to block and strike. Going through situation after situation. Attacks from the front attacks from behind, from the side, multiple attackers.

Some martial artists don't even practice these scenarios. Assuming the same defensive reaction from the front will work from the side and from attacks from behind. Some martial arts instructors when asked "what if" by their students will simply say, "just don't put yourself in that position". If that were the answer there would be no need to take self-defense at all.

For those martial artists who do practice situational self-defense training, many of you are not allowing for the mental aspect of a physical attack.
Mental preparedness for a physical attack, I believe, is very much the same important than the physical side of preparing for an attack. Why do you think it is that a trained martial artist would fear a seasoned street fighter. Because the street fighter has been in REAL fights. The few tricks he has picked up to win a street brawl have actually been executed by him under the mental stress of a life and death situation Most martial artists, fortunately, have not had this misfortune.

But let us look back at the physiological effects of fear again. Increased heart rate and respiration were two major physiological responses to fear. A tensing of voluntary muscle groups is another, more so in the untrained individual.

So first a slight tension of voluntary muscle groups. Now increase your breathing. Short shallow breaths are best to emulate this physiological response.

Now to the Mental Aspect

You need a padded up live partner. For this drill I would often take an air shield and tie it to the front on an advanced student. Than your partner must do some acting as well. He must look both in the face and body language as though they intend to hit you and hurt you. Even emulating the foul language you might hear from an attacker in an attempt to intimidate you would help.

Now you put it in your mind that your partner is not your partner. He's a stranger that intends on doing you harm, mugging you, raping, beating you senseless and unless you defend yourself and hit just as hard as you can and don't get hit yourself that's just what's going to happen.

Start with a prearranged attack and counter-attack, but, put it out of your mind that you actually know what's going to happen. Feel the fear and tension before the attack, then block or evade like you mean it, like your life depends on it and counter attack.

Now put some pads on and remove the air shield. Do one step variations again. Same mental stress of a real situation, but strike anywhere and pull the technique so you don't hurt your partner.

Ready to Become More Dangerous?

Start again with all of your self-defense drills. Emulate your fear for at least 10 seconds to put yourself in a life threatening mental attitude. Than relax your muscles and breathing. Now start again and add a mental aspect to begin working with your fear and stress. Begin again with your drills and this time take your fear and turn it into anger. It's not the final solution yet, but it will give you a better chance of survival than being frozen in place solid.

Turning fear into anger takes practice, but is actually not that hard to accomplish. As I said earlier the two emotions are very similar. Basically this can be accomplished with an example such as this:
Instead of, "Oh my gosh, this guy wants to hurt me!" Your better response to this would be: What? This nut lowlife scum wants to hurt me???

Now add your rapid breathing to this and slight muscular tension and remember: YOU'RE ANGRY!
Now do your steps to relax and attempt to control your breathing while remaining angry. This training method, when done properly, will take a lot out of you. I do not recommend using this method all of the time, but definitely put it in your training schedule and practice the method on a regular basis.



Photo: Stone of courage, former Symondsbury Zen Garden