View Full Version : Tactical Mindset / Situational Awareness
So I have been thinking alot about my own tactical mindset and situational awareness in every day life, but I thought I would ask you guys what you thought.
How do you guys enhance your TM/SA and how do you maintain it? What do you guys look for when conducting your every day lives in order to stay ahead of the game?
For example, if you go out to a restaurant, what do you do/look for?
I know I try to face the door, know all the exits/entry points, profile others in the restaurant, know where the cover/concealment is, ect. But what else do you guys do?
Also, when you "profile" someone, what do you look for?
Any establishment i walk into I always look for the all the exit signs. If at a restaurant i make sure I know how to make it to the kitchen. They always have an exit.
R.
BLACK LION
01-23-11, 19:50
The "better predator" game is a good enhancement.
Outlander Systems
01-23-11, 20:57
Self assess. Gut checks on myself.
I've learned that if something seems "off", it is. Where I **** up is when I dismiss the inner voice.
Don't doubt yourself, if you perceive something to be wonky, there's a good reason for it, even if you can't pin it down. That's the first tipoff to go to a higher Cooper colour code.
I've been doing pretty good about staying out of white altogether.
I've been to the mall all of once in two years. A couple of weeks ago, my wife needed something, so I agreed to accompany her. We got done at Macy's, and she wanted to check out some shop down on the other side of the mall. As we're strolling along, a dude springs, literally, out from behind some cart. She was closer to him than I was; instantly pushed her behind me with my non-dominant arm, and went to draw. Realised this was some jackass salesman trying to pitch some sort of moisturiser, but his approach was tacky to say the least. He pretty much "dashed" towards us; I didn't even realise what was going on.
My brain registered the dude inbound in my peripheral vision, heading straight towards my wife. It took place in all of about 2 seconds.
My thought process was purely instinctive until I realised he was obviously not a threat. Neither my wife, nor the dude, noticed that I had put my hand on the frame of my smokewagon.
The problem comes full circle back to knowing when to, and when not to. What worried me is the fact that I questioned the asset/liability of daily carry for me, if I was instinctively ready to break leather in a place where, common sense dictates, there is no threat. I suppose what put me on high-alert was the fact that a grown man began sprinting towards us. Where I'm from, grown men don't run indoors unless they're getting away from something dangerous, or about to do something dangerous.
I don't know, I believe, since no one was the wiser, all's well that ends well, but I need to sharpen my pencil on this one. Either that, or I need to spend more time in public, and crawl out of my bunker more often.
I deliberately brought this very thing up on TOS and got pilloried for it.
I suspect the discussion will be a little more rational here.
Me? I train when I can, and I keep my eyes out. I wasn't born with spidey sense that will tingle when danger is near... I just prepare myself as best I can for generalities and come-what-may.
I'm better sometimes than at others. My biggest problem is either I don't listen to my little voice or I am not sure if it is going off or not.
The "better predator" game is a good enhancement.
Care to elaborate? I'm not familiar with that...
The problem comes full circle back to knowing when to, and when not to. What worried me is the fact that I questioned the asset/liability of daily carry for me, if I was instinctively ready to break leather in a place where, common sense dictates, there is no threat. I suppose what put me on high-alert was the fact that a grown man began sprinting towards us. Where I'm from, grown men don't run indoors unless they're getting away from something dangerous, or about to do something dangerous.
I don't know, I believe, since no one was the wiser, all's well that ends well, but I need to sharpen my pencil on this one. Either that, or I need to spend more time in public, and crawl out of my bunker more often.
I don't think you over reacted at all...you can't wait for a "threat" to REALLY become a threat before you begin to react. It might be too late at that point. I mean you didn't draw on him and were half way through your trigger pull before you realized he wasn't really a threat right? So, no, I think you reacted appropriately.
I think this is where "profiling" would be beneficial. Which is really why I posed this question because I want to know more about it. You have to know your setting, and in your case, the mall, you have to realize that most of the kiosk salesmen are usually foreign and very "aggresive" in their mannerisms (meaning they don't mind getting in your personal space). Maybe this is where "crawling out of your bunker" would help... ;)
I deliberately brought this very thing up on TOS and got pilloried for it.
I suspect the discussion will be a little more rational here.
Me? I train when I can, and I keep my eyes out. I wasn't born with spidey sense that will tingle when danger is near... I just prepare myself as best I can for generalities and come-what-may.
I know, and I was hoping it wouldn't happen here. So far so good.
I want this to be a discussion that we can all learn from, because I personally am not some super secret ninja, and I feel we can all benefit from learning what each other looks for on a daily basis to stay ahead of game.
