Henry Wisdom Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 Alright guys. (If you don't want to read all of this, it's the highlighted area that's the important part. I'd appreciate any feedback given. I really want to pass this! Thanks ). So from early Monday-Wednesday I'm going on a trip with my college. It's known as 'Survival'. I'm not going to go into too much detail about it, but it's what happens in the last 12 hours that I'm interested in discussing with you guys... Basically. For the last 12 hours, starting from when it get's dark in the evening until 12 hours later in the morning, we the students are on 'escape and invasion'. For 12 hours we are given a map and have to navigate ourselves from point to point, meeting a member of friendly force (staff) at each checkpoint... Between each checkpoints, 'Hunter Force' (the bad guys ), will be out looking for us. If they catch us they take us to 'interrogation', but I will get onto that bit later. If we come into contact with them, we're told it's best we just leg it lol. Most of our staff are still fairly young and a fair few are ex military, one in particular is rumoured to be ex-special forces. We don't know this for a fact, but we do know he was definitely a 'Pathfinder', which is kinda like a stepping stone, the level just under the S.A.S... Along with some current serving Royal Marines Commando's which they just hire to make our time that much crapper. So not really the type of people 16-19 year old kids should be messing with to be honest. Running sounds like a winner to me! Right. Everyone get's caught in the end. It's just about WHEN you get caught that's the important part. If you get caught very early on then that just means you'll be in interrogation for longer, and therefore more likely to give up which is their aim. In interrogation they stick a sack over your head. there are 3 phases to interrogation. The second two phases I hear are quite crap. The second phase is just plain white noise, which I've been told is pretty naff, and the third phase is an interrogation with a guy who's just putting on a Russian accent to try get information from us of where all the checkpoints are and to try and scare us a little... They can't physically hit us though, so it's all a mental game and remembering they can't physically harm us... People who have done it before say they say things like they are going to crush your head with a van. They will stick a tyre next to your head, and nearby you'll hear someone in a Van revving the engine. As you hear the Van revving, they will start pushing this spare tyre against your head, making you believe there is literally a BIG VAN behind you pushing it's tyres against your head, and one slip of the clutch and your gone. Baring in mind we've got a sack over our head so we can't see what's going on, we've been starved of sleep from the previous night from being bugged out all night and having to run to safe spots where they couldn't get us, just had a load of PT and are most likely dehydrated and boiling hot with our jackets on which we aren't allowed to take off. It's easy to become delusional. The bit I'm worried about is the PT and most of all the stress positions. They stick all the captured people into a blow up tent, where we are in there with all the gear we were wearing outside to keep us warm in those minus degrees conditions. But now we are inside, it's starting to get pretty warm! Like I said, we aren't allowed to take our layers off... They are trying to get us to quit at the end of the day. A guy last year said he was thirsty and they just chucked a bucket of freezing cold water over him. I'm not going to be asking for a drink I don't think... Whilst inside the tent we are put into stress positions whilst the people outside are given around 10-15 minutes of constant PT before coming in and taking up someone else's position with stress positions whilst they receive a nice bit of PT. Does anyone know how I can survive the stress positions and constant PT? I understand it's mostly about mental strength rather than physical strength. The mind always gives out before the body... Has anyone been given this kind of treatment before? I'm sure any of you guys who were in the forces must have done? How did you get through it? Is there any tricks to zoning out Going into a happy place lol, or just to help me take my mind off it? I've been watching a few videos on YouTube... They are all based on real military soldiers who have been captured by the enemy though. Their main concern is escaping and not giving away their allies positions away... Mine is just plain and simple, PASSING. So I'm not sure if all their techniques will work for what I'm about to do lol. Like they talk about being the 'grey man'. The grey man doesn't need to give away any information besides basic things like his name. I'm just thinking that if I don't say anything besides my name, and keep completely quiet, if I will just get bollocked in return for it and given a major PT session lol? I don't want to be the guy who stands out, but I don't want to annoy these guys as they have complete control over me haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigshep Posted December 14, 2012 Share Posted December 14, 2012 Basically it is down to mental strength. If you already do a lot of PT and can push yourself to that point wear your body just goes onto auto pilot, the bit just after your brain screams "give up" over and over again, then you can get through this. Also if it is agroup thing then you need to be in the middle of the pack, not looking too defiant, not looking too meek, so the hunters pick on those people first (cruel but fair) Either way you will probably break down, its just a matter of time, which is the whole point of interogation after all. Enjoy the experience as you will learn more about yourself than anything else, which is always a good thing. In the end they have a level of care that they must adhere to and anybody who is collapsing from dehydration or stress or any other conditions like hypothermia will be taken off and dealt with in a professional manner. So you may physically and mentally suffer, however you should never be in life threatening danger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Wisdom Posted December 14, 2012 Author Share Posted December 14, 2012 Yeah we do three 1 hour sessions of PT a week, as well as me and a few mates just go to the gym for an hour or so to kill time before the buses arrive on Monday's after we've finished college at mid-day (haha, yup! Gotta looove college! XD) We then occasionally, if we feel like it, go to another PT session after the gym which is instructed by a teacher and we do exercises that we wouldn't normally do in a normal PT session. That really kills though lol. Yeah I've been pushing myself in PT a lot more over these past few weeks... Trying to practice for this up coming event! I got into a really strange state of mind the other week. It was the last little bit of the session we were doing before finishing up. Basically all we had to do was in our groups of 6 people, each person in the group would sprint from one end of the hall to the other 3 times, before swapping with the next person in line. Meanwhile, everyone else who wasn't running would be doing constant press ups until everyone was done. My arms were screaming for me to stop, my forearms were burning and my biceps felt like jelly, but I just kept going and then I got into this faze where it suddenly felt like I had loads of energy and I just kept bashing them out! It didn't really hurt anymore... I think it was all to do with my motivation that I knew we were nearly done and I just wanted to finish myself off and put that last bit of effort in. I'm determined to do well next week so I hope my motivation carries me a long way. We are put into groups of approximately 3-6 people when going from checkpoint to checkpoint. After we are captured however, everyone who has been captured is all put together whilst we endure this ever so lovely treatment... There was three girls who fainted last year. They were taken away though and given the necessary medical care of course. Thanks for the advice Bigshep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soldier1 Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 As bigshep said its mostly down to mental strength, all you can do is get your body in the best shape to cope with the stress postions, as ex army i can tell you there is no easy way of dealing with them lol, just try and be as strong as you can mentally and your be ok, best of luck with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zak Da Mack Posted December 15, 2012 Share Posted December 15, 2012 I remember watching Derren Brown on TV and he said that many torture victims used to think about something else like their friends or family to take their mind away from the pain. I know that they won't actually hurt you but just try not to think about what's going on and think about something else, maybe something funny or a good memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters SooGoo Posted December 15, 2012 Supporters Share Posted December 15, 2012 12 hrs of PT and stress positions shouldnt bother you too much your body will be tired ofc but if you have a favourite song/book/film i found when dealing with stuff like this ill just start rereading my favourite book in my head or make up a story of my own just something to keep your brain occupied which will pass away the time Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Wisdom Posted December 16, 2012 Author Share Posted December 16, 2012 Cheers for the help guys. Much appreciated. I'm all packed and ready for tomorrow now! I'm nervous but buzzing all the same! I tihnk that's a good thing. XD Shall let you know how I get on... Haha. XD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zak Da Mack Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 Have fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kungfumonkey Posted December 16, 2012 Share Posted December 16, 2012 when it starts to get hard dont think "i have to last 5 more hours" instead aim for small times like " hang in there 5 more mins" that way the moral moost you will get from reaching your goal will help with the next 5 and so on also counting helps me even if its sumthing silly like the patches of dirt on other peoples clothes anything to get your mind focused on a different thing other than the stress position's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supporters Ian_Gere Posted December 20, 2012 Supporters Share Posted December 20, 2012 The feeling of boundless energy you experienced is caused by endorphines. It's a natural response to pushing yourself beyond your usual limits. The speculation is that it helped us survive when we had to walk fcuking miles carrying kids etc to find new resources like water and food - feels great tho, eh?* I used to love hiking in bad weather when I was younger. Freezing cold rain lashing down and me striding along, constantly chewing trail mix and in brief stops to check compass bearings there'd be steam rising off my clothes... *It should do. Heroin mimics it lol! Just bear in mind that when you reach that state, you can very easily injure yourself by overstretching ligaments and not feeling it. No need to be a pussy, just don't assume that just because you feel like you can do anything, you actually can: don't run over rough ground if jogging will do, be careful to put your feet down on flat ground, climb down from obstacles rather than jumping - and just ignore the staff yelling at you to go faster, do it harder, whatever... the object is to pass the whole course, not to do each bit to anybody's liking. As for stress positions and interrogation, I can't comment on military techniques and I'm not going to elaborate on why I know a little about it, but basically it is what it is; safe, mild, controlled... whatever words you like to qualify it, but it is torture. They are going to systematically inflict physical pain on you whilst also brutalising you. You must simply accept it, because there is nothing you can do to change it. Not if you want to pass. You have to get your thoughts in order beforehand: there is no option but to endure whatever they do to you and ignore whatever they say to you. It doesn't matter what they say anyway, even if it's true. You already know that you're not perfect and, just like anyone else's, your flaws can be made to seem a lot worse than they actually are if somebody wants to make a song and dance about them. Similarly it doesn't matter if they accuse you of having flaws which you don't have; you and your flaws are not the issue, even though it seems like the entire exercise is to expose and exploit them. It is about the end result. It will be over. You will pass. You can also think about sex when you're in pain and imagine the staff giving you grief straining to sh*t... Both do help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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