Confidence and Self Defence

Advanced Aikido, 2006, Phong Tong Dang and Lynn Seiser, Part 4: Advanced Applications: Taking Your Practice To The Next Level, Chapter 13: Self-Defence Techniques: 'It is false confidence cultivated through unrealistic training that leads to many injuries or deaths in self-defence.'

These types of statements concerning the realities of combat are common within the martial arts. It could also be argued that these types of statements are also forms of false confidence.

One of the definitions of confidence in the Oxford Dictionary is: the state of feeling certain about the truth of something. Dang and Seiser would have absolute confidence in the truth of their statement. Many martial arts instructors would likewise have absolute confidence in the truth of the insights they espouse. Dang and Seiser's statement is clearly unsupportable. The same can be said for many of the insights espoused by martial arts instructors.

Siddle (Sharpening the Warrior's Edge 1995) suggests that developing confidence in training should be the primary goal of survival instructors. He explains that confidence implies a mental state which is void of fear, anxiety or self doubt.

'Confidence' is a tricky thing. Another definition of confidence is: a feeling of self-assurance arising from an appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities. Based on this definition, it could be argued that a warrior needs to lack confidence if they are to be courageous.

The U.S. Army's Field Manual 7-21.13 (Department of the Army 2007) lists courage as one of the Army Values and personal obligations of every soldier. It explains that courage is not the absence of fear, but it is the taking of positive action in spite of the fear. Thus fear has to be present for courage to be present.

I have written before about a concept I've developed - the survival process. It refers to our evolved survival mechanism. A stimulus is appraised and based on that appraisal a feeling and physiological response may be elicited. The feeling leads to an urge to action which may or may not result in a behavioural response that is intended to deal with the initiating stimulus.

The appraisal process is made up of three parts. (1) initial appraisal - irrelevant, benign-positive, stress. If appraised as being stressful, it is then categorised as harm, threat, or challenge. (2) An initial appraisal of harm, threat, or challenge leads to a secondary appraisal which is an evaluation of the resources and abilities to deal with the harm, threat, or challenge. (3) The final component in the appraisal process is reappraisal which is constantly in action and is based on changing circumstances in dealing with the harm, threat, or challenge.

Confidence arises from the secondary appraisal; the evaluation of resources and abilities to deal with the harm, threat, or challenge. If we do not believe we have sufficient resources or abilities to deal with the harm, threat, or challenge, a feeling of anxiety or fear is elicited. Fear can only be present if we do not believe our resources and abilities are sufficient to deal with the harm, threat, or challenge. That is to say, fear can only be present if we lack confidence.

As I said before, confidence is a tricky thing. False confidence and over confidence are two sins that are often referred to as being dangerous by activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter. I have read and heard many 'knowledgable' martial artists express the view that women self defence courses are dangerous because they instill false confidence in their trainees. Ditto in relation to many martial arts that do not engage in some sort of 'reality'-based training (see above).

How can a person have false confidence? Confidence is a belief. If a person believes they have the resources and/or abilities to deal with a threat or challenge, they believe that. And the mind and body act on that belief, which can result in positive action.

A person believes they have the resources and abilities to deal with an appraised threat. This appraisal can either elicit a fear feeling of lesser intensity, or no fear feeling at all. This means the physiological response (fight-or-flight/stress response) is reduced in intensity or is absent altogether. Siddle's thesis is that the physiological response that accompanies fear leads to a catastrophic spiral in motor and cognitive function which is deleterious to survival and combat performance. False confidence prevents those deleterious effects.

False confidence may lead to a reappraisal of a threat to that of a challenge. This elicits a feeling of anticipation and a physiological reaction is experienced which prepares the body to meet the challenge. Anticipation is a positive emotion which broadens cognitive abilities, including problem solving abilities, rather than narrowing cognitive abilities which negative emotions such as fear does. The anticipation feeling leads to an approach behaviour rather than a withdrawal behaviour. The person will commit to their defence, and that commitment itself can produce a positive outcome in a violent encounter.

