Someone grabs your arm. You’ve learned three different escapes in your self-defence training. You know this scenario. So why haven’t you reacted? Your brain stalls. You Freeze.
That moment of hesitation is all it takes.
The “Freeze” response is a real phenomenon. In everyday life it can be mildly irritating, but in self-defence situations, the freeze can be deadly.
Under pressure, you don’t rise to the level of your training. You default to your simplest option.
This is where Hick’s Law becomes one of the most important principles to understand in performance psychology and its application to self-defence training principles.
If we understand the phenomenon behind the freeze effect, the principles of Hick’s Law and the impact on self-defence training, we can design better training to reduce the chances of freezing in a real confrontation.
What Is Hick’s Law, and How Does it Apply to Self Defence?
Simply put, the more choices you have, the longer it takes to make a decision.
More options = slower decisions.
Too many options = no decision at all.
Hick’s Law comes from research by British psychologist W. E. Hick in 1952, who demonstrated that reaction time increases as the number of choices increases.
His work was so groundbreaking that it established one of the few widely acknowledged “laws” in psychology.
Hick’s Law explains why people freeze. When too many options exist under stress, the brain struggles to select any at all.
The difference is between having a choice, and being unable to access it under stress. Why people freeze in a fight is ultimately more complicated than it first appears.
Why Too Many Techniques Make You Slower
As discussed in another article, real-world self-defence training must deal with high-stress, highly uncertain and dynamic situations that are by their very nature unpredictable.
In such circumstances, not only is the mind and body often overwhelmed with choices and decisions that could be the difference between injury or safety, it is also affected by adrenaline, increased heart rate and degradation in fine motor skills.
It’s important to point out that this is not a weakness of character, or something that level 10 ninjas avoid through a lifetime of dedicated training – it is biological fact that can affect anyone, and Hick’s Law helped to prove.
As is common in many martial arts, there is usually more than one way to defend against an attack, or to initiate one.
The problem comes when trying to choose in the heat of the moment. We might say any choice is better than no choice, but this is rarely the case in real-world confrontations. Speed of course is also a major factor, and we know that under stress, fine accurate movements become increasingly more difficult to achieve as heart rate increases and adrenaline floods the body.
The solution comes in the evolution of self-defence training, away from rigid martial arts syllabus with dozens of esoteric techniques, toward a principles-first, outcome-based system. But before we get into that, let’s consider the effect of practice.
How to Train for Real-World Self Defence
From ongoing research in the psychology of performance, it has become clear that reducing uncertainty greatly aids decision making, especially under pressure.
Practice and regular training are generally accepted as the obvious way to get good at something. But how much and how close self-defence training replicates the real world becomes crucial when considering natural biological reactions to stress and violence. We can train a defence to a plastic knife attack perfectly a thousand times, but the technique may still fail if we are cognitively overloaded with too many options (because we’ve trained too many techniques) and/or overwhelmed by physiological stress when we’re confronted with the reality of being genuinely injured.
So practice can reduce decision time, but only if it reduces choices, not adds more.
This is where progressive variability is essential for self-defence training.
In self-defence, simplicity beats variety
Rather than focusing on training the ‘perfect’ technique, using a principles-first approach provides individuals with a broader toolkit, and understanding that can be applied to multiple situations increases the likelihood of success.
Focusing on outcomes also helps train these principles in self-defence and helps stop the Freeze response from occurring if and when a trained technique fails in reality (especially when it seemed to work flawlessly in practice).
Finally, self-defence training shouldn’t end when a specific technique, principle or outcome has been repeated and seemingly mastered. Once students have achieved a basic recall of what has been taught, progressive variability needs to be applied to introduce and replicate stress, distractions, increase stimuli and ultimately approach the hard reality of physical confrontations as safely as possible.
The Takeaway
Self-defence training must prepare people for uncertainty, without overwhelming them with too many choices.
Ultimately, more techniques don’t make you safer. Faster decisions do.
About the DFA
The Defensive Fitness Academy incorporates scientifically-backed training with proven self-defence training principles, Krav-Maga-based techniques and understanding of UK law to create a fully comprehensive self-protection system.
We do not just teach self-defence techniques. We develop problem-solving capabilities for high stress, confrontational or violent encounters. If you want training that prepares you for real-world confrontation, this is where to start.
The TLDR cheat sheet
- Fewer choices = faster reactions
- Under stress, simplicity wins
- More techniques can make you slower
- Train self-defence principles, not just techniques
- If you hesitate, you’re already behind
- Real self-defence training must replicate stress and include variability
References
On the Rate of Gain of Information, W. E. Hick
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/17470215208416600
Hick’s law for choice reaction time: A review
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28434379/
Choice Reaction Times for Skilled Responses
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/17470216008416726?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.2
Laws Of Movement Learning And Control
https://psychology.iresearchnet.com/sports-psychology/motor-development/laws-of-movement-learning-and-control/
