Real Fighting: Adrenaline Stress Conditioning Through Scenario-based Training

"The subtitle of this book is "Adrenaline Stress Conditioning through Scenario-Based Training." When deciding to purchase this book, I interpreted this subtitle to mean that the book would provide lessons as to how one can control the innate surge of adrenaline that overcomes people just prior to a violent incident. As a police officer, I know that acquiring this ability to "remain calm under pressure" is essential yet difficult to do. I therefore anticipated learning from this book how to minimize the adrenaline surge in such incidents so as to be more effective. Unfortunately, this book did not provide what I was looking for, in more ways than one. The book does not specifically tell you how to control the adrenaline surge. It tells you that in order to become an effective fighter, you must train to fight in a way that replicates, as close as possible, a real fight situation. That's pretty much it. The author spends most of his writing effort telling stories and citing examples to back up this theory. Now, mind you, the author is very knowledgeable and makes excellant arguments to support his point. The problem is that after about the second or third chapter, you've got the point. I continued to read through the rest of the book hoping to be taught how to control the adrenaline but, the lesson never came. The reason for this is because, according to the author, this lesson must be taught through real life experience. The author frequently refers to the training facility that he runs out in Colorado that does just that. The real kicker, however, is that nowhere in this book does the author tell you any information that would enable you to train at his facility to learn adrenaline stress conditioning. Nor does he tell you how to set up a "Real Fighting" training method of your own. And so, after a little over 170 pages, all that you have learned is that you must train for the real thing by simulating the real thing. I don't give this book a bad review, just an average one. It is an informative book especially if you are new to physical self defense training. Those that are more advanced will probably find that this book does little to improve their skills."
~ Written on 1998-09-24