Awareness...How Do You Teach It?

[MJS]

In another thread, the subject of awareness came up. Another member stated that he hears alot about this subject, but nobody seems to give methods on how to teach it.

So...my question is: What/how do you teach your students?

 

[MJS]

I'd say the majority of this, is plain old common sense! Explaining the dangers of not being aware is just part of the plan. Such things as:

Having your car keys out, in your hand, prior to reaching your car.

Scanning the area as you're walking to your car. Do you see someone suspicious hanging out in the area?

Check out the vehicle(s) parked near your car. Is anyone in them? Is one of the vehicles a van? You always hear about a female being pulled into the vehicle.

The other part would be scenario training. Amazing what a little imagination can do. Setting up obsticals in the training hall to simulate a parking lot, ATM, etc. This can even be done outside the school in the parking lot.

 

[Drac]

I'd say the majority of this, is plain old common sense! Explaining the dangers of not being aware is just part of the plan. Such things as:

Having your car keys out, in your hand, prior to reaching your car.

Scanning the area as you're walking to your car. Do you see someone suspicious hanging out in the area?

Check out the vehicle(s) parked near your car. Is anyone in them? Is one of the vehicles a van? You always hear about a female being pulled into the vehicle.

The other part would be scenario training. Amazing what a little imagination can do. Setting up obsticals in the training hall to simulate a parking lot, ATM, etc. This can even be done outside the school in the parking lot.

All good skills to pass on..I always harp on obey that little voice from inside...If something doesn't feel right go back the way you came..

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

All good skills to pass on..I always harp on obey that little voice from inside...If something doesn't feel right go back the way you came..

That is always some of the best instruction that anyone can recieve.

I try to raise practitioner's level of awareness through discussion on how they can move and yet be fully aware of their surroundings. I also do all that MJS suggested above. We all need to know what is going on around us. Further we need to position ourselves constantly so that we have visual and hearing angles in order to do this. Finally you need to like Drac pointed out above be able to feel what is going on around you as well. I use lots of drills and specific exercises to develop all of the above skills.

 

[Drac]

That is always some of the best instruction that anyone can recieve.

I try to raise practitioner's level of awareness through discussion on how they can move and yet be fully aware of their surroundings. I also do all that MJS suggested above. We all need to know what is going on around us. Further we need to position ourselves constantly so that we have visual and hearing angles in order to do this. Finally you need to like Drac pointed out above be able to feel what is going on around you as well. I use lots of drills and specific exercises to develop all of the above skills.

Excellent!!!!!!! As teachers we cannot stress enough how importand awareness is..In the academy we have drills using an AirSoft pistol, you'd be surprized what an excellent teacher that is...

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Excellent!!!!!!! As teachers we cannot stress enough how importand awareness is..In the academy we have drills using an AirSoft pistol, you'd be surprized what an excellent teacher that is...

Absolutely Drac the Airsoft pistols have been a big plus for personal protection teachers.

 

[Drac]

Absolutely Drac the Airsoft pistols have been a big plus for personal protection teachers.

It should be a MANDTORY piece of equipment in every school that teaches reality based self defense..

 

[exile]

All good skills to pass on..I always harp on obey that little voice from inside...If something doesn't feel right go back the way you came..

I recall a particular incident way, way back in New York, when my girlfriend and I were going to a dinner/get together at our faculty advisor's apartment on Riverside Drive. We were walking there from campus late in autumn around 7, so it was kind of dark, and I became aware of a couple of guys on the street behind us, maybe thirty feet back. Sometime did not feel at all right about that... I could not articulate it then and I can't now, but I knew things were wrong. By the time we got to his apartment building and buzzed to get in, they were standing right behind us. I whispered to her to get out her canister of pepper spray and be ready to use it as soon as I did, and I had mine out as well, and my keys in my hand splayed out ready to strike with. I remember cursing myself for not having any other weapons on me, but for some reason I'd left the usual arsenal home, so there was nothing else to do. The elevator came, and we got on it and they did too... and seeing them up close face to face, it was very obvious that these guys had no business whatever in that apartment building; they hadn't buzzed anyone, just followed us in. I brought my spray cannister out, she did too, and we just stared at them in the elevator, with the cannisters pointed at the faces, saying nothing. They were really, really tense... they hadn't expected that, and they froze solid. We got out of the elevator when it reached out floor, and I called the police from my advisor's place describing what happened.

Now obviously we did a lot of things wrong, part of the trouble was that it took me a while to determine that we had serious trouble there, and my girlfriend wasn't really aware of what was going on. We managed OK in the end, but what I always wondered about was, what was it that I picked up on in that incident that made it clear to me that there was something off-color there? A few other times similar things happened, but this was the clearest case I've ever experienced of somehow recognizing that there was something wrong with the pattern of movements involving me and some other person(s). I wish I could put my finger on it... where did that `little voice' Drac mentioned actually come from and why did it speak at that particular point?

