We were on the B side of the range yesterday. Eight hours- shooting, shooting while moving and pivoting, moving in a tight stack with live weapons, target discrimination, entries with a team of mixed lethal and less-lethal weapons to engage a mix of threats: deadly threats; dangerous threats and hostages. It was a good shoot, even cold at seven yards nine of my first ten were in the two-inch square. Moving was almost as good. I threw several rounds while moving on the boardwalk- as complexity increases (shooting + moving + listening for commands + target discrimination + magazine changes and failure to fire drills + keeping your balance on a fairly narrow, slightly wiggly platform) it becomes easier to let little things slide, like, oh, the front sight. Still, even there the shooting was good- just not consistently the standard I need to put a round on the nose of a moving threat without hitting the hostage being used as a shield.
On the A side of the range the local contingent of a federal agency were qualifying. I watched one miss the paper, the two-foot by three foot paper, not just the large silhouette of a bad guy in the middle, three times out of three before the instructor came over to help. Shooting for a two inch pattern on the B side, happy to hit the paper at all on the A side.
At one point both sides of the range were cold, so we could take off our hearing protection and I heard the instructor on the other side order, "Load three magazines of six and put twelve loose rounds in your pocket." Wow. That means that they have not changed their qualification course since they gave up revolvers. Think about that. Lots of things don't change- human aggression really hasn't changed since before we became humans, the instinctive physical motions when threatened aren't that different either- the difference between an antelope bone and broken cue stick in actual application are negligible. Technology does change some things, however... and sometimes people don't change in response, even when the stakes are high. If you see an officer who carries his magazine pouch on the same side as his weapon, he has been taught to do that and probably told it was faster. And it was faster, back when we carried revolvers and had to switch the weapon to the other hand to pop the cylinder and use the speed-loaders.
I was a weaver shooter for decades. I'd seen the stats that people almost never blade their bodies under stress but I was sure that didn't apply to me. All those years and hours of practice surely made me a special case (you may laugh)... what convinced me was JJ pointing out a change in technology; "You realize that your stance points the biggest hole in your armor right at the bad guy, right?" Crap. Time to learn the modified isosceles and actually point my armor at the bad guy.
Aside- old pistol duelers advocated an elbow to hip, hand at shoulder stance side on to the opponent. If he did happen to hit the torso area with his pistol ball it would have to penetrate all three arm bones before getting to the ribs.
The tendency to not recognize when the world has changed and go with the original plan is really powerful. Sometimes people don't see the change. Sometimes they stay within their comfort zone of behavior. Sometimes it just seems that tradition and habit have a kind of weight and momentum. This combined with human ability to rationalize and a hefty dose of ego makes for some pretty poor decisions defended with rabid ferocity. It's funny, most of the time. But sometimes there is a real price.
I've written about training artifacts before- things that were introduced to make training safer that have become the "right way". The pronated fist in karate. The follow through in a judo throw. There are technology artifacts, too. If you have ever had the opportunity to take apart an old Filipino sword, the handle is no more than a piece of rattan pounded onto a rattail tang. So maybe, the flowing cuts of some of the styles are because the blade stays in the wound longer... or maybe it's because almost any other technique made the handle fall off. Maybe the curve in a katana is because it is some mathematical function of the way people's arms move when they slash... or maybe they never figured out how to use the folding technique on a straight blade (FWIW, some viking weapons were pattern-welded by braiding the softer and harder steels, but the vikings never figured out the differential tempering trick).
It's hard to step back and look at these things in your own stuff. Often, unless something is tested to destruction, the weak spots don't look like weak spots in training. When you do find one, however, it often leads to an entire new set of insights. When Bric pointed out that the magazine placement we had learned was based on the revolver, it got me thinking and led to a change in weapon retention- because that skill was also based on revolvers and revolver holsters and some of the techniques, such as turning your hip away when the weapon is grabbed from behind, actually gives up the third level of retention on a modern holster, making it easier for the bad guy.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Being Invisible
Another one for the "Combative Twilight Zone Files" today from training. (hmmmm... that would make a hell of a book, wouldn't it?)
I usually stay away from the twilight zone stuff on the blog because I am worried about the reaction. Incredibly strange, impossible stuff happens at the edge. When you talk about it, impressionable people either:
A) Don't believe you. (Which doesn't bother me. I'm writing for myself primarily and most people live a life of sufficient comfort and safety that they can believe anything they want with no real effect.)
B) Believe you. If they believe you, they might:
b.1) Start believing in magic and quit "wasting time" on basics or;
b.2) Twist their focus and come to believe that the twilight zone fluke is "the way it is" and the other hundred mundane examples are ignored or;
b.3) Become weird little intellectual groupies, which frankly creeps me out. I'm tons more comfortable with Steve P.'s disagreements than I ever will be with, oh... you know what? I'm not even going to finish that thought. Someday just give me a scotch and ask me about the 'one move that embodies a style '. Puke. Gag.
Weird stuff happens and most of it can be explained once you understand the influence of super-high stress. The trouble is that understanding after the fact doesn't really prepare you for responding and understanding doesn't imply that you can predict or exploit the phenomena. That's why they're called "flukes" I guess.
On an entry, the first person in is responsible for immediate threat, near corner, far corner, cross corner. Don't hang up on the terminology. The first guy in has to deal with any immediately apparent bad guy, then check to make sure there isn't an ambush coming from the flank, then scan the room. His partner does the same from the other side.
One of the things we do in training is throw bad guys in at inconvenient times to make sure our entry team can adapt on the fly. Today on one of the reps, I was standing directly in the doorway when the point man came in. He blew right by me and covered a door (a potential danger spot). He actually brushed me. He never saw me. In the debrief he is adamant that I was NOT there.
I started to form the thought that I could fall in behind him like part of the stack, but the number 2 guy smashed me into the wall before the thought was completely formed. Which is excellent, it's what I train him to do.
Weird, though. This invisibility thing has come up a couple of times. In training (see the post on Perfect Predator Moment), just goofing around- one friend I stalked and counted coup on four times in a half hour while he was looking directly at me; but it is hard to tell if it has ever happened in a real fight. No one, at least, has ever told me I was invisible, but they have said, "Where in the fuck did you come from?" Wouldn't it be cool to interview the bad guys after a dust up? Something beyond crimes and discipline but more like, "What was your initial plan and when did you realize it had gone to hell?"
Adrenaline can cause tunnel-vision, and that accounts for a lot of the cases (the difference between invisible and unnoticed is very small in practice) but we'd been drilling this all day and it wasn't a rookie.
Cool.
I usually stay away from the twilight zone stuff on the blog because I am worried about the reaction. Incredibly strange, impossible stuff happens at the edge. When you talk about it, impressionable people either:
A) Don't believe you. (Which doesn't bother me. I'm writing for myself primarily and most people live a life of sufficient comfort and safety that they can believe anything they want with no real effect.)
B) Believe you. If they believe you, they might:
b.1) Start believing in magic and quit "wasting time" on basics or;
b.2) Twist their focus and come to believe that the twilight zone fluke is "the way it is" and the other hundred mundane examples are ignored or;
b.3) Become weird little intellectual groupies, which frankly creeps me out. I'm tons more comfortable with Steve P.'s disagreements than I ever will be with, oh... you know what? I'm not even going to finish that thought. Someday just give me a scotch and ask me about the 'one move that embodies a style '. Puke. Gag.
Weird stuff happens and most of it can be explained once you understand the influence of super-high stress. The trouble is that understanding after the fact doesn't really prepare you for responding and understanding doesn't imply that you can predict or exploit the phenomena. That's why they're called "flukes" I guess.
On an entry, the first person in is responsible for immediate threat, near corner, far corner, cross corner. Don't hang up on the terminology. The first guy in has to deal with any immediately apparent bad guy, then check to make sure there isn't an ambush coming from the flank, then scan the room. His partner does the same from the other side.
One of the things we do in training is throw bad guys in at inconvenient times to make sure our entry team can adapt on the fly. Today on one of the reps, I was standing directly in the doorway when the point man came in. He blew right by me and covered a door (a potential danger spot). He actually brushed me. He never saw me. In the debrief he is adamant that I was NOT there.
I started to form the thought that I could fall in behind him like part of the stack, but the number 2 guy smashed me into the wall before the thought was completely formed. Which is excellent, it's what I train him to do.
