Copyright © Geoff Thompson 2004
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‘A whole army may be robbed of its spirit, a commander-in-chief may be robbed of his presence of mind.’

The Tao of paradox:

‘Those who strategise, use the tao of paradox.
Thus, when able, they appear unable.
When employed, they appear useless.
When close, they appear distant.
When distant, they appear close.
They lure through advantages,
And take control through confusion.
When complete, they appear to prepare.
When forceful, they appear evasive.
When angry, they appear to submit.
When proud, they appear to be humble.
When comfortable, they appear to toil.
When attached, they appear separated.
They attack when the opponent is unprepared,
And appear when least expected.
This is the strategist’s way of triumph.
It must not be discussed beforehand.’

Sun Tzu

Adrenalin Switches

This chapter deals with the art of fighting on an internal level, the art of intangible fighting if you like. l shall list different ways of operating your opponent’s adrenalin, switching it off, begetting overconfidence in the attacker by feigning submissiveness, or switching it on to fool the opponent’s reasoning process into believing they are scared (psyched out) by feigning fearlessness, or using physical or psychological stimuli.

For every fight that I have witnessed or have been involved in where a physical response was employed, there have been another three where victory was gained over an adversary with guile as opposed to force, attacking the mind rather than the body. All that is involved is a little acting.

POSITIVE ADRENALIN SWITCH

‘When speakers cannot hear each other, act with drums and bells.
When observers cannot see each other, act with banners and flags.
Thus, those that are bold will not advance alone.’

The Chun Cheng

In previous chapters we have already spoken about adrenal dump, how it can affect the human body and how the reasoning process mistakes adrenalin for fear, thus triggering the flight response. By giving an opponent an adrenal release we trigger the natural instinct to either freeze or run, both of which would have been very natural defences against prehistoric beasts that were too fearsome to stand and fight or whose eyesight was poor and would not be able to see a frozen enemy, only attacking when they sensed movement. In this society freezing is not always an option and may only get you battered by an antagonist that will use a frozen adversary as a punch-bag. Neither is society kind to the fellow that runs away from danger. The contemporary enemy and peer pressure force the adrenal syndrome into antiquity.

A person that understands this syndrome can use it to great advantage as an attacking tool, especially against an enemy that understands it not.

While the terminology may appear a little complex, the practice is not.

It is fair to say that it will take great presence of mind to make use of adrenalin switches.

When attempting to switch the opponent’s adrenalin on, there are different roles you can adopt: animal, veteran or recognition.

THE ANIMAL APPROACH

This is the ‘mad man/woman’ approach, aiming to instil fear into your potential assailant by becoming loud, aggressive and challenging, thus making the attacker feel that he has bitten off more than he can chew. ‘When ignorance is mutual, confidence is king.’

MULTIPLE ADRENALIN KICKS

The animal approach may induce adrenal dump in your assailant. If his adrenalin is already in operation it will give it a second or even a third kick. His reasoning process will mistake adrenal dump for fear and possibly force him to abort. As an added bonus your aggression will also draw attention to your dilemma, which can also induce adrenalin, again complicating things for the attacker.

‘There were three blokes standing around me, ready to batter me. I was shitting myself, I knew I was gonna take a kicking so I stood in this kind of Kung Fu stance and started screaming and shouting at them, things like “come on you wankers, I’ll fight you all.” They all shit themselves, ran off. I couldn’t believe it.’

CASE HISTORIES

We are manipulating man’s natural instinct to want to run as opposed to fight. By triggering adrenalin in an opponent I am also triggering his flight response. When he feels like running away, because society looks poorly on a runner, it will cause mass self-doubt in the opponent and, hopefully, cause him to capitulate. Everything in life has its opposite and the danger with any positive adrenalin switch is that it can backfire on you. If the recipient overrides the urge to capitulate, the release may make him stronger and faster – a dangerous adversary indeed. I only use a positive adrenalin switch if I see a chink in the opponent’s armour. This perception has come from many years of dealing with violence and violent people. If you can’t read an opponent then I wouldn’t recommend employing this tactic; better to stick with submissiveness and use it as a negative adrenalin switch.

THE VETERAN APPROACH

‘A guy bumped in to me in the pub, I just turned to say sorry and he said, “Who you fucking pushing?”

