Tactical Mindset / Situational Awareness

[Ironman8]

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?

[rickp]

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]

The "better predator" game is a good enhancement.

[Outlander Systems]

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.

[macman37]

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.

[Abraxas]

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.

[Ironman8]

The "better predator" game is a good enhancement.

Care to elaborate? I'm not familiar with that...

[Ironman8]

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...

[Ironman8]

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....

[afff_667]

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.