Over confidence is an interesting concept. A person 'over believes.' In reality, over confidence is a form of false confidence. Over confidence is often the quality of leaders, and survival (martial arts, self defence, combatives, etc) instructors. Over confidence instills confidence in their trainees, as well as in soldiers on the battle field who look to their leaders for confidence. Over confidence enables, or possibly encourages, one to advance forward in whatever activity. Motivational professionals are often not about developing a realistic assessment of a person's resources and abilities, but rather about instilling a belief regardless of the individual's resources and abilities.

The colloquial terms used in association with confidence is often judgemental and reflects the perceptions, beliefs, and agenda of the speaker. The more accurate term might be warranted or unwarranted. Confidence is belief, and that belief may be warranted or not. But whether that belief is warranted or not does not mean that confidence can be any less effective.

Confidence of any description is our first line of defence. The actual resources and abilities are the second line of defence. They are interrelated but they are all separate components in the survival process, as are all the components in the survival process. Rather than simplistic opinions, an understanding of the survival process enables us to better understand the realities of combat and the methods designed to survive a violent encounter. It enables to better understand the role that confidence, of whatever description, plays in surviving a violent encounter.

Should You Teach Your Students To Swear?

I recall training a woman and a man for one of their gradings in the Jan de Jong jujutsu grading system. The grading involved free fighting where one candidate is unarmed and the other armed with a stick. The stick is a tightly rolled up newspaper that has been completely taped. While training, the male struck the female across the thighs hard enough to produce a bruise on both her thighs. The woman proceeded to run laps around the dojo swearing like a trooper. Little did I know, at that time, that she was using an effective pain suppression technique.

Richard Stephens and Claudia Umland, School of Psychology, Keele University, have demonstrated that swearing in response to pain produces a pain lessening effect for most people. They suggest that swearing may provoke an emotional response in the speaker - possibly aggression or anger - mobilising classic fight or flight mechanisms leading to increased pain tolerance. This, they suggest, would be in keeping with the well-known stress-induced analgesia (SIA).

Stephens and Umland published a follow-up study in The Journal of Pain this year: 'This article presents further evidence that, for many people, swearing (cursing) provides readily available and effective relief from pain. However, over-use of swearing in everyday situations lessens its effectiveness as a short-term intervention to reduce pain.' The reason for this is that people who swear a lot become 'habituated' in that the emotional response becomes weaker with use, resulting in a weaker effect as pain relief.

Was the swearing the stimulus that elicited the feeling response of anger with its physiological response resulting in SIA? Or was the swearing an expressive response of anger that was elicited by the pain stimulus? Given the pain stimulus was present in both cases, it can be argued that the swearing was the stimulus that elicited the anger response. This is another example of adaptive (i.e. increasing survival) emotional manipulation.

Many women's self defence courses teach their participants to turn fear into anger. Often it is suggested that they think of the worst think the attacker can do to them and their children in order to turn fear into anger. This, of course, runs the risk of changing fear into terror when they think of the worst thing the attacker can do to them and their children. The above study suggests that another way to turn fear into anger is by swearing. This method does not run the risk of turning fear into terror.

Of course the females participating in these courses will have to be instructed to reduce their habitual swearing so they gain the survival benefits of swearing.

Happo no Kuzushi and Kuzushi

Happo no Kuzushi is commonly translated as being the eight directions of off-balance. It is often seen as being the pinnacle of kuzushi theory.

The US Marines Close Combat manual, along with many others in the martial arts and other activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter, refer to the happo no kuzushi concept. People; happo no kuzushi is simply a device to indicate direction when explaining kuzushi techniques. It is a compass. A watch is a little more precise than the happo no kuzushi compass. And a watch is just as insightful into kuzushi as is happo no kuzushi.

Kuzushi is commonly referred to as unbalancing or off-balancing. It is not. Even though The Overlook Martial Arts Dictionary (Farkas and Corcoran) refer to the happo no kuzushi concept in their definition of kuzushi, they quite rightly translate kuzushi as 'breaking' or 'upsetting.' It is not the 'destruction' of balance as the term is so often translated.