Weird, though. This invisibility thing has come up a couple of times. In training (see the post on Perfect Predator Moment), just goofing around- one friend I stalked and counted coup on four times in a half hour while he was looking directly at me; but it is hard to tell if it has ever happened in a real fight. No one, at least, has ever told me I was invisible, but they have said, "Where in the fuck did you come from?" Wouldn't it be cool to interview the bad guys after a dust up? Something beyond crimes and discipline but more like, "What was your initial plan and when did you realize it had gone to hell?"
Adrenaline can cause tunnel-vision, and that accounts for a lot of the cases (the difference between invisible and unnoticed is very small in practice) but we'd been drilling this all day and it wasn't a rookie.
Cool.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
South Coast Writers
I did some classes for the South Coast Writer's Conference and I've been letting it settle for a week. There was a fair amount of sleep deprivation and a very long drive; a beautiful sunset and a small town charity fish-fry; a hilariously awful hotel experience and great food and conversation at a heavy-metal cowboy bar and grill. A poet's first autograph. A writer's critique group that will become a long story over beer someday.
I was a bit of an experiment. Most of the presenters were literary types- people who identify themselves as writers. I was more like a thug who happens to have a book coming out. But an attractive subject: Literature is about conflict, right? And you have villains, right? So I was there to talk about violence and villains.
On the good side, only one of the students left the room and only for one segment. A few covered their eyes at the slides. The notebook of photographs that I sometimes pass around never made it all the way around the room, as if a small knot of people were afraid that the pictures would somehow enter their psyches if they touched the cover, and bring on nightmares.
Violence can be awesome, in the old sense of the word- the meaning that brought on kneeling, hoping that if you were small enough the god would not see you and crush you. It can be cathartic, completely changing in an instant how you will view the world. It can even be funny. It is often pathetic and sordid and messy. It is almost never dramatic or entertaining.
If I use force and it is dramatic or entertaining, I am doing it wrong.
So these writers, many of whom impressed me with their intelligence, insight, warmth and compassion got to see a tiny bit of the world that their profession often packages for entertainment. They got to see the rhinoceros that inspired the unicorn that they create.
The murders of Linda Lawrence and Kyle Dinkheller. Excited delirium. How and why women fight differently than men. What happens when an outsider interferes in an in-group's "adjustment session". How a real shooting differs from the range. What bullets and knives and bats and bites do to a human body. What happens when a martial artist tries to break up a bar fight and over-estimates himself.
How bad guys see themselves. How cops see them. How their families see them. How they see each other. How truly aberrant that can be at the extremes. Some of the norms, the "normality" in certain sections of criminal subculture. Why things that seem impossible to polite society make good survival sense in that world.
Prostitutes and the "Bad Date Line". Drugs, inmates and riots. Gangs and molesters. Icky days. Professional good guys and professional bad guys. And scars. We talked about the scars at one point, but only the ones on the skin.
It's always strange to talk to good people about bad things. Do you sensationalize it? But you can't sensationalize Linda Lawrence's murder: it could never be sold as fiction. Too weird, too impossible, too brutal (not her murder, per se, which happened in the space of a few seconds, the fight with her killer afterwards which would seem a bit 'out there' in a werewolf movie.) You can't sensationalize the heroism (and sheer bloody determination) of a Marcus Young. You have to tell them it is rare, but this stuff happens: blood has been used as house paint. Wounds have been raped.
And there is a constant, lower-level buzz of violence: casually abused children, casually beaten wives. Problems solved by boots and weapons as a matter of course... and they glitch hard there because since most people do not know anyone who regularly solves problems with violence they have a hard time accepting that there is a group that considers it an obvious first choice. Obvious. That's the glitch.
It went well. Janet Pretti worked her...erm... very hard to make sure that everyone had a good time. She even got me to do a public reading, though I almost choked when she said to pick something "family friendly". So much for anything out of the book.
And I got great reviews. But what would you expect? No one ever tells the teacher with the gun that he sucks.
I was a bit of an experiment. Most of the presenters were literary types- people who identify themselves as writers. I was more like a thug who happens to have a book coming out. But an attractive subject: Literature is about conflict, right? And you have villains, right? So I was there to talk about violence and villains.
On the good side, only one of the students left the room and only for one segment. A few covered their eyes at the slides. The notebook of photographs that I sometimes pass around never made it all the way around the room, as if a small knot of people were afraid that the pictures would somehow enter their psyches if they touched the cover, and bring on nightmares.
Violence can be awesome, in the old sense of the word- the meaning that brought on kneeling, hoping that if you were small enough the god would not see you and crush you. It can be cathartic, completely changing in an instant how you will view the world. It can even be funny. It is often pathetic and sordid and messy. It is almost never dramatic or entertaining.
If I use force and it is dramatic or entertaining, I am doing it wrong.
So these writers, many of whom impressed me with their intelligence, insight, warmth and compassion got to see a tiny bit of the world that their profession often packages for entertainment. They got to see the rhinoceros that inspired the unicorn that they create.
The murders of Linda Lawrence and Kyle Dinkheller. Excited delirium. How and why women fight differently than men. What happens when an outsider interferes in an in-group's "adjustment session". How a real shooting differs from the range. What bullets and knives and bats and bites do to a human body. What happens when a martial artist tries to break up a bar fight and over-estimates himself.
How bad guys see themselves. How cops see them. How their families see them. How they see each other. How truly aberrant that can be at the extremes. Some of the norms, the "normality" in certain sections of criminal subculture. Why things that seem impossible to polite society make good survival sense in that world.
Prostitutes and the "Bad Date Line". Drugs, inmates and riots. Gangs and molesters. Icky days. Professional good guys and professional bad guys. And scars. We talked about the scars at one point, but only the ones on the skin.
It's always strange to talk to good people about bad things. Do you sensationalize it? But you can't sensationalize Linda Lawrence's murder: it could never be sold as fiction. Too weird, too impossible, too brutal (not her murder, per se, which happened in the space of a few seconds, the fight with her killer afterwards which would seem a bit 'out there' in a werewolf movie.) You can't sensationalize the heroism (and sheer bloody determination) of a Marcus Young. You have to tell them it is rare, but this stuff happens: blood has been used as house paint. Wounds have been raped.
And there is a constant, lower-level buzz of violence: casually abused children, casually beaten wives. Problems solved by boots and weapons as a matter of course... and they glitch hard there because since most people do not know anyone who regularly solves problems with violence they have a hard time accepting that there is a group that considers it an obvious first choice. Obvious. That's the glitch.
It went well. Janet Pretti worked her...erm... very hard to make sure that everyone had a good time. She even got me to do a public reading, though I almost choked when she said to pick something "family friendly". So much for anything out of the book.
And I got great reviews. But what would you expect? No one ever tells the teacher with the gun that he sucks.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
A Mix
Today was a mix. Lots of paperwork. Good interactions with officers and inmates. An epiphany. A call-out.
The epiphany: I've always worked under the assumption that my job was to either prevent or fix problems. That seems to apply to every job there is- you are either making things better or keeping things from getting worse. Part of that responsibility is to accurately see what the problem is, how big it is. Part of the responsibility is sharing that information up the chain of command. But that's not always the way it works. People want to accomplish the mission- get the job done. Bureaucracies are about preserving the system. When the ship is heading for big rocks, the obvious thing to do is to change course. The bureaucrat begins hiring the smartest, toughest, most creative people in the hopes that they will find away to avoid the damage without changing course... and god help the individual who stands up and says "This won't work- the system is flawed." Though the bureaucrat is driving the ship onto the rocks, they will throw someone over the side for making waves.
The Call Out: Not a lot of action lately, so when a neighboring agency without a tactical team calls for assistance with a riot with multiple barricaded, armed threats... it was looking like an interesting day. The team hit the ground running: a hasty pre-plan, some ball park concepts, equipment choices and draws for a range of scenarios; commo and even an advance team on the way... when the bad guys decided to surrender. This is the tactical equivalent of a case of blue balls.
The epiphany: I've always worked under the assumption that my job was to either prevent or fix problems. That seems to apply to every job there is- you are either making things better or keeping things from getting worse. Part of that responsibility is to accurately see what the problem is, how big it is. Part of the responsibility is sharing that information up the chain of command. But that's not always the way it works. People want to accomplish the mission- get the job done. Bureaucracies are about preserving the system. When the ship is heading for big rocks, the obvious thing to do is to change course. The bureaucrat begins hiring the smartest, toughest, most creative people in the hopes that they will find away to avoid the damage without changing course... and god help the individual who stands up and says "This won't work- the system is flawed." Though the bureaucrat is driving the ship onto the rocks, they will throw someone over the side for making waves.
