The Myth of Adrenaline Making You A Good Fighter
By Jeff Baines
5th Degree Black Belt in Kempo
2nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do
Level 4 Apprentice Instructor in Jeet Kune Do
Owner of Dojo Source
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Are you a good fighter? Could you defend yourself in a Self Defense Scenario? People who train Martial Arts know the answer to this question. People who don’t train THINK they know the answer, but they are wrong. As you might imagine, there are lots of people online with Self Defense Tips. Just like with any content that you find online, some of this is total nonsense and some of this is excellent advice. Sorting through all that can be hard and I’m sure in your area of expertise you could tell me what is good advice and not. A couple of my trusted sources for Self Defense and Martial Arts content are Hard2Hurt, and Sensei Seth who have both put out great videos on this idea, I’m going to give a quick summary of the important points but you can check them out here if you wish: Sensei Seth - Why Do People Think They Can Fight? and Hard2Hurt - Knife Attacks in NYC and France Have Something In Common
First, I want to talk about Sensei Seth’s video where he goes around and interviews people and asks them “Are you a good fighter?” If you have heard of the Duning-Kruger effect, you probably know what kind of responses he got. If you haven’t heard of the Duning-Kruger effect, here is the main point: the LESS you know about a topic, the MORE confident you are about your knowledge in the topic. The MORE you know about a topic, the LESS confident you are about your knowledge in the topic. So Sensei Seth would ask the people, “Have you ever trained Martial Arts before?” and “Have you ever been in a fight?”, then he would ask “How do you think you would do in a fight?”. The people with the LEAST amount of training and fight experience said that they would do GREAT in a fight. The people who said they had some training thought they would just do okay in a fight. People who don’t train in Martial Arts don’t understand all the factors that go into it, so they think it is really simple and you just do (insert move here) and could win a fight with that move. People who train Martial Arts know all the pieces that go into it and all the things that can go wrong so they know there is no special move that can end the fight easily. Our skill in a fight comes from the long hours of training that is put in, there is no shortcut.
Sensei Seth also has a video where he breaks down a video where a Body Builder agrees to fight a skilled Martial Artist. Many people think that strength, speed, or athleticism is enough to overcome the skill difference in fighting. The Body Builder finds out quickly that the fighter has an answer for his strength and speed and the Body Builder loses the fight without doing much damage to the fighter. This is important before we talk about the Hard2Hurt video, because it is important to understand that there is more to fighting than just muscle. There are things that Martial Artists know and do that play a much bigger role in a fight than their speed or strength. In Martial Arts classes we often see if we can do our moves against people with superior strength or speed, and if the moves don’t work we either change the move or practice it until it does work.
Next let’s move on to Hard2Hurt’s video. He starts off describing a horrible scenario that actually did happen (in France I believe). What would you do, if you were at the park with your kids and a man started attacking you with a knife? Think about that for a second before you read any further. What would you do? Did you say “The adrenaline would kick in and I would go all ‘Mama Bear’ and protect my baby!”? Most people would say something like this. He has a video of this exact scenario, a Mom at a park with her child in a stroller and a man comes at her with a knife. If you could have asked this Mom 10 minutes before the event, what do you think she would have said? Likely she would have said something about becoming Mama Bear. She might have said get out my Pepperspray or Weapon that they keep in their purse. She might have said step between the man and the stroller and fight him off. Do you think that she would have said I would just scream and fall over? I doubt she would have said that, she would have been confident that she could defend herself and her child. Guess what she did though… You guessed it, she screamed and fell over. That is most likely what you would do too!
You may be saying “Nope, not me, I would fight.” No you wouldn’t, you don’t practice it. “Adrenaline would give me strength and I would fight!” Nope, you wouldn’t. Adrenaline causes 4 reactions, Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn. There are so many options that can happen in a dangerous situation, so many things to consider that your brain will most likely get overwhelmed and you will Freeze or Fawn. People who have rehearsed in their head over and over how they will respond have a good chance of being able to run away or Fly, but without some practice you might get overwhelmed about the choices in which way to run away causing you to Freeze or Fawn. Only people who have drilled over and over into their bodies until it is muscle memory will be able to react quick enough to actually Fight. Adrenaline does crazy things, you have correctly heard stories of people lifting things much heavier than they could normally or jumping higher than normal in dangerous situations. However, adrenaline does not give your body knowledge, it can only be given strength and speed to do what it already knows how to do but more. You wouldn’t expect that adrenaline would give you the ability to solve a math problem, would you? Would you expect to magically perform a perfect Ballet dance move that you have never practiced before (or practiced over a decade ago)? No you don’t gain knowledge or coordination that you didn’t previously have under the influence of adrenaline. You gain speed and power, that’s it.
Martial Artists will tell you that a good portion of fighting is strategy and knowledge of how to react to what your opponent is doing. You wouldn’t expect to suddenly be as good at shooting basketballs as Steph Curry just because you are in an arena full of people and your adrenaline is going. Shooting a basketball into a hoop requires skill and precision, sure you could get lucky and make a shot or two more than you might normally but you won’t suddenly make as many as the best shooter in the NBA. Fighting is the same, you might hit your opponent an extra time or two but your opponent will also have their adrenaline going. Adrenaline can enhance skills you already have, but if you don’t have any Martial Arts skills to begin with you aren’t enhancing anything to begin with. If you are thinking, well I watch UFC and boxing so I don’t have zero skills, I‘ll just have to go back to the Steph Curry analogy. If I watch a whole bunch of NBA shooting highlights, but never go out and practice shooting, do I have a better chance of shooting 3 pointers? If I watch a UFC fighter put someone into a Triangle choke, do I now know how to do a Triangle choke? If I watch a boxer throw a perfect combo with dodges and punches that hit their targets perfectly will I be able to copy this? You know the answer to all of these questions is “no”. If you want to be able to defend yourself in a dangerous situation you need to practice. Your mind needs to think through the possibilities, and you need to have moves that you can use against a variety of different kinds of attacks your attacker might use. Your body needs to practice these moves over and over until you can do them without having to think of each step of the process.
If you are looking for a place to train near Arvada, CO. Check out Dojo Source. If you don’t want to get stuck in Freeze or Fawn, come train your Fight and Flight responses so you know how to react in a dangerous scenario. We can’t wait to join you in your Martial Arts journey.
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