If you are ever put in a life or death situation, your adrenalin will spike, causing parts of your body to decrease activity while other parts increase. Your heart will also start pumping harder to increase the oxygen to your brain and muscles. This is the body’s response to extreme stress.

Because of this, most self-defense experts recommend introducing stress into your training. But, how can you introduce stress without actually putting a life in danger?

One way is through competition like IDPA or 3-gun, while another is through physical activity such as the Two-Minute Torture Drill. You can also try Force-on-Force scenario training with airsoft guns. However, my favorite way of introducing stress into training comes from a story told to me by another NRA Certified Instructor, and it is very simple and requires no additional cost.

This instructor was letting the local police force use his range for some training, including stoppage drills that called for a New York Reload if a service gun malfunctioned. During the drills, one officer experienced a stoppage and, as per instructed, dropped his service pistol and went for his backup. Unfortunately, it too malfunctioned after one round. Well, the officer decided that it just wasn’t his day and he knelt down to wait out the shooting string. This did not sit well with the sergeant running the drills. The sergeant walked up and started screaming “Get it done” repeatedly from behind the officer.

The officer quickly tried to manipulate the handgun back to working order, but, because he was flustered from the screaming going on inches from his head, continued to have problems. In fact, it took the officer several minutes get the gun going and finish the string. Afterwards, according to the other instructor, the officer looked downright exhausted and almost beaten. The stress of the situation had really gotten to him.

As shown in what I call The Sergeant, words used with the proper inflection can greatly add stress to a training environment. Just make sure the people around you at the range know what you’re doing.