The Call Out: Not a lot of action lately, so when a neighboring agency without a tactical team calls for assistance with a riot with multiple barricaded, armed threats... it was looking like an interesting day. The team hit the ground running: a hasty pre-plan, some ball park concepts, equipment choices and draws for a range of scenarios; commo and even an advance team on the way... when the bad guys decided to surrender. This is the tactical equivalent of a case of blue balls.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Quotes
"What I saw was couple of DUMBASSES who didn't have the tactical sense god gave an animal cracker." - Mark Jones
"You don't teach answers. You teach humans." - Asher Bey
"I don't trust people who are sure." - David Becker
"We aren't lowering the standards. We're just changing them so that more people will pass."- Anonymous administrator.
"I want them to see me looking; to look in my eyes and see the price of admission."- Paul McRedmond
"Leadership is making things better.- J. Callum
"I think you got some zen in my eye."- Brandon Oto
"There were grade school teachers and high school teachers and kindergarten teachers and counselors. Those were all the oppressions, I mean professions in the class."- Se-ah-dom Edmo
Friday, February 15, 2008
Walking
You can't walk towards something without walking away from something else. Every choice that you make removes other choices from the table. If you stop, you can't be going. If you keep going, you miss all the things that you would have experienced by stopping for a spell.
I've made a decison. A certain piece of it is out of my hands, but the decision is made. It involves huge changes. Walking away from some things means walking away from other things as well. Some of those things are going very well. When I return, they may have grown on their own or withered and died. I won't know, can't know until I return.
Things will develop in their own time. From this perspective it seems monumental if I think about it too much. Yet I already know that I will live in the moment, experience what is there and, someday, it will become just another thing that I've done. A piece of history. A collection of stories. Valuable, important...but there will be just as many stories I will miss. Stories and experiences I would love. It's one of the reason that change is hard, especially for people who have been successful in creating a nearly perfect life. But part of my perfect life is abandoning the comfort zone. For now, at least. Rest may become more valuable in later years. Not yet.
This has the potential to be very cool.
I've made a decison. A certain piece of it is out of my hands, but the decision is made. It involves huge changes. Walking away from some things means walking away from other things as well. Some of those things are going very well. When I return, they may have grown on their own or withered and died. I won't know, can't know until I return.
Things will develop in their own time. From this perspective it seems monumental if I think about it too much. Yet I already know that I will live in the moment, experience what is there and, someday, it will become just another thing that I've done. A piece of history. A collection of stories. Valuable, important...but there will be just as many stories I will miss. Stories and experiences I would love. It's one of the reason that change is hard, especially for people who have been successful in creating a nearly perfect life. But part of my perfect life is abandoning the comfort zone. For now, at least. Rest may become more valuable in later years. Not yet.
This has the potential to be very cool.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Love/Hate
There is an old Persian tale about a man whose wisdom was tested by Allah. He was told to cook the best meal in the world and the worst. For the best meal he chose tongue, delicately seasoned. Because from the tongue, from speech, came all truth, all praise, all teaching... everything that was extraordinary in the world comes from the ability to communicate.
For the worst meal, of course, he also prepared tongue- decomposed and rotting, half burned and half slimy. Because evil requires deceit and that too, comes from speech.
A few decades ago, for one of those cheesy psych test I was asked my favorite animal. Without hinking I answered,"Humans." Humans are also my least favorite. At their best, humans embody everything that is nobility. The human capacity for heroism, for self-sacrifice, for doing the right thing at great personal cost is humbling. Conversely, the human penchant for betrayal, for sadism, for deceit also seems to be without limits.
So I love people and I hate them. It's not a halfway thing- or maybe it is: When I don't think about them, I'm pretty neutral about people- about the human race and its existance. But when I do think about them, when I observe humans as they live and act and interact I am usually blown away by the miracle of humanity. Or disgusted by creatures who can be given the triple gift of life, reason and will and use it only to hurt and use others for their own benefits.
Sitting in a restaurant/bar today (small town, Valentines day) I watched a bartender and a waitress working like machines. They were dealing with drinks and food, seating. The waitress was new and had a cheat sheet to figure out the table codes. They were running their asses off. I've watched higher paid people with 'higher status' jobs who would grumble, whine or simply refuse to put out a quarter of the effort these two did. And these two women did it with good cheer and wicked humor. It was a pleasure to watch.
For the worst meal, of course, he also prepared tongue- decomposed and rotting, half burned and half slimy. Because evil requires deceit and that too, comes from speech.
A few decades ago, for one of those cheesy psych test I was asked my favorite animal. Without hinking I answered,"Humans." Humans are also my least favorite. At their best, humans embody everything that is nobility. The human capacity for heroism, for self-sacrifice, for doing the right thing at great personal cost is humbling. Conversely, the human penchant for betrayal, for sadism, for deceit also seems to be without limits.
So I love people and I hate them. It's not a halfway thing- or maybe it is: When I don't think about them, I'm pretty neutral about people- about the human race and its existance. But when I do think about them, when I observe humans as they live and act and interact I am usually blown away by the miracle of humanity. Or disgusted by creatures who can be given the triple gift of life, reason and will and use it only to hurt and use others for their own benefits.
Sitting in a restaurant/bar today (small town, Valentines day) I watched a bartender and a waitress working like machines. They were dealing with drinks and food, seating. The waitress was new and had a cheat sheet to figure out the table codes. They were running their asses off. I've watched higher paid people with 'higher status' jobs who would grumble, whine or simply refuse to put out a quarter of the effort these two did. And these two women did it with good cheer and wicked humor. It was a pleasure to watch.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Notes
In the middle of a day with nothing planned (!!!) it seemed like a good time to go over some old stuff. My students may not know that I take notes after class:
"JJ- (list of students) working on very minor stuff- triangle immobilizations; steady vs. staccato force; tendon lock; shearing from ground; mental vs. physical stops; controlling pace physical and verbal RTPV. Caught a ridge hand to the eye. Had to do the whole psych FA thing on face contact. All good."
I like the balance- nuanced physical skills and critical physical distinctions; mind and body; tactics and techniques; finishing and prevention; emotion and socialization.
Triangle Immobilizations are a simple way to pull on a wrist, elbow, collar, hair or push/glide other contact points in such a way that the threat can't move either foot and sometimes can't twist his spine.
Steady vs. Staccato- a staccato attack, especially one in broken rhythm, upsets the OODA loop more than a steady rhythm; is harder to adjust to and can increase damage by utilizing it's own "bounce".
Tendon Locks are ways to position your own bones to make it very difficult for the threat to move you or a part of you. Structure used for grappling defense.
Shearing from ground is just one way to break connection, a fast way. Breaking connection with the ground cripples most people's fighting ability.
Mental and physical stops are largely about you. Your brain freezes and you body follows when you concentrate on the surface or the point of contact. It decreases your ability to do damage or apply power in other ways. The most common way of demonstrating is playing the childhood game of "Red Rover" If the runner concentrates on the hands, he will usually be stopped. If he concentrates on the horizon, he will either break through or drag the entire line, even if moving at a slower speed.
Controlling Pace... Physically, emotionally and even with your voice you can make someone else move faster or slower. You will often see a good technician slow down in the middle of a match and his opponent will subconsciously slow down to match. I've used this in real fights- along with the staccato explosion once the threat expected slow.
RTPV are the rate, tone, pitch and volume of voice. Even without understanding a word of a mutual language you can set the tone for an interaction with good conscious skill at RTPV. This is the kihon of verbal de-escalation.
Psych FA There must have been a rookie in the class. Our society (all societies I know of) have serious tabus about adults touching other adults on the face. That is why the slap is such a staple of domination- and why it is so often used by predators. The socialization runs so deep that in MA classes, a rookie who accidentally makes face contact will stop, apologize and feel terrible. Once this tabu is brought into consciousness, you can train for it and even use it.
All good.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
"I heard..."
Talking with Vinnie in the locker room at the end of a wild, busy shift:
"This one big guy, the guy DC called on, for a second I thought he was going to get brave."
"Yeah," Vinnie said, "I heard that you even put down your coffee cup."
"Huh?"
"Everyone knows, you put down the coffee cup, it's last chance."
