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REALITY BITES
Author: Meredith Gold
You’re Grabbed From Behind and feel a knife pressed to your throat. Adrenaline floods your body as you try to get your bearings and figure out what to do. Your hands are trembling, your pulse is racing and although it’s hard to hear above the sound of your own heart pounding, you’re pretty sure you hear a voice telling you that if you don’t get in the car, you will be killed.
Amazingly, you find yourself talking to the guy—telling him you don’t need to get hurt. He should relax and put the knife down so you can give him what he wants. But his energy tells you he won’t be dissuaded—he wants to hurt you. That’s it. It’s time to go! In a flash, you reach up and pluck the knife away from your throat. Using both hands to control his weapon hand, you spin around and smash the blade back into your assailant’s face. He’s reeling from the blow when you deliver a full-force knee to the groin. As he drops, you finish him off with a blistering knee to the head.
Now what? Get the heck out of there? Call 911? Both are great ideas, but for now, just go to the end of the line and let your classmate take his turn. This is Adrenal-Stress Scenario Training. It’s wild, it’s raunchy and it’s as real as you can get within the bounds of safety. This awesome self-defense method doesn’t count style points; the goal is to tap into your fighting spirit and do what’s necessary to survive. Is it refined or beautiful? Not a chance. Is it effective?
Absolutely.
Train for Chaos
Anyone who’s been assaulted knows that the chances of it going down the way you practiced in the dojo are slim to none. Fights are sloppy, scary and unpredictable. Most of the time, people are talking trash, hitting below the belt and flailing far more than they’re connecting. Real violent encounters are challenging to prepare for in a traditional martial arts environment because most systems use techniques that begin and end the same way and involve little or no authentic anxiety or fear. “Dirty shots” and full-force blows to vital targets also require a level of protective gear that most schools just don’t have.
That’s where ASST comes in. It prepares you to deal with the unpredictable nature of an assault by combining ever-changing realistic verbal and physical scenarios with simple, gross motor movement-based defenses practiced full force and full speed against heavily protected mock-assailants, or “muggers.” It allows you to taste adrenaline and stress in the safety of a controlled environment and discover what will and won’t work in the heat of battle.
Whether you’re a novice or an expert, male or female, out of shape or at the top of your game, ASST will take your skills to a whole new level.
My friend, combatives expert W.
Hock Hochheim, has a saying: “Train for chaos, thrive in chaos.” The fact is, a real assault can be overwhelmingly chaotic, with adrenaline pumping, time both slowing down and speeding up, physical coordination going out the window and even the simplest thought process becoming hard to handle. If you haven’t trained for it in a chaotic manner, there’s no way to really know how you will respond in a crisis. You’ve got to get real in order to be ready.
This concept has taken hold in the martial arts world. In the 10-plus years I’ve taught ASST programs (including RMCAT and my own R-A-W Power), the shift toward reality- based training has been unmistakable. A lot of good programs are now available, and those that use ASST are among the most useful and educational of the lot.
I feature ASST regularly in Black Belt’s Beyond Technique column, and I’ve been gratified by the interest readers have shown. So I thought I’d take this opportunity to provide an FAQ and include some additional information you’ll find helpful.
• Where Did ASST Come From?
The training method and protective gear were developed in the early 1970s as a women’s self-defense program called Model Mugging—because the realistic scenarios were “modeled” on real-world assaults. Behind it were Matt Thomas and several colleagues.
The program offered everyday women a fast and effective way to learn and dynamically apply verbal and physical skills to survive the types of assaults they were most likely to encounter.
Over the past 30 years, scores of talented people have contributed to the evolution of the original concept, and today the core ideas and padded “mugger suit” have spun off into a variety of programs that range from children’s safety and awareness to martial arts applications against the gear. Unfortunately, because they existed on the periphery of the traditional martial arts community and catered to a predominantly female audience, for many years programs that used ASST were viewed with a skeptical eye.
That changed when Peyton Quinn and Michael Haynack saw how effective the training method and protective gear were. They decided to integrate them into their RMCAT program, and as a result many people within the martial arts world now embrace this tool and refer to it as the “Cadillac of reality-based training.”
• Why Is Adrenal Stress Conditioning Important?
If you’ve ever been in a fight, a heated verbal confrontation or any extremely stressful situation, you’ve probably had a taste of the negative effects adrenaline can have, including an inability to think rationally or speak effectively, a loss of fine motor skills, tunnel vision and auditory exclusion.
Because of that, the outcome frequently is not a matter of skill but of who’s more accustomed to dealing with adrenaline.
People who work in high-danger jobs such as the military, law enforcement and bouncing generally become adept at functioning effectively under the stress of adrenaline because of repeated exposure. It’s been proved that the more you experience it, the easier it becomes to stay focused, coordinated and powerful. ASST provides a way for those of us who don’t have a dangerous job to learn how to be effective while experiencing adrenal stress. You get the repeated exposure without having to put yourself in harm’s way.
Research in neurobiology has shown that learning anything in an adrenalized state accesses a different part of the brain than does cognitive learning, making it easier to recall and access information and skills while under stress. That makes it the perfect learning state for self-defense.
