ARTICLE | FIGHTING THE MIND | by Orjan Pettersen

Most fights, unless a surprise knockout is achieved or broken limbs or deadly force force is applied, do not end with overwhelming physical damage causing the body of one of the participants being unable to go on fighting.

They end because one of the parties decide to give up.

They were beaten psychologically. For whatever reason; some pain, damage or other difficulty meant the motivation to fight was not as strong as the motivation to stop.

This isn’t dojo stuff. Street violence isn’t typically ended by a pain-inducing biomechanics lock being applied, or a successful defence against a strike and a counter-strike being done (and, in the dojo, cue; the end of the training drill) and definitely not by a coach or a referee or a rule infringement.

It mostly ends because the weaker mind, or rather the mind with the lesser inclination to continue based on the force application received thus far, decides to call it a day.

This means to be ready to defend yourself in real life, we need to prepare ourselves for the psychology of the fight. We need to make it difficult for the mind of the aggressor to continue. To do this, there’s more involved that just hitting, striking and kicking to give some pain and damage.

Let’s check out some of the elements that plays on an opponent’s mind and how you can weaken it to dissolve or reduce the motivation to fight or cut off the adrenaline boost driving the aggression needed for the fight.

Create chaos. Your opponent has a simple plan in his mind, possibly not going beyond one or two punches, depending on experience and skill. Make the plan much harder. Can you move somewhere with barriers between you and him? And just keep moving around there. That’s not in his plan. Can you just move in constantly different directions? It’s all designed to overload the mind of the aggressor by something else than what was his plan, whilst the adrenaline starts to peter out or reduce. As long as something else than his plan is being executed, the advantage is with you. Time and chaos created by you is on your side.

Keep moving. Being a moveable, hard-to-reach target (if you have the room) is beneficial to you. Predators sometimes give up if the victim is too much hard work. If nothing else, if you’re moving, even in your recognised fighting style, always evading, the aggressor will have to adapt to you, being on the back foot having to react to you. Conversely, you’re now the guy with a plan and in charge. Don’t stand still.

Keep talking. Can you keep engaging his mind by conversation? If so, it halts the mental plan he had. Keep conversation neutral. Non-aggressive. Inquisitive. Ask questions to stimulate his brain activity. You’re after distractions. The more, the better. Again, time is your friend. Adrenaline-dispersion your goal. No one can fight you at the same time as their neocortex is searching for responses to intellectual stimuli. This is also your time to plan. Where are the exits? Do I have improvised weapons around? Who can help me? Exploit your opportunities.

Use everything. If you’re evenly matched or you’re even in a weaker physical or defensible position than the aggressor (which is highly likely, at least in his eyes, otherwise the fight wouldn’t be on), then change his mind about it. What are the weapons around you that can change the dynamics and make the motivation on his part lesser? Do you have something akin to an impact weapon? Or a sharper instrument? Use them defensively to show you have some skills in application (if you do). Even a tactical torch, a tactical pen or a heavy-belt buckle are useful tools which can always be with you. Otherwise, use the environment around you. You want to change from a position of victim to predator in his mind, if a fight seems unavoidable.

Find the mental weak spots. If you do end up in an in-fight physical altercation, target the psychologically exposed areas of the attacker. Think: can’t see, can’t breathe. Gouge eyes with fingertips or thumbs. Squeeze or hit the larynx and trachea. Grab or hit the testicles. Bite vulnerable parts. Scream directly into the ears. At a longer distance, kick knees. Hard. Aim to break them. The body can take a lot of damage but the mind is predisposed to protect some parts more than others. Use this. You want the mind of the attacker to freeze or give up as the primary goal. Play on the parts it’s more inclined to protect. You need to do this explosively, fast and mercilessly though to get the desired effect. Prepare your own mind for it. It’s not dojo stuff.

Play on social conditioning. To avoid a monkey dance that’s got out of hand, give the aggressor what he wants; ‘You win, tough guy, I give up, I’d just like to leave’. If you think that’s embarrassing, be aware that continuing a monkey dance in any case render you criminally culpable, winning or losing the ensuing fight. It’s an ‘Am I a man or a monkey?’ question. Are you in control of yourself? (Are you a free man or caged monkey?). On the other hand, making threats (‘I’m going to kill you!’) will have the opposite psychological effect; you’ve now told the opponent that if you fight, he’ll have to fight for his life. Not easy for his mind to give up now, is it? You just set your own bar much, much higher to achieve; you need a knock-out or inflict serious injury - and you just made your self-defence claim a lot harder in the post-fight interview with the authorities.

Since most fights end by people giving up, rather than being beaten to unconscious submission, this should be your first goal. Anything you can do to delay or distract the mind of the aggressor from their plan is good for you.

If your self defence training doesn’t take this into account - and purely focuses on the techniques and striking in isolation - you’re missing a trick.

Communication, movement, use of the environment and nasty ‘taboo’ application of what most people will not recognise as ‘fair fighting’ are essential parts of the pre-and post-fight skills of a Krav Maga self defence practitioner.

You fight the body, but you beat the mind. Just like in your own training, the psychology of the criminal is no different.

The mind gives up before the body does.