Everyone? One of the big motivators to applying for the desk job was a real fear that there was something wrong with me on a very deep level. I'd found myself fully engaged with an amateur boxer (he got the first move at extremely close range) and as he literally bent over backwards before hitting the floor, I'd been composing the report in my mind, not really interested in what he was doing or what I was doing either. Before that (long story) a local agency had chased a car thief into my neighborhood. The pursuing officers had jumped the fence into my backyard, where I happened to be, wondering what the commotion was about. I was staring down five guns with excited, largely rookie officers behind them. I was the only calm one at the scene. Last example- yawning while a 300 pound biker threatened me.
If that sounds like bragging, it isn't. A data point- at one time my adrenals were so burnt out that unless I was actively being shot at I was bored.
There's a level of adrenaline, a trickle, that tugs at the corner of your mouth and crinkles your eyes and makes you fell very alive, very present in the moment. It took a year off to get that back, and it's great. But in the course of the year I'd expected things to move on. I'd expected that someone else would step into the ready position, someone else would just be expected to deal with the problem children. No one else has stepped up (that's not true- we have many good officers who deal every day with situations that would make a clinical psychologist choke or that some Federal enforcement officer would be analyzing in books for decades), but no one has stepped up to the extent that I'm forgotten.
Have you ever heard of the Johari Window? It's a psych concept where you imagine yourself as a square with a vertical bar and a horizontal bar. Everything to the left of the vertical bar are the things you know about yourself. To the right are the unknown things. Above the horizontal bar are the things others know about you. Below the bar are the things others don't know about you.
Part of skillful living is to try to move your vertical bar as far to the right as possible- to know everything you can about yourself. The window implies that there are always things things that others know about you that you don't. What others can see sometimes (often, if you don't really examine yourself) is more accurate than what we choose to believe about ourselves.
So I keep my ears open for little hints, like, "Everyone knows..."
Years ago, Mike pointed out the position I took when force was about to happen. That was okay with me because the position (which I call the 'modified Columbo') was a purely conscious choice... but he also pointed out a specific thing I do with my wrist just in the instant of 'go'. that bothered me a little. Partially because it was unconscious (effective, believe me, but unconscious) but also because I'm not used to anyone else looking for minor battle tells. That was when I was absolutely sure that Mike would be a superb team leader.
Invisible to me, but "everyone knows" even the inmates that haven't worked directly with me before. Put down the coffee cup and it's the last chance.
That's what I heard.
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Incident Analysis
An interesting problem last night- inmate refusing an order. Not an english speaker. Signs (not symptoms- an important distinction, especially with a language barrier) of possible opiate withdrawals or a psych crisis or great fear.
The staff on hand didn't want to use force. We generally avoid force whenever possible, but if there is no immediate threat to others (the inmate was successfully isolated) no active self-harm and it's probable that the deeper reasons are avolitional* we will go to great lengths to not hurt somebody. Great lengths, in this case, involved waiting for me to clear another duty and try talking.
Last night it worked out very well and there is some stuff in there to analyze.
1) Reading the threat: I invited the inmate to sit down immediately, which gave me a read on his understanding level (0 to english, okay to his native language) and general compliance level. Entered the cell to get a read on his territoriality. Stood at different distances and with different postures to examine his comfort zones and see if I could work my way into his 'intimate distance' without setting him off. At one point, trying to rule out fear based on recent trauma, I stood too close and put a hand on his shoulder. No excessive flinch response. Note- all of this proximics stuff is extremely valuable but you must be superbly confidant in your close-range ability to defend yourself.
2) Comfort: I knocked before I went in. Didn't wait for an invite, but it's a courtesy that many respond to even if they don't consciously register it. Didn't wear gloves- to some inmates, they presage violence (I have put on gloves very ostentatiously in the past to let an inmate know that force was imminent and give them a chance to back down. Most do.) Gloves can also become a focal point for schizophrenic or paranoid inmates. My body language was extremely relaxed- a little slumped, rare direct eye contact, very casual, sipping a cup of coffee (a posture that also covers my center line, allows me to explode directly into the threat if necessary and takes full advantage of the design of the cell for obstacles and power generation). Voice low, slow, a little sleepy.
3) Back-up. This could have been handled better. The more officers involved in a back-up, the less likely for anyone to be hurt. It seems counterintuitive, but if you really want to fight and I have six guys, I can probably get cuffs on you just by holding you down. If I'm alone and you want to fight, I may have to break you. When dealing with EDs (Emotionally Disturbed) I like my back-up out of sight. Too many uniforms can trigger their paranoia and make my relaxed mode seem insincere. If available, you need B/U there (you CAN NOT do a hostage negotiation without a tactical response ready), but better not to be seen. A few wanted to watch and stayed in the inmate's line of sight.
4) Timing. The third time into the cell was for the nurse. I gloved up for that one. In his home country, a child will be beaten for merely making direct eye contact with any law officer. Each time I had entered the cell, he had expected physical violence. I figured the third time he might be toying with the idea that I might be reluctant to use force and he might get brave.
5) Physical. I touched the inmate four times. Once was the early hand on the shoulder mentioned above. I did the same thing later and looked in his eyes and very softly said, "I know you don't want me to hurt you. Please don't make me." It helped, (he did understand quite a bit) because it allowed him the chance to not fight as a favor to a nice guy (me) rather then out of fear. At one point he started to move suddenly and I put one hand on the back of his elbow ( a leverage point) and one on the wrist- our standard escort hold. He tensed, testing my strength and whether it would provoke a reaction. He got no reaction so he didn't escalate. I did, however, warn him that moving fast would be a very bad idea. The fourth time was holding his arm so the RN could take his blood pressure and trying to take a BP by palpation. No big deal, but the dynamic with a second person (small and untrained) in the room was different. I had to be ready to knock him off his balance if he made any threatening move towards the nurse. The leverage point at the back of the elbow again.
6) Remote control good-cop/bad-cop: You've all heard of it and it works. One of my best partners had this perfect work persona as the Bitch Queen from Hell. It was a delight working with her- if a new arrestee started working himself up to fight she would turn towards him with this indescribable look and I would put a hand on his arm and plead, "I can't control her when she's like this! Please, please don't say anything." We almost never had a use of force. Working close-custody and max, I got pretty good at playing GC/BC all by myself: most of the inmates would warn the others that I was a pretty nice guy, but not all there. I could snap. For the incident last night I got on the radio and told the OIC that we couldn't quite get there and the guy was demanding we use force and asked for his blessing. The OIC said, "We have no choice." This was all done in the inmate's hearing. I said, "You heard the man." The inmate complied.
7) Detail. I noticed early on that whenever I started to leave the cell, the inmate would start to comply and then catch himself, consciously forcing himself to stop. I don't know what this means and didn't figure out how to exploit it in the time we had. With the language barrier (and because it appeared unconscious), it's unlikely that I'll ever figure it out, but I will watch for it in other incidents. Just a data point.
8) Restoration of normality. The primary officer decided to treat this as a probable psych issue instead of a disciplinary matter, so we took him to a module. This got a little weird because every officer that didn't have anything specific to do was hanging around. That's good- this was the most likely place to go bad in the jail- but for an ED inmate it can feed into paranoias or delusions. One offered to carry the inmate's property. It was natural, because when you've been waiting around you want to do something and he's a good officer who wants to be useful. But it was important to make the move as normal as possible, so I had the inmate carry his own stuff. It's also very important for EDs, especially as they are coming out of crisis, to get a feeling of control. Something as simple as carrying their own things or cleaning up can give them a feeling of normality and control that they value very much.
*Avolitional. Most criminals are extremely self-centered and manipulative. They have done criminal acts because what they wanted was more important to them than their victim's rights or feelings or even lives. EDs- truly terrified or mentally ill people sometimes display behavior or have motives that they can't control (it's actually rare- most can control their behavior most of the time, but not their motives). If it's not a choice (avolitional) we try to cut as much slack as we can; when it is a choice, especially if the criminal is counting on us being nice or taking time that is manipulative behavior that we work hard not to reward.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Survival -List
A few years ago, friends of family or family of friends (names, locations etc. withheld) attempted to recruit me for their survivalist cell. On paper, I'm a pretty good candidate- military combat medic; some experience growing and killing food for myself and my family, some formal training in herbal medicine; tracking; survival training; tactical team leader. Most importantly, I've done it before.
That was also the problem: I've done it before.
