Hick’s Law and OODA Loops, the neuroscience behind winning a fight.
The Neurology of Winning a Fight, Hick’s Law & OODA Loops
Winning a fight is just like anything, it is a series of stimuluses and responses. See X do Y. The more complicated that you make it the slower reaction time becomes.
Hick’s Law
Hick’s Law basically states that the more responses you have to a given stimulus (an incoming punch for instance) the slower the reaction time. Conversely the fewer responses the quicker the reaction time.
This is because your brain works much like a computer does; it receives an input, makes a decision, then creates an output. Hick’s Law governs the decision stage.
Lesson: If you want to speed up reaction time make sure to train just one or two responses to a given attack.
Advanced Lesson: Learn to categorize attacks into a simple method so your brain can make quicker decisions. I use what I call the 5 1/2 Patterns Model. In a typical urban street encounter you can distill pretty much any attack down into one of the 5 1/2 patterns. More on that another time.
OODA Loops
OODA Loops is a concept to represent how a brain makes a decision. When you launch an attack at an opponent their brain must go through an OODA Loop in order to respond.
Observe (Stage 1)
You see a stimulus, such as a person with their fist cocked. It is neither good nor bad, it is just an image created by the brain.
Orient (Stage 2)
Your brain is creating context trying to figure out if that cocked fist is a problem. Your brain will go into future planning and it will predict if the cocked fist is a danger based on available information aka. is this your friend playing around or is this a stranger in a dark parking lot. Someone who is highly alert will jump to fight or flight response sooner while an unaware person’s brain will often not recognize the danger until it is too late.
Decision (Stage 3)
Now the brain will scan all available trained responses. So if you come from a boxing background you might have a parry, block, cover, bob and weave, etc. The brain will try to decide which of those is most appropriate. This is where Hick’s Law comes in. The fewer responses the faster the brain will pick one.
Interestingly enough I believe this is where the term “fight, flight, or freeze” comes in play. If your brain has no response then you are likely to freeze.
Action (Stage 4)
At this point the brain has decided what to do, now in Action stage it is simply a matter of firing nerves pulses from the brain down the spinal cord into the peripheral nerves to contract muscles and make your move happen.
Since peripheral nerve firing speed is the same for all humans (simplifying here) the key point is to already be in a defensible position. Meaning if your hands are down by your sides that sucker punch will probably smash you in the face but if your hands were strategically (so you don’t look ready) placed higher (think “calm down buddy” hands) you will have a much better chance at blocking that punch.
Override Their OODA Loops and Go Home Early!
Since we know that a brain must (mandatory) go through an OODA Loop when it is presented with a stimulus, why not provide multiple stimuli so that the opponent’s brain gets bogged down, overrun? Heck so it shuts down completely!
This is the concept of using combinations in sport martial arts. A fighter may use a jab as a fake in order to land their cross. And the hook is not far behind that. That makes a total of three OODA Loops in quick succession that your opponent’s brain must process.
If you spend enough time on my site you will see us using a Straight Blast right down an opponent’s centerline. Guess what that is? You got it. A series of high speed, super rapid OODA Loops that cause the opponent to flinch, cover, and allows us to now set up a termination strike or move.
Final Thoughts
- Combinations (the more rapid the better)
- Fakes
- 1/2 beats
- Distract high > attack low
- Distract low > attack high
- Auditory distractions
- Throw something in their face then attack
- There are more if you get creative but these are the core techniques
Until next time,
Brian
