Ignoring the fear jitters

9

9miller

New member
So, I am sitting here going through these threads here in the tactics subfourm, and a lot of people here say something to the effect of " I'd do this and then that would end it" or " he should of done this, didn't he realize what was happening?"
When I watch a video of say, (an officer was trying to subdue a criminal when criminal pulled gun and shot the officer), I look at what the officer could have done to prevent the scenario as well, but also try to put myself mentally in his shoes. It's easy to say what should have been done, but in the middle of an altercation, tunnel vision easily sets in, as well as fight or flight.
Everyday while I am performing daily tasks, I replay scenarios that might occur in my head, and think about how I would solve them if a threat presented itself. The one thing I have not found to do, is train myself not to panic and stay calm.
My question to you guys, is there any training you folks perform to try to eliminate the fear jitters in an altercation? Any former military members out there who had this type of training?
 
About the only way to avoid the panic and jitters connected with a scary situation is to train so well for the possibilities that one's confidence level is raised very high.
It does help prevent the big eyes and weak knees.
 
We often run, Do some light hand to hand practice and drop flashbangs on each other while shooting. ..firecrackers are a decent substitute but nothing beats reality....
 
As one advances in firearms training (so that the basics are down solidly), one can look for quality force on force training.

It might be hard to find. A bunch of guys just running around isn't it. You need planned and refereed scenarios.

Such simulations and fear induction aids you in having perceptual and action paradigms for critical incidents.
 
Training is indispensable. Medical professionals stay calm in medical crises because even if the particulars of the situation are unique, they have been trained to rely on a set of underlying principles. Scenario-based training is, in medicine, referred to as case-based training; it is common in continuing education for presenters to work through a challenging case step by step as an example. One basis for learning in defense is to think through scenarios while you have the luxury of taking your time to think them through.

My other avocation is music. I have performed and taught extensively, and the mind can be trained to use the nerves and excitement (aka adrenaline) of a performance to increase focus, concentration, and intensity, but that is only effective when adequate preparation, in the form of practice and rehearsal, has been made.
 
Train until your actions are second nature, then train some more. In a stressful situation you will default to your training. If you have no training you may just freeze up.
 
Maybe, maybe not. No matter how good the training is, reality is different. I do not say that to knock training but training (meaning courses with an instructor) have limitations. You probably won't have anyone shooting at you and you don't have to worry about killing someone. And you won't be seeing blood, presumably.

A cousin of mine became a state policeman. The first time he saw blood (at an accident), he couldn't take it, although I don't really know what happened to him. I happened to be the first on the scene at an accident on a rural road in West Virginia. One person was already dead and two elderly women in the other car were seriously injured. Nothing bothered me (I had just come from a funeral home, by the way). But that doesn't mean I'd react in the best way in a shooting incident.

I agree that you will do what you were trained to do--if you do anything. I'd say it's hard to predict.
 
Go bungee jumping or sky diving, or try the Richard Petty Driving experience. Those are NOT the same, but it lets you deal with fear and adrenaline in a controlled manner. If you can use it as a learning experience, it helps.

I was fortunate to work at a drag strip as a kid, and I got to bungee jump there for free as it was an attraction they tried. Then going through triage school and having to extract drivers from cars, put out fires, even dig one out of the ground when his dragster flipped the rail and burrowed in upside down. Several forms of auto racing and the associated wrecks, wins, etc. also helped. Those lessons let me know (at least some) how I would respond and served as stress inoculation. I followed those up in my late 20s with several full shift ride alongs with LEO friends. The ultimate was acting as a target for a SWAT team on several of their training exercises.

Many of the martial arts, edged weapons training and force on force training classes are also helpful. If done right, injury is certainly possible, but if you powder puff it, you won't learn much.
 
I have seen the most highly trained people panic and be useless in the real situation.
Click to expand...
Define "highly trained" please.
It sounds like those folks fell woefully short of actually being highly trained.
 
I am handgun hunter, and while its not the same, it has helped me to learn to aim a pistol and shoot well while my hands are shaking from the adrenalin.
 
In spite of the criticisms, the action games can help in the same way.
Running a course of fire with the clock in your head rushing you can do similar things.
 
I've seen pistol competition but not any kind of action game. For an individual who is neither law enforcement or military, do things happen in action games that you should not do in a personal self-defense situation? I realize that almost any form of competition results in a certain amount of "gaming" but that's not what I'm referring to here. The fact that "race guns" and special competition holsters are used is not what I'm referring to but other things.

The competitions I have seen, however, were eye-openers in some ways. Revolvers reloaded in the flash of an eye and autos failing. Good thing targets don't shoot back.
 
Would you rather train until you get it right?
Or train until you can't get it wrong?

Train hard. Induce stress. There are many way of doing this. Some are extremely scary and uncomfortable at first, they also make people upset. They do work most of the time. If you're enjoying it at first it's not good.

Nothing beats being in it of course.
 
Yep, training is indispensable and none of it will teach you to overcome the natural human reaction to a stressful situation called fear. Trick is being able to rely on your training to get you through that stressful situation.
And anybody who says they don't have fear is full of excrement.
The action/shooting games(IPSC/IDPA, et al) are just that, games. They are training for nothing but that particular game. There are no clocks, power factors, or "race guns" and special competition holsters in real life.
Law enforcement and military don't get as much of that kind of training as everybody thinks either.
 
Unfortunately, it seems that not everyone may be able to think, effectively function and act in an advantageous manner when subjected to elevated stress levels, let alone do so consistently.

Can proper training, created for the situational context envisioned, help "inoculate" some folks against some of the adverse effects of elevated stress? Well, over the last several decades, science has been increasingly telling us that it can help.

The degree to which proper training may be able to help any particular person overcome the primal FREEZE, FLIGHT OR FIGHT impulse is going to depend on any number of factors.

Being able to effectively function and act under elevated stress requires more than just mindset, though. It also usually requires being able to fall back upon some ingrained actions that are accessible under high stress, without having to stop and consult an app on your smart phone.

The importance and value of relevant, applicable and properly structured training has been receiving increasingly more attention, especially in the LE/private defense field, but finding and recognizing it may be problems in their own right. ;)

Learning and continually working to master proper basics is probably always a good place to start, as whatever additional training is eventually sought, it's reasonably going to require a solid foundation skillset upon which to build.
 
Two more comments for consideration.

One, some people mention using different weapons. While I don't think that's such a serious issue, provided they aren't drastically different, it won't help, unless you think it's import to switch your primary weapon frequently. But I will credit most people with sufficient ability to ignore that as a potential problem.

But another issue with shooting games, most of them anyway, is that they are predicated on shooting. Sounds dumb but I don't know of any where you get points for not shooting, although you might lose points somehow. Anyway, in some situations it might be critical that you not shoot at something. It's hard to describe but I hope you understand what I'm getting at.
 
The one thing some people do not get about action shooting competition is that it can remove a few items from the stack. If your shooting, safety and weapons manipulation are fully ingrained, then they are not going to be taking up mental function in your cognitive stack. That lets you focus on solving the problem, target ID, etc. If actual weapon handling (safely) is not in your comfort level, you will have a problem.

BlueTrain, I generally agree with your assessment. However I believe the real danger in competition is in using it for your "only" training. Even as a fairly high level competitor, I try to train for tactics and with a SWAT team at least as often as I do a competition based training. That gets mixed in with some very basic HtH and FoF as well.

Also, there are a few competitions around where the scenarios are judged by the other competitors and some of the scenarios are set up as a "Do not shoot" and others as a "Do not Draw" in order to "win" the scenario. They are not common and are subjective, but they do exist.
 
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