Just 2 Seconds (11 page)

1. Sunburn
   
2. White hair
   
3. Looks like Leonard Nimoy
   
4. Mr. Pushy
   
5. Guy arguing with wife
   
6. Mr. Nervous
   
7. Second time in line
   

Notice that you didn't think about any of the people you named. Also, the last four names assigned are based upon behavior: One man is pushy, another is arguing, one appears nervous, and the last is doing something of relevance to your mission (getting into a receiving line for the second time). If, in order to let go of snapshots, you must name them, then naming on the basis of behavior is more useful than naming on the basis of appearance, because behavior is more relevant to your mission than appearance.

The mission is to see, to realy see. For example, did you really see the misspelled word in the last sentence? (It's the seventh word).

Now, take a look at this paragraph:

FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.

Pause here for a moment and count the number of F's in the sentence above.

How many did you find? Three? Four? Five? If your total was any of these, count again.

There are more than five F's in the sentence. So, looking for F's doesn't necessarily mean finding them. Looking for attackers doesn't necessarily mean finding them either. Looking to match things to our preconception of what they'll be doesn't work as well as seeing what
is.
In fact, looking for attackers (as opposed to perceiving behaviors that might precede an attack) is actually counterproductive. That's because you might have in mind an imagined appearance -- and anything imagined takes you out of what's actually occurring in front of you. The great French intellectual, Marcel Proust called this an inexorable law: "Only that which is absent can be imagined."

In other words, whatever you imagine cannot be present -- for if it were present, you wouldn't be able to imagine it, just as you cannot look at this book and imagine it at the same time.

Don't Look for Assassins

An expedition that sets out to climb Mount Everest and doesn't reach the top is called a failure. But an expedition that sets out to find whatever it will find cannot fail. Let
that
be your expedition, to discover what is in the here and now. Rather than looking for something that matches your imagination, rather than looking
for
anything, look
at
everything. See what is set right in front of you, what is real.

Looking for assassins would be like seeking wealth by applying the belief that "Every place you go contains diamonds." For a time, your mind might look for diamonds, and then after finding none, it would stop. Rather than looking for diamonds -- which are rare -- a more constructive adage for attaining wealth would be "Look for opportunities." Because opportunities are not rare.

Similarly, if one looks for assassins, and day after day they aren't found, the search has no payoff. The ZAP philosophy encourages us to
look for nothing,
and instead to directly perceive what's actually here. So rather than giving your mind an assignment it will quickly tire of ("Look for Assassins"), here's an assignment that actually has a frequent payoff: See and register relevant behaviors without regard (at this moment) to whether they will eventually escalate to attack.

You see a person positioning to intersect with your protectee, hands kept out of view, or you see someone stubbornly maintaining a position, or someone holding his breath, or someone breathing rapidly -- all these behaviors are worthy of holding your attention -- until they aren't. (Suspects worthy of your attention exist everywhere, regardless of whether they turn out to be attackers. This is a concept of such profound importance to protective work that it merits the entire
Chapter Five
.)

Ideally, each event will gain your attention for only the length of time it takes to either qualify for continuing interest or be discounted. You hear a pop, determine it's a balloon, and you move on. A man quickly withdraws something from his coat, it's a pair of sunglasses, and you move on. When you are in the flow, ZAP asserts itself without engaging you in the act of thinking.

If you do observe an attacker, then you become predator. Then you draw on powerful resources. But no predator in Nature would waste those precious resources before they are needed. No predator remains in a constant state of predation, nor does any predator always hunt for prey; the most effective predators are always ready to exploit any opportunity that arises. (More on this below.)

How can you tell when you're in the Now? By the constant recognition of new information. This has less to do with what's happening and more to do with how you process what's happening. For example, as the politician shakes hand after hand in the jostling crowd, you are presented with new information in every instant. Your mind is totally occupied with the happenings you perceive, you take in each new image: a hand, a body, a face, an expression on a face. You are not thinking about anything, you are perceiving only. You are in the Now.