 

[tellner]

In short, you already have the skill. All that's required is some encouragement in using it.

 

[MJS]

In short, you already have the skill. All that's required is some encouragement in using it.

Would you care to elaborate a bit? Looking at this post:

So what are some of these magical awareness techniques and training methods? Lots of people talk about them, but what are they? How do you teach them? What are the training exercises, drills, teaching progressions and out of class work that effectively teach them?

I hear this advice all the time, but almost nobody has any idea of how to do it and how to bring along a student to develop those skills and attributes. A handout of common things that criminals do might be a start. But if it's what you're recommending as the keystone of self defense training there needs to be a lot more, and it needs to be a lot more sophisticated than that.

Now, I do know some people who teach awareness very well. Every one of them also teaches really viciously effective physical methods. In fact, some of those are vital parts of the awareness training.

Some people walk around in a Condition White haze. It's amazing they don't crash into telephone poles and buildings. Most don't. Is the best advice really to tell them to practice what they already know? They come to class to learn what they don't know.

which can be found here it almost seems as if in one post you're saying people already have the skill, but in the one I linked, you're asking what the skills are.

So, back to the original question: How do you teach it?

Mike

 

[14 Kempo]

Awareness is something that I feel is very hard to teach. You can teach people how to enhance awareness, how to position themselves, such as ...
- In a bar, keep your back to the bar. Rarely is it the bartender that will cause a problem.
- At a party, stand with your back to a wall, so that you can see everything that is happening around you.
- In a restaurant, sit on the side of the booth where it enables you to see the most space.
... just a couple examples.

Of course there are many situations that will arise and you will need to simply know the basics. Enable yourself to see, widen your field of vision. Do not stand with your back exposed whenever possible. Some may call it paranoid, but I've been doing it for so long that I don't even think about it, I just do it and at this point, in fact, even way back when, nobody noticed. Other factors of awareness, such as the previous stories, are just a feeling that something isn't right. You need to learn to follow your instincts. Nothing is more important than your life and those of your family, relatives and friends.

 

[Bigshadow]

my question is: What/how do you teach your students?

First of all, I teach people to focus on how things make them feel. By incorporating this into the training and becoming aware of the feelings surrounding a threatening situation and/or the intent of an attacking partner, one can slowly become sensitive to that inner voice/gut feeling that will alert us to the danger.

We reinforce this through our training by making sure the uke attacks with intent and commitment (which is part of their training). This gives the tori something to work with.

Of course there are folks that are sensitive to it without any training, but the vast majority of folks need to train that ability.

Aside from the feeling, I tell folks they need to be aware of their surroundings and be free to react as necessary. I believe this also is developed through training. As one becomes more confident in their abilities, the more relaxed one is, and the more relaxed one is, the less they get tunnel vision and the less they focus in on one attacker and/or one weapon, essentially freeing themselves to adapt as the situation unfolds. This is also awareness.

It is not necessarily good for the awareness to be there before, but when the fecal matter hits the fan, it all goes to hell. One still needs to maintain awareness as the poop is flying.

 

[Kacey]

To be more specific about awareness:

• pay attention to where you are and what you are doing
  • too many people today walk, bike, and drive blithely around in headphones, on cell phones, etc., paying little attention to what they are actually doing and where they are going. When asked how they ended up in a negative situation, the answer is, much too often "Gee, I don't know. I was just walking along, minding my own business, when suddenly... [insert negative situation]
  • too many people develop a feeling of safety in certain situations and locations that they should rely on too extensively. For example, I have lived in my current neighborhood for 10 years, my current home (1 1/2 miles from my previous home, where I lived for 6 years) and I know from experience that it is a safe neighborhood - nonetheless, when I leave my house I lock all the doors, and I pay attention to who is around me, what is going on, and people who, for whatever reason, make me or my dog nervous. I don't care if I can't explain why I am nervous - I avoid people and situations which inspire such feelings.
• Have a plan
  • being aware of people is not enough - you need to be aware enough of your surroundings to know where to go and what your options are if something does happen. This, with the above, is something I discuss with my students, along with all the "what if's" they can come up with. If you're in a public, populated place, who do you approach? If there's no one official around (e.g. security, police, employees), who should you go to next? If you're inside a building but there are no people around, where are the exits, and where do they lead? If you're out in the open - a park, for example - where can you go? What can you do? What options are available for places to run to? What dangers are there if you leave the path? If you stay on the path? How are you being followed - on foot, by bicycle, by car? How many are there? Do you have a cell phone - and does it have service? If it doesn't, what other options do you have?
  • how can you prevent an attack if such seems imminent? What weaknesses do you see in your opponent(s)? Do you have a particular strength in an area of self-defense that is your immediate response - and if not, what are you going to do to develop one?
  • does the person(s) making you nervous have a weapon(s)? What type? What can you do to stay out of range and/or remove the weapon's advantage?
• Pre-plan
  • How do you avoid needing such skills in the first place? Are you going somewhere you're unsure of? If so, is there someone who can go with you? Someone you can check in with on a regular basis, who can be counted on to react if you don't check in? Is there an alternate route or location you can use in place of the concerning one? A better time?

