Head and instructor: Roman Štědrý

For centuries, people are trying to identify and understand human emotions and behaviour in different situations. Whether we realise that or not, emotions penetrate all human activities and there is an emotional background to every thought and action. Our psyche comprises unique archives: behavioural standards, alternative excuses, compassion formulas and arguments, why we do not do what we actually would like to do.

The stress that accompanies decision-making in limit situations can, upon a significant intensity, prevent any reasonable solution, or may even result in a paralytic reaction. All depends on the intensity of stress, period of duration of the effect, and the level of resistance of the specific individual to stress. Limit situations, especially on the level of violence, is largely a matter of emotions and feelings, contacts and communication. Violence is a wide category and has numerous definitions. It reflects in emotions and expressions. Physical violence is merely one minor aspect of violence as such, and it is of the limit situations type. Therefore, upon decision-making, it is suitable to decrease the inner tension, for example by an appropriate relaxation or substitute technique. A real situation follows no rules, provides no safe zone and most likely offers no help either.

Training and experience will allow you to utilise the influence of fear to your benefit, instead of compromising your ability to act. In order to control your fear, it is necessary to repeatedly incite stress, so that you can strengthen the nervous system and get rid of the undesired stupor. In reality, training will condition your senses and nervous system to accommodate to any situation. When training in a reality-based way, your body and mind makes notes, and will be ready to provide a suitable reaction on the spur of the moment, whenever you find yourself in a real clash.

Defence against violence represents a complex of activities, which raise a feeling of safety, increase the ability to deal with conflicts, defend against violence. Defending against violence means defending against one’s own fear. Knowing where its sources and causes are. Knowing oneself, one’s inner conflicts and their external manifestations. Being able to recognise in time symptoms of a threatening conflict situation. Upon a traumatic situation, people are all of a sudden exposed to the mercy of a catastrophe or violence and react more on a reflex level by self-protection, pulling back or accommodating in order to survive. Some people are afraid to react by defence or confrontation, others fool themselves into feeling invincible. It is necessary to know what and how to use it to prevent conflict situations, and how to defuse these. And namely wanting to face the permanently threatening violence and one’s fear. The main prerequisite for effective defence against violence is only individual, creative approach to prevent and resolve conflict situations and incidents, which threaten, and in which individuals find themselves.

This means knowing how to create and use one’s own defensive strategies and procedures. Knowing how to express one’s inner strength in its external manifestations, in behaviour and actions. Within the frame of mental preparation, it is vital to accept the fact that we can get into a self-protection situation anywhere anytime. Given today’s pressure for time, one may not always have enough of it for regular physical training, but it is always possible to at least imagine various situations and scenarios. Mental preparation serves us well to imprint the reactions drilled on the level of subconscious conditioned responses, and also assists in improving the level of dexterity and alertness. As soon as you put any given human under a stress situation, which persists for a certain time, sooner or later you will notice mental factors showing, emotions, which play a role in dealing with situations under pressure.