An unskilled protector might categorize thousands of events within view under the heading of "handshaking" when, in fact, there is so much to perceive that it can't possibly be contained in any one category. A capable protector intuitively registers, assesses, and then discards many perceptions, each perception: Now this, Now this, Now this, and nothing is assigned to any category (which would be thinking). In the jostling crowd, it's easier to remain present in the Now because so many perceptions arise, but it's more difficult to remain present when listening to the politician's speech before a fairly sedate audience. The people aren't doing much, you might think, and it's the same tedious speech you've heard at a hundred rallies and luncheons, the speech that wasn't new even the first time you heard it, the speech that has you stuck in your mind anticipating each passage before it comes, anticipating that joke he tells as if it just occurred to him, anticipating the quarter-hearted laughter from the crowd, and anticipating (most eagerly) the ending.

So how do you stay present while listening to that speech? You don't listen to that speech! Listening to the speech is the opposite of being present in the Now. But if you allow it, your mind will pounce on that speech every time, because your mind loves things that are predictable, loves confirming what it already knows. Following along and hearing that which is already known is a test the mind always passes, and the mind loves tests -- and particularly loves passing tests, winning points, being right. But to stay in the Now, you don't listen to that speech at all. Your ears might register the vibration, your mind might recognize that it's the speech, but you don't give away your greatest asset: your attention. You can be sure that a person who is about to attack is not focused on the content of that speech, isn't thinking, "Wow, that's an interesting policy for dealing with the budget deficit."

The Absolutely Bearable Stress of Attack

A person who is about to attack might be thinking any number of things, but at the instant of attack, he is free of thinking; he is fully in the Now. If a protector is not already with the attacker in time, then he will be yanked into the Now in way that can be shocking and stressful. Even with the best of training and readiness, protectors during actual attacks can experience something well beyond the potency of the word
stress
-- beyond any word.

At the instant of an attack, time stops, time speeds up, time is forgotten, everything is forgotten. Life is no longer lived in leisurely increments of seconds or minutes. Life is now divided into milliseconds. Every tiny action is now under the control of ancient internal protectors that have been waiting deep in the cells. The heart rate will instantly jump as the body's nuclear defense system jolts on. Blood flow increases to the legs and arms, lactic acid heats up the muscles. A cocktail of powerful chemicals will blast into the bloodstream, including the famous one, adrenaline, but also Cortisol, a chemical that helps the blood clot more quickly in the event of injury.

The five senses will take off, sometimes in different directions, shouting back disjointed reports of their discoveries. Normally, when one sense is involved in something of importance, it commands the attention of the brain, while the other senses sink into the background or attempt to cooperate by providing additional information. But the attack has overthrown all that, and by the time things are back to normal,
normal
will have been forever changed.

It is distressing enough to watch videos of attacks, even though distance provides us the luxury to perceive events through sight and hearing only. In actual attacks, events are absorbed by every sense, taken in via taste, smell, touch, and through the skin, literally. The exchange of energy between aggressor and defender cannot be fully appreciated from the comfort and distance of wherever you are reading these words. A hint of the stress is displayed by the contorted, unnatural postures and twisted, pained expressions on the faces of protectors during attacks.

Photo by Robert H. Jackson

Photo from AP Images

Photo from CBS News Archives

How can protectors best prepare themselves to deal with the savageness and speed of these events? Training of course -- a very specific type of training that provides, as authentically as possible, the
experience
of violent attack. Not just role-playing simulation, or aiming an electronic gun at a big-screen TV, but an experience that fully engages the student and compels him or her to function in the face of fear, pain, and stress.

In TAD exercises, the student's wish to perform causes some stress, but protectors need training that compels profound stress. To accomplish that, we must place them in the specific type of emergency situation in which they are expected to prevail. Cadet firefighters are required to make their way through a building engulfed in real flames because flickering red lights and orange
paper mache
wouldn't prepare the mind and body to function well in an actual emergency. The cadets must experience real heat and real fire in order to gain what amounts to a mental vaccine.

In protective work, the ideal mental vaccine for stress is to be shot at, and hit, and to prevail -- all of which occurs during our Academy. We place trainees in the role of protector, and then we shoot at their protectees, and at them, using real guns, firing real projectiles. Rather than lead bullets, however, we use plastic marking capsules (Simunition
^(r)
). Our students wear face protection, but unlike students in many law enforcement academies, they do not wear any other protective garment. When they get shot, it hurts -- a lot. In this context, the pain is good, for it's part of the inoculation.