What is balance? McLester and St Pierre (Applied Biomechanics: Concepts and Connections 2008) explain that balance implies coordination and control, and that balance is a neuromuscular reference whereas stability is a mechanical term. The reference to 'mechanical term' is a reference to a number of physical variables that can be varied to increase or decrease the degree of stability and mobility. Knudson (Fundamentals of Biomechanics 2007) explains that balance is the control of stability and the ability to move. The ability to move is the definition of mobility, so balance is the control of stability and mobility. Carr (Sport Mechanics for Coaches 2004) explains stability in terms of how much resistance a person 'puts up' against having their balance disturbed. The resistance is against destabilising forces.

Technically, unbalance refers to losing control of stability which means falling to the ground. Kuzushi is not designed to cause an opponent to fall to the ground. Nage waza (throwing techniques) and taoshi waza (takedown techniques) are designed to cause a person to fall to the ground, but kuzushi is not. Kuzushi is a facilitator. It faciliates the execution of techniques, including nage waza and taoshi waza. It facilitates the execution of techniques by destabilising the opponent, not by unbalancing them. Kuzushi applies forces to cause the opponent's centre of gravity to move outside of their base of support, but not irretrievably so. This is a subtle but important difference between kuzushi and unbalancing.

Jan de Jong and his instructors would often, as many others do, describe the 'direction of unbalance' as being the direction described by the right angle of the centre of an imaginary line drawn between the heels of both feet. This is simply the direction where the least amount of force has to be applied in order to move a person's centre of gravity outside of their base of support. A person's centre of gravity may be moved outside of their base of support in any direction. It simply means that more force has to be applied in that direction if not applied in the direction of least resistance.

Then there is the three dimensional element that the 'dynamic sphere' theory of aikido attempts to overlay on the happo no kuzushi theory. Not only are the forces applied in a linear direction, they are also applied in a three dimensional direction.

If the martial arts and all activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter are to advance their theoretical understanding of their methods, they have to move on from the naive and simplistic happo no kuzushi concept. The mechanical concepts of stability and forces provide that advancement.

Nature vs Nurture: Fighting vs Fleeing

In a very interesting meditation on courage (The Mystery of Courage), Miller suggests that military theorists assume the fearfulness of men rather than their courage. He explains:

The fearful person is not just left to his biologically determined reflexes or to his own pathetic devices. Soldiers are trained, and what is training if not directly or indirectly a set of fear-management techniques? Training ... [is] grafting a new set of reflexes onto the more cowardly ones of flight and freeze that nature equipped us with from the start.

Nature is selfish. Nature only cares about an individual's survival. In the murderous campaign that was the Western Front in WWI, nature was screaming at the combatants to flee. Fleeing promoted survival, staying and fighting promoted anything but. The powers that be did not want their combatants to flee, rather they wanted them to stay and fight. How did they deal with nature's selfish survival instincts?

All activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter (military, law enforcement, correctional services, martial arts, self defence, combat sports, collectively 'survival activities') all deal with this issue. Many different ways have been developed to get their trainees to stay and fight when nature screams at them to flee. These ways can be better understood with an understanding of the survival process.

The 'survival process' is a term I use to refer to the mechanism that was selected for in nature because it conferred a survival advantage on an individual. A stimulus is appraised as being a threat (or not) which then elicits a subjective feeling and physiological response, and associated urge to act which may or may not result in a behaviour designed to deal with the initiating stimulus.

Flight behaviour is associated with the emotion of fear. Where can you intervene in the survival process in order to prevent the flight behaviour and promote the fight behaviour?

What are the options? (1) Impose will to fight despite fear-motivated flight. (2) Reduce the intensity of the fear feeling. (3) Override the fear feeling with another feeling. (4) Replace the fear feeling with another feeling. (5) Replace the fear feeling with no feeling at all.

What is the first thing you get from this analysis. All survival activities are concerned with the manipulation of the emotions of their trainees.