I'm the same as you, I train when I can and stay alert as much as I can trying to stay out of "white", but I know I can be better....
This is one of those subject areas that seems most difficult to penetrate for a low-speed civilian such as myself. This site does wonders for tool/hardware selection, so I'm hoping to pick up some help with my software, as well.
Although I'm not current/former military or LEO, I was a firefighter/paramedic for fifteen years until sidelined by injuries. Early in that career, I remember experiencing tunnel vision in stressful situations and then working diligently to expand my focus to take in all aspects of a given incident or scene, get the big picture. I still check out fire sprinkler systems in every structure I enter, identify exits, etc, but I've expanded that to include taking a look at individuals and identifying those that don't seem to belong.
I remember an "old timer" telling me during rookie school to always pay attention to that little voice. As has been previously stated, that little voice is usually correct, and I had several fire/EMS experiences in which listening to it definitely made a difference.
One mind game I've started playing with myself is to take in as much as I can when visiting the mall, for example. Then later in the evening at home, I try to visualize details from the visit, especially those associated with people or things that caught my attention for whatever reason they did. What this seems to have done for me is to increase the amount of attention I'm paying while out. I have no empirical evidence to confirm this and it may very well sound stupid, but it does seems like I'm paying more attention overall to my surroundings, especially people.
I deliberately brought this very thing up on TOS and got pilloried for it.
I suspect the discussion will be a little more rational here.
Me? I train when I can, and I keep my eyes out. I wasn't born with spidey sense that will tingle when danger is near... I just prepare myself as best I can for generalities and come-what-may.
Sorry, TOS??
R
Self assess. Gut checks on myself.
I've learned that if something seems "off", it is. Where I **** up is when I dismiss the inner voice.
Don't doubt yourself, if you perceive something to be wonky, there's a good reason for it, even if you can't pin it down. That's the first tipoff to go to a higher Cooper colour code.
I've been doing pretty good about staying out of white altogether.
I've been to the mall all of once in two years. A couple of weeks ago, my wife needed something, so I agreed to accompany her. We got done at Macy's, and she wanted to check out some shop down on the other side of the mall. As we're strolling along, a dude springs, literally, out from behind some cart. She was closer to him than I was; instantly pushed her behind me with my non-dominant arm, and went to draw. Realised this was some jackass salesman trying to pitch some sort of moisturiser, but his approach was tacky to say the least. He pretty much "dashed" towards us; I didn't even realise what was going on.
My brain registered the dude inbound in my peripheral vision, heading straight towards my wife. It took place in all of about 2 seconds.
My thought process was purely instinctive until I realised he was obviously not a threat. Neither my wife, nor the dude, noticed that I had put my hand on the frame of my smokewagon.
The problem comes full circle back to knowing when to, and when not to. What worried me is the fact that I questioned the asset/liability of daily carry for me, if I was instinctively ready to break leather in a place where, common sense dictates, there is no threat. I suppose what put me on high-alert was the fact that a grown man began sprinting towards us. Where I'm from, grown men don't run indoors unless they're getting away from something dangerous, or about to do something dangerous.
I don't know, I believe, since no one was the wiser, all's well that ends well, but I need to sharpen my pencil on this one. Either that, or I need to spend more time in public, and crawl out of my bunker more often.
"If all you carry is a hammer then everything looks like a nail."
You ID'd a threat and immediately "went to guns" before determining the threat level. If anything I think this highlights the need to occasionally shift gears away from training for lethal force encounters all the time. You did what you trained yourself to do but as a civilian with a carry permit if that were me, my reaction would scare the shit out of me even if I caught myself before things got loud.
As far as developing good SA, I regard everyone with a little bit of suspicion and I'm always looking for an "out". IMO An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so to speak.
John_Wayne777
01-24-11, 13:06
How do you guys enhance your TM/SA and how do you maintain it?
Nobody has total situation awareness at all times. The best most (including me) can muster is to be generally aware of the surroundings and the people in it. You're not reading anyone's mind or doing a police sketch of every person you see in your head...you're just looking for people who seem out of place or situations that could present a problem.
Most spend their time out in public engrossed in those little electronic distraction devices. (Cell phones) Local to me a while back a college student was so engrossed in her texting that she neglected to watch where she was going and stepped out into the road...and she was hit by a car. Thankfully the traffic was heavy and slow moving so the car wasn't going fast when it hit her. She survived without impairment.
What do you guys look for when conducting your every day lives in order to stay ahead of the game?
