The Science Behind Survival

By Eric Beck
There’s one question that nags most folks who’ve trained for a while in the martial arts, but they rarely talk about it. Before I tell you about what it is, let me just say this – martial arts study is a truly great thing – regardless of style – whether it’s Kung Fu, Wado Ryu, Jeet Kune Do, or Sambo, martial arts can help you get in shape, reduce stress, and be a fun environment to go past your limits. In fact, if every person in the world trained, I think there would be much less violence and much more development of human potential. Things would be much better!

Now, let’s get back to that nagging question. And here it is: “Will the techniques I’ve learned really work in a real-world situation?” Or “Am I learning an art that may not always be ‘combat effective’?” The answer requires more investigation.
The question could be restated: “will my techniques work.” The problem here is the thinking behind the question. As a famous master once said, “You don’t fight the techniques, you fight the person using them.” Ous!

Consider this: martial arts techniques are only the grammar of fighting, self-defense and combat. Sometimes a front kick is devastating. But at other times it’s stupid! Sometimes a kind word turns away wrath and other times it doesn’t make any difference. The point I’m trying to make is that techniques are not enough when it comes to saving your life. And if we only ever train on a perfectly flat floor, with air conditioning, where we all take turns nicely, where we only do the prescribed moves, where stand at attention and listen to the lectures…are we really ready?

The Formula Approach

If you are taught what I call the “formula” approach, this will likely lead you to think the answer to any confrontation is found in the correct application of one of your learned formulas.

The Formula Approach: “If the guy does this, then I should do that.”

That’s why beginners are so obsessed with “what style do you teach?” They think that one set of formulas might be better than another – so they anxiously formula hunt!

There is a rather disconcerting problem with this: formulas don’t adjust well in the field to changing circumstances. But perhaps even worse, formulas don’t work if the starting point is off. All formulas depend on one major fallacy: that we know what the other guy will do.

Mind Reading & Magic?

You and I never know what the bad guy will do. By the time we find out, if we then take the time to scroll through the technique library to find the appropriate response, it’s likely we are already dead. So that’s when we hope our “trained reflexes” magically kick in. But we learned long ago that magic is not something worth believing in.

When we describe “reflexes” or “training” that “kicks in” what we mean is that under extreme pressure we no longer think our way into a move, we just do it. As Bruce Lee famously said, “…it hits all by itself.” And this is an accurate statement, scientifically proven. The underlying question is how do we train so that this unconscious response can be depended on…not just for people who’ve trained for 15 or more years, but for regular people or what we might call the average student who will NOT become a martial artist – maybe they’ll be with us for 2 years max?

The Universal Human Phobia

So let’s go back to the “if he does this, you do that” approach. When we realize, as humans, that we are in danger of dying or being seriously hurt, several things happen WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION and with big consequences.

Our body begins to get us ready for battle:

• By secreting adrenaline (and a few other hormones) which causes…

• Rate and force of our heart beats to increase which causes…
  • 115 bpm (beats per minute) – loss of fine motor skills (Hard to write your name or operate anything mechanical)
  • 135 bpm – loss of complex motor skills (3 or more motor skills working together)
  • 145 bpm – area of the brain that controls hearing shuts down (can’t hear someone yelling)
  • 155 bpm – “tunnel vision” occurs (can’t see beyond a 5 inch radius)
  • 175 bpm – difficulty remembering (not sure where you are or where objects are)
  • 185-220 bpm – hyper-vigilance occurs (complete erratic hysteria, confusion, loss of function)

• Blood flow increases to major muscle groups and away from surface tissue (white as a ghost) in preparation for lacerations.

• Our motions tend to speed up and shorten up causing accuracy problems and less power

• Coordination of complex motions fail

• Our body shuts down all non-essential functions that might get in the way of survival.

• We throw up

• We empty our bladder and bowels

The consequences of this are worth considering. Are we really thinking that under these conditions we should just hope for magic and mind reading?

Think about it…if you train in “when he does this, I do that” – do you know what part of your brain controls conscious decision making like this? It’s the frontal region of the brain. That’s where all our martial arts techniques are stored. But when our heart beat goes up due to fear induced adrenaline (not due to just jogging) guess what part of the brain nearly turns OFF? That’s right, the frontal region. It’s like your entire martial arts library disappears! The mid-brain takes over and the list of consequences above is simply a matter of fact, not a matter of will.

Chaos and Shutdown

And that’s the real point here – what we do when we are adrenalized (in our mid-brain) is not anything like “when he does this, I do that.” It is chaos. It is shutdown. It is wild and unpredictable. Don’t take my word for it, it’s now scientifically proven and documented by many authorities including Lt. Col Dave Grossman in his book, On Combat. “Training” and “reflexes” don’t magically “kick in” simply because we did 100 lower blocks in class last Monday. In fact, person on person violence, what Grossman calls the “universal human phobia”- the most intense, feared situation humans encounter, makes it nearly impossible to do anything like “produce that bilaterally asymmetrical lower block” and have it do a darn thing.Can we be honest here?

When we get the massive adrenaline rush, one hand going out while one hand goes back (bilateral asymmetry) is nearly impossible to do with any effective force or timing, if at all. But bilateral asymmetry describes about 99% of all martial arts moves. They are very difficult to learn, hard to coordinate, require significant flexibility, 1000′s of repetitions – some say that to truly learn a martial arts kata could take 10 years (for ONE kata), and therefore these techniques are very, very unlikely to work in a real situation.

