Breaking The Freeze

Before the first punch is thrown in a fight, several things happen.

When an opponent begins his "interview" they will posture and verbalize agressively to test your sense of courage and self defense potential.  Remember they probably chose you as a target already because you may have been giving off signs of vulnerabilty.

At first you may feel like this is incredulous.  Your brain asks this question; Is this aggressiveness really happening to me or am I mistaken?   Being the do-gooder, a well mannered person and a person that learned fighting is wrong, you can't believe that people could be so mean [silly you].

After almost a decade bouncing in bars I learned to tune myself into the concept that I could be attacked anytime, anywhere and always had my mindset tuned that way.

In previous years I had been a victim of the "freeze" when a confrontation started and also felt this a few times in tournament sparring.  It's like your computer is stuck and needs a reboot!

In behavioral biology there are three responses to extreme stress:
  1. Fight
  2. Flight
  3. Freeze
The fight response won't be pretty like we practice in the school.  It will be a gut wrenching, wild flurry, off balance, heart pounding whirlpool of physical mayhem.  Go all out aggressive to survive.

The flight response is just- run!  Adrenaline will rush through your body and this action may seem like the best one.  Because you are adrenalized your balance will be off.  You may fall or bump into things because you are in tunnel vision mode.

Freezing may be due to a few things.   One, you don't have built in response to turn to.  Your body survival mechanism says staying still may allow the predator to ignore you [so hide in plain site]. 

The Tactical Freeze - You have chosen to freeze.  Your mind thinks "this will give them a chance to calm down".

 The Physiological freeze - Your body makes the shift from; It's the regular me, to the fighter me".  You are experiencing an adrenaline dump.  Now is the time to take action and break the freeze.  Move and scan to find a way to escape while planning to get down and dirty.  This is not time to spar, grapple or name call.  You need a savage, explosive attack to eyes, throat, groin and shin [ETGS also stands for escape to gain safety]

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jack Scott- United Karate Studio- Cookeville, TN

Image
Jack Scott- United Karate- Cookeville, Tennessee   Around 1988, I arrived at my inlaws who had relocated to Cookeville from New Jersey.  We had brought my four year old son there to visit his grandparents and spend some quality family time.  After being there a few days I casually leafed through the yellow pages to see what karate schools were around.  My eyes landed on Jack Scotts United Karate Studio and I decided to call.   I explained I was visiting family and asked if I could come down and watch some karate classes.  Mr. Scott said it was not a good night to come down but the next night would be better.  Of course that prompted me to go down and see why I could not watch.  Well he received me with open arms and let me watch for several hours.  We talked for a long time and then he asked if I would like to take a class the next night.  I responded I would like to but had not brought my uniform.  He loaned me a uniform and Black Belt and we had only just met!   The ne
Read more

Grandmaster Nick Cerio

Image
 Back in the 80’s we ventured out on the tournament trail across New England in the pursuit of higher levels of karate competition.  The karate king of Rhode Island, Grandmaster Nick Cerio, had the largest contingent of students and ran the biggest tournaments.  Being a student of Mr. Cheezic opened a lot of doors for us so GM Cerio welcomed us with open arms. Over the years we spent a lot of time together and got very friendly.  One of my fondest memories is having a dinner that lasted late into the night with Mr. Cheezic, Nick Cerio and Chuck Merriman.  Oh the stories that they told.  What rich history.
Read more

Special "K"

Image
                              Special K Karissa Choquette came into her first introductory class with a port in her chest for her chemotherapy treatment.  Her Mom only asked that partners take care not to damage it during training because it had to stay in during her chemo treatments for her cancer. Karissa trained alongside all the teens and adults in each class with no worries about whatever special needs she might need or be entitled to because of her condition. Her training was always enthusiastic and the smile on her face was always there.  For a long time, no one even knew of her medical condition and we always treated her just like all the other students. As her training progressed she really connected with many of the students instructors and teens in the school.  It was a pleasure to see how great she did.  Karissa was able to go through the rigorous Black Belt training and achieved first dan in Tang Soo Do.  The support the entire school showed was outstanding Thanks for lett
Read more