Situational Awareness: Anyone have tricks for picking up details?

[MAP]

I personally believe that TRUE SA (whether hunting animals or people) is something that some people are just plain born with.

I do believe however, that you can increase your SA with practice. Driving and looking for animals is very good practice and helps keep you alert while behind the wheel.

C4

I agree with Grant, to a point. Some people have more natural perception than others. My 8 year old is one. Nothing gets past him. In time he would make a great detective.

Even without innate ability you can develop your skills. I’ve been an LEO for 24 years. This experience forces you to learn. Being cynical and untrusting helps (unfortunately). Watching people and figuring out what they are about is fun. Being married to a psychology major doesn’t hurt either.

Mike

[Jay Cunningham]

Very interesting question. The overwhelming majority of people walk around in Condition White almost all of the time. If you can stand it, go to a nearby large shopping mall, grab a coffee and just walk around a little. Or even just sit. Watch the people.

One thing that I have noticed is that two aware people will notice each other very quickly - more than likely, you are both carrying, too. Look around and see if you can tell who else is aware around you, who may be an off-duty cop, who may be a switched-on citizen that might be carrying. Not everybody is born with heightened awareness but I'm a firm believer that it can be developed.

[ToddG]

If you want to build your ability to notice things, start noticing things.

Absolutely the best advice. You can do all of the normal tactical cool guy things (identify exists as soon as you walk into a restaurant or other building; glance in the back seat of your car before getting in; look both ways before crossing the street ). You can also make some pretty useful games out of it. For example, every time you walk into a crowded room, see if you can quickly count how many people are wearing glasses. It should only take a few fast glances, but you'll have looked at every person in the room. You might not pick up on anything else consciously, but in the back of your mind there is some brain power being spent on analyzing everything you saw to decide if something looks "out of place."

This kind of thought process is how police officers often find busts. I've known officers who have known that someone in a car had a bunch of dope simply because of the look they gave the officer as he passed them. He turns around, gets behind them, waits until they break the law, pulls them over....bingo. 20 pounds of dope.

Read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. The whole book is about the process by which people make these snap "intuitive" observations and judgments.

I was at a Sheetz gas station in Danville Virginia one weekend visiting some relatives there.

Wow, if my relatives lived at Sheetz I think I'd invite them to come visit me, instead. (sorry, I just couldn't resist)

edited to add: It's also important to remember that observation is just one part of situational awareness.

[Sidewinder6]

Blink is a great book and a good study on instinctive thinking. I also completely agree with John Waynes comments above and think his own experiences are an example of something that is there for everyone to see IF you bother to look.

I will add that if you ever have the opportunity to BE the hunted, your awareness takes on a whole new meaning. Think about that.

[RogerinTPA]

How about walking down your street, entering your home, in a bar, a festival, car break down in bad section of town with small child and/or significant other, foreign country thats not so friendly to Americans, possible kidnapping...street survival, etc...

Observation is key. Depends on the threat/situationally dependent. Paranoia is your friend! Knowing what to look for is an extremely important survival skill.

Home: Good area? Possible ambush areas entering or exiting your home you should be paying more attention to? Any pedophiles, rapist, convicted folks living in your area that you aren't aware of? You can't throw a rock without hitting a ex con or pedophile these days. Hostile Contact/Escape plan?

Bar: Know where all the exits are? Cased the place to see who is most likely to start s--t? Hostile Contact/Escape plan?

Street: What are the people doing? Were the streets full of playing children prior to your arrival and now your the only one there? This saved my bacon more than once in different countries. Possible ambush points? Hostile Contact/escape plan?

Hostile areas/Hostile countries: Good intel brief if available? Have you checked the state department's web site for the country you will be vacationing in? Make eye contact with everyone you encounter? (Your brain will remember if you've seen them before.) Hostile Contact/escape contingency plan?

