RBSD talks a big game about “situational awareness,” but nobody actually teaches it, except a few people?

[Gerry Seymour]

Yeah, that’s the 101, what I was initially taught. Reactionary gaps I learned about later.

What do you define as a “deep corner”?

I might be wrong, but I read "corner" as the corners around shop doors and such. Some would be shallow (a shop door just a couple of feet inside the wall), while others would be deep (alleys, or shop doors sunken further, where someone could more easily hide and evade an angled side-eye glance).

 

[GreenieMeanie]

The problem with scenario training is it's set up artificially. Someone is feeding you specific cues (and others are purposely not presenting those). This presents two issues:

1. Are they presenting the cues realitistically? (How good is their acting?)
   If they present them incorrectly (like someone trying to laugh - very few people can present a real-sounding laugh on cue), you're training to recognize something that doesn't really present that way.
2. Are they the correct cues? It doesn't matter how good you get at recognizing those cues, if they aren't the right ones.

This goes to something @Steve talks about regularly. People working with this stuff on a regular basis (cops, bouncers, etc.) get to see if what they're taught works, and practice those skills. most folks will get precious few chances to practice recognizing a real threat. They can practice looking for a threat, but most folks will rarely be in the vicinity of a real threat.

Agreed. It’s never gonna be as good as the real thing, but at least you have a much better idea of what to look for, and that alone could save your life.

 

[Buka]

I'm sure there are schools that don't teach situational awareness, I just can't remember any that I've been to.

 

[drop bear]

I doubt many RBSD or SD instructors know much about this. So they don’t teach it. What some of them do is use some interesting exercises to try to improve portions of SA. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any research behind the exercises they use.

Yeah but people don't do results based training so why put the effort in.

 

[Jared Traveler]

Yeah, that’s the 101, what I was initially taught. Reactionary gaps I learned about later.

What do you define as a “deep corner”?

I spent a crazy amount of time learning to identify and mitigate deep corners doing CQB SWAT Training and Operations.

It's a little hard to explain, but these are hard corners to pick up. Angles that present amazing ambush opportunities. Either because someone moving through an area would have to move in one direction but look in another direction to visually clear them. Or because someone navigating through an area would have to visually clear multiple corners at the same time. Understanding human anatomy, and instinct to identify the most unlikely angle for them to pick up, when dealing with multiple angles at once. Typically this was a very deep, unexpected corner, at an angle making observation difficult.

Most professional SWAT teams can still completely miss deep corners if they aren't paying close attention.

 

[Jared Traveler]

I might be wrong, but I read "corner" as the corners around shop doors and such. Some would be shallow (a shop door just a couple of feet inside the wall), while others would be deep (alleys, or shop doors sunken further, where someone could more easily hide and evade an angled side-eye glance).

Yes. This is a good description at a fundamental level.

 

[jayoliver00]

I'd just rather teach women not to rape.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

I'm sure there are schools that don't teach situational awareness, I just can't remember any that I've been to.

Did they teach about it, or did they have drills for developing it? If so, were those drills any good?

Most of the places I've trained taught something about it. Some had exercises that were meant to develop it. Some might have been good (no idea how it would be tested within a single school). Some seemed pretty misplaced (changing one specific sign every class, with the expectation that this would generalize to noticing many things in many places). Some were probably good for developing the ability to watch for movements, etc. across a wider area, but didn't really teach what cues should cause you to raise your awareness.

 

[isshinryuronin]

A lot of these posts seem to deal with sophisticated risk assessment training meant for professionals. The depth of such training requires committed long term practice and study to master. For most of us, the basics of recognizing potential danger and avoiding/mitigating it are more practical. Like MA, having a strong understanding of the basics will take one far in everyday personal safety.

The lay person has only so much time and focus to devote to training, so instruction has to be simple, and the situational awareness techniques taught should be designed to be easily executed and not require an extensive series of psychological evaluations. Considering that most people are clueless zombies, unaware of common dangers, even this basic training will greatly increase their chances passing on their DNA.

It would be great for this training to begin in elementary school, teaching kids to be wary of strangers, not giving out information, refusing gifts and offers of help from strangers, watch where they're going, etc. This would be a much better use of time than teaching them gender fluidity. Starting them young, they will develop physical survival skills as a habit. I think this is the key - making situational awareness and proper responses a natural habit that can be built on and carried thru their lives. It need not be complicated. Just a few simple basic rules firmly instilled and periodically reinforced.

 

[GreenieMeanie]

A lot of these posts seem to deal with sophisticated risk assessment training meant for professionals. The depth of such training requires committed long term practice and study to master. For most of us, the basics of recognizing potential danger and avoiding/mitigating it are more practical. Like MA, having a strong understanding of the basics will take one far in everyday personal safety.