Self Defense or Not?

So what am I saying here, that martial arts are not good for self defense? Yes and no. In the old days when the martial arts were just forming, nearly everyone was a martial artist at some level…right? Roll time back 300 years – everyone knew how to kill. Mostly we killed animals for food but in doing so we might have encountered animals that would eat us or other hunters who weren’t going home empty handed! And if you roll back another 300 years and look at the number of people affected by wars, raids, plundering, etc. then it becomes clear that fighting for your life was a fairly common pursuit.

However, today, where we have police, laws, and in some ways a more civilized existence, the need for these martial skills has been delegated primarily to our professional military and police. As a proud veteran, I remember yelling at the top of my lungs in response to my drill sergeant’s question, “What makes the green grass grow???…bright red blood!” Why were we all screaming that? Why on earth would people say that? Why were we training with live ammo? With .50 cal rounds flying over our heads? Because while mental learning (front brain) is good,  it’s just not enough. We have to have stress inoculation in order to deal with the massive affects of adrenaline.

Martial Means War

Today’s professional military are trained for one purpose: war. And war is about one thing: killing. Now beyond the political uses and misuses of the military (don’t get me started), you can see that fighting for our lives is something the general public no longer really knows how to do. Nor do they, by extension, know how to deal with the chaos of human violence.

And accordingly, because the general public doesn’t hunt for their food or have to fight off invading hordes, most of us don’t have any sustained, consistent experience with the fear induced adrenaline rush. And therefore, if we study a martial art where we are not getting “stress inoculated” – which is the only scientifically proven way to learn to over come the adrenaline rush and thereby be able to save our lives – can we really say we are learning “self defense”?

What Will Work for 98% of Us?

I come back to our original question: “Will the techniques I’ve learned in the martial arts really work in a real-world situation?” And the answer is unfortunately “no”-  most likely they won’t because they are stored in a part of our brain that is scientifically proven to nearly shut down for 98% of the population when the heat is on.

So you might say, “Then why in the world are you teaching traditional martial arts???? Are you crazy??? Don’t you believe in what you teach???” I deeply believe in what I teach and the heritage of what I teach. As the founder of Karate-do, Gichin Funakoshi said, “Karate-do is about the perfection of character.” Did you read that? Have you ever heard that? He could have said it was about killing quickly, defending yourself against robbers, or the best way to train a combat platoon. But he didn’t.

In fact, in his statement of his karate-do ethics he says:

First. Seek perfection of character

First. Protect the way of the truth

First. Foster the spirit of effort

First. Respect the principles of etiquette and respect others

First. Guard against impetuous courage and refrain from violent behavior.

Something We May Have Missed

So why would we take this man’s art for creating moral, self aware people and demand that it be “combat effective”? Could we have missed his point? Apparently this man from Okinawa wasn’t trying to start a revolution in military tactics. Nor was he trying to create the ultimate gladiator academy. He wasn’t even trying to start a world wide sport. I think his own words make it clear what he was trying to do.

I think the martial arts, in particular karate-do, are first and foremost about the battle we face against ourselves. Getting great abs is infinitely easier than “perfecting our character.” Both are worthy goals and one can connect to the other – but they are different. I believe we all have a daily battle. And this battle has life and death consequences. We can choose to engage or ignore this battle. But the punching, kicking, blocking, throwing, sweeping, the kata’s, the sparring – it’s really, if you think about it, a very inefficient way to learn to kill people. What then, was Funakoshi crazy, stupid, uneducated? I don’t think so. Could it be about something more? If we look below the surface, could we find a vast ocean of meaning beyond a gladiator worldview of kill or be killed? Often if we are not told to look for something, we never see it.

The Character Crucible

The Karate-do I’m describing is the perfect crucible for the character. It provides the absolute requirement of conflict (mainly with yourself) in order to produce change. I think the warrior spirit taught in a true martial art teaches that the first and most important opponent is the false self that so often dominates our thinking, dredges up our fears, and tells us we are weak and insignificant. Some call it ego, some call it the false self, some call it the “monkey mind”, some call it the “flesh” – call it what you like – it is THIS battle, this war that I believe the techniques and rigors of karate-do were designed for. The founder even tells us so. So it is “martial” – it is aimed at the prosecution of a war – but that war is not with other people.

Ultimately, like all things, it’s up to the practitioner to decide for themselves. And as for effective self defense, that which works for most people most of the time, well that would be a very different goal wouldn’t it? I’ve chosen a certification in just such a method that uses simple actions, adrenal stress scenarios, has been featured on the History Channel and taught to over 50,000 world wide. It’s not a martial art. It’s goal is not the lifelong path of the perfection of one’s character. It’s goal is simple empowerment – to make each participant a stakeholder in their own safety. It’s what Randy Spivey of the Center for Personal Protection and Safety talks about: “When seconds count and help is minutes away…do you really know what to do?”

So I thought it might be interesting to both those of you who have never trained and those who are experienced to consider the science behind survival and then to hold that up against claims made about “effective self defense.” If self defense is technique based or takes decades to learn, it will almost surely fail in the field. There are two sides to this coin as I see it: one side is the perfection of character. The other is the protection of life. They both require us to face our fears. But one, if taught correctly, can be done in a few hours. The other, well, get started now…that path may never end.