‘I tried to explain that it was an accident but he wouldn’t have it. He said, “Do ya wanna step outside?”

‘He obviously meant for a fight. I didn’t want to but I thought I’d try and bluff it. I kept really calm, never got angry or nothing and said “Yeah, actually I do.” The guy went pale and started to retreat. He ended up buying me a drink.’

CASE HISTORIES

This cool devil-may-care attitude suggests to the antagonist you are, because of your blatant disconcern, unperturbed by his threat or a veteran fighter who has trod this path many times before. This causes opponent adrenal dump, psyching the antagonist out and stopping his intended onslaught. Not many people will enter into a confrontation if they think there is a chance of them getting hurt. The story below about Master Abbe is a classic example:

Master Abbe, a world-renowned martial arts teacher, was walking down a quiet suburban street on his way home after his usual nightly teaching session. He noticed three hoodlums hovering, several yards away on the opposite side of the street. When they approached him he was ready. ‘Give us your money or you’ll get hurt,’ said the leader of the three. Master Abbe looked at each one in turn, then casually took his wallet out of his jacket pocket, throwing it on the floor between him and his antagonists. He pointed to the wallet and said, ‘I’m prepared to die for that wallet. What about you?’ The three would-be attackers looked at the wallet on the floor, then at Abbe, then at each other. Without further ado they all ran away, obviously not prepared to die for the wallet. Master Abbe picked up his wallet and calmly walked home.

I have known this approach work hundreds of times, I have used it dozens of times myself. There is a danger however. If you throw a challenge it may be met and accepted; if it is you had better be able to back it up or be able to back-pedal in a hurry. I never throw a challenge unless I am totally committed to following that challenge through, should it be accepted. I train to take that challenge so if it is accepted I will know what to do. Many people do not and are completely flummoxed when their antagonist says ‘yeah, I’ll have some of that!’ What this does is cause an adrenal rush in you and the whole process is reversed. So if this approach is employed be committed to follow it through – just in case.

A friend of mine, he shall remain nameless, tried the veteran approach; he told his antagonist in a very calm manner that if he wasn’t happy that they would have to ‘sort it out on the common’ not really expecting him to meet the challenge. ‘All right,’ came the reply, ‘let’s do it now!’

My mate dropped his bottle quicker than a greasy-palmed milkman. The bottom line was that my mate had no idea of how to do a square go (a match fight).

THE RECOGNITION PLOY

I often teach people, as a pre-cursory action trigger to pre-emption, to ask their assailants a question to engage their brain. The question can be relative to what is happening or abstract: ‘Is your mum’s name Elsie?’ or ‘How’s your mother/family/brother these days?’ Many of my students have found this effective. An excellent by-product of this is that the potential attacker doesn’t realise that it is an engaging ploy and often thinks his chosen victim has recognised him, and really does know his mother/brother/sister, etc. Again, they often beat a hasty retreat before attack.

Warning: This kind of ploy is only useful in the very early stages of the attacker’s ritual and only if the locale is right. If you have been abducted or are completely detached from the herd it could be dangerous. Many attackers kill their victims if they think that they have been recognised.

This kind of ploy is only useful in the very early stages of the attacker’s ritual and only if the locale is right. If you have been abducted or are completely detached from the herd it could be dangerous. Many attackers kill their victims if they think that they have been recognised.

One young lady I teach told me the story of how the ploy saved her and her friends from what could have been a nasty attack/rape:

‘We, myself and two girlfriends, had come out of the nightclub at about 2.15 a.m. and couldn’t get a taxi. We don’t live that far from the town so we decided to walk. A few minutes out of town we noticed a group of lads, about six in all, following us. We all felt very scared. As they got closer they started shouting and jeering, they were really crude. We all felt as though we were going to be attacked or something. As they were almost up on us I turned round and smiled at the one nearest to us, ‘How’s your mum these days?’ I asked him. Well, he nearly fell over. He obviously thought I really did know his mum. They couldn’t get away from us quick enough after that.’

CASE HISTORIES

In all these cases your intention is to frighten the adversary, via your portrayal, into aborting his attack attempt. The common street term for this process is psyching out.

Whether you opt for the animal, veteran or recognition approach it is always wise to prepare for its failure by ‘lining-up’ the antagonist, in preparation for preemption, just in case.

