Violent Criminal Actors - Training to deal with Violent Criminal Actors

So given all that you've said about the nature of what we would perceive as irrational behavior. How flawed is the standard response model of de-escalation, or verbal judo, or your posturing, and all the things that we kind of build into the myth of how you're gonna train to defend yourself. And I think, I guess my question really is based on the idea that when I talk to people about what they would do or hear people tell me what they would do, so much of it seems based on affecting the behavior of the bad guy. I think that's a great point. People oft, you know, the standard response model is obviously avoidance, deterrence, de-escalation.

And when we're trying to de-escalate we're presuming that we can enter into a rational discourse with someone and make an argument for why the behavior doesn't work, and I love the analogy of verbal judo even, that we can non-violently and non-injuriously deter somebody. But meanwhile the clock is ticking and the violent criminal actor's OODA loop is well underway by the time we notice, even. And it's incredibly hard to either orient to the problem in some way, or take action that causes the violent criminal actor to reorient and reset. So we've got cross-cutting OODA loops where we're at a tremendous initiative deficit right off the bat. And so you'll see the original response is disbelief.

Over and over again, you'll hear from victims of violence saying, "I couldn't believe it was happening. It didn't seem real. It was like something out of a movie." Their startle threshold has been exceeded, and they're not able to orient quickly enough to what's happening to catch up to the very well-honed decision tree and action plan of the violent criminal actor. They're simply not able to step on the gas quickly enough. And let's make sure we get everyone on the same page as far as terminology.

So the OODA loop is Boyd's classic decision-making process that has been talked about a lot in defensive training circles. Which is to, there'll be an observation, you'll orient, you'll focus towards it, there'll be a decision, and then you'll take an action. And what's happened over the years is that's been flipped around to get involved in the bad guy's decision-making process. But I use a more streamlined model which involves recognition. 'Cause we train to recognize certain things.

So there's no conscious cognitive decision-making. You recognize you're at slide lock, for example, so you reload. If the bad guy has a trained and preplanned and rehearsed model where he recognizes that now is his go-time for violence, there's nothing to interrupt. He starts his trained response or his learned actions. Exactly.

And so in an OODA format we would notice the violent criminal actor at his action phase, and then obviously orient to it. But from your point of view, it's difficult to detect the point at which the response would be dispositive, meaning finding a place where my response would change the direction of the action is very difficult unless we can match the level of aggression, match the level of intensity immediately. And that's very hard for the- Especially if you aren't mentally prepared for that. Especially if you haven't made that big picture decision. Am I willing to use violence in my own defense and defense of the people that I care for?

Extreme violence. And it's very difficult because I remember asking people a hypothetical, if you saw, you know, I want you to visualize in your mind you're in a fight. And there are two people on the ground and one of them is smashing the other's head on the ground repeatedly. Which one are you? Just about everyone I asked that question imagines themselves on the bottom being assaulted, and starts discussing what their defensive countermeasures would be.

And I said, well, hold on a second. What if circumstances were such that you were on top, repeatedly smashing someone's head against the ground for a reasonable and lawful reason? And most people don't have a parking spot for that in their heads. They're just not able to imagine themselves doing that. And if we can't imagine ourselves doing what's necessary, can't see ourselves matching the level of intensity of a violent criminal actor, we won't.

You can't do things we cannot conceive of. And so to match that level of intensity, we have to have incredibly robust reaction sets and pretty robust skill sets, because we have to recognize that we're going to be at an initiative deficit. Most people live in a little bit of a bubble about how aware and tuned in they are. But like I've said, you can't buy a latte in Seoul. And so the notion that we're gonna be completely squared away, ready to fight, 24-7, I think is a little bit of a silly notion.

We have to think, do we have robust enough skillsets that we could take a shock to the system, process through the startle response, and respond at or above the level of intensity we'd need to respond to a violent criminal actor? And that happens in training, in visualizations, in conversations, in planning and scenario training, maybe at best. And you know, one of the cheapest training aides is your daily newspaper. If you can sit down with your daily newspaper and look at the street crime unquote, common crime that happened in your area the day before, and visualize through those sorts of problems. Someone leaving a store at 10 o'clock was held up by three teenagers with a gun.

What would I do? We don't need to look for extravagant scenarios. They're around us all the time. And we wanna keep training recent, relevant, and realistic. You can't get much more of those three Rs than the things that happen in your environment very closely in time.

And that's, as you said, that can be done sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. It can be done in the car while you're driving around and you stop at a stop light and just think about what could happen right here? The visualization's so important. You're into the brain. Where do you put visualization on the value of training?

Very high. We have to be able to conceive of it. And we have to be able to conceive of things we might be called upon to do because we don't decide what is necessary to survive a lethal force encounter initiated by someone else. That person decides what's necessary for us to survive. I met a LAPD officer who was shot through the heart as part of a carjacking, and she killed her attackers and survived multiple surgeries.

And she said the most amazing thing after the fact, she said, "Your mind has to be ready for where your body might have to go." When she meant, I think, was that the situation called upon her to do something and she did it, but she was able to conceive of herself doing it and triumphing in that circumstance, not just dying. And I think the visualization helps with that. I can create an image in my mind of something that I can do. Think about malfunction drills. If someone's never done a weak-handed malfunction resolution, when you present it to them, they all, some of them will not even attempt to fix it because they can't imagine it in their heads.

They can't conceive of a way to fix it. So they don't. Well, a real world confrontation will present you with a circumstance you're gonna have to solve. And if you don't have a parking spot in your head for what might be necessary to resolve it, you won't do it. The preparation phase for personal offenses.

What watching these videos is about. Going to the range, taking a class, reading an article that you might write. When people are planning, how much of their time, proportionately, So, you're a student too. I think it's important to bring out is that you've come to this as a student of personal defense and become now a teacher of personal defense. And you're in your strong area.

How do you recommend people spend their time in terms of training for this zero to 10 violence level that could be necessary when you pull into a parking spot? I would think in training there has to be consensual validation. And what I mean by that is, other people have to be involved in the training and there has to be objective measures. Scoring, competition, things like that. Massad Ayoob once said, "Always shoot for something." Even if it's a trivial bet, I'll bet you a dollar I can have more Xs than you.

Introducing some weight to the outcome, other than just personal satisfaction. Competition I think is incredibly important for stress inoculation. Man on man shooting. But in terms of physical training, it, at times, has to hurt or it has little value, because what we're trying to teach is resiliency. That you can take a blow and return one.

You can take a blow and recover. You can get in a disadvantaged position and continue to fight. Nobody likes to do things that are unpleasant but a certain amount of it, I think is necessary. Sure. Training may sometimes hurt, but it shouldn't injure.

I'm working from that disadvantaged position. I'm learning how to ramp up and being mentally prepared to ramp up and meet what you may feel is completely irrational violent threat, with the ability to defend yourself when that threat is followed through with, is a big part of personal defense training and your response to any violent actor.