All of the above and more are necessary for awareness - and I address them all regularly with my students.

 

[exile]

Here's what I think the problem is that you have to figure out in order to `teach' awareness. Normal social life, the ordinary workaday transactions that people have with each other, represents a complex set of patterns that we take for granted because it's the default, the way water is the default for a fish. What you're really doing is trying to get people to recognize a certain kind of anomaly in that pattern, a discrepancy that corresponds to danger. But you can't just say, well, pay attention and if anything seems weird, take cover (or whatever); `normal' social life has enough of a spectrum of possibilities that it may not be at all clear that a really dangerous situation has developed, and people tend not to want to believe that the worst, or at least very bad, is happening. So actual experience plays a big role in your danger-awareness: you can bet that a veteran street cop will have a very different sense of what's going on in a rowdy social situation than a civilian suburbanite whose closest contact with real havoc is Mel Gibson movies.

So teaching awareness isn't like teaching calculus or calligraphy; whatever it was in that episode I mentioned in an earlier post that made me aware we were serious danger was the result of actually living in New York in the 1960s and 70s, in midtown and Morningside Heights, and spending plenty of late nights/early morning travelling between the upper west side and Chinatown with my ping pong friends on subways that came by every forty minutes or so at 4 a.m., and plenty of weirdness on the stations where we waited. I'm having a hard time picturing how I would explain to someone else just what it was about the pattern of movement of those two guys who followed us that was anomalous enough to tip me off. They weren't being particularly obvious, but there was something about the way they were pacing themselves... hard to identify.

Can that sort of thing be taught by role-playing scenarios, I wonder?

 

[Em MacIntosh]

Do a survival challenge. Grab a knife, a bedroll and a few granola bars and live up in the mountains for a week or two. Listen to the wild. Listen to your anxiety. Practice that once or twice a year. Build your instincts, then trust them.

 

[Nomad]

We try to teach awareness through our dojo protocol. When a BB enters, a lower belt should grab his bag and carry it for him. When the senior instructor comes in, the class stops and greets him. At a water break, someone ensures that the senior instructor gets water by bringing it to him. Little things like this, over time, help to enhance mental awareness in the dojo, and hopefully this translates when people go back to their lives after class.

We also teach the situational awareness described above, but in a dojo setting this is necessarily theoretical.

 

[tshadowchaser]

being aware is something that must be street constantly. Reminding people of places where they may be in danger and some of the things to look for is always a good teaching lesson.

 

[tellner]

What I'm saying is that a number of people are putting out "Use your intuition. Listen to the little voice. Your gut won't steer you wrong." If that's true, then we already have what we need, and it's just a matter of using what's already there. If. If it isn't true, then there's something else which needs to be exercised and the vague platitudes aren't enough.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

What I'm saying is that a number of people are putting out "Use your intuition. Listen to the little voice. Your gut won't steer you wrong." If that's true, then we already have what we need, and it's just a matter of using what's already there. If. If it isn't true, then there's something else which needs to be exercised and the vague platitudes aren't enough.

Well Tellner truthfully everyone has this inner voice/intuition, whatever name you wish to call it. Unfortunately most peole ignore it or have not been taught how to recognize it or what it means. I find this particularly more prevalent within certain groups of people but certainly you cannot sterotype. Using what is already there is absolutely what people need to do but first they need to be aware of it and have the ability to use it. Some people pick it up right away and other's well it takes quite a bit more practice and patience.

Recently when I was in New Jersey staying at a very nice resort I was locking my rental car up after dropping the wife and kid's off at the front door. The parking lot was quite a ways away and surrounded by bushes, trees, shrub maze and small pond and water fall. For whatever reason as I exited the rental van I picked up on something from a densely bushy area and my gaze went right there. I could not see anything but I could feel that I needed to move and so I vacated the area quickly and went inside and informed the security personel on duty. What it was I will never know but I do know that I was successful in avoiding it. I have dozen's of personal stories like this myself and even more that involve students, friends, etc.

 

[Bigshadow]

What I'm saying is that a number of people are putting out "Use your intuition. Listen to the little voice. Your gut won't steer you wrong." If that's true, then we already have what we need, and it's just a matter of using what's already there. If. If it isn't true, then there's something else which needs to be exercised and the vague platitudes aren't enough.

I also think some folks confuse awareness with strategy (planning, not going to places that things might happen, etc.). To me those are two very different things.