But the article ignores the fact that a lot of people have had life and death experiences, that involve what it calls an adrenaline dump and having to stay calm and do their best, so they might know more about how they will perform than we think. For example, years ago one of my neighbors tried to commit suicide by hanging himself; his mother came up to his room and saw him hanging; she stayed very calm, cut him down, and called 911. She didn't panic and she saved his life. How many of us have had something happen suddenly when we were driving and had to react suddenly and do everything just right to avoid a crash, and found that we stayed calm and did everything right? I had a scaffold suddenly drop out from under me quite a few years ago when I was about 60 feet up; I caught myself, stayed very calm, and climbed back to the part that didn't collapse; I remember looking back and noticing the difficulty in the climb I had made and thinking at the time how it seemed like the easiest thing in the world. It scared the hell out of the other guys on the scaffold that didn't fall, but the one whose life was on the line didn't get scared. How many of us have had experiences like that? I think they give us an idea of how we'll do under stress in a life or death situation.
Stress in a life or death situation, yes---but that isn't the same as a self-defense situation. For example, I know a couple of people (medical folks) who are calm and collected in a crisis. In emergency situations in which people's lives were
literally in their hands, they remained level-headed and rational.
Those same people, in a simple straightforward scenario, when faced with incipient direct violence, lost it and completely froze up.
This isn't to say that all medical people will lose it. Or that all people who demonstrate a cool head under stress WON'T keep that under direct threat of violence. Or that all people overall will lose it in those circumstances.
My point is simply that if you haven't dealt or practiced with
direct violent threats, you don't know how you will handle it--because other types of stressors aren't the same.
It is like the people who suggest sprinting 50 yards then doing 20 fast pushups prior to shooting for stress training--the argument is that doing those exercises gives you the shakes and gets your heart rate up, the same as what happens during an adrenaline dump, so training that way is as good as scenario training.
But it isn't. That's not to say don't do that training, because anything that stresses you and tries to take your mind away from what is important will be useful practice, if done well.
But it is still NOT the same in terms of stress reactions. And there is a big difference between having a cool head in an impersonal crisis and having to verbally interact with a belligerent person who is potentially escalating to a direct physical altercation while you attempt to decide how to keep yourself safe.
If you haven't done it, you don't
know.
Many people claim they
know how they are going to react. But if they've never even done a single scenario, how could they know?
Competition, on the other hand, is stressful, but it is not life or death.
Don't believe I claimed it was. The stress aspect is good, but I did specifically mention that the competition aspect is more for rating your technical abilities.
I don't point this out to suggest that training is not a good thing; I say do all you can, and use competition to make the training as realistic as you can.
Personally, I don't consider any form of shooting competition I've seen to be even remotely realistic training for self-defense. I find them useful for all sorts of things---but realism is not one of them.
I realize that IDPA claims to be realistic, but that's really nonsense. When "turn around and walk away" isn't a viable choice, when no verbal interaction or choice-making is possible, and when moving into threats as fast as possible is the best way to win--it isn't realistic.
Don't get me wrong---I love competition shooting. I think it is a great test of shooting skills, and I STRONGLY suggest everyone try it at least once.
But it isn't self-defense training. IMO.
But it seems like the concealed carry community is constantly telling us how we're going to be so scared we'll barely be able to move. Saying that gives a person the look of one with wisdom on the subject, so everyone wants to outdo each other about how scared we'll be. I'm not a psychologist, but I think this might have the effect of parents constantly telling their kids that they're stupid or bad or won't ever amount to anything. It's fine to let people know what to expect, but I think it's overdone sometimes. This article didn't overdo it, but other things I've seen did.
There is a lot of that out there, isn't there? (I'm glad you think I didn't do that.)
A lot of that is bad information where we know better now--but people still trot out the "if your heart goes over 160 you won't be able to think or reason" and other nonsense. In some ways, it is similar to the "OMG! Common substance X causes cancer!" media blurbs we hear, in which factual research is misunderstood and shock/scare blurbs are created that don't actually mean anything, and that people parrot without understanding.