(1) Imposing will to fight despite fear. A uniquely human feature of emotion is that the feeling and its action tendency are decoupled from the behaviour. A stimulus may be appraised as a threat eliciting fear and an urge to flee, but we don't necessarily flee. Scherer refers to the decoupling of instinctive stimulus-response contingencies as providing a latency time during which to choose from a large repertoire of possible responses, but at the same time automatically preparing particular action tendencies to allow adaptive emergency responses. Trainees are not taught to manager their emotions per se, but the behaviour associated with the emotion by taking advantage of latency time.

(2) Reducing the intensity of the fear feeling can be managed in a number of ways. The tactics and techniques, and training thereof, are designed to increase the trainees resources and capabilities to deal with a threat. This affects the secondary appraisal in the appraisal process (see the No Fear post for details on the appraisal process). Even though the stimulus is appraised as a threat, the trainee believes they have the resources and abilities to successfully deal with that threat thereby reducing the fear feeling.

Stress training (e.g. stress inoculation training), which is training designed to counter stress effects aims at reducing fear in a number of ways. By providing information on stress effects and by exposing the trainee to stress environments and their effects, it reduces negative reactions (i.e. fear) by enhancing familiarity, predictability, and controllability.

Tactical breathing is designed to reduce the intensity of fear. It does so my intervening in the physiological component of the reactions which, due to the interconnectedness of all of the components in the survival process, reduces the intensity of the fear feeling.

(3) Override the fear feeling with another feeling. The tried and tested method of promoting the man-made concepts of honour and comradeship is designed to promote the feeling of dishonour and letting down your comrades as a greater fear then the fear elicited by the threat of injury or death by the enemy.

(4) Replace the feeling with another feeling. Women self defence often teaches turning fear into anger. Many survival activities adopt the same approach to replace fear with anger thereby replacing the flight tendency to a fight tendency.

A documentary on the killing of Osama Bin Laden contained comments by ex-Navy SEALs. One explained what the SEALs involved in the mission would have been feeling as they approached the target. He said when he went on missions, his body was coursing with adrenalin but no fear, never fear. The adrenalin tells us he is experiencing an emotion, but it's not fear. The primary appraisal of a stimulus can result in it being appraised as a threat or a challenge. Threat elicits fear, challenge elicits excitement. The Navy SEALs, and all special forces, are trained to appraise combat as a challenge thereby changing the primary appraisal and elicited feelings.

(5) The last post described the adoption of the Japanese Samurai of Zen Buddhism in order to change their primary appraisal of a threat. By studying Zen they changed their view of death and the value of their lives so that a physical threat was not seen as such thereby eliciting no emotion at all. Of course no emotion means no access to the survival benefits provided by nature.

If fearfulness is the assumption, and fear is considered deleterious to survival and combat performance, then there are many ways that have been developed to manipulate trainees' emotions to deal with fear by survival activities. The above is just a brief look at these ways.

Provocation

In combat, the fear of injury or death poses a severe handicap. Fear distracts, destroying concentration, reactions and timing. Technical virtuosity with weapons is useless to a warrior who cannot control fear.

That is a quote from Karl Friday in Legacies of the Sword (1997). Friday is writing about how the spiritual training in the bugei(Japanese military disciplines) originated as a practical military consideration. He is writing about how the bugei developed ways and means to deal with the effects of emotions on combat performance.

As part of my writing about the 'survival process,' I came across the final report by the Victoria Law Reform Commission on the 'Defences to Homicide.' In particular I was interested in the defence of provocation. Provocation is a controversial subject in general let alone in the legal domain. Provocation is better understood when one understands the survival process, and in particular the appraisal process. How we appraise a particular stimulus determines how we respond to it.

My post, Being Called a Cocksucker Isn't Personal, discusses the appraisal process and the appraisal of stimuli. Being called a 'cocksucker' is only a provocation if we appraise it as being such. Until then, it is only a noise; a stimulus we are at liberty to interpret in any way we choose to see fit.

Appraisal is at the very heart of all training designed to better prepare a person to survive a violent encounter. Friday's comments are testament to that fact. If you or your instructors are not focussed on your or your students' appraisal of stimuli that may be appraised as threatening or insulting, then you or your instructors are not preparing you or your students to survive a violent encounter.