Some of you won't remember, but in the seventies the world was supposed to end any second. We needed to stop all pollution because the emissions (now called greenhouse gasses) were bringing on an Ice Age. The same math which today shows that there must be alien life was used to prove that nuclear war was mathematically inevitable by 1995. There was absolutely no chance that there would be any oil left by 2000 and unless we could achieve ZPG (Zero Population Growth) immediately, mass famine would destroy civilization. All of that without even bringing into the equation the inevitable economic collapse promised by euro-dollars and the lack of any standard (gold or silver) for currency. Oh, and "stagflation" with both unemployment and inflation in double digits.
That was also the problem: I've done it before.
Some of you won't remember, but in the seventies the world was supposed to end any second. We needed to stop all pollution because the emissions (now called greenhouse gasses) were bringing on an Ice Age. The same math which today shows that there must be alien life was used to prove that nuclear war was mathematically inevitable by 1995. There was absolutely no chance that there would be any oil left by 2000 and unless we could achieve ZPG (Zero Population Growth) immediately, mass famine would destroy civilization. All of that without even bringing into the equation the inevitable economic collapse promised by euro-dollars and the lack of any standard (gold or silver) for currency. Oh, and "stagflation" with both unemployment and inflation in double digits.
My parents bought into this and I was raised on eighty acres in the desert with a creek. Seven miles to the nearest town, forty to the nearest town with more than 500 people. Graduating class of six. We were very nearly self-sufficient for food, water and shelter.
So being raised from the time you are small being told the world was going to end and seeing it not happen on a daily basis makes me a little skeptical of survivalism as a philosophy. Reading enough history to know how commonly people chose to believe the end was at hand over the centuries just added to the skepticism.
I like survivalists. I have more in common with them than I do with whiny, needy people. I will always think of J.J. Rowlands (read "Cache Lake Country" if you ever get a chance) as the real naturalist and Thoreau as the whiny, rich kid poseur. And besides, if things ever get really bad, we will need people who kept the old skills alive. When a hurricane or a flood hits there should be one person on each block who kept their first aid training current and stockpiled some food and medical supplies.
Being actively recruited got me thinking about what if's, and one late night with some friends and some beer we started The List of all the people that would show up at our door if there were a major disaster. (I may not be a survivalist, but habits die hard and we're pretty well set up.)
The List had names and what each person would bring to the table. Medical skills. Gardening. Pilot. Carpenter. Electrician. Some just said simply, "Hard worker" or "loyal".
A few were labeled WLBS.
"What does that mean?" M asked, poking at the sheet.
"Worthless Lazy..." I started
"They have no value? We'd turn them away?"
"Ummm, no. The 's' stands for sausage. Everyone has value."
We all contribute in our own way.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Errata
It seems that sometimes when much is going on, there is less time to write about it. As far as the need to write, to get stuff out of my system, I never feel that when in the midst of things. It is after, when the stupid little monkey mind starts whining for meaning and connection that sometimes the need to write wells up.
How big a risk are you willing to take? How big of stakes and for what? Ever notice that the stakes you gamble for (whether money in cards, your life climbing or security with a career change) are never the reasons you take the risk (the rush for the true gambler, the moment of purity for the climber, to get something new or get away from something old in the career change). So separate the stakes from the reason- people usually get into fights because of ego not survival... and strangely, in self defense, things sometimes fail because self image beats survival: people who know what they need to do can't, because they aren't that kind of person. Rationally, sitting in your comfortable den, you know that should never happen, but it does. Quite frequently. Even to people who don't believe it could happen.
Discretionary time- one of the big differences between an amateur and a professional in any Emergency Services job, is the ability to recognize when action is unnecessary. The classic is EMTs: rookies run to the scene, veterans look for the fallen power lines. Generally, if you aren't taking damage, you think. If you are taking damage, you move. The ability to recognize when you have discretionary time is a powerful skill. Working with a true pro, he sometimes seem to slow everything down by pure force of will, but it's not that- he or she just recognizes when you can slow down and takes full advantage of the time. (Thanks to Gordon Graham for the concept many years ago. I don't think he planned on anybody in his audience using it in the middle of a fight, but it works.)
Speaking of famous people and people who should be: Mauricio Machuco in Montreal. Amazing man, experienced fighter. Everything you could want in a brother or when you need backup right now. He's working on applying the dynamics of Steven Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" to survival fighting. Eerie, sometimes, how universal 'effective' can be.
Always watch for failure. When you see some one fail and can see the mistake, especially if it is obvious and the stakes are high... Forget it. I'm mincing words here, trying to be nice and non-specific. Let's try it again: When somebody screws up and dies and the reason is obvious (he should have fired; he should have searched better; he should have practiced the draw while sitting in the car; he should have expected...) there's a damn good chance it was obvious to him, too. There's a damn good chance that he was just as well or better trained than you. Just as smart or smarter... on and on. You have to be aware that shit in the moment is not like watching it on video. It does something, many things, to your brain. Be ready for that, as ready as you can.
We built a big snow man, almost seven feet tall and had a snowball fight and let the dogs run in the goat pasture. Across the gully, the trees were covered in snow and shrouded by light mist. The kids are out sledding now.
How big a risk are you willing to take? How big of stakes and for what? Ever notice that the stakes you gamble for (whether money in cards, your life climbing or security with a career change) are never the reasons you take the risk (the rush for the true gambler, the moment of purity for the climber, to get something new or get away from something old in the career change). So separate the stakes from the reason- people usually get into fights because of ego not survival... and strangely, in self defense, things sometimes fail because self image beats survival: people who know what they need to do can't, because they aren't that kind of person. Rationally, sitting in your comfortable den, you know that should never happen, but it does. Quite frequently. Even to people who don't believe it could happen.
Discretionary time- one of the big differences between an amateur and a professional in any Emergency Services job, is the ability to recognize when action is unnecessary. The classic is EMTs: rookies run to the scene, veterans look for the fallen power lines. Generally, if you aren't taking damage, you think. If you are taking damage, you move. The ability to recognize when you have discretionary time is a powerful skill. Working with a true pro, he sometimes seem to slow everything down by pure force of will, but it's not that- he or she just recognizes when you can slow down and takes full advantage of the time. (Thanks to Gordon Graham for the concept many years ago. I don't think he planned on anybody in his audience using it in the middle of a fight, but it works.)
Speaking of famous people and people who should be: Mauricio Machuco in Montreal. Amazing man, experienced fighter. Everything you could want in a brother or when you need backup right now. He's working on applying the dynamics of Steven Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" to survival fighting. Eerie, sometimes, how universal 'effective' can be.
Always watch for failure. When you see some one fail and can see the mistake, especially if it is obvious and the stakes are high... Forget it. I'm mincing words here, trying to be nice and non-specific. Let's try it again: When somebody screws up and dies and the reason is obvious (he should have fired; he should have searched better; he should have practiced the draw while sitting in the car; he should have expected...) there's a damn good chance it was obvious to him, too. There's a damn good chance that he was just as well or better trained than you. Just as smart or smarter... on and on. You have to be aware that shit in the moment is not like watching it on video. It does something, many things, to your brain. Be ready for that, as ready as you can.
We built a big snow man, almost seven feet tall and had a snowball fight and let the dogs run in the goat pasture. Across the gully, the trees were covered in snow and shrouded by light mist. The kids are out sledding now.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Hitting The Ground Running
Forty minutes into the first shift on line and I'm putting cuffs on a big guy. By the end of the day: fights averted, mental health issues addressed; officer issues addressed... and paperwork, but that's okay, too.
It's been two active days since the transition from desk jockey back to officer and it feels nice, useful. More laughter- who the hell would want to smuggle a pair of scuzzy, stained jail panties out as a gift for his wife? Wouldn't that be a lot of explaining? More pathos- a 23 year old addict with veins so bad the hospital had to put the catheter in her external jugular for the antibiotics that she needs to fight the necrosis from the infected needle sticks. More honor- 'nuff said.
Large, clearly angry inmate striding purposefully (not quite charging or running) towards the officer and I step in...
You're outweighed by at least forty pounds, Grasshopper. The threat is exhibiting intent (yelling, fists clenched, jaw muscle clenching); has the means (fists, feet, size); and the opportunity (is in reach) to a clearly ominous level, which authorizes at least serious force on our continuum. There are 74 other inmates and one officer in the immediate area. You are required to engage. What do you do?
I just shook my head slightly, murmured and pointed to the side. He turned in line with the point like it was his idea and I stepped in close and said, "Let's go, I'll cuff you outside." I am good at this.
