Training the Autonomic Nervous System: How to improve Your Rehearsals and Stunt performances

The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is a powerful yet often overlooked part of our body that is vital in action acting and stunt work. This system, which controls involuntary bodily functions like heart rate and reflexes, is critical to performing scenes with speed, precision, and safety.

While many performers focus on physical conditioning, training your ANS can be the key to unlocking your full potential. In this article, we’ll explore how conditioning the ANS through targeted training methods, including effective rehearsal techniques, can enhance your screen fighting skills and ensure you’re always ready for action.

The Autonomic Nervous System: Your Body’s Hidden Reflexes

What is the ANS? 
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for managing involuntary functions like heartbeat, breathing, and your reflexes. When you’re in the heat of an intense scene, it’s your ANS that governs your fight-or-flight response, helping you react instinctively to whatever comes your way.

For action actors and stunt performers, a well-trained ANS is a superpower; it ensures that your reactions are not only quick but also precise, especially if you're under pressure or need to deliver a mix of speed and technical precision, while still being able to focus on acting and interactions with others in the scene.

Fight or Flight and Beyond: 
The ANS’s role in the fight-or-flight response is well-known, but its importance goes way beyond just managing stress. In stunts or action sequences that involve fast and precise movements or quickly reacting to something going wrong and coming your way, such as in screen fighting, the ANS helps automate your movements. This allows you to focus on your performance without worrying about your body’s reactions.

This automation and the ability to use it as a conscious tool is what makes the difference between a good performance and a great one - where every punch, block, and dodge is executed with millimetre precision.

Conditioning the ANS for Safety and Precision

Training Techniques that Target the ANS: 
Various training methods can effectively condition the ANS. Martial arts, such as like Krav Maga or Muay Thai, are particularly effective as they involve repetitive drills and sparring that embed movements into muscle memory.

High-intensity interval training (HIIT), reaction drills, and scenario-based exercises also play a crucial role in developing the ANS’s ability to respond automatically and accurately in real-time.

Precision Through Repetition: The Role of Slow Rehearsals: 
Rehearsing movements slowly, which at The ISA we call "Tai Chi speed," is a foundational technique in both martial arts but also for action actors and stunt performers. This approach allows performers to break down each movement, learning the choreography in detail, at a very slow but precise pace before speeding it up. This helps to prevent cognitive overload (where the brain can't keep up or retain it all, yet).

By starting slow, you’re not just memorising the steps (which is what many think is the sole purpose of rehearsing), you are also memorising exact positions, timing of interactions and training your ANS to use muscles accurately and execute movements automatically, even when they’re performed at full speed.
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• Building Muscle Memory: Slow rehearsals condition your ANS by developing muscle memory. Each repetition solidifies the movement in your nervous system, making it second nature. This is crucial when the time comes to perform these actions quickly and under pressure. Think of it like learning the steps of a dance slowly, before moving at full speed. 
  
  
• Enhancing Safety and Accuracy: As you gradually increase the speed of rehearsals, your ANS adapts, maintaining the precision and safety of the movements as you increase speed. If you have done things right the precision and accuracy will stay with you but as you load your system with more pressure by moving faster, it all stays sharp. This process ensures that even in the most intense scenes, your actions are accurate and controlled, minimising the risk of injury.
  
  
• Synchronisation and Character Integration: Slow rehearsals also allow you to sync your timing with other performers and integrate your character’s emotional and physical intentions into the choreography. By the time you reach full speed, your ANS ensures that these elements are perfectly aligned, resulting in a seamless and believable performance. If this is done in sync, matching speed with other performers, as a group you will get better, faster and move faster quicker. In a world where time is money and perfection is the goal this is a great skill to master. 
  
  

Practical Benefits of a Conditioned ANS on Set
Automatic Responses in High-Stakes Moments: A well-conditioned ANS equips you with the ability to react instantly and correctly to unexpected changes in choreography or props. This can be the difference between a smooth scene and a potential injury, especially when performing complex fight sequences.

Maintaining Character Under Pressure: When your ANS is well-trained, you can remain in character even in the most chaotic situations. This allows you to deliver a performance that is not only physically accurate but also emotionally authentic.

Real-World Benefits: Consider a performer who, during a high-speed fight scene, narrowly avoids a serious injury thanks to their automatic blocking reflex — as the choreography beaks and a hand comes in, a reflex honed through slow, deliberate rehearsal and ANS conditioning kicks in to save them. 

How to Keep Your ANS Sharp: Ongoing Training Tips
Consistency is Key: To maintain a well-conditioned ANS, regular practice is essential. Incorporate daily drills, visualisation techniques, and varied training regimens to keep your nervous system sharp and responsive.

Incorporating Slow Rehearsals into Training: Make slow-to-fast rehearsals a regular part of your training. This technique not only refines your precision and safety but also enhances your ability to integrate character and choreography, ensuring that every performance is top-notch.

The Role of Rest and Recovery: Remember, training your ANS is demanding on your body and mind. Adequate rest, sleep, and recovery are crucial to prevent burnout and keep your ANS functioning optimally.

The Broader Impact of ANS Training
Beyond the Set: A well-conditioned ANS isn’t just beneficial on set. It also helps you manage stress, improve focus, and build resilience in other areas of your life and career.

Building Confidence and Presence: By training your ANS, you’re not just improving your technical skills—you’re also building the confidence and presence needed to perform fearlessly and with greater authority on screen.

So, now we've had a quick tour of ANS training and the benefits fo it, you should be able to see that training the autonomic nervous system is a game-changer for stunts and action scenes.

Through consistent practice, including slow-to-fast rehearsals, you can condition your ANS to respond automatically and accurately, ensuring that every move is performed with precision, safety, and character. Take the time to invest in this aspect of your training, and you’ll see the difference it makes in your rehearsals, performances and your overall career.