'Passion or anger is seen to unseat reason, rather than being in accordance with it. This is why provocation is often referred to as a 'concession to human frailty'.

Human frailty. Do we accept human frailty? Or do we train to go beyond human frailty?

Originally, the required loss of self-control had to be the result of anger. It has now been expanded to include loss of self-control due to fear or panic. The central question is 'whether the killing was done whilst the accused was in an emotional state which the jury are prepared to accept as a loss of self-control'. Historically, it was also necessary for the killing to occur suddenly or immediately after the provocative conduct, in order to show such a loss of self-control. This is no longer the case.

Control of an aroused emotion is the issue here. A stimulus is appraised in a particular manner which elicits a feeling that motivates a behaviour. The lack of control is defended due to 'being human', or human frailty.

Before we get high and mighty, provocation does not only refer to the weak willed who cannot control their emotions. In fact, the defence of provocation arose out of more 'noble' motives.

The development of provocation can be traced back to 16th and 17th century England when drunken brawls and fights arising from 'breaches of honour' were commonplace. The notion of honour was of great importance to society. A major breach of honour occurred, for example, if a man’s wife committed adultery, as this was regarded as 'the highest invasion of property.' But honour could be breached by other means. If insulted or attacked, it was seen as necessary for a man to 'cancel out' the affront by retaliating in some way. An angry response was expected and the failure to produce such a response would be considered cowardly. Anger was considered to be a reasonable and rational response in the circumstances.'

Honour is often an attribute that is 'honoured' in the military, law enforcement, martial arts, and other 'manly' pusuits. Honour is a man made construct. It is often designed to get us to do things that nature does not want us to do. We fight for honour rather than fleeing as our instincts scream at us to do, even though our instincts are born of nature and are only interested in our well-being. We fight for an ideal that nature is far too pragmatic to even consider.

The final element of the test is whether the provocation was such that it was capable of causing an 'ordinary person' to lose self-control and act in a manner that would encompass the accused's actions. There are two aspects to this test: (1) the gravity of the provocation; and (2) whether the provocation was of such gravity that it could cause an ordinary person to lose self-control and act like the accused.

What do we expect of the ordinary person? When discussing the criticisms of provocation, the authors refer to provocation as being seen as offending against one of the fundamental assumptions of the criminal law: 'that individuals ought at all times to control their actions and to conduct themselves in accordance with rational judgment.' Again we return to control. Control of emotions, control of behaviour motivated by emotions.

The report recommends against provocation being used as a defence:

[Provocation] suggests there are circumstances in which we, as a community, do not expect a person to control their impulses to kill or to seriously injure a person. ... In our view, anger and a loss of self-control, regardless of whether such anger may be understandable, is no longer a legitimate excuse for the use of lethal violence. People should be expected to control their behaviour — even when provoked. The historical justification for retaining a separate partial defence on the grounds of compassion — a 'concession to human frailty' — is, we believe, difficult to sustain.

Community standards expect us to control our behaviour. Behaviour is motivated by emotions. There are two options: (1) control our behaviour that is motivated by our emotions, or (2) control our emotions. The bugei were not interested in controlling their behaviour. They were interested in controlling their emotions so they would not have to control their behaviour (and their physiological response to a threat). Intervening in the appraisal process, how we view the world, changes the emotions that are elicited which in turn elicits a physiological and behavioural response. No emotion, no maladaptive behaviour or physiological response to control.

How are you dealing with fear and anger? Are you focusing on tactics and techniques and thereby ignoring the most fundamental element in surviving a violent encounter - emotion? Are you assuming fear and/or anger as being a given and focusing on controlling the aroused emotion and it's behavioural tendencies? Are you focussing on managing the arousal of the emotion? If so, are you focussing on the initial interpretation of the stimulus, or are you focussing on the perception of the resources and abilities that are designed to cope with the appraised threat stimulus?

The final word will be left with the very insightful Eleanor Roosevelt: Nobody can make you feel inferior unless you give them permission.

Nobody can make you feel anything, fear or anger, unless you give them permission.

