Training in personal defense techniques and its influence on the stress threshold of students

Abstract

Training in self-defense techniques is carried out regularly in both civil and military contexts. Self-defense techniques are put into practice in dangerous situations such us a threat or a physical attack, which can generate great stress on the individual. When carrying out this study, we wanted to analyze the influence that training in self-defense techniques has on the stress experienced by students in a dangerous situation or while being attacked. For this reason, I have compared the measure of stress experienced by 14 students during their performance, facing situations of physical threat that they perform in simulated self-defense practices, which are carried out in this training. The student’s stress was measured with the Determination Test (DT) of the Vienna Test System. These defense practices against simulated attack situations take place at two different moments within the training course, one at the beginning and another once the training course has finished; therefore, the students have completely learned the defense techniques. I carried out the first measure of stress in situations of physical threat, in the simulation at the beginning of the training course, when the students had not yet learned any self-defense techniques. The second measurement was performed 21 days later, when the students had received self-defense training. This came during the simulation of situations of physical threat that is developed once the teaching of these techniques has finished and occurs at the end of the training course. The results show that the stress tolerance threshold increases with training. The results obtained in the variables measured pre and post show a decrease in the "median reaction time to the stimuli" and an increase in the variables "number of stimuli answered" and "correct reactions". This demonstrates that these subjects achieved a stress tolerance threshold in stressful situations with the highest physical threat, which was at the end of this formation. Therefore, there is an important degree of difference in the stress resistance of the subjects before the simulation of the first day of training, and that of the last day once they had already learned the self-defense techniques.   These findings could contribute to highlighting the usefulness of this type of training both in military units and in civilian entities, not only to improve technical knowledge of self-defense but also to promote a more adaptive stress response in this type of situation.