The lay person has only so much time and focus to devote to training, so instruction has to be simple, and the situational awareness techniques taught should be designed to be easily executed and not require an extensive series of psychological evaluations. Considering that most people are clueless zombies, unaware of common dangers, even this basic training will greatly increase their chances passing on their DNA.

It would be great for this training to begin in elementary school, teaching kids to be wary of strangers, not giving out information, refusing gifts and offers of help from strangers, watch where they're going, etc. This would be a much better use of time than teaching them gender fluidity. Starting them young, they will develop physical survival skills as a habit. I think this is the key - making situational awareness and proper responses a natural habit that can be built on and carried thru their lives. It need not be complicated. Just a few simple basic rules firmly instilled and periodically reinforced.

To be really good at it, gets into professional level sophistication. Much of this stuff, is situationally specific (i.e learning the “baseline”). However, the concept and theory behind it is quite straightforward, and you can practice it everyday just looking at your surroundings, and coming up explanations using that theory.

 

[Buka]

Did they teach about it, or did they have drills for developing it? If so, were those drills any good?

Most of the places I've trained taught something about it. Some had exercises that were meant to develop it. Some might have been good (no idea how it would be tested within a single school). Some seemed pretty misplaced (changing one specific sign every class, with the expectation that this would generalize to noticing many things in many places). Some were probably good for developing the ability to watch for movements, etc. across a wider area, but didn't really teach what cues should cause you to raise your awareness.

What we used to do were take field trips to Boston's Combat Zone (long gone now) and observe people and situations in known dangerous places. I do NOT recommend this to anyone in any way, shape or form. Worked for us, though.

 

[punisher73]

 

[isshinryuronin]

I think the video makes a good point: Electric bikes are very cool, wish I had one as a teen.

Another good point: Situational awareness is only half (or a third) the equation. The flip side is to be able to take advantage of your awareness of a situation and physically respond. This has 2 levels.

First, as the video points out, are pre-positioning moves: Keeping your hands free, access to weapons, taking wide corners, maintaining posture and so on.

Second, is executing physical techniques that the pre-positioning allows. This is the actual self-defense portion of the cycle. Situational awareness is of great importance, but the other parts leading to self-defense are equally necessary.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Situational awareness

My teacher was in Chinese secret service during WWII. What I have learned from him about "situational awareness" are

1. Never let anybody to close the car door behind you - When you step one foot in your car, if your opponent closes the car door at that moment, he can hurt your leg.
2. Always sit next to the exit when you watch in movie theater - You can escape faster if needed.
3. Before you start eating in a restaurant, always go to the kitchen and talk to the chef - Make sure the chef is not your enemy and tries to poison you.
4. Don't allow anybody to pull hot tea into your cup - He can throw hot water on your face and then beat you up.
5. Don't allow anybody to use both hands to shake one of your hand - He can apply wrist lock on you.
6. Make sure your bed doesn't face to your bedroom door - Someone can open your bedroom door and shot you while you are on bed.
7. When you walk on the street, always look for brick on the ground - In case you need to get into a fight, you can pick it up and use it (I add this one in myself).
8. ...

 

[Buka]

My teacher was in Chinese secret service during WWII. What I have learned from him about "situational awareness" are

1. Never let anybody to close the car door behind you - When you step one foot in your car, if your opponent closes the car door at that moment, he can hurt your leg.
2. Always sit next to the exit when you watch in movie theater - You can escape faster if needed.
3. Before you start eating in a restaurant, always go to the kitchen and talk to the chef - Make sure the chef is not your enemy and tries to poison you.
4. Don't allow anybody to pull hot tea into your cup - He can throw hot water on your face and then beat you up.
5. Don't allow anybody to use both hands to shake one of your hand - He can apply wrist lock on you.
6. Make sure your bed doesn't face to your bedroom door - Someone can open your bedroom door and shot you while you are on bed.
7. When you walk on the street, always look for brick on the ground - In case you need to get into a fight, you can pick it up and use it (I add this one in myself).
8. ...

Wait, you forgot a partridge in a pear tree.

 

[Oily Dragon]

I was actually just teaching this skill in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia a few weeks ago. What I do is actually walk down side streets and progressively teach people awareness step by step. I can give you a few examples of how I begin to do this.

Step one was to first be aware of and honor every corner. As you walk you visually check every corner, and maintain a reactionary gap. Also to take special notice of "deep corners" and to look deep. This alone puts your head on a swivel. It makes you precieved as someone who is aware, and decreases your probability of being targeted.

Step two, walking down the next street their goal was to honor every corner, but also expand their awareness bubble further out. And as they noticed people to categorize them into two simple categories. Aware of unaware?

Walking down street number three, they honored every corner, categorized people into aware vs unaware, then add the next thing...... And then the next thing..... And just build their awareness step by step.

