Janka's log

And now for something completely different.

We often talk about a "fight or flight" reaction, but the truth is that instead of either, most people freeze when something sudden and threatening happens. There are a lot of reasons for why they freeze, and a lot of theories about what exactly goes on and why did evolution lead us to something that seems so borked a reaction, too, in case you are interested. This post is about my experiences in teaching people how to stop doing so in a particular situation.

Situation is this. In the computer game EVE Online, players often participate in player-vs-player combat against other players. While obviously not a real threat in the sense of someone actually risking getting injured or killed, it is nevertheless a fairly intense simulation of a threat -- enough to absolutely give you an adrenaline rush. (To be honest, most people who do that combat probably do it for the rush.) Part of that reality is that combat in EVE is far from consensual: you can be attacked without you signing up for player-versus-player action. Part of it is that losses actually hurt and set you back in the game. Part of it is that you more often than not function as a part of the group, and failing to perform is failing your team mates. Part of it is that in EVE, reputation is everything, and so every engagement threatens your status and your very identity as a player.

A lot of people who try player-vs-player combat freeze in their first fights. They learn all the wrong things from the experience: that they "cannot do pvp", "do not like the adrenaline", and "cannot think fast enough under pressure". The last one is true, but it is not a problem - no one can. The first two practically always turn out to be untrue.

For about a year, I ran a "combat rookie class" for players in my in-game organization, aimed at people who had done no or very little combat in the game. My hunch from those classes is that about 9 in 10 people freeze under a new, threatening situation even when the situation is not about life and death. In any case, about 90 percent of people freeze in EVE when shooting starts, and talking to the 1 in 10 that don't, they seemed to have similar experiences from real life. (In a situation actually about life and death, the percentage is probably higher, if not 100 percent.) 

However, with very short amount of instruction, 8 out of those 9 perform perfectly adequately in a game fight. With just a couple of engagements behind them they actually start to clearly outperform the hotheads without the tendency to freeze. They also report loving "the rush". (Only about 2 out of 10 will become absolutely brilliant combatants -- but that's a matter for another post.)

How does this happen?

The first bit of instruction is to tell people that with only rare exceptions, everybody freezes. Freezing under threat is not a sign that you cannot deal with adrenaline, it is a sign that you belong to the human race. Some people freeze easier than others, but my guess is that any sane person freezes if the threat is real and sudden enough. Adrenaline is a double-edged sword. It can help you to execute a plan in a clearer, faster, more effective way. It can also completely stop your brain from working and completely remove that plan from your mind. One thing that makes all the difference in which it does for you is breathing.

When surprised and scared, the natural reaction for most people is to draw a sudden breath -- and then hold it. When you hold your breath, your brains get less oxygen, and your heart rate keeps on climbing, and your ability to act sensibly goes down fast. The first thing to do when about to panic is to take a deep breath, and then keep on breathing. Get that oxygen into your brain and muscles, and the adrenaline is much likelier to be your friend instead of your enemy. In games or sports, and in a real life situation where you can do so without anyone dying,  it is a good idea to spend some time getting your breathing right before trying to do more. To begin with, count it if you have to: in-2-3-4, hold-2-3-4, out-2-3-4. With experience, the first deep breath will trigger the correct breathing.

The second crucial bit of instruction is that the human mind is simply not able to make up new plans for fast-evolving situations when the adrenaline is already pumping and the damage is coming in. (Not even when the damage is to an interweb spaceship - much less, I assume, when the damage is to your physical body.) We think too slow for that, and adrenaline tends to slower that sort of thinking even further. The people who look like they are thinking fast in a situation are actually simply executing an elaborate set of conditioned reflexes and premeditated rules of thumb.

You cannot take that elaborate set and hope to start executing it yourself without experience. Even if the people would be able to explicate it, which they in the vast majority of cases are not, and you would be able to memorize it, without experience you would not be able to recall it in the situation. You would simply freeze, having too many options.

The way to overcome this is something I call "Your Own Battleplan". I advice people to make a very, very simple plan before a combat operation for to execute in case of an engagement. Maximum three steps, each step consisting of one basic action. (For those in the know, I suggest something like "1) orbit the primary, 2) target the primary, 3) engage scrambler" for rookies in frigates.) When shooting starts, your job is to, first, remember to breath, and second, perform the first step of your battleplan. That's all. Don't even try and think further, to begin with.

Once you get that down, add the second step. Once you get that down, add the third. Once you manage all that in an actual engagament, revise your battleplan. At some point, add an "if this happens, I'll do this, otherwise I'll do that" condition there, see if you can pull that off. Add a get-the-fuck-out maneuver that you execute if you need to GTFO, and then see if you can switch plans from "fight" to "flee" with an adequate trigger. After each engagement, go through what happened, what you did, did it work, could you have been more efficient. Keep on adding rules of thumb and more complications (for those in the know: for example, guns, drones, e-war, transversal, switching ammo, etc -- these are all "complications"). Very soon you will be one of those guys the rookies believe can actually plan in a situation.

That's all there is to it, really. Remember to breath. Make plans beforehand, execute them on reflex. Teach people those two things, and they won't freeze anymore -- that is, until they end up in a new, surprising situation. Or take up a new role. Then, unfortunately, it all starts again. In my experience, the "when frozen, breath" reflex tends to transfer over - from EVE to swordsmanship, say. The battleplan, obviously, needs to be different for each context, and you pretty much need to start from the three-step trivial plan for each new one. (My current EVE one has at least a couple of tens of rules of thumb and if/elses. My fencing one is "when confused, attack". I am working up to "when confused, close the line and attack". Yay for complicated...)

So, why do these folks outperform the 1 in 10 who does not freeze? Because the people who freeze know on a very profound gut level that they have to think beforehand, or it will all be screwed. The people who do not freeze often believe that they can think in the situation, so they do not make simple plans. Instead they either execute the first thing that pops into their mind in a situation, or try to memorize complex battleplans and in the adrenaline rush get them wrong. Often they do this repeatedly, without accepting the fact that what they are doing is simply not working. They feel it "should have worked" and that "next time, they'll try something else". But when next time comes, the adrenaline again kicks in, and they cannot figure out what the "something else" should be, and either repeat the same stupid thing, or do another stupid thing.

How much of this would transfer to a situation of real life physical violence? I have no idea, and I hope I will never find out.