There's soooo much in that. Eye contact and eye focus. Body language. Proximics. Amount of facing (full on, angled...). Gestures. Rate, tone, pitch and volume of any verbals (half the time I don't even use words). Does it work? Almost all the time, when you see it coming, which may be why for physical stuff my emphasis is on the ones I don't see coming. It's reliable enough (not some recipe of movement and words, just the skill of connection and communication) that I've talked inmates and arrestees in full-blown excited delirium into letting me cuff them.
But it does have the potential to go bad, and if it does it will be very close and very fast and, whether I should have been surprised or not it damn well will be a surprise.
I thought I would be a little rusty.
It's good to be home.
It's been two active days since the transition from desk jockey back to officer and it feels nice, useful. More laughter- who the hell would want to smuggle a pair of scuzzy, stained jail panties out as a gift for his wife? Wouldn't that be a lot of explaining? More pathos- a 23 year old addict with veins so bad the hospital had to put the catheter in her external jugular for the antibiotics that she needs to fight the necrosis from the infected needle sticks. More honor- 'nuff said.
Large, clearly angry inmate striding purposefully (not quite charging or running) towards the officer and I step in...
You're outweighed by at least forty pounds, Grasshopper. The threat is exhibiting intent (yelling, fists clenched, jaw muscle clenching); has the means (fists, feet, size); and the opportunity (is in reach) to a clearly ominous level, which authorizes at least serious force on our continuum. There are 74 other inmates and one officer in the immediate area. You are required to engage. What do you do?
I just shook my head slightly, murmured and pointed to the side. He turned in line with the point like it was his idea and I stepped in close and said, "Let's go, I'll cuff you outside." I am good at this.
There's soooo much in that. Eye contact and eye focus. Body language. Proximics. Amount of facing (full on, angled...). Gestures. Rate, tone, pitch and volume of any verbals (half the time I don't even use words). Does it work? Almost all the time, when you see it coming, which may be why for physical stuff my emphasis is on the ones I don't see coming. It's reliable enough (not some recipe of movement and words, just the skill of connection and communication) that I've talked inmates and arrestees in full-blown excited delirium into letting me cuff them.
But it does have the potential to go bad, and if it does it will be very close and very fast and, whether I should have been surprised or not it damn well will be a surprise.
I thought I would be a little rusty.
It's good to be home.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Nostalgia
A really pressing need to get away, be alone, let some of the dreck and contradiction and just slime of living in society seep away. So no one knows precisely where I am. The electronic leashes of cell phones and pagers are plugged and far away.
The trip took an odd twist early, being pulled to old significant places. A walking place in a certain park (first trembling kiss by moonlight with K). Dorms, each one bringing a name and face out of shadows of memory. Dancing and eating places that no longer exist. A giant flag.
I turned away from one door where I knew I would be welcome, but my own sense of past was getting overwhelming.
So for two days, old places. Old memories. This is really strange for me. I live in the present. For the most part the past is an advisor, a teacher. It's rare even for me to remember almost anything specifically. I can, I just don't bother any more than I watch movies a second time or re-read books unless I have something to clarify.
I took pictures of the cliff where Jake saved my stupid ass. Other stuff. Climbed just a little. Worked with the boken in surf up to my waist. Slept under a nearly full moon in a rare (for this region) hard freeze.
Still not done, still cleaning out. Just feeling things shift.
The trip took an odd twist early, being pulled to old significant places. A walking place in a certain park (first trembling kiss by moonlight with K). Dorms, each one bringing a name and face out of shadows of memory. Dancing and eating places that no longer exist. A giant flag.
I turned away from one door where I knew I would be welcome, but my own sense of past was getting overwhelming.
So for two days, old places. Old memories. This is really strange for me. I live in the present. For the most part the past is an advisor, a teacher. It's rare even for me to remember almost anything specifically. I can, I just don't bother any more than I watch movies a second time or re-read books unless I have something to clarify.
I took pictures of the cliff where Jake saved my stupid ass. Other stuff. Climbed just a little. Worked with the boken in surf up to my waist. Slept under a nearly full moon in a rare (for this region) hard freeze.
Still not done, still cleaning out. Just feeling things shift.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Time: the First half second
It's about time for a short series on the things that people just don't get when they are talking, thinking, training or analyzing acts of violence. One of the biggest is time. First some background:
There are different types of fights, different approaches and different dynamics- but not really a lot of them. The dominance display sometimes goes to a fight. Not usually, unless you let your ego get involved. I call that one the Monkey Dance and it is common, predictable and seemingly genetically imprinted to be safe. On the rare occassions someone dies in a Monkey Dance it is by falling and hitting their head.
There's also a display of solidarity, the Group Monkey Dance. There are two levels of this. Both suck, but one can be brutal and pitiless beyond what too many people are ready to accept in their comfortable, safe worlds. The high level GMD is the one type of attack that scares me most, because it is the one that I have least experience dealing with and the one that I have trouble even imagining a high percentage response. I know two strategies to survive them, I've used one of those... but I have no evidence that my survival had more to do with what I did than it had to do with what the bad guys didn't do.
The third is the predatory assault. This is the one I think of when I am writing about survival and self defense. This is the one that I plan and train for. The other two are largely preventable or avoidable (NOT the same thing, not even close). A good ambush is generally preventable but rarely specifically preventable (and that is the third very important concept so far. If you don't grasp the difference, remind me.) Yeah, there are variations- the charm and blitz predators use different approaches; process and resource predators have different goals and follow somewhat different dynamics after the initial assault. Hustlers trying to use predator dynamics rely on display instead of effect, and there is a vulnerability there that can be exploited, but exploiting it comes with its own special danger.
So just to be clear, we are talking about ambushes. Sudden assaults.
In a Monkey Dance, sparring or dueling it starts at a very mental and perceptual level. What is the threat doing? How is he positioned? What can I do? Then someone decides to do it. If you make good decisions fast, you can usually establish dominance early. The threat may get the first move and will be a big step ahead, but much of your intelligence gathering is done- you can recover.
The assault is different. You get hit first. What do you do?
"Well, that depends..."
You get hit again.
"How is he hitting me?"
You get hit again.
"What can I do?"
You get hit again.
If what you do depends in any way on what he does, you will take more damage while exploring options.
If you need any data beyond the fact that you are taking damage in order to make a decision, you will take more damage while you gather it.
If any aspect of this is a cognitive process, you will likely never close your OODA loop. In other words you will take damage and probably never act.
This is fast. A decent fighter can hit you eight to ten times a second. Most street fighters aren't particularly skilled in the nuances of short power generation- they will only hit about six times a second because they are putting weight and power into it.
Do those numbers seem high? If so, it is probably a sparring artifact, where the two contestants maintain a balance between offense and defense, distance and time. In an assault the predator relies (with iincredible reliability) on the speed of the attack freezing the victim. He has probably never heard of the OODA loop, but he uses the dynamics. And it works. Also, if the numbers seem high, get out a stop watch and try it. Completely untrained people hit at least four times a second. I seriously doubt the skill of any striking artist who can't do eight. I've hit thirteen. One of Loren Christensen's students peaked at seventeen.
This is what I usually refer to as the OC stage of the attack. The person attacked has to be trained for immediate action regardless of the nature of the attack. What kind of immediate action? It really doesn't matter. Turning and running could work. I'm partially to irimi. One guy I knew could reliably kick the knee from almost any position. Palm heel to the face is good. But it must be immediate, must bypass the cognitive process.
This training for immediate action is a separate thing from fighting skill. Decisiveness, what USM Jones calls "Initiative" or "violence of action" is a skill all its own. It is probably the premier skill if you expect to survive an ambush. If you do not survive this stage, you will not be able to access whatever killer you skill you have gained in your training. What you will do is sit in a depression a week later and lament what you could have done, all the options that you see with the perspective of time. If you are very unlucky, you might even have an instructor that will reinforce this, claim that he would have seen what to do. Don't be fooled. This ability for immediate reaction is a separate thing.
Ask yourself honestly if you train for it.
Dueling and Monkey Dance based styles don't need this within their world-view. So sometimes it's just new information. I can think of one person (Hey, Tony!) who has made a great career out of helping people with this new information. But sometimes (and in my opinion this is criminal) I've seen instructors deny that it exists and a few practitioners stick their heads deep in the sand with the old saw, "You can't train for that so why bother?" But people do train for it, and use it with decent success.
A general (Patton? McArthur?) once said, "A decent plan now, violently executed is better than a great plan too late." In an assault, even in a military ambush, a half second can be too late.