I practice this same tactic in the supermarket.

It freaks people out, but it's important to establish territorial dominance, when it comes to awareness. As long as you crack a smile now and then, especially at old people, nobody should think you're actually there to rob the place.

You want to get all your groceries quickly and efficiently, but without knocking people over, running into shopping carts going in multiple directions etc. When you think about it a busy supermarket is one of the most dangerous daily places. You're there for some peanut butter, you risk getting run over by some unaware soccer mom on her phone who is also running around the store with what is basically a 200lb sled on wheels. Talk about a threat to your health, nutty people running around with heavy things. You need to be ready at a moment's notice to shift weight, and dodge incoming projectiles.

 

[isshinryuronin]

My teacher was in Chinese secret service during WWII. What I have learned from him about "situational awareness" are

1. Never let anybody to close the car door behind you - When you step one foot in your car, if your opponent closes the car door at that moment, he can hurt your leg.
2. Always sit next to the exit when you watch in movie theater - You can escape faster if needed.
3. Before you start eating in a restaurant, always go to the kitchen and talk to the chef - Make sure the chef is not your enemy and tries to poison you.
4. Don't allow anybody to pull hot tea into your cup - He can throw hot water on your face and then beat you up.
5. Don't allow anybody to use both hands to shake one of your hand - He can apply wrist lock on you.
6. Make sure your bed doesn't face to your bedroom door - Someone can open your bedroom door and shot you while you are on bed.
7. When you walk on the street, always look for brick on the ground - In case you nee d to get into a fight, you can pick it up and use it (I add this one in myself).
8. ...

I'm not important enough to be on this kind of combat footing/pre-positioning. I could stuff pillows under my blanket and sleep on the floor to foil an assassination attempt to handle #6, and for #4, I will now give up hot tea and drink only iced. But then, ice hurts too when thrown in your face. I have been poisoned in a nice restaurant per #3 while on a date, but pretty sure it was due to spoiled food as nobody knew I was going to eat there. It didn't kill me, but definitely killed the romantic opportunity (which was a much-anticipated sure thing) for me.

Being a secret agent in a war zone is too much work for me. I'm busy enough keeping safe from deranged homeless people walking about.

 

[Jared Traveler]

My teacher was in Chinese secret service during WWII. What I have learned from him about "situational awareness" are

1. Never let anybody to close the car door behind you - When you step one foot in your car, if your opponent closes the car door at that moment, he can hurt your leg.
2. Always sit next to the exit when you watch in movie theater - You can escape faster if needed.
3. Before you start eating in a restaurant, always go to the kitchen and talk to the chef - Make sure the chef is not your enemy and tries to poison you.
4. Don't allow anybody to pull hot tea into your cup - He can throw hot water on your face and then beat you up.
5. Don't allow anybody to use both hands to shake one of your hand - He can apply wrist lock on you.
6. Make sure your bed doesn't face to your bedroom door - Someone can open your bedroom door and shot you while you are on bed.
7. When you walk on the street, always look for brick on the ground - In case you need to get into a fight, you can pick it up and use it (I add this one in myself).
8. ...

I am not sure how to respectfully say this, but I will try. This list is hard to take seriously. Lots could be said critically about this list. But I will keep it simple.

Respectfully the whole list seems to put EVERYBODY into a potential threats category. This is paranoia NOT awareness. It is not a healthy mindset, not efficient or functional. Situational awareness is about accurately reading people in your environment so you don't have to live in a state of paranoia.

 

[Jimmythebull]

I discovered a little while ago, that “situational awareness” is actually an entire field of scientific study, with its own terminology, theory, and concepts—human behavioral profiling and analysis, “left of bang”.

Professionals aren’t just “keeping their head on a swivel.”They are looking for specific nonverbal cues, human behaviors, and incongruencies in between. The military has a dedicated school for teaching it and running scenarios, known as “the Hunter program.”

How is it, that people just don’t teach this stuff?

Mission focus

Demonstration of intent

Denial

Baseline + Anomaly= Decision

Most Likely Course Of Action

Most Dangerous Course Of Action

Low/High organization

Low/High sophistication

Kinesics

Biometrics

Proxemics

Atmospherics

I think if someone is a little street wise & has some basic common sense then I see no need for all this.
Might be important if you're Secret Service Guarding the President as I'm sure they recieve teaching in some of these things.
For a switched on person in a Dojo.. nope

 

[Jared Traveler]

I think if someone is a little street wise & has some basic common sense then I see no need for all this.
Might be important if you're Secret Service Guarding the President as I'm sure they recieve teaching in some of these things.
For a switched on person in a Dojo.. nope

I think you are underestimating the value of accurately predicting violence before it happens. And also the depth of skills that can be developed to do this well.