Tactical Breathing to Enhance Tactical Performance

Bruce Siddle, an international authority on use of force and training and the effects of survival stress on combat performance, argues that breath control should be a mandatory component of survival stress management. He suggests that the relationship between breath control and the ability to concentrate or focus has been recognised for centuries, and that ancient philosophies and martial arts texts abound with references drawing parallels between combat performance, breath control, and the ability to focus and concentrate when exposed to survival stress.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman (ret.) refers to this voluntary breath control as 'tactical breathing.' He explains that it can be used in a stressful situation to slow your thumping heart beat, reduce the trembling in your hands, and to bathe you with a powerful sense of calm and control. Grossman provides a convoluted explanation of why this simple breathing method quickly restores your calm and control. It is more easily understood with reference to the 'survival process.'

The survival process is a concept I have developed. It is based on the integration of the theories and concepts of the stress and emotion disciplines. The survival process refers to our evolved defensive mechanism. If a stimulus is appraised as a threat, that appraisal elicits a subjective feeling response that motivates an urge to act, or action tendency, that the body is prepared to enact by a physiological response. The urge to act may or may not result in a behavioural respone that is designed to deal with the threat-appraised stimulus that set of the chain of events in the first place. The very interesting thing about this survival process is that all of the components are intimitely interconnected. Change one and you can change them all.

A stimulus is appraised as a threat eliciting the feeling of fear and an associated physiological response. Part of that physiological response increases the heart and breathing rate in order to increase the supply of oxygen to the muscles that are used to flee which is the action tendency motivated by fear. By 'intervening' in the natural survival process through controlling our breathing, we are intervening in the fear physiological response. This can change the appraisal, feeling, and other physiological responses as well as the nature of the urge to act.

I instruct my students that when they are doing a free fighting grading or exercise, when they feel like things are overwhelming them or going too fast, back off, take a couple of deep breaths, and everything will calm down and slow down. It works. I've employed this technique myself. Now I understand why it works.

The interconnectedness of all of the survival process components can explain certain methods that are taught within 'survival activities' (those being those activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter). 'Facial feedback hypothesis' refers to the notion that amplification or inhibition of facial expression of emotions can modify the intensity and possibly change nature of subjective feeling. For instance, smile when you are sad can reduce the feeling of sadness or change it to happiness. I've written a post about the putting on of a war face in the past. Putting on your war face could be, in addition to communicating a threat message to your enemy, an attempt at turning fear into anger and thereby changing the associated action tendency from flight to fight when in combat. 'Putting on a brave face' may lead to becoming brave (although brave is not an emotion but rather a moral judgement we impute to certain actions, as is heroism, courage, and cowardice).

When I was training pencak silat with Richard De Bordes school in London (under an extremely capable instructor I only knew as 'Randy'), we were instructed to smile when hit. A feature of emotions is their communicative function. An expression of pain tells the opponent you are hurt. A smile tells your opponent that his efforts were not effective, possibly leading to some self doubt in the opponent. It could also be argued that by not expressing the pain, it could be intervening in the pain experience. Pain is not 'felt' but experienced and relies on the various centres of the brain involved in emotion that shape the pain experience. Don't show it, don't feel it.

Knowledge is power. The mere academic understanding of this survival process has practical benefits for surviving a violent encounter. Research suggests that preparatory information about a potential threatening event can lessen negative reactions to that event. Driskell et al (2008) suggest that preparatory information reduces negative reactions to stressful events by enhancing familiarity, predictability, and controllability. Understanding the survival process, and the benefits of tactical breathing and why it works, increases confidence. And developing confidence is what Siddle suggests is the primary goal of survival instructors.

No Fear

In my previous post, Pain Tolerance Paradox, I referred to two incidents where I was confronted by a knife-wielding aggressor. On both occasions I did not experience the physiological fight-or-flight response that is evolutionarily designed prepare my body to fight or flee. I also did not experience any fear. Why? The answer to this question is contained in appraisal theory.

