Becoming Batman by E. Paul Zehr

Author:E. Paul Zehr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: 2006-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Figure 9.2. Inverted U relationship between arousal and performance for Batman. A: We can see that Batman’s performance increases as his arousal level rises up to the maximum point shown at the top of the inverted U. Beyond this point, his performance will decrease. B: The progression from Bruce to The Bat-Man to the finished Batman. Beginner Bruce (far left) can tolerate only a small stress level and a modest arousal to perform well. In contrast, fully trained Batman (far right) has a better performance at much higher stress levels.

When you are under stress, perceptual narrowing can reduce acuity in peripheral vision. That means you really cannot attend to other factors because you cannot actually perceive them at all! In fact this really forms a kind of selective attention, wherein we don’t always pay attention to the right things.

There are also many examples in sports where the exact opposite occurs. Some players seem unflappable and impervious to pressure. They don’t seem to succumb to this problem of perceptual narrowing. Two-time NBA MVP Steve Nash seems to be able to make passes to teammates who are just exactly where they ought to be to receive the pass, despite the fact that it should be almost impossible for him to see where they are. He seems almost to know where they will be and to able to see the whole court. One of my favorite athletes, former NHL player Wayne Gretzky, always appeared as if he could see all parts of the ice surface and knew not just where everyone was but where they would be at just the right moment to receive his passes. In these cases it is almost like the game slows down for the players.

Can a person train to do this, though? Many people can have the skill to do the physical performance needed but not everyone has the “grace under pressure” to perform calmly when needed. Let’s consider what police and paramilitary forces use more and more these days to get at full-on live-fire situations in training. They use what is called “reality-based training.” In very basic terms the main point of reality-based training is to incorporate training and responses in environments that can be very chaotic and that mimic the kind of stressors that a police officer might experience during a real encounter.

This is how we imagine Batman being trained and operating. His training, including the use of reality-based activity, would have allowed him to see the whole environment and would have made him largely immune to the stress of combat. Because of this, he can deal with all adversaries without problems and remain completely in control. The combat scenes in the movie Batman Begins are filmed with this idea very much at the fore. Another great example of this is found in a story called “Citizen Wayne,” taken from the 1992 graphic novel Blind Justice. Here Bruce is undergoing some ninja-like training by Henri Ducard and is shown passing his test of defeating multiple attackers in an utterly chaotic environment.

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