This is a trainable skill. It's a critical skill. What will you decide to do?
There are different types of fights, different approaches and different dynamics- but not really a lot of them. The dominance display sometimes goes to a fight. Not usually, unless you let your ego get involved. I call that one the Monkey Dance and it is common, predictable and seemingly genetically imprinted to be safe. On the rare occassions someone dies in a Monkey Dance it is by falling and hitting their head.
There's also a display of solidarity, the Group Monkey Dance. There are two levels of this. Both suck, but one can be brutal and pitiless beyond what too many people are ready to accept in their comfortable, safe worlds. The high level GMD is the one type of attack that scares me most, because it is the one that I have least experience dealing with and the one that I have trouble even imagining a high percentage response. I know two strategies to survive them, I've used one of those... but I have no evidence that my survival had more to do with what I did than it had to do with what the bad guys didn't do.
The third is the predatory assault. This is the one I think of when I am writing about survival and self defense. This is the one that I plan and train for. The other two are largely preventable or avoidable (NOT the same thing, not even close). A good ambush is generally preventable but rarely specifically preventable (and that is the third very important concept so far. If you don't grasp the difference, remind me.) Yeah, there are variations- the charm and blitz predators use different approaches; process and resource predators have different goals and follow somewhat different dynamics after the initial assault. Hustlers trying to use predator dynamics rely on display instead of effect, and there is a vulnerability there that can be exploited, but exploiting it comes with its own special danger.
So just to be clear, we are talking about ambushes. Sudden assaults.
In a Monkey Dance, sparring or dueling it starts at a very mental and perceptual level. What is the threat doing? How is he positioned? What can I do? Then someone decides to do it. If you make good decisions fast, you can usually establish dominance early. The threat may get the first move and will be a big step ahead, but much of your intelligence gathering is done- you can recover.
The assault is different. You get hit first. What do you do?
"Well, that depends..."
You get hit again.
"How is he hitting me?"
You get hit again.
"What can I do?"
You get hit again.
If what you do depends in any way on what he does, you will take more damage while exploring options.
If you need any data beyond the fact that you are taking damage in order to make a decision, you will take more damage while you gather it.
If any aspect of this is a cognitive process, you will likely never close your OODA loop. In other words you will take damage and probably never act.
This is fast. A decent fighter can hit you eight to ten times a second. Most street fighters aren't particularly skilled in the nuances of short power generation- they will only hit about six times a second because they are putting weight and power into it.
Do those numbers seem high? If so, it is probably a sparring artifact, where the two contestants maintain a balance between offense and defense, distance and time. In an assault the predator relies (with iincredible reliability) on the speed of the attack freezing the victim. He has probably never heard of the OODA loop, but he uses the dynamics. And it works. Also, if the numbers seem high, get out a stop watch and try it. Completely untrained people hit at least four times a second. I seriously doubt the skill of any striking artist who can't do eight. I've hit thirteen. One of Loren Christensen's students peaked at seventeen.
This is what I usually refer to as the OC stage of the attack. The person attacked has to be trained for immediate action regardless of the nature of the attack. What kind of immediate action? It really doesn't matter. Turning and running could work. I'm partially to irimi. One guy I knew could reliably kick the knee from almost any position. Palm heel to the face is good. But it must be immediate, must bypass the cognitive process.
This training for immediate action is a separate thing from fighting skill. Decisiveness, what USM Jones calls "Initiative" or "violence of action" is a skill all its own. It is probably the premier skill if you expect to survive an ambush. If you do not survive this stage, you will not be able to access whatever killer you skill you have gained in your training. What you will do is sit in a depression a week later and lament what you could have done, all the options that you see with the perspective of time. If you are very unlucky, you might even have an instructor that will reinforce this, claim that he would have seen what to do. Don't be fooled. This ability for immediate reaction is a separate thing.
Ask yourself honestly if you train for it.
Dueling and Monkey Dance based styles don't need this within their world-view. So sometimes it's just new information. I can think of one person (Hey, Tony!) who has made a great career out of helping people with this new information. But sometimes (and in my opinion this is criminal) I've seen instructors deny that it exists and a few practitioners stick their heads deep in the sand with the old saw, "You can't train for that so why bother?" But people do train for it, and use it with decent success.
A general (Patton? McArthur?) once said, "A decent plan now, violently executed is better than a great plan too late." In an assault, even in a military ambush, a half second can be too late.
This is a trainable skill. It's a critical skill. What will you decide to do?
Thursday, January 17, 2008
SMEs
Probably in the last ten years I've had the opportunity to be at the center of three things that have been done extraordinarily well. One was the tactical team, one was the changes in training over the last four years, and one was the Mental Health Team. All of these things had stuff in common.
The need for a Tactical Team was pretty obvious. The original team was nearly completely unarmed and expected to handle riots, cell extractions and even hostage rescue pretty much hand to hand. You needed the best to pull that off. But the original plan on the drawing board was terrible. Someone had decided it would be unfair and possibly even discriminatory to limit the team members to people in good shape who can fight. That first concept quietly died and the real team was selected very carefully.
The training changes followed a definite and obvious need, at least from the perspective of staff. When a quarter of your staff are getting assaulted and roughly 10% hospitalized a year, they need better preparation.
With a huge budget crisis in mental health, large numbers of people who really needed extensive help were going to be released to the street. A handful of people predicted this and prepared, knowing that some of these people who should be in institutions or Halfway Houses were going to wind up first on the streets and then in jail.
These are the things that we have done well, better than anyone in the nation, in my opinion. All three had certain things in common: they were envisioned, designed and executed by SMEs and the SMEs were empowered to make it work.
An SME is a Subject Matter Expert. The original tactical team were chosen not just for their fighting ability, but for their control, professionalism and cool under stress. They designed the team, the training and were given a free hand to plan and execute operations. The end result was a team that has talked more people out than they've fought and even in situations where lethal force was clearly justified they managed to handle the majority with no injury whatsoever. It was their team, and they were empowered to design a team that they could be proud of.
Same with training: look for the people who know both how to finish a force situation; how to communicate; how to teach. Get the ones who know what the officers need, know the policy inside and out, and let them design the course. It hasn't been perfect, of course, but staff assaults dropped by 30% in 2007 from the year we started this paradigm.
And the Mental Health Team. Wow. Interdisciplinary? Yeah, IMO our best counselors, best medical staff and best officers, both in the modules and working from Classification. The results have been extraordinary. A truly therapeutic environment but just as- possibly more- secure than the regular jail. Continuation of care on the outside. One of the safest and quietest places in the jail. The original officers were hand-picked for this. It was new and no one knew if it would work or how dangerous it would be to have 65 severely mentally ill people, all with criminal convictions or pending charges in an open dorm.
These all confirmed something that every leader knows: If you pick your good people and let them do their jobs, they will exceed your expectations, sometimes in ways that you can't imagine.
Each of these groups had another thing in common: A real leader with a real vision. There would have been no Tactical Team without Ron, and he went through the fires of bureaucratic hell to make it happen. It probably damaged his career severely at the time but he was willing to sacrifice that to keep people safe. There would have been no change in training without Jose. He pushed it (and sometimes just got it done) against people resistant to any change who sometimes act like they pretend the dangerous side of the job doesn't exist. Even when he was exhausted and frazzled, he did the right thing. The Mental Health Team would never have happened without Cathy. It was the right thing to do and she never had and never would back down from doing the right thing.
There is one other thing they have in common. They are all in danger. Something about success, something about SME's seems to draw (not fire, what is the opposite of fire? inertia?). If people make a job look easy, people looking for an easy job lobby to be included. Once people feel a little safer, they start complaining that what made it safe is too hard or too burdensome. In a way, I hope that is it, or simple regression to the mean. I hope it's not simply that people who work hard to be good, to be SME's, trigger a jealousy in the mediocre and the mediocre, as the majority, exert their power. I hope I don't live in a world that punishes excellence for the crime of excellence.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Too Many Words
As part of a project I am trying to put together a manual for agency instructors on this new way of teaching. Most of it draws from a previously unpublished piece about 'principles.' I started writing that years ago, trying to put into words why some stuff worked, why other stuff didn't.
The big mystery was how I pulled stuff off that bigger, stronger people couldn't. 'Principles' was trying to lay down the core ideas of efficiency- what it is and how to make it work.
In the course of the last several years reading, training, fighting, I've observed a lot of things, put together some clues. I think about conflict in a way that only a handful of people seem to share. But the way we think is useful and so in addition to the Principles there is now a section on Concepts.
