Are you composed in extraordinary situations?

"A truly brave man is ever serene"
-Inazo Nitobe

After reviewing the chapter from Inazo Nitobe's Soul of Bushido on courage, I felt the need to explore the idea of composure a bit more. From one angle we look at it through a self defense lens. Do people have the necessary mindset to defend themselves if they are attacked by someone armed or unarmed? Through a martial sports lens, does an MMA fighter or Judoka have the ability to compete with 50,000 people watching? Could you handle extraordinary situations?

Lets define composure as the ability to remain calm in calamitous, dangerous or extraordinary circumstances.

Ellis Cashmore wrote a book called Sport and Exercise Psychology. He mentions coping strategies. He explains, "A coping strategy is a deliberate, rationally planned program for contending with persons or circumstances that might otherwise produce anxiety and stress". By using coping strategies, a person prepares to deal with these extraordinary situations. So what are some strategies to calm the mind that you can incorporate into your martial arts training?

How to increase your composure:
1. Don't allow emotions get in the way / Breathing
A blog from Psychology Today, talks about how breathing can help calm emotions. Here are a couple of Youtube videos to help you work on your breathing. It is probably a good idea to practice breathing in a variety of different scenarios.

Just practice this one at home:

Good to practice while moving and performing techniques:

2. Skills development:
To develop a calm demeanor, practice practice practice. A 2009 study, evaluated a surgeon's ability to perform during life and death situations. The study showed that surgeon's used simple learned techniques and skills to facilitate performance in critical situations. Confidence and composure came from competence and skill development to handle these situations.

The same can be applied to everyday life and your specific martial arts journey. Like the example of the surgeons, they developed confidence by reinforcing their skill set. And as I talked about with motor imagery, the more you work on a skill the more confidence you gain, the more confidence you gain the more composed you are during these situations.

3. Respond decisively:
Hopefully, if you practice both breathing techniques and martial techniques you will be able to respond to any event decisively.

In martial sports, you need to work on your composure in front of audiences, aka hecklers and the such. The public relations side of fighting is intense and fighters should join every tournament they can to get used to the crowd and media and fighting in front of the crowd and media.

In self defense you need to practice scenarios which simulate possible encounters. The FBI statistics of 2013, show that the top 3 kinds of attacks associated with assault and robberies are unarmed, firearm, and knife attacks. One most likely would need to train defensively against unarmed attacks, firearm attacks and knife attacks. Even though the chance of having one of these encounter is low, it could possibly happen.

(Here is the corresponding podcast )


- Dwight

References:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2014/01/20/7-ways-leaders-maintain-their-composure-in-difficult-times/

https://books.google.com/books?id=8wZ9AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA102&dq=sport+composure&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dL2aVfrBFNGqyASJxLXAAw&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=sport%20composure&f=false

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-wise-open-mind/201205/4-simple-steps-more-composure-and-calmness