Uechi-Ryu.com

i am looking for a word or phrase to discribe the fear of engaging in combat. that fear of taking action knowing it may cause your own destruction. we all know that many people do not act in a life and death situation out of fear, they would rather follow the commands of the mugger or assialant in hopes that things will be ok.
Ardant Du Piq wrote:
"Greek tactics developed the phalanx; Roman tactics, the legion"
"Man is always physically and morally fatigued in a hand-to-hand tournament where he employs all his energy."

"During this engagement of the first two ranks, the one fighting, the other watching close at hand, the men of the rear ranks waited inactive at two paces distance for their turn in the combat, which would come only when their predecessors were killed, wounded or exhausted. They were impressed by the violent fluctuations of the struggle of the first rank. They heard the clashes of the blows and distinguished, perhaps, those that sank into the flesh. They saw the wounded, the exhausted crawl through the intervals to go to the rear. Passive spectators of danger, they were forced to await its terrible approach. These men were subjected to the poignant emotions of combat without being supported by the animation of the struggle. They were thus placed under the moral pressure of the greatest of anxieties. Often they could not stand it until their turn came; they gave way."

i like the term "moral pressure". but i find it odd to use when i am talking about a store clerk not wanting to engage a mugger. the image of a "pressure" is very accurate but maybe not the term "moral". moral is thought of as the difference between right and wong. morale is defined as The state of the spirits of a person or group. this is not quite what i am looking for either.
if anyone can come up with a good term to use as a discription of the building pressure and fear of combat engagment i would really appreciate it. i thought i would turn here to my friends and peers to hash this out before i start using a word or term with the public at large that may not be quite right.

At this moment I cannot come up with a specific term to describe the building of pressure and fear of combat engagement, though I am sure such a term does exist and perhaps our readers could come up with suitable words.

It might help to review what happens to a person in those circumstances when the 'hard wiring' emerges.

1. The very first response is the survival instinct kicking in…triggering the 'fight or flight' reflex.

2. One's very "ability to think in a rational, creative, and reflective manner" is likely to be reduced or perhaps eliminated.

3. The survival instinct is taking all the senses into overdrive, into hyper-perception.

4. Then there is Cognitive dissonance…a form of confusion and denial of what's about to happen…and this may cause doing things out of sequence under that extreme stress.

5. The survival reflex is not a matter of personal "courage" or lack thereof. It is a profound and complex physiological event designed to prepare the animal within to either fight or flee for its life:
When fear explodes inside of you, your sympathetic nervous system instantly dumps a variety of natural drugs and hormones into your body to cause a high arousal state known as fear.

You are literally under the influence of these natural chemicals, so your body operates differently, just as it would under the influence of a chemical you deliberately ingested.

6. Then a person will experience, [ amaurosis fugax] something I learned from Mas Ayoob at LFI… Hysterical or temporary blindness, another serious visual affect that, according to Ayoob, something that happens to people who are not really prepared for violence, even as they might have had some training to deal with it.

~~~

So with all this in mind…we might be able to condense it in some terminology appropriate for what you are asking.

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Van

"Primal Freeze."

All the physical reactions have kicked in and a primal instinct to survive has kicked and actions (non-actions) that seem to be keeping them safe so far have created a freeze.

Everything stated in the previous posts is 100% correct.

The person has entered into a freeze:

* I’m okay right now doing nothing so maybe I should keep doing nothing.

* I can’t believe this is happening.

* I need to make a plan.

* Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Fill in the blanks of what is happening in the freeze for the individual but right then a very primal survival function has set in and frozen them.

Rory Miller writes that the only successful way he has found to break a freeze is to tell yourself to take two physical actions (and actually take them of course). Take a step. Raise my hands. or Raise my hands. Angle off their line of sight …. any two physical actions actually taken.

I don’t know what to call it but Primal Freeze seems to fit.

PRIMAL works for me because as Van points out this is something very old and deep within human physical, chemical and mental history.

FREEZE works for me because that is what is happening and needs to be broken.

So Primal Freeze is the best I can suggest.

May be others have something better.

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Rick Wilson - http://wpd-rc.com/

Most excellent Rick and I agree with the 'primal freeze' which I believe can manifest in different shades depending upon an impending situation.

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Van

i have experienced what i think fits the "cognitive disonance" description but it wasnt caused by fear but more of an unexpected situation. being a witness to a crime but not the victim can also be disorienting. you think to yourself, what is going on, what just happened, is what i think is happening really happening? there is a disbelief that what your seeing is real. i like to study behavioral responses of people on youtube videos showing real crimes. i find it odd that a bank will be in the process of being held up by a few masked men and a person comes strolling in and goes right up to the teller as if nothing is happening. i think this disassociation comes into play when there is a mass killing. i belive people fail to react because in part the brain cannot put the violence into any known context and therfore takes longer to recognize it as a threat.

i like primal freeze. its a good a phrase, but is that what is happening when someone is being robbed at gun point and does not try to run or fight because they think any action other than what the criminal tells me to do will cause him to shoot? i understand the doe in the headlights reaction where the brain just shuts off but there are also times when the victim mentaly chooses not to react.
maybe this is the denial.

There is a difference between making a conscious and logical decision to hand over your wallet rather than running or fighting and doing nothing because you are in a freeze.

To take this to a far end (but not out of reality) a guy is shooting at me and I don’t run. I am frozen in place because inside my brain is telling me that not moving has made him miss so far so not moving is the way to go even though he is coming closer and closer with the gun.

So there is a difference between a logical smart decision and a freeze.

BUT if doing what the criminal says means going to a second crime scene this may be a freeze where you are telling yourself it is all okay he said he isn’t going to hurt us he just wants to take us to his sound proof basement cell in the middle of nowhere…..

I think you know what I mean. A guy has a gun on you at four feet and says toss over your wallet and you do - I don't see that as a freeze just a smart decision.

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Rick Wilson - http://wpd-rc.com/

like Ricks perspective and slightly of/on tangent

reacting or responding

is it happening to you or are you taking command of your response

to quote Ray Dalke ,

this I quickly found and it was on project management , concerning reacting vs responding , an interesting topic which leads to mindset IMHO , the real freeze while it can happen to us all , when out of our obvious experience/preperation has much to do with how we confront the day to day.

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FEARS Ltd
"Art meets Reality"
www.fearsltd.com

'In the presence of danger'...

Years back I discussed the book 'The gift of fear' by De Becker...in great detail on the forum. It provides great information on intuition and prediction that stimulates certain response actions.

It is worth another look. http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/becker-fear.html

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Van

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Van

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Van

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Van

Funny , I do public speaking for work. I wonder if martial arts made me confident enough to choose this as a career...lol

I wonder where death while public speaking ranks on that list !!! LOL


The fear of death is irrational. If we believe modern religion we go to paradise when we die ...If allah is our choice we hang out with a 'bunch of virgins'. If we go with the athiest take then the lights just go out....I understand disapointment, but fear ....????

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FEARS Ltd
"Art meets Reality"
www.fearsltd.com

Glad you like "Primal Freeze", Robb.

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Rick Wilson - http://wpd-rc.com/

Taken to the extreme, the freeze in some literature has been likened to tonic immobility