The Kiaa spirit shout, (a loud shout employed by Karate practitioners to reinforce technique and spirit), is also very effective for psyching out a would-be attacker. The American Red Indians used a similar principle of war cries and war paint to instil fear into their enemies before battle, with great effect. Also eye contact, a sharp poke into the opponent’s chest, a firm push, even a slap across the face can cause adrenal dump in an opponent that often leads to capitulation.

THE NEGATIVE ADRENALIN SWITCH

‘Hence, those skilled in the use of strategy evade when the spirit is sharp,
And confront when the spirit is idle or withdrawn.
When able, appear unable. When prepared appear unprepared.’

Sun Tzu

As a parallel to the psyche out you can attempt to disarm your opponent by switching his adrenalin off. This ploy is used when you feel that a physical confrontation is definitely on the cards or you can’t read whether the opponent might fall for the psyche out. By being submissive and switching the attacker’s adrenalin off with non-confrontational verbal, an attacker can be talked down from his rage, or primed for your pre-emptive attack.

So, if you can’t get to grips with the psyche out, for whatever reason, you may wish to adopt this approach and play the situation down by feigning capitulation. This is often ideal when all other options are exhausted. Again acting is employed. This time, you are trying to relax and mentally disarm the attacker. You do this by pretending that you are more scared than you really are, even to the extent that you tell the attacker you are scared and don’t want any trouble: ‘Please don’t hurt me’. This will fool the attacker’s reasoning process into believing that you are already beaten, thus switching off his adrenalin, causing overconfidence and probably even effecting premature endorphine release (the body releases a natural morphine into the body after adversity). This will drop his defences long enough for you to make a pre-emptive escape or attack and escape.

This ploy can be devastatingly effective because the antagonist will be so mentally disarmed that your unexpected escape/strike will have maximum effect. Because the attacker’s body has prematurely dropped its defences (thinking that the danger has gone), your pre-emptive strike will be undetected and unopposed. If you can convince the antagonist that you are going to capitulate and are therefore not a danger to him he will, consciously or subconsciously, drop his mental guard. If you attack at this moment of disarmament your success rate increases immeasurably. Again we are presuming knowledge here. Dropping your opponent’s defence and creating a window of attack is of little use if you are not skilled in attack. The following story is a lengthy yet perfect example of a negative adrenalin switch. It is taken from my autobiographical book Watch My Back.

‘Kev, the best right-hand puncher on God’s earth, was a master of ‘talking distance’. He’s only about five foot six tall, with an ever so receding hair line, but with bulldog-like shoulders. His face was gruff but handsome, with a very soft voice and respectful manner. He was very similar to myself in that he didn’t seem the doorman type. He was a gentleman of the door, but my goodness, could he have a fight. A classic example of talking distance, or switching ‘adrenalin off ’ was when Kev was working the door at the infamous Reflections, where five dead was just a stag night.

‘Two name fighters, who were also brothers, had started fighting with a couple of other lads on the dance floor of the nightclub. When Kev arrived on the scene the brothers were just finishing off their victims. The brothers were bullies. Kev and the other doormen ejected the battered and bruised men from the club, then told the brothers they also had to leave. They refused, point blank. Knowing their ‘rep’ for violence, Kev went into his time served and hard practised routine, “Come on lads, don’t be like that. I’m only doing my job. Look, I’m supposed to be head doorman here. If the manager thinks that I’m backing down to you I’m going to look a right idiot. Just come up to the bar and we’ll talk about it. You don’t have to leave, it’s just to look good in front of the manager.” They bought it, hook, line and sinker, probably thinking what a “softy” Kev was and revelling in their embryonic victory. They were both well and truly disarmed.

‘At the bar Kev made his play, “lining them both up” with a right, “Look lads, we’ve thrown the other two out, now you’ve got to go as well,” he said sternly.

‘Anger hit their faces. The first brother launched himself into an attack at Kev, but Kev was already primed and cocked.

‘“BANG!” They were both in sleepsville.’

Reflections

Climbing inside the opponent and switching on/off his fight or flight response to beat him with guile as opposed to force is advanced play and needs great understanding to employ with conviction. Practice is of the essence if you want it to work and not backfire on you.