'Concepts' is just a list of the stuff that I/we* think are critical to understanding what goes on in a fight.
But I wonder, right now if I am going off on a familiar and useless path. How much does it really help? I believe it does, I believe that if you understand predator dynamics you can prevent things that you otherwise couldn't. I believe that you need to recognize a freeze before you can break out...
But I've read an awful lot of theoretical stuff and wondered, "That's interesting, but will it make any difference to know that when something slams into the back of my head?"
Maybe, like technique, the Concepts need to be absorbed and stripped down to their essentials. I do this most of the time: not thinking of concepts or principles but acting in accordance with them. So that ability exists. Can it be taught?
Sometimes I feel that words get in the way of understanding, that if you learn all of the concepts you learn the names and can discuss them and that lets you think that you know them and that lets you feel comfortable enough to just stop, keeping them in your brain but never internalizing them into your bone and muscle and tendon.
So here is the insecurity and self-doubt of a teacher. Can I really take the things from my head and get them to you deeply enough? Will I ever know?
*I seem to do most of the conceptualizing all the writing, but then I kick it back to a few people, notably Mac, for a check on what I have missed or misunderstood.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Expectations
Sometimes it's not what you think it is. You spend years training, researching, planning, visualizing and then sometimes the rubber hits the road and it is so not what you expected. My first jail fight I was expecting the battle of my life with a vicious, killer, hopped-up gangbanger. When go time came, it felt like he was made of cheese, completely without muscle. I had to ramp way back to make sure he didn't get injured. I had been playing very hard for a long time with college level athletes.
One of the comments on another post mentioned Aldo Nadi's duel. Nadi was a jerk, but he was the finest fencer in the world at the time (it's arguable, but most of Bruce Lee's concepts and strategy of JKD appeared to be directly cribbed from Nadi's book "On Fencing".) In that book he describes his one duel. It reads with the fuzzy clarity of someone who expected to die, remembering every detail. He knew that what he did, fencing, was not what he was about to do- dueling.
He was aware of the difference. Probably too aware, because the technical difference was minimal. He was almost frozen and he had to get over that- which he did- in order to access his skills.
I expected the fight to be hairier than anything I had ever experienced. Nadi expected the duel to be so vastly different from his training as to be alien.
George Mattson of Uechi-ryu tells a story in this article about a run-in after hours at a bar in an interesting part of town. At the time, he had a little less than twenty years of training in karate. I've met George and he is a superb martial artists, a superb teacher and I've watched how he handles the Uechi crew- subtly, respectfully, without throwing his rank around. He is clearly a strategist of high order. At the time he had been running the bar, including handling the frequent problem child. Lots of training and far from his first fight. George was way beyond where most people are when they start selling self-defense systems or street-fighter certificates.
To paraphrase the story, after hours a group started stealing the bar sign. George ran out- more balls than brains- and clobbered the biggest. The bad guy went down, blood everywhere. Then he got up and said, "You want to fight? Let's see what you got."
This is the looking glass moment. You've trained for besting a martial athlete. You've visualized taking on a knife-wielding psycho. Then what you get is someone who enjoys this. Win or lose, the worst beating you've ever received or handed out is several notches below what he does for fun. A trip to the ER for some stitches and a cast has all the emotional weight of a hangover- just the price of a little fun.
George got out of there- high order strategist, remember? But he still thinks about it. The smile still haunts him.
The looking glass moment. You get to something that you've prepared for as well and intelligently as you can and it's not what you thought it was. What do you do?
There are two things I want to say here:
Broadly, expectations can be the problem. Be prepared to let them go. You may not even believe you have preconceptions, but you do. If something ever happens and your first thought is, "That can't be right," ditch the thought. It happened, deal with it. Quickly. I've tried to say this a lot of ways- a survivor can come from any training background if he recognizes when he has entered unmapped territory and lets go of the map. And someone from any training can be killed by the training if they cling to the training in spite of the reality.
Narrowly, about George's experience. If you take your training as serious business and you train hard and play hard, imagine mixing it up with someone who takes your best shot and laughs because it is sooo much fun. It's been years since he met anybody good enough to hit like that! Yeeeha!
I've been in that mindset, and it's hard to stop. You see the look in their eyes when they slam you and they see your grin and they actually start to think that you're not human, not like the people they practice on.
There's another mindset too, where it is just a job: "Son, I get paid whether you go to the hospital or not. Make a choice." Martial artists have years of ego built into their training and to fight someone who has no ego about it is chilling and strangely comforting. At the peak, when I was averaging two a week, I spent a lot of time in this mindset. It had a cost, but it was even effective on the manic fight lovers.
There's too much information here to parse it all and I apologize for presenting it with such poor organization.
Boil it down: Here are a few mindsets you might not be aware of. Most people can't really comprehend them until they meet one. If you do, you may lose all confidence and your blood will feel like ice. If you can't get out, fight anyway. The skill is still there, you just need to get over the freeze and access it. But don't expect to get out unscathed. You can achieve these mindsets: the first if you push yourself and actually take punishment as a hobby (but you will pay for it later- numbness, arthritis, blurry vision, etc.). The second only (to my experience, so far) by exposure to the point that you burn your adrenal glands out, and that has a cost, too.
Most importantly, whatever you have experienced, you haven't experienced everything. When something new comes up, don't waste time trying to cram it into a pigeon hole. Let go and see it for what it is.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Living in Interesting Times
There was a short space years ago, assigned to a relatively small unit of about ten officers and only me and my friend were not going through a divorce. In the space of about four months, that was an 80% divorce rate. Not having the social graces of an average rock, I started asking people, "Did you marry the wrong person or did you just fail to make it work?" How's that for sensitivity?
Most wanted to talk anyway, so it worked out and I did learn a lot. Mostly about how people saw problems, where they placed blame, what they felt were their limits of control over their world... what Kai calls agency.
(aside- I just figured out how to link. I used to wonder what the 'frog with sunglasses' icon was on the dashboard. My lovely wife explained that it was a globe and a pair of chain links. I'm a goof.)
I think I learned more about C and myself, the two who weren't getting divorced. We saw the world as manageable challenges. We both have extreme, maybe outrageous beliefs in ourselves and our ability to shape and adapt to our world. We both thrive on taking any situation but particularly a very bad one and making it better.
Reading Epictetus again and he keeps repeating that you deal with the part of your universe that you can control (you) and don't whine about the rest. Fix it if you want it fixed. Being able to control one variable and being conscious of what you can and can't affect is great power...
There's something in that which allows you to turn big setbacks into long term gains. There is momentum in every fall. There is a lesson in every injustice. Even betrayals bring freedom.
2008 promises to be a banner year.
Saturday, January 05, 2008
Lunch
One of the things that is far more rare (and thus precious) than it should be is the ability to get to the edge of what you know and stop there. I don't mean quit exploring. I don't mean stop pushing boundaries and I don't mean stop thinking or learning. I mean the simple ability to say, "I know this, but I don't know that." The ability to recognize when you are guessing. To recognize when you are extrapolating and the related ability to know that extrapolation will only take you so far.
People get just as territorial over their mental maps as they do over their possessions, homes or status. Some of the strongest, angry opinions I have ever heard have been on subjects like politics or religion where the actual amount of personal information is miniscule. Religions are unnecessary for people who have looked into the face of god. When you don't know what information was given, you can't accurately judge decisions that arose from the information. (check out Fooled By Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb for an interesting, tiny insight: almost never have the people in the moment accurately judged what would prove important. The great world-shaking stories of previous centuries are forgotten while what clearly was important with a few decades of perspective was often unnoticed at the time).
This is so common that I've come to expect it.
Yesterday I was very pleasantly surprised. Steve Perry knows a lot. Writing, of course. Martial arts. Local politics. Surveillance. Guns. The SF community. Music. Medicine. Pretty much everything except for hot tub repair... He goes on the short list of people who would be handy to have around if civilization collapsed. And... humble is the wrong word and I'm pretty sure he would laugh if I wrote it. He makes a clear distinction between his facts and his opinions; between his data points and the conclusions he has drawn. Steve can point out the difference even in himself, and that's a rare trait.
Not to imply that his opinions were wrong- his extrapolations are very careful and his insights draw from a long list of diverse experience. And he likes being challenged, another very rare and precious trait.
He also will keep me on my toes about precise language usage. Wish I'd known him before the book went to the publisher.
It was the first really good day in some time. Thanks, old man.
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