Courage and the Myth of Fearlessness

Cus D'Amato posing with his famous "peekaboo" style. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The third tenet I selected for CCMA (Clubb Chimera Martial Arts) was courage. Out of all the tenets it is the most subjective. Different people have different interpretations of courage and also different ideas about what constitutes being courageous. However, there is often another word thrown in to help describe examples of courage that I do not believe are at all accurate: fearlessness. As children the word courage is often attached to heroic figures, usually warriors or soldiers of some description, and we immediately imagine the true definition of courage or bravery to be people doing seemingly impossible deeds and overcoming incredible adversity. We idolise these figures, both fictitious and real historical examples, and turn them into impossible two dimensional creations that never feel fear. By doing this we do the whole concept of human courage a huge disservice.

Fear, like courage, is a manmade intangible commodity. It is a label we have used to articulate the biological, mental and psychological sensations we feel in times of stress. More specifically it is the negative reaction we have to these natural sensations. Anyone who is honest will tell you that they often have a negative reaction to fear. They feel afraid when something out of the ordinary occurs or they suddenly face something that can very possibly cause them harm. This goes for people who face these problems on a regular basis and I say this is as the son, grandson and nephew of lion trainers. In fact, there is an old circus joke where a new lion trainer asks his teacher what to do if he is attacked by a lion during his first night’s performance. The old teacher tells him “Throw the chair at the animal”. The new trainer asks, “But what if there isn’t a chair to throw?” The old teacher then says, “Throw your whip at the animal”. The worried new trainer asks, “But what if there isn’t a whip?” The old teacher says, “Then you will have to be resourceful and throw some manure at the animal”. The new trainer asks, “But what if there is no manure?” The old teacher looks straight at him with a knowing stare and says “Oh, don’t worry, there will be”.

What this little tale illustrates is an example of the body’s natural response to a life-threatening situation. It describes a reaction we have when the adrenaline hormone saturates us. Adrenaline hits the body to prepare it for emergency physical action. It feeds blood into the muscles and often shuts down all other bodily functions that are not required immediately. The first and most noticeable one is digestion. This is why many people have an urgent need to use the bathroom before and after a stressful incident. It is very common for you to want to urinate, defecate or vomit. When you are highly stressed your legs might shake too, full of nervous energy as your muscles are in a constant state of readiness. These are all natural and expected reactions and yet they have become closely associated with cowardice. Cowardice is an action we associate with a weak person as the direct counterpart to the heroic examples we associate with courage. The coward is never presented a likeable individual. And yet the truth of the matter is that many of the real-life heroes we see as courageous most probably p***ed themselves, s**t themselves and threw up before, during and after they performed their heroic deeds. Their legs quite probably shook like MC Hammer standing on a washing machine and many of them were tempted not to leave their wounded friend, not to go into the burning building to rescue a child or to curl up and die rather than fight their antagonist. Loss of control of bodily functions is an embarrassing experience when put in a civilized and everyday context. We are used to associating it with being sick and therefore in a weakened state. Without the excuse of having a severe virus we then erroneously conclude a person is weak in some other way. This is why soldiers returning for war weren’t and still aren’t very forthcoming about the times they lost their dinner, despite it being a very common occurrence. Missing such details out further compounds the myth.

To get back to the crux of this article, what makes a person courageous is not a lack of fear. Fearlessness is a myth. If you don’t fear you are dead. Fear is an umbrella term we use to describe a whole group of natural survival signals that automatically hit us when we feel threatened. I believe it is the way we choose how to respond to these feelings that defines our courage, our foolishness or our cowardice. Facing a situation where we do not fear the outcome is not an example of courage. Where is the challenge in that? Surely it is far more commendable that someone acts in spite of their fear.  The famous boxing coach, Cus D’amato is often quoted on his verdict regarding heroes and cowards: "The hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters." Once again, we find that these tenets are controlled by choice. Courage is chosen.

In self defence terms misunderstood ideas regarding courage can be dangerous. You may face a fear that it is not productive to face. For example, your warning signals may tell you to run from a fight, but you feel this would be a cowardly thing to do. Therefore you endanger your life and the happiness and maybe even the security of your immediate family because of this misdirected sense of courage. In fact, in many cases it is far more courageous to be able to walk away or stop a fight from happening, especially when the peer pressure is on to take part. You choose your action. The courageous part comes in when you face your fears in doing something that is worthwhile. This brings us back to the fabled heroes of legend. Courage is always remembered most when a person faced their fears for a virtuous cause. People are less likely to celebrate the bravery of the soldier who fought for an evil ideal. If we look at this within the context of a self defence situation it is worth asking what is more courageous: fighting a dangerous but avoidable enemy or fighting your ego and being able to walk away? This all rest on your principles. It is principles that assure you that your decision is the correct one.

Self defence training ultimately requires firm principles. Without firm principles you get dilemmas. The last thing you need in a potentially dangerous situation is a dilemma. The only way we can make the right choice more efficiently is to get deep into principles. Strong principles eliminate dilemmas. Dr. Stephen Covey, author of “Principle Centred Leadership”, used the analogy of a compass to explain how to best see principles. When faced with a problem your principle compass will show you the way. Therefore your self defence mandate may be: to preserve my life and well being and those closest to me by whatever means necessary. Combine this with a commonsensical situational awareness and the right choice is easy to access. This right choice in a potentially physical confrontation might be anything from striking someone pre-emptively to running away to using a weapon to using dissuasive tactics. Courage will be required for the actual initiation of the action.

In conclusion courage is not the absence of fear. If you do not fear something then you will not need to be courageous. Everyone feels fear psychologically, mentally and biologically. In simple terms courage is the choice we can all make in difficult situations, but most of us don’t. In philosophical terms courage has a strong attachment to virtue and virtue is subjectively decided by the individual. In practical terms courage goes further into choice and deals with principles. These principles then need to be acted upon and it is the acting upon these principles that demonstrates our courage.