I'm using a model that I refer to as the 'survival process' which explains our evolved survival process. All the methods developed by the activities associated with preparing a person to survive a violent encounter are interventions in this evolved survival process. For instance, the tactics and techniques developed, taught, and trained by these activities are learned behavioural responses that are designed to replace our instinctive behavioural responses to a threat.

In simple terms, a stimulus is appraised. If that appraisal results in a threat appraisal it elicits a subjective feeling and associated physiological reaction and action tendency that may or may not lead to a behavioural response which is intended to affect the initiating stimulus. For instance, a man holding a knife is appraised as a threat to our well-being. This appraisal elicits fear and a physiological response that is designed to prepare our bodies to flee, which is the action tendency of fear. If we do flee, that behaviour is intended to put distance between us and the stimulus, thereby reducing the threat appraisal and the attendant responses.

The appraisal process is made up of three components: primary appraisal, secondary appraisal, and reappraisal. The primary appraisal concerns the personal significance of the event to our well-being. The secondary appraisal concerns the evaluation of our resources and abilities to deal with the perceived stimulus. Reappraisal refers to changing the primary and secondary appraisals based on new information.

The primary appraisal initially categories the stimulus as irrelevant, benign-positive, or stress. Irrelevant means no significance to us; benign-positive refers to enhancing our well-being; and stress is categorised as harm, threat, or challenge. Harm is injury or damage that has happened; threat is the possibility of harm; and challenge focuses on the potential for gain or growth.

Challenge and threat appraisals have a lot in common in that they both call for the mobilisation of coping efforts, i.e. the activation of the survival process. The main difference between threat and challenge is that challenge focuses on the potential for gain or growth and is characterised by pleasurable emotions such as eagerness, excitement, and exhilaration. Threat, on the other hand, focuses on the potential harm and is characterised by negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, and anger.

My survival response was not activated when I was attacked by a knife-wielding attacker on two separate occasions. Was that because my primary appraisal categorised the attackers as irrelevant (we can ignore benign-positive)? Or was it because my primary appraisal categorised the attackers as a threat but my secondary appraisal determined that I had sufficient resources and abilities to cope with the threat leading to a reappraisal of the stimulus as being irrelevant?

One incident involved a 'customer' holding a large hunting knife to my throat when I served him in a shop. A primary appraisal of this event as irrelevant might be because, (a) my wellbeing held no significance for me, or (b) I did not believe the assailant would go through with his threat to cut my throat. Alternatively, I could have appraised the attacker as a threat but determined that I had the resources and abilities provided by my martial arts training to deal with the threat and reappraised the stimulus as irrelevant.

The other incident involved the confrontation of a would-be thief attempting to steal backpacks from a train compartment while travelling in the south of France. After pushing the would-be thief down the corridor, he picked himself up off the carriage floor, drew a knife, and advanced on me. The same appraisal analysis can be applied to this incident to explain why I did not experience the activation of a survival response.

Bruce Siddle, an international authority on use of force and the effects of 'survival stress' on survival and combat performance, suggests that developing confidence in training should be the primary goal of survival instructors. He explains that confidence implies a mental state which is void of fear, anxiety, or self doubt. The lack of confidence implies a mental state that produces anxiety and stress (an ambiguous term that confuses rather than clarifies issues). All his methods proposed in 'survival stress management' training are designed to intervene in the secondary appraisal of the appraisal process. Experiencing different attacks in training allows us to better evaluate their threat potential and therefore are designed to intervene in the primary appraisal of the appraisal process.

Zen Buddhism was adopted by the Japanese Samurai during the Kamakura era (12th-14th centuries). The study and practice of Zen was designed to 'set them free from the fear of death' by changing their perception of death. This belief/faith system was designed to intervene in the primary appraisal stage of the appraisal process so that a life-threatening stimulus was not appraised as a threat to their well-being.

The reciting of Psalm 23 - 'Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me' - by soldiers in combat is designed to intervene in the secondary appraisal of the appraisal process. It is designed to increase the perception of their resources to deal with a threat to their life by enlisting the support of their Christian god.

The ways and means of managing fear can all be better understood by understanding and studying our appraisal process.