You're looking for people who seem odd or situations that are potentially hazardous. People who are trying to hide from you are a big red flag. People who are paying too much attention to you are a big red flag. People who match your movements are a big red flag. People who are trying to close distance on you or who are trying to fix you in a particular location are a big red flag.
ATM's would be a good place to stay on your toes. Ditto parking garages, alleys, shadowy areas near thoroughfares, etc....the dangerous situations would be those places where criminals are likely to set a trap for the unsuspecting. If you can recognize what a trap looks like from a distance there's less chance of having to fight your way out of it.
If you must go into a situation that could easily be a trap, some proactive measures can help prevent it. An example from my life: I'm driving the pastor of my church to the bank to make a night deposit on a Sunday night. The bank itself is situated off by itself and there is a patch of woods nearby. I circle the bank in the vehicle slowly before ever stopping so I can get a good look at what's around. My headlights catch something suspicious and I stop, whip out my Surefire and spot a guy hiding in the bushes. It's a safe bet that he was up to no good. Without the element of surprise he was defanged.
Also, when you "profile" someone, what do you look for?
Someone who looks out of place or who takes inappropriate notice of me.
Example: On Christmas Eve 2010 a dude tried to strong-arm rob me. I had just arrived back in town after a get together at the NRA range with some M4C folks and I needed some gas. I stopped in at a gas station on the way home and went in to pay cash for the gas. As I was leaving out of the corner of my eye I noticed a skeezy looking dude who changed direction to approach me. This man sped up to close distance on me while my back was turned. He didn't know I was using the reflections in the other cars parked at the gas station to monitor his approach.
When he'd gotten as close as I was prepared to let him get, (which, it should be noted, was nowhere near as close as he wanted to get) I spun on him really quick and I "asked" him to stay right where he was. He asked for a cigarette and continued to advance. I backed up and told him to stay where he was. His request went from can I have a cigarette to can I have a dollar to give me some ****ing money while reaching into the pocket of his peacoat....
...and that's when I stopped backing up, took an aggressive posture and in a very loud, very angry voice told him to back the **** up.
Now I don't know what specifically motivated him to suddenly want to have as much distance between him and me as possible. Perhaps my use of profanity offended his delicate sensibility. Perhaps as he got closer he found out I wasn't as handsome as he thought from across the gas pumps. Perhaps my posture and vocalization communicated that I was about to pull a gun and shoot him in the face. Whatever it was, he seemed to have a change of heart and ran away as fast as his beat up sneakers could carry him.
There were lots of people at the gas station because it was the only one open for a few miles. This guy stood out from the rest because:
Odd behavior - he wasn't there buying gas or gas-station food. He was sort of milling around all over the place without obvious purpose.
Different demeanor - he didn't look like all the normal people there to buy gas.
Focused attention - he focused his attention on me
Attempted to close distance - he attempted to close distance on me when he thought I was unaware of his presence
Each individual element was a red flag, but when strung together like that it was an indication of a serious problem developing. I didn't stop there with any sense of foreboding or doom. It was late on Christmas Eve and I was tired. I just wanted to get home. The possibility of someone actually trying to threaten me was the furthest thing from my mind when I pulled in and when I was standing in line to pay.
People often misunderstand the concept of situational awareness, thinking that you have to be a paranoid lunatic who expects a gunfight to break out at any second 24/7. That's not remotely the case. I was perfectly relaxed and perfectly calm until I saw the guy throwing the red flags.
I was aware enough of my surroundings to see the flags before it got to the point where he was in my face demanding money. As a result, I was able to take some proactive action to disrupt the guy's plan and put myself in a favorable position. 7 or 8 yards may not sound like a lot of distance, but if you have to get in a gunfight with a scumbag doing it at 7 or 8 yards is greatly preferable to trying to do it at 3 or 4 feet. Early warning gave me options which kept me from having to find out what his hand was on in that pocket or having to spend the remainder of Christmas Eve explaining why that dead guy has several of my hollowpoints in his vital organs.
Good situational awareness is not about walking around with your hand on your gun giving the 1,000 yard stare to everybody you encounter. Idiots who know as much about self defense as they do about brain surgery yet feel absolutely no impairment on giving advice tend to label it like that because they have no grasp on reality. It's simply about actually looking around your environment and seeing what's in it, what could potentially be a problem, and then reacting accordingly.
If you want to brush up on your street smarts, there is an excellent DVD (http://www.moaarmory.com/details.php?prodId=37&category=11&secondary=&keywords=) SouthNarc & Shivworks produced that gives a great lecture on situational awareness and some street survival techniques that work extremely well.
