Anyone who has ever been put on the spot, surprised, confronted, or had to face an audience knows exactly what I am talking about here. It's that sensation that comes over you when your breathing accelerates, either a little or a lot, you sweat, you panic, your vision gets a little fuzzy, you don't know how to react and worst of all you don't know how to think straight. What do you do?

Those of you experienced in these types of situations have probably overcome these feelings through your experiences. And to be honest, that is often the best way to overcome them. But when your life is threatened for the first time, and I mean for real - not in a dojo during knife or gun exercises or any other controlled environment - you have to know what to do right then and there without hesitation. This is a really bad time to get the 'jitters'. You need to have control over all your faculties, mental and physical, to get you through the ordeal. And since this can be a one-time deal - you either get it right the first time or you die - it is particularly imperative that you react to the situation properly.

First, let's go through that list of things that happens to you. Read the first paragraph again. Do you notice any common thread? Most people won't at first. The biggest binding factor in all of them is breathing. The fact of the matter is breathing controls all of the things that happen in your mind and body. Breathing properly oxygenates your blood. Breathing improperly either creates too much acid or too much alkaline in your blood. Your body will react according to your breathing improperly by either slowing down or speeding up, or both. When you get startled your heart may skip a beat immediately and your breathing stop. Your body will then compensate for this lack by breathing faster. The problem is that when you are breathing faster you normally don't hear it - you are too busy concentrating on the guy with the gun pointed at you. So your breathing continues to be fast even after the initial shock has been aptly compensated for. This is a problem.

The way we fix this problem is to control our breathing. Go through the breathing exercises again at this point to make sure you have them firmly in your mind. Now, do you fully understand the correlation between breathing properly and relaxing? You still may not, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. Start the breathing exercises and this time pay attention to how your body reacts to the way you are breathing. You should feel your muscles relax in your entire body. Now pay attention to how many things you notice around you that you did not before you started breathing properly. You should notice an amazing difference in the things you are able to notice, little things, when started relaxing because of your breathing. Your focus has just increased and you have successfully entered, if even slightly, the 'thought - no thought' state of mind.

Okay, now that we have reduced the stress in our bodies and considerably enabled our minds to think better, it is time to overcome our fear of the aggressor. This is not an easy thing to do, even when you are relaxed. But when you are relaxed it is a lot easier to work on controlling your fear than when you are in a panic stage. So feel good that you have been able to make it this far. You have succeeded thus far. How do you control the panic and fear that are swelling inside of you?

Consider the way you are viewing yourself in the situation. Most often, people who are attacked are thinking of themselves as the helpless victim in a seemingly hopeless situation. And that is just what your aggressor wants you to think. You are easier to manipulate and control when you see your situation as uncontrollable, helpless, hopeless. You need to change this immediately if you can even think of coming out of this intact, physically and mentally.

The best way I have been able to describe to people how to view their aggressor has been to tell them to think of themselves as the host and their aggressor as the guest. This is a concept taught in the Book of Five Rings written by Musashi Miyamoto, a legendary Japanese swordsman. If you consider things in this light, you need not worry about anything your 'guest' does. You are the ultimate authority in the matter and you need to help them understand this. Therefore, any move your 'guest' makes you will see as an advantage, or you will at least know how to use this move for your benefit. Let them do what they may, just as a good host would, and lead them into your own movements. You would not immediately oust a guest who is misguided in their thinking or who does not understand the folly of his actions. Neither should you attempt to destroy your 'guest' for wantonly attacking you. But that is not to say that you should not disable them so that they do not resume their attack.

So controlling the 'jitters' has to do with breathing and mental disposition. If you remember these things you will be able to slip through that initial shock stage directly into breathing properly, and from breathing properly directly into the proper mental disposition. There will be no panic stage, no shakes, sweating, and blurred vision that comes with the panic stage. You are ready to resolve your situation in a calm manner.