Own Your Fear:  Capitalizing on “Near-Life” Experiences

By:  Jason Winkle

“A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice.”

                                                ---Edgar Watson Howe

            I believe in training.  The better part of my professional career has focused on training people how to deal with stressful and dangerous situations.  I have witnessed first hand the potential that humans have to successfully perform under such conditions.  My years of experience have also illuminated the limitations of conventional training.  If we are to continue to develop our training methodologies we must address areas of deficiency.

            The tendency to accept the profession’s training inertia as law must be fought.  I remember consulting with groups ten years ago who were shocked that I suggested using a training suit to allow contact-driven force-on-force scenarios.  Today, thanks to many open-minded trainers and police departments, training suits are a staple in most tactics courses.  Furthermore, the use of simunitions and interactive video has changed the face of SWAT training.  The charge for law enforcement tactics instructors is to refuse to accept the status quo in training approaches.  We must be innovative and willing to openly discuss cutting edge breakthroughs in our training. 

            One area that I feel is in need of further development and discussion related to tactical operations is fear and anxiety management.  One might argue that this area has been rigorously researched.  It is common knowledge in the law enforcement community that fear and high stress cause a range of physiological and psychological reactions that often hamper performance.  Understanding what happens to us in such situations is a critical part of our training.  However, my primary concern, the one I will address in this article, is our lack of ability in generating authentic, high stress and fearful training situations.  I do believe that we can reach this desired level of fear and anxiety with most rookies.  There is no doubt that the first few times you executed live-fire room clearing you were truly scared.  However, the actual fear component of these exercises has their volume lowered as the officer accumulates experience in such situations.  Before I go any further please understand that we desire that such training experiences will lower an officer’s fear and anxiety.  Stress inoculation is a critical element in developing high performance in the SWAT realm.

            The problem I want to highlight is our inability to generate such stress and fear in training for our seasoned veterans.  I truly believe that all operators must be periodically challenged in this area.  Fear management, like most skills, is perishable.  Long periods of time between fearful situations lessen our confidence regarding how well we will perform in such situations.  Have you ever dreamed the “warrior’s dream”?  The “warrior’s dream” is one in which we are involved in a fearful situation, oftentimes a fight, and we are moving in extreme slow motion or even paralyzed with fear.  This dream is common for high-speed operators in law enforcement and the military.  I have found that I dream this scenario a great deal less frequently when I have been training diligently and I have had success in a recent stressful situation.  The principle of specificity states that we get the greatest transfer from our training when the drill or situation is similar in nature to its expected application.  For instance, if we desire the ability to shoot accurately when under extreme stress we need to train in stressful shooting situations.  This principle, however, does not obey an all-or-none protocol.  Fortunately, we can still benefit in general fear control even when the fearful situation is not tactical in nature. 

            One method of fear management that all operators, new or experienced, can use is to take advantage of what Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club, refers to as “near-life” experiences.   He is referring to fear producing situations that occur periodically in our everyday lives.  A near-car crash or a loud noise that awakens us in the middle of the night are examples of situations that typically elicit sudden spikes of fear.  These situations offer us an excellent training opportunity and a valuable lesson in how we respond to and control fear.  However, these situations are only useful if we capitalize on them during the actual event, when possible, or immediately following the incident while the physiological responses are still present. 

            I will share two experiences where I took a fear-producing event, outside of the tactical realm, and used it to build confidence in my fear management abilities.  We have all, at some point, had a near-crash involving motor vehicles.  It is amazing how quickly our heart rate elevates and the degree to which our hands shake immediately following a truly scary event.  A little over a year ago I was riding my motorcycle down a fairly busy city street when a car pulled out of a gas station and into my immediate lane.  Realizing what she had done, the driver panicked and stopped the car in the middle of the lane.  I remember feeling as if time had slowed.  I still recall thinking, “oh, expletive!!!  I am going to hit her”.  I slammed on both brakes, sending my body violently forward as the bike fishtailed.  I looked at the oncoming traffic and realized no cars were close.  I released my brakes and at the last second and swerved the bike into the left lane as hard as I could.  Thankfully, the only thing that impacted the car was my right ankle.  I escaped alive and relatively uninjured.  I immediately pulled my bike over onto the first side street, dismounted and began to move around shadowboxing.  Crazy, right? 

            I’m still not sure why I was able to recall a conversation I had recently with a few colleagues regarding the use of fearful situations as platforms for testing our motor skill performance.  For some reason the only thing I could think about was getting off the bike and seeing if I could move like a fighter.  This shadowboxing episode did wonders for my confidence surrounding my motor skill performance in high fear situations.  Such a simple task, when executed under such conditions, can teach us a great deal about our current fear-management abilities. 

            The applicability to tactical situations might be a little more clear in my second example.  I recently had a truly terrifying experience.  I was flying back to New York from the Midwest a week ago and was caught in a very strong storm.  It was the roughest ride I have ever experienced.  The last twenty-five minutes of the flight was punctuated by huge surges of side-to-side and vertical displacement of the plane accompanied by numerous panicked screams from passengers.  The woman seated across the aisle from me had her head buried in her boyfriend’s shoulder as she cried.  The passenger seated in front of me kept yelling loudly each time the plane rocked.  Many other passengers were participating in this dance of near hysteria.  Being in such a situation is not pleasant.  Having no control over your safety is an uncomfortable state to find yourself.  I decided to do a quick assessment of my reaction to the fearful situation.  I realized that I was white-knuckling the armrests.  My palms were sweating and my heart was racing. 

            After my internal systems check I proceeded to engage in tactical breathing to lower my heart rate and regain control of my physiological functions.  I first focused on holding my hand in a position that resembled my shooting grip.  Without adding to the chaos I practiced a “breathe and squeeze” drill in as inconspicuous manner as possible.  I then graduated my mock stress shoot to include a slow pie-cutting technique to see down the aisle.  I forced myself to pay attention to minor details such as where people’s hands were located.  I felt that I could accurately tell their fear level by the color of their hands.  Most passengers were gripping the armrests or their travel mate with vice-grip strength. 

            Thankfully we safely landed and I was able to use the frightening situation as another training opportunity.  While I realize that this is an unorthodox approach to fear management, I do believe that it works for me.  I don’t suggest people look for such situations to test themselves, I just suggest that if this idea stimulates discussion regarding fear management it has provided its purpose.  I began this article by stating that I believe in training.  I want to end it by stating that I also believe in fear; its ability to heighten our senses to help keep us alive, and its ability to cripple our performance.  Performance in this arena often hinges on our ability to successfully manage our fear.

Dr. Winkle is the Director of Combatives at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY.  He is a martial artist of twenty-two years experience.  Jason holds instructor rank in seven martial arts systems and is the founder of Martial Concepts, a nexus of approaches to the martial arts and combatives training and certification.  Dr. Winkle has trained members of the United States elite Special Forces as well as numerous law enforcement agencies.  He has published in the areas of Combatives, Martial Arts, and Fitness. You can contact Dr. Winkle through his website www.martialconcepts.com .