Rock Climbing

There is an old expression No man knows fear until it comes to him. There is a lot more meaning to this statement than there first appears too.

Let me relate the expertise of a man I knew named Mike who was a excellent buddy who frequently challenged himself mentally and physically. 1 approach he did this was in ‘technical mountain climbing’. Soon after a few years of this he was given his initial ‘lead climber’ position.

That meant he was the ‘point man’ and he had to climb the rock face initial and put the chocks into the rock to provide the safety rope for the other people to follow.

He was on a ledge and had to cross a missing component of that ledge to reach the other side. If he fell it was particular death of course. Mike seemed to me to fancy himself a sort of “hero” kind in his own mind and he usually had an exaggerated thought of his abilities in numerous places, but he was competent in most. But he told me that one thing quite remarkable occurred when he extended his right leg out over the abyss to reach that small ‘foothold’ on the other side of the ledge.

He was surprised to see and feel that his leg was as he put it, “moving up and down like a sewing machine needle’. He was genuinely surprised to see and really feel his body involuntarily trembling with fear. A higher information of fear had thus come to him.

One factor I wish to point out here is that while his mind had not however registered fear as he initially attempted to cross the ledge gap, his body was surely and drastically had. And his body was reacting to that fear very first. Hence, he had a genuine epiphany here about himself and the nature of accurate fear as properly.

That encounter is an “awakening’ and an act of true self-discovery and you surely do not have to take up technical mountain climbing to expertise it ether. It is precisely a portion of that self-discovery that we give the circumstances for our attendants to engage and experience in at our RMCAT training too. You see there does not have to be any genuine danger of death, we only have to initial convince the ‘body’ that there is since the self-conscious mind will be partially dragged along with the body each time.

Mike’s self-aware mind had to ‘catch up’ with his body’s message and engage the fear of death too and that occurred when he saw and felt his leg involuntarily ‘moving up and down like sewing machine needle”. It is significantly the very same way at RMCAT Training several times too.

But there is more to the story and it is really bit enlightening about this physiological/psychological process too.

Mike ultimately, after a number of minutes of attempting and stopping many times crossed the ledge gap and the climb proceeded. He was the lead climber and so he had the climbing team sit on the safety of some significant flat rocks to take breather.

He told me the view was beyond magnificent and as he looked back at the ledge he had just crossed he could barely envision how he had managed to cross it. He told me that he felt a bursting sense of accomplishment no person could get to the spot they had been at now and see that view unless they too faced and conquered the fear of that crossing!

And then, from nowhere and impossibly he heard a voice call out in a heavy British accent:

″ I saw old man, would you have a hammer?”

Mike then saw a man with no gear at all but a chalk bag about his waist effortlessly swing past the ledge gap and into view. He then climbed up to Mike’s position completely unassisted and completely without any protection. He behaved as if he were strolling by way of Garden State Park.

Mike stated he was rendered absolutely speechless with disbelief and then man asked him once again.

″ I say there, a hammer sir, could you spot me a hammer? I saw some rather fascinating old pitons there at the ledge, I collect them you see? Need to have a bloody hammer to take them out”.

]]>

Mike gathered his senses about him just barely sufficient to hand the man his climbing hammer.

′I thank you, be back in a jiffy” the Englishman stated as he merrily returned to the deadly ledge gap and then crawled about the sheer rock face happily extracting the old pitons.

Now think about this please. What was it that created this quirky Englishman so apparently fearless at the identical ledge crossing that left Mike’s knee’s shaking and which held up his climbing team for almost twenty minutes?

Was the Englishman truly fearless, or was he just crazy? Was he so naïve that somehow he felt he could not possibly fall? Had he ever noticed everyone else fall to their death? These are all excellent question which we can’t positively answer with any actual certainty either, but possibly the accurate answer is a ‘mixed bag’ of a bit of all these things too.

But here is something I can say with undoubtedly here This was not the fist time that strange ‘Brit’ had been mountain climbing!

Now if you see that truth then you ought to see that there had to be initial time for him too, perhaps there was even a ‘shaking knee experience’ many years ago for him like Mike’s when he was on his really first ‘lead climb’ position.

Now some might basically say ” Nicely, the guy was just so used to it that it did not scare him anymore”. This is accurate, but these words simplify and truncate a lot of processes here. And I would say almost to the point of obscuring those processes.