AHole/Stalker/Rapist following the wife: Have you discussed it? Does she know what to do? Does she have her cell phone charging while in the vehicle while using it? Is she armed? Do you guys have a Hostile Contact or escape plan?

Legally armed but forgot your piece in the vehicle? I.E. caught in a violent encounter/shootout in a restaurants/gas station/department store? That's SA too!

[panzerr]

I personally believe that TRUE SA (whether hunting animals or people) is something that some people are just plain born with.

C4

and some that are not...for reasons that gotm4 state:

Don't think, just observe.

We had a guy we had to pull off our patrol set because he was not aware of what was going on around him. He was too busy thinking about random shit...clouds, birds, quantum mechanics. He wasn't stupid, was was in fact too smart for his own good and his intellectual neuronic collisions proved to be a liability for our Platoon. There is a common term for people such as him: Space Cadet.

[SIMPLYDYNAMIC]

Very interesting question. The overwhelming majority of people walk around in Condition White almost all of the time. If you can stand it, go to a nearby large shopping mall, grab a coffee and just walk around a little. Or even just sit. Watch the people.

One thing that I have noticed is that two aware people will notice each other very quickly - more than likely, you are both carrying, too. Look around and see if you can tell who else is aware around you, who may be an off-duty cop, who may be a switched-on citizen that might be carrying. Not everybody is born with heightened awareness but I'm a firm believer that it can be developed.

Very good point... Also agree with what Grant said about it being born into a certain personality or more so the way you were raised... My father taught me to hunt and always leave myself a way out in life... I have always remembered those words and have since built a constant "circle of awareness"

Observation skills are a key component to work on first... In Recon, Surveillance and Sniper teams we do little drills for enhancing observation techniques.

KIMS games are good and I do them with my kids now (for some reason I cat get them to like it though). It as simple as having SOMEONE ELSE put 10 items on a table, the items can be anything: Pens, cards, tools, papers, glasses, electronics.... anything really... then cover them up and have your partner pull the cover off and give you 60sec to ID everything there, then go outside and run or thrash yourself for about 3-5min (the first time) to try and distract you, then when time is up come back inside and sit down and write as much down about each one of the items that you saw in a 2 min time frame. once time is up check your list with the items.

The descriptions the first time you do it will be minimal... for example you will remember a pen... but your goal is to remember it was a Sharpie, Black ultra fine point, perm marker, with a steel stamped pocket clip, made in the USA and approx 6" in length?

The more you do this the better your observation skill will become... And the more you do this the more you will realize how much info you really miss in the real world on a daily basis.

[Army Chief]

I don't say this to be trite, but rather because I think it is a pretty succinct summation: "It's not so much what you see ... it's what you're looking for."

Chief

[maze]

This is a very interesting topic. SA came up about a year after OEF started. Training Soldiers took on a whole different approach to teach SA to civilians who walk around in a "daze".

We had to start simple, with little concentration type photos, placed everywhere, very out of normal locations that would spark some interest. Then it became a much larger game, making Soldiers annotate anything in the environment they weren't used to..the barracks...they had to make notes and report to the Drill Sergeants at the end of the day with their findings. We noticed a significant increase in their ability to start picking stuff up, even if it wasn't placed by cadre.

I would suggest you have your spouse, life partner, friend or whatever start moving little things in the house around, see if you pick up on it. this probably already happens.

when driving pick out an individual, think about if that person was a suspect, would you be able to provide a good description to aid police.. Look at people in the mall. same thing.

notice drivers going to fast, remember license plate, make model of vehicle, color, what the driver was wearing. your ability to remember little things like that will increase rather quickly. it did with 18yr old kids wanting to be Soldiers. they are doing great things in the GWOT.

Just my 2 cents.

[9x19]

I've always been this way. I'm not sure if I was born this way, or if it was something that I learned. I had a few unusually scary/violent experiences as a kid that may have been the catalyst to observe. When I was younger, I was told by other people that I was too quick to judge, and of course when I didn't "listen to my gut", I regretted it.