Fear in Self Defense How can we learn to prevent fear during a street attack? Here is my take on it. Fear cannot be eliminated. Fear is the natural effect of real aggression. Fear is a reality of self defense. In fact, this understanding is the essence of self defense. Dealing with fear and the fear induced adrenal dump. I wrote an article a while back that had a lot to do with this called "Fighting the Bulletman". This was my introduction to understanding and dealing with the devastating effects of adrenaline. The link to the article is http://www.self-defense-world.com/fighting_bulletman_article.htm So in my opinion, we cannot eliminate fear, but learn to adjust to in and deal with it. I believe that much of what is taught today in martial arts schools and self defense programs will not work on the street. The techniques are far too involved (for the most part), there are too many techniques to learn and they don't have a common thread. I believe a system must have a way of dealing with the initial threat and then continuing in a way that is basic and similar to the defenses of the other threats. In others words once you reach a certain point all or most of the follow ups are the same or similar. This way a flow is easily developed. This is what we have done with Street Self Defense 101 and this is what I teach my students in my dojo. Years back before we started adrenal stress training I use to believe that our system was simple and workable in a street attack. Even then I could see that high kicks, wrist manipulations, techniques that required too many steps or had too many variables, etc. would never work under the duress of a real attack. What I mean by variables is that you must determine and decide how the attack is coming and then figure out what your response should be. Instead of having a general defense for a general type of attack. When I was preparing a women's self defense seminar I decided to buy some videos that other self defense "experts" had made. That was such an eye opener. I couldn't believe the garbage that so many were selling. I felt that even if I could learn one new practical technique or even an enhancement to what I was doing, it would be worth it. In some cases I found that. In others no, not even one I could use! Since becoming involved with adrenal stress self defense, we found that even techniques we thought were simple enough could not be accessed or pulled off under stress. The key is not trying to eliminate fear as I don't think that is the reality. The idea is to deal with the fear by having a simple and effective system that will allow you to react, simply and directly. While the action doesn't actually eliminate the fear it just works through it. For more information about Street Self Defense 101, visit www.easy-self-defense.com.

Shihan Michael Pace