Big and Strong | Daniel Oakes

by Daniel Oakes | March 21, 2023

I’ve been reading a few books on
self-defense lately, and it seems like it’s all the rage these days
to teach people that in order to deal with violence you must first
become desensitized to violence – by exposing yourself to violent
encounters. I mean, you can’t learn how to swim unless you get your
feet wet, can you? To prepare for violence, then, we simply have to
take up boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – and bam, we’re sorted.

But this approach, even though
obviously correct, probably isn’t the first thing we should take into
consideration, in my opinion. If we take the swimming example: yes,
to actually swim we need to jump into the pool, but what do we (most
of us) do before jumping into the pool? We take off our clothes and
put our trunks on.

Okay, that sounds embarrassingly
obvious, and that’s precisely why most of us don’t think about this
necessary element of preparation. We simply don’t recognize that
preparing to swim is as important as jumping into the pool (if we
aren’t prepared to swim, we will never get into the pool in the first
place).

To summarize: Aquaman probably doesn’t
care about swimming trunks.

Starting to get my point? How
physiologically prepared are you to deal with training for violence?
What I’m actually (probably poorly) talking about here is the
Two-Factor Model of Sports Performance. Training: the process of
accumulating a specific adaptation or adaptations necessary for
improved performance in an athletic event.

If we are prepared, physically, before
we perform a physical task, we will arguably be better able to
perform the task.

Take, for example, a massive male rhino
munching on some leaves in his zoo enclosure. The keepers are rather
sadistic though, so one evening they allow a bunch of lions into the
enclosure to see what will happen. The rhino has never ‘performed’
self-defense before and is not accustomed to violence at all, and
thus has a very strong adrenal response, and he panics. But, he
doesn’t panic as much as a hamster would – he doesn’t freeze. He is
not physiologically overwhelmed because he is much bigger than
the lions. All that sleeping and eating his entire life has been
excellent “preparation” for this violent encounter with the
lions. The Rhino has no experience in violence. But, by God, he can
it dish it out. Because he’s big and strong.

You get the point? The man who weighs
250 lb and can deadlift 600 lb who turns up to a BJJ class for the
first time will obviously make an impression on the first day. We are
no different than zoo animals. The mere presence of a much bigger
mammal can make even the most skilled fighters anxious.

So why does nobody talk about the
obvious need to be big and strong when it comes to violence? Maybe
because, like swimming trunks, it’s – paradoxically – too obvious
to even think about.

But not for you.