Best way I've seen it simply put. (http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Personal-Defense-Jeff-Cooper/dp/1581604955/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1295896462&sr=1-1)
Talked to someone recently who had attended some pretty interesting training. They had scenarios like going to dinner. Threat enters through the front. Mr. "situation-ally aware" guy hauls ass out the back door where an ambush team is waiting and pops him. Pretty much all of your usual methods of being "aware" were crushed during this training from what I can tell in talking with him. After a week of that, even pretend, and you get pretty spooked.
"If all you carry is a hammer then everything looks like a nail."
You ID'd a threat and immediately "went to guns" before determining the threat level. If anything I think this highlights the need to occasionally shift gears away from training for lethal force encounters all the time. You did what you trained yourself to do but as a civilian with a carry permit if that were me, my reaction would scare the shit out of me even if I caught myself before things got loud.
As far as developing good SA, I regard everyone with a little bit of suspicion and I'm always looking for an "out". IMO An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so to speak.
I would have to agree...in the previous post, I didn't really say what I meant clearly. I still think he didn't "over-react". He never drew down on the guy so I just see that as preparing to defend yourself while IDing whether he is a threat or not.
This is where learning a real world hand-to-hand combat art comes in to play. Depending on the level of threat, you use the appropriate level of force. I guess that's what you meant when you said "the hammer" quote. But that doesn't mean that your first movement can't be to your gun, then transition to fighting hand-to-hand if that's what the situation dictates.
Thank you John Wayne, very good stuff...
This is where learning a real world hand-to-hand combat art comes in to play. Depending on the level of threat, you use the appropriate level of force. I guess that's what you meant when you said "the hammer" quote. But that doesn't mean that your first movement can't be to your gun, then transition to fighting hand-to-hand if that's what the situation dictates.
I think we're mostly on the same page but I'll disagree that defaulting to a deadly force option before a determining the threat level is appropriate. It's jumping the gun a little bit (pun intended). :p
"If all you carry is a hammer then everything looks like a nail."
You ID'd a threat and immediately "went to guns" before determining the threat level. If anything I think this highlights the need to occasionally shift gears away from training for lethal force encounters all the time. You did what you trained yourself to do but as a civilian with a carry permit if that were me, my reaction would scare the shit out of me even if I caught myself before things got loud.
As far as developing good SA, I regard everyone with a little bit of suspicion and I'm always looking for an "out". IMO An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure so to speak.
The most useful training I've ever had was Southnarc's Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC) portion of his ECQC course. It teaches the student how criminals select and approach their prey, how to avoid and deter criminals, and how to safely manage our contacts with strangers in public places in a way that doesn't require knowing the stranger's intent. If you can't get to a class, his Practical Unarmed Combat DVD is very useful. It contains a lot of his MUC stuff.
"If all you carry is a hammer then everything looks like a nail."
Have read accounts by various Force-on-Force instructors about how so many students seem to go to guns before it's justified. I've seen it myself in folks who only/mostly had guns training.
Here's a variation: If most of your training is in using a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.
IMO the right skillsets for most encounters with unknowns are awareness, decision-making, maneuver, verbalization and body language. A smaller set of encounters will require hands-on skills. Lethal means and skills are what we will need least often, but lots of us spend most of our training resources only on that. IMO a rational self-defense training program for a citizen should begin with understanding criminal tactics, and how to effectively use the aforementioned awareness, decision-making, verbalization, and body language, then proceed to hands-on skills, and only then to lethal means. After we develop proficiency and are maintaining that proficiency, we should continue to spend a majority of our resources on the most commonly-needed stuff, not the lethal stuff.
I fell into the trap. I spent a lot of time and money on handgun and rifle training before I took a FoF course that helped with awareness, decision-making, etc and before I took any hands-on training.
John_Wayne777
01-24-11, 17:16
The most useful training I've ever had was Southnarc's Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC) portion of his ECQC course. It teaches the student how criminals select and approach their prey, how to avoid and deter criminals, and how to safely manage our contacts with strangers in public places in a way that doesn't require knowing the stranger's intent. If you can't get to a class, his Practical Unarmed Combat DVD is very useful. It contains a lot of his MUC stuff.
I'll heartily second a recommendation for SouthNarc's training, especially his MUC presentation. I've used it and it works.
Have read accounts by various Force-on-Force instructors about how so many students seem to go to guns before it's justified. I've seen it myself in folks who only/mostly had guns training.
I can relate the only FoF training I've received was scenario based (ATM stick-up) and I was the only one that beat feet vs playing hero & engaging in a gun battle. Almost everyone else got shot to shit with airsoft. That stuck with me.
