Tactical Mindset / Situational Awareness

[rickp]

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

[Sry0fcr]

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]

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 SouthNarc & Shivworks produced that gives a great lecture on situational awareness and some street survival techniques that work extremely well.

[rob_s]

Best way I've seen it simply put.

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.

[Ironman8]

"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.

[Ironman8]

Thank you John Wayne, very good stuff...

[Sry0fcr]

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).

[oldtexan]

"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.

[oldtexan]

"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]

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.