Remember, that Mike’s knees shaking and his leg moving like a ‘sewing machine needle’ had been autonomic responses to his body perceiving the deadly danger. Hence, this occurred prior to his “self aware” mind experiencing ‘feelings’ of fear. The physiological autonomic, spastic, non self-awre motor response came very first, then came the self-conscious cognition of ‘fear”.

How had the British climber then managed to by pass this autonomic response and reach the mental state of apparent ‘fearlessness’ that he had? To say he got used that way by “acquiring utilised to it” is accurate, but this is also far too basic an explanation as well.

His previous climbing experience had provided him with repeated exposures to the adrenal complex dump in the ‘mountain climbing context’ and had thus given him the opportunity to create adrenal management skills. That is what adrenal anxiety driven scenario based training does as well.

This is the very same sort of productive training encounter that an airline pilot, or a combat fighter pilot being trained in a flight simulator experiences too. This dependable biochemistry is why simulator training and scenario based training is so really powerfully successful too.

It works on the biochemistry of the individual. Understand too that it is these involuntary, non self-conscious adrenal stress driven responses that are the genuine problem in conflicts of any sort with other human beings too. Those conflicts can be at the office, in individual relationships or wherever.

But creating adrenal management abilities are the specifically demanded and are the essence of the difficulty in preparing a person for survival and combat. And authentic simulations and simulators have nicely proven themselves as a superior training method to any other here.

When we overcome a fear, we are studying to overcome fears. When we recognize the role our non self-aware mind has in affecting 1 behavior, we have the tool necessary to see that otherwise ‘unseen’ process in other behaviors, especially the ones that ‘do not serve out interests’. This is a true important to correcting those behaviors and in all walks of life.

We have already discussed the unique qualities and durability of adrenal memoirs. They are at the root of all PTSD of course. And this mechanism is why scenario based, adrenal tension simulation training ‘can’t be forgotten’. The idea of ‘forget’ basically does not apply here.

The response trained under the adrenal tension driven simulation will be the automatic response that occurs when the cues that were present in the simulation seem in the genuine scenario.

For example, a woman is grabbed violently from behind in a poorly lighted region walking to her car. Just before she know it her body has side shifted and her open hand has slapped a snapping blow among the legs of the attacker. The action is immediately repeated and continuously and without thought, but only intent as she screams until that attacker releases. Then she turns instantly and strikes him with a very effective heel of palm carrying her full and articulated body weight under his chin. It is only now that her self-aware mind realizes she is under attack. Now she can use that’ self-aware mind for a fluid decision as to her very best tactical selection, fight or flight?

But what occurred UP to that point in time (fractions of a second) was not decided on as it was totally automatic. This is because this motor response had been previously programmed into her by means of adrenal stress driven scenario-based training. That is in an ‘authentic simulation and simulator’ that engaged the adrenal response.

There is and can be far more to this type of simulation training which is required because of its reliability and power. As soon as the simple motor responses are programmed into the body then some level of communication has been established with the amygdala (‘frog brain’ which is not self-aware, but is an initiator of gross muscle responses) and the self-aware mind.

This communication between these two brain centers is a primary training aim too. Taken further, this communication can be developed to give an adrenal initiated but far more ‘discriminatory response’. But that demands a portion of the self-conscious mind be involved and there lies the challenge.

While it is via the self-aware mind that we have the type of understanding or instruction everybody is familiar with, it is an additional challenge to develop an instantly initiated ‘mental orientation’ with the autonomic survival instinct (amygdala) while engaging a limited set of choices held in the self-conscious mind. Experience has demonstrated to me nonetheless that this is possible to attain.

After all we can’t have the woman who is grabbed behind by somebody ‘meaning her no harm’ (possibly a careless and unthinking acquaintance) being so instantly and efficiently counter attacked as accurate assailant would be.

Let me say that the necessity of developing this limited set of discrimination options held in the self-conscious mind becomes greatly increased when teaching the use of firearms under adrenal tension.

But then when would any rational and decent person use a firearm on another human being except under a high adrenal state? Hence training for ‘fire-control discipline’ is very essential here. Simply because no matter what the adrenal response is the only thing you can consistently count on in any real survival situation is that adrenal dump.

That adrenal dump is unfamiliar to most and it freezes up most. It makes them hesitate or flail ineffectually, but it is the fantastic survival edge of the adrenaline conditioned.

We have this biochemical response inside us to support maintain us alive. But socialization has estranged several of us from these extremely effective survival instincts and so rather of assisting us in our survival they can turn into our single greatest difficulty.