Why Fundamentals Beat Flashy Techniques

william demuth
Oct 17
3 min read

Updated: Oct 18

Your body under duress

Acute stress spikes arousal (sympathetic activation). Performance initially rises with arousal and then drops once it’s too high the classic Yerkes–Dodson curve. Simple or well-learned tasks hold up at higher arousal; complex, precision-heavy tasks collapse sooner. In life-threatening events, you’re almost certainly in the “too high” zone unless your actions are brutally simple and over-learned.

Stress also narrows attention (you tunnel on the central threat and miss peripherals). This “cue-utilization” effect explains why multi-step, fancy options degrade there’s literally less cognitive bandwidth to perceive set-ups or micro-openings.

Gross vs. fine motor skills in fights

Law-enforcement training literature distinguishes:

Gross-motor skills (large muscle groups: push, pull, drive, crash, cover, strike with big arcs).
Fine/complex skills (small-muscle precision, intricate sequences, tight timing).

Under high arousal, gross-motor performance is relatively preserved or even enhanced, while fine/complex skills deteriorate sharply. That’s one reason “big” strikes, posture control, clinch pressure, frames, and direct escapes are emphasized over intricate locks or tiny grip changes when lives are at stake.

Fewer choices = faster action

Even before stress hits, more choices slow decisions (Hick–Hyman law): the time to choose grows with the number/complexity of options. In self-defense, a playbook stuffed with niche counters delays commitment; a short menu of high-percentage actions speeds it up.

Field reality check

Under lethal stress, even trained officers’ accuracy drops dramatically classic evidence that complex, precision-heavy tasks degrade. Analyses of police shootings (e.g., NYPD reports and reviews) show low hit rates in real incidents versus training environments. This gap is consistent with stress-impaired fine/complex performance and decision overload.

What “fundamentals” actually look like

Principles over tricks. Teach a few core actions that work across many problems:

Move the body, change the picture. Step off line, crash/cover, clinch, post, frame, or drive to a wall/car gross-motor movements that instantly improve safety.
Attack structure, not pain. Eyes to horizon, hips under shoulders, head controlled; disrupt their base with shoves, rams, and level changes no micro-dexterity needed.
Big tools to big targets. Palms, hammerfists, elbows, knees to eyes/jaw/ear/neck/groin/thigh; simple mechanics you can do at redline.
One decision at a time. Pre-plan a tiny decision tree: “If grabbed → cover/turn hip/drive to wall → knee/exit.” Keep branches short (Hick’s law).

Training to make fundamentals stick (and stress-proof)

Pressure ladder: start slow/mechanical → add contact → add time pressure → add surprise → add environment (doors, walls, cars). This builds tolerance for arousal in the zone where simple skills still work .
Attention under threat: drills that force you to find exits, obstacles, and accomplices while defending (countering attentional narrowing).
Minimal menus: limit to 2–3 go-to responses per common attack (grab, swing, rush). Reps create automaticity and reduce choice time (Hick–Hyman).
Gross-motor bias: prioritize movements you can do while winded, adrenalized, or with cold hands/gloves assume fine dexterity is gone.
Context > choreography: train in clothes, shoes, bags; add doors/seat belts; practice verbal boundary-setting and pre-assault indicators to act earlier with simpler actions. (Earlier action = lower arousal demands.)

A note on “fancy moves”

Complex joint locks, small-joint manipulations, or multi-beat combinations can work in controlled conditions. But in sudden interpersonal violence surprise, close range, poor light, multiple variables the physiology and psychology of stress punish complexity and precision. Fundamentals are not “basic” because they’re easy; they’re basic because they’re reliable under the body’s worst operating conditions.

Key research

Arousal & performance: Yerkes–Dodson relationship; simple vs. complex task tolerance to arousal.
Attention narrowing under stress: Easterbrook cue-utilization and modern updates (threat narrows attention).
Gross vs. fine motor under duress: Law-enforcement training literature summarizing motor skill degradation at high arousal.
Decision speed vs. options: Hick–Hyman law
Field outcomes under stress: NYPD/RAND and related analyses of real gunfight hit rates.

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