During your first few scenarios, you feel chaos and confusion, but before long you find yourself doing and saying things you never imagined you would. In the course of one day, people have been transformed from tongue-tied, flailing messes into confident verbal de-escalators who fight with accuracy and focus.
• Why Is There Such an Emphasis on Verbal Skills?
The goal of ASST is to make the attack scenarios unpredictable, evolving and ambiguous so they feel as real and dangerous as possible.
Just like in a real fight or conflict, they never happen the same way twice, so you must respond in the moment and be ready for anything.
A big part of that unpredictability involves a verbal exchange. Many assailants use their words as the opening volley to see if you’ll make a good victim, so knowing what to say and how to say it may well determine what direction the conflict takes.
To prepare you for that, as well as to desensitize you to the power of their often-harsh language, the padded assailants assume a variety of characters and personality types as they engage you in dynamic verbal-boundary setting and de-escalation situations. You must use words as a first line of defense, which is easier said than done.
While we all understand the importance of “talking your way out of a fight,” until you’ve actually tried it while your adrenaline is flowing, it’s hard to grasp just how difficult it can be to stay calm, relaxed and focused enough to speak effectively.
People often regard the verbal component as the most challenging and useful portion of the training.
Many would rather just hit the jerk, but the goal is to de-escalate a situation and avoid a fight if possible.
Therefore, it makes sense to practice your verbal skills as much as your physical technique.
• What Physical Techniques Does ASST Use?
We concentrate on gross motor movements that will survive the effects of an adrenaline dump. Techniques that are commonly used include palms, knees and elbows. Simple and solid, they keep your weight low and body centered, are safe to deliver full force and full speed, and have proved themselves effective in real-world confrontations.
There’s also a comprehensive ground-fighting and rape-defense component because, especially in the case of attacks against women, that’s often where the victim ends up.
The basic course focuses on only a handful of techniques because until you get used to the physiological effects of adrenaline, you may find it impossible to execute anything more elaborate. When you combine verbal harassment with the physical threat posed by the mugger, it may not occur to your reptilian brain to do much more than use instinctive movements.
Hitting with power is the name of the game because these guys are so well-padded that there’s no hesitation on their part about engaging.
If you don’t strike effectively, they will keep attacking.
As your training progresses, things get increasingly scrappy and wild. You find that your shots are being blocked, your techniques are being countered, and weapons or multiple assailants might enter the picture. But because your body has grown more used to the effects of adrenaline, you handle it.
Experienced martial artists find they can suddenly access many of their techniques under extreme stress, and novices learn how to hit with accuracy and power.
• What’s the Deal With the Protective Gear?
Some programs call it the “mugger suit,” while others refer to it as the “bulletman.” No matter what you call it, there’s no getting around the fact that this custom-made protective gear looks like Mr. Potato Head on steroids.
Designed and built-to-order by Mark Morris, one of the originators of this training method, the gear can comfortably withstand full-force and fullspeed blows to the most vital targets.
Critics have called it bulky and slow, and while it may look that way, it offers a level of protection and maneuverability that is truly state of the art.
Commercially available protective gear works well for its designated purpose (baton training, sparring, etc.), but anyone who has received a fullpower blow to the head or groin knows that it leaves a lot to be desired in terms of protection. The ASST gear is specifically designed for maximum protection of those important targets.
Its main components are a professional football helmet covered with three inches of varying densities of foam and a two-layer “super groin protector” designed to dissipate and redirect force.
Students must be able to strike vital areas with full force and speed if they are to have an authentic fighting experience. While the gear does allow that, it’s not foolproof and simply putting it on doesn’t protect the wearer 100 percent. Muggers must undergo rigorous training to learn how to use the suit safely and understand its limitations —for example, chokes are not possible because of the shape of the helmet, and joint locks are simply too dangerous to use in spontaneous scenarios.
That being said, high kicks and falls can be easily executed, making martial arts applications very dynamic.
• How Can ASST Help Me With My Martial Art?
Members of a group I recently worked with called ASST “the next level” in their martial arts training.
That’s fairly accurate. It’s not a replacement but a great addition to anyone’s existing regimen. It provides an opportunity for practical application of techniques with no fear of harming your opponent and allows you to answer a variety of would-that-really-work questions in a visceral way.
Physical technique almost always deteriorates at full power, but you don’t usually find out until the heat is on—and that’s a little too late. One advantage of ASST is that you can really unleash and discover which techniques will and won’t work in spontaneous scenarios. In a crisis, your focus can’t be on perfect technique; it has to be on getting the job done and going home in one piece.
Realistic scenarios practiced under adrenal-stress conditions are the next best thing to the trial-by-fire of an actual street encounter.
I like to think of ASST as the “fire drill” of the self-defense world: You hope you don’t have to use it and you don’t want to use it, but if the situation requires it, you need to know that your skills will survive the stress of reality.
Final Thoughts
The benefits are obvious from a martial arts/physical point of view, but it’s what you’re not expecting to get from a full-blown self-defense program that really makes ASST special— that is, a feeling of personal empowerment and accomplishment. It’s an unavoidable byproduct of training. All people have questions or concerns about their ability to respond effectively in a crisis, and this training method allows you to test your skills in a safe way. No matter what your experience level is, it will boost your confidence and help you smash through your personal barriers. ...
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