First of all, in a mugging scenario adrenalin release usually manifests in a body and mind that are untrained and unprepared to handle that much energy. When this happens the person’s mind and body unfortunately tends to freeze at the one time that they really need a fight or flight response.

The ideal effect of proper Tai Chi training is to learn how to stay calm and moving / active even when the body and mind are tense and the emotions are high and over riding the person’s common sense / survival instinct. Really intense push hands is an excellent training mechanism for this as you must maintain all of your correct body qualities and alignments while trying not to be pushed out and while trying to push out the other person. So, in competitive push hands there is a lot going on and a lot to do while keeping yourself together which is really great training for dealing with the chaos of a bad situation.

The other thing to realize is that the adrenalin energy and fear / excitement will be present in your body even if you are very confident in your ability to handle the situation. These chemicals and emotional energy will need to be acknowledged even if you are able to mentally overcome them. My recommendation in this case is for the individual to train to use the energy and move without stopping even if the movement is in place. Do this to train out the freeze response and to train in the movement so that it is easy to go to fight or flight as and when needed. I think of it as using the energy that is being released and ride it to try to obtain a safe proactive conclusion to the attack

Thanks