IMO the reason for that in part is due to lack of proper mindset and attitude.
Lets face it just because some people have the right to carry a firearm doesn't mean they should. A lot of people think that the firearm is the answer for everything, when in actuality its the answer to probably the fewest things.
R.
i understand needing to always be armed; in a statistical argument, you need to be ready always or not at all for improbable encounters. and if you want to be armed all the time, some, no most, people shouldn't go A LOT OF PLACES.
if i go somewhere i don't like, i don't carry. if you need to be armed in a bar, don't go to bars.
don't shoot the 19 year old with gelled hair selling swatches.
i also think people should go to a fighting gym. during college i went around constantly with my fists clenched ready to fight anyone. the gym(boxing/mma not golds) takes the paranoia out while teaching you where to put your feet if a fight did occur.
Outlander Systems
01-24-11, 19:20
I don't think you over reacted at all...you can't wait for a "threat" to REALLY become a threat before you begin to react. It might be too late at that point. I mean you didn't draw on him and were half way through your trigger pull before you realized he wasn't really a threat right? So, no, I think you reacted appropriately.
I think, ultimately, it's blowback from this summer and fall. I spent May through October not working on anything but fast draw. I accomplished what I intended to accomplish through the cowboy summer I had, but in retrospect, I think it did more harm than good to my overall condition.
"If all you carry is a hammer then everything looks like a nail."
Or, "the suspicious eye sees only evil".
You ID'd a threat and immediately "went to guns" before determining the threat level. If anything I think this highlights the need to occasionally shift gears away from training for lethal force encounters all the time.
I think this is one of the biggest missing elements to my own personal equation; that I place absolutely zero training time on disarming assailants, threat deescalation, or anything other than the "how much lead, in this small area, how fast" shit. It's, quite simply, a massive gap in my own training.
You did what you trained yourself to do but as a civilian with a carry permit if that were me, my reaction would scare the shit out of me even if I caught myself before things got loud.
FWIW, it did spook me pretty good. I had a discussion with the Mrs. on the way home, that I wasn't too happy about instinctively reaching towards my sidearm; and even questioned whether I should carry at all. Ultimately, it was my own misallocation of training time. It's extremely easy to get too deep into one area of focus.
All that being said, the fact of the matter is, after the amount of time I spent shooting from the draw, and hastening the draw, it's another one of those tail-chasing activities that, when being rational, isn't even an effective, deploy-able skill. It's a parlour trick, that, as I've illustrated, left a training scar.
Outlander Systems
01-24-11, 19:33
...He asked for a cigarette and continued to advance.
Alright, dude. What is up with this? You're not the first person I've heard this approach from, and I've personally had it occur to me. In my situation, I was off-body carrying, and my gun was in a max-bag in my truck.
Dude, grizzly, I might add, "requested" a cigarette, then closed in on me as I was entering my vehicle and demanded one...
...I bugged out.
My question is, what is up with the "gimme a cigarette" approach?
Am I supposed to be distracted and have my hands full fumbling with smokes so dude's buddy can roll me up in a ball and snag my wallet, watch, and phone? I'm just trying to figure out what is up with this approach, because I hear of it happening quite a bit.
Peep ya'lls peepers on Derren Brown, in the event his shit isn't staged, it's a massive exploitation on peoples' overall LACK of any type of SA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Vz_YTNLn6w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j25qV5RO-nU&feature=related
John_Wayne777
01-26-11, 10:05
My question is, what is up with the "gimme a cigarette" approach?
If my goal is to attack you, I need proximity. If I come at you snarling like a grizzly bear from 30 yards away, odds are you'll probably attempt to flee. If, however, I engage you with seemingly innocuous requests while I continue to close distance on you, odds are you'll be in a state of relative mental confusion long enough for me to get close enough to enforce my will upon you using my fists, a blade, or a gun.
Even if you aren't busy trying to get me a cigarette, if you're simply thinking about what you are going to say to me then you're not as likely to be able to figure out what I'm up to until it's too late for you to do anything about it, whether that's attacking you myself or fixing your attention on me so you don't see my partner coming at you from behind.
That's the point of the cigarette rouse. Some dudes may genuinely be trying to bum a cigarette...but a large chunk of attacks on the street start out exactly like that.
Again I'll recommend the DVD I linked to on page 1 of this thread. It's about the best summation of how criminals work and how to avoid their traps I've ever seen.
Two books you should read:
"Principles of Personal Defense" by Jeff Cooper
"Street Smarts, Firearms & Personal Security" by Jim Grover/Kelly McCann
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