Editor’s Note: In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Member Chris Cerino, a retired Ohio law enforcer who is now director of training for Chris Cerino Training Group and finalist on the TV show “Top Shot” in 2010. Here Chris discusses his philosophy on using breathing to overcome performance anxiety. Do you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members? Send us an e-mail with your story.
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By Chris Cerino
Some police officers simply dislike going to range to train, let alone doing their range qualifications — particularly with certain range officers present. How can we help those officers deal with the anxiety experienced at qualification, or during other times when highest-level performance is demanded?
“Breathe to reduce your stress, and focus on your task,” a fellow instructor once told me a long time ago. In a sense, I’d been doing this to some degree for many years, but his way of stating it seemed to me to make it more specific — he made me understand why I was supposed to breathe deeply and purposefully. It made a lot of sense to me so I began to consciously employ it.
Combat Breathing
Combat breathing helps to slow your heart rate and lower blood pressure. It oxygenates the blood to provide not only clearer thinking but also clearer vision. The first things to begin to lose function are delicate organs and your extremities as the body goes into a fight or flight response. Vision narrows, fingers, arms and legs get numb or thick (heavy) and you being to think with your animal brain (survival mode). In a litigious society, the animal brain needs to be tempered with rational, reasonably-objective responses. Combat breathing helps to keep your calm, even in times of maximum stress.
Not everything that cops do on patrol happens spontaneously. In fact, many times we have prior notification that we’re going to be expected to do things outside of our comfort zone. I use the example of a police officer responding to a crime of violence in progress — maybe a shots-fired call. Let’s add in that we even know who is involved and they are some real bad-asses. As the responding officer, how do you calm yourself to prepare for arrival on scene? En route, are you going to go in nervous and hope for the best? Or, do you breathe to calm yourself and formulate a plan? Think mental rehearsal. The body usually won’t go where the mind has not already been. If you have never been introduced to the idea of combat breathing, what do you do?
Through Competence Comes Confidence
If you cannot go to the qualification range or step up in a competition and command performance from yourself, a warning flag should come up. Either you haven’t trained enough and/or you haven’t learned to deal with the physiology occurring in your body. Remember that through competence comes confidence. The more competent you are at what you do, the more confident you will be in doing it. This too, will aid in your ability to calm yourself and formulate plans.
Many of the shooters I’ve trained over the years have come back to me telling me how much breathing has helped their performance. Now I don’t mean breathing as in the way we take air in normally. I’m talking about a big, shoulder raising, deep lung, cleansing breath.
Breathing With Purpose
Breathe to reduce your stress and focus on your task. Breathe before you shoot to oxygenate your body. Then breathe again after you shoot to blow the stress away. Performance stress will keep you from doing what it is you need to do. When you finish a drill or stage or even if you are on the street in an incident, breathe to clear you mind. Breathe to open and expand your vision so that you can move on to the next drill, stage, threat, piece of cover, task, or whatever.
Don’t let range officers, bad guys, or dangerous/frightening tasks keep you from being able to do what you need to do.
Think, breathe, and focus. You will succeed.
About Chris Cerino
Chris Cerino, who has served with Medina (Ohio) Police Department, Federal Air Marshals, and the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, is a nationally-known firearms instructor who has been training law enforcement officers and military for more than 10 years. Chris has worked in law enforcement positions for municipal, county, state and federal agencies spanning 19 years. A majority of those years have been spent in tactical and firearms related fields. As the director of training for Chris Cerino Training Group, Cerino remains immersed in the firearms and tactics training culture. Teaching the importance of fundamentals in a “do as I do” fashion has enabled him to be a respected instructor across the country.
