How to Develop Situational Awareness

with the recent wave of smaller more localized terrorist attacks like the ones that have recently occurred in London and in France the need to develop situational awareness has never been more important would you know what to do should a hostile situation start and fowling quickly around you how would you react would you freeze or would you run how do you train yourself to develop a faster response time when seconds matter [Music] you can show your support for this channel by clicking the like button sharing on social media providing feedback in the comment section and don't forget as a subscriber to click the bell icon below to get updates enjoy the video fortunately for average individuals like you and I developing situational awareness and the ability to act quickly as a skill that can be developed in this video we'll discuss the skills you can begin to develop now and how you can easily incorporate those into your daily routines to help increase the likelihood that you will survive if a hostile situation unfolds near you in 2003 I've spent three months in Kabul Afghanistan doing NGO work from time to time a few members from our team would visit the downtown bazaar to pick up things we needed there was this one occasion where we ended up getting a crowd that began to follow us while we're at the bazaar by the time we decide to act the crowd following us had grown quite large and winded up having to sprint to a taxi narrowly making it out before the crowd began to fully engulfed us it was in this moment that I had my first introduction into how valuable being aware of your environment and all times really is for survival before we go into detail in this video I want to first discuss a concept called the Buddha loop which will serve as a foundation for this video the concept of it Lulu was described by United States Air Force war theorist Colonel John Boyd the term is said to have been used by the United States Air Force fighter crew as he ace factor when it comes to situational awareness survival in the dogfight was typically a matter of observing the opponent's current move and anticipating his next move a fraction of a second before he could even observe and anticipate his own the phrase doodle-loop refers to the decision cycle of observe orient decide and act in this video we'll discuss this concept of a loop and beginning to train your mind to learn how to not only spot a potential threat but learn how to quickly react while I'll cover some practical steps to teach you how to begin to look for a potential threat I'm also going to discuss how to begin conditioning your mind to move pass identifying a threat and acting when literally seconds matter so the first step is to observe in this video we'll spend a good chunk of our time focusing on this first point observe as so much of situational awareness has to do with simply being cognitive of your environment and observing what's happening around you this is a skill that is quickly being lost by meaning in this day and age we're constantly surrounded by distractions especially with the era of mobile technology learning to look up and take notice of your surroundings is this first step observe it's important that you learn to train your mind to be in an active state of observing what is happening around you at all times now this is not paranoia but rather being alert cognitive of the moment and what is happening around you you'll sometimes hear people say hey live in the moment and this simply means to take in everything around you now here's a popular photo that circulated the internet a few years ago of a woman observing an event while everyone else was on their phone trying to get a picture she was in the moment taking it all in stay in the moment look up and observe what's happening around you not only is this important to look up and observe what is happening equally as important is it begin train your mind to memorize what's going on around you when you come into a new environment boy scouts we played a game that was called the Kim's game which taught you to memorize things and later recall what you saw begin to take note of what is around you and see what you can quickly memorize by doing this you begin to learn to improve your ability to learn to take notice of what is happening around you there's a scene from the movie The Bourne Identity where the main character is trying to piece together his past and he's in this diner reciting all the information he's memorized from his current surroundings it's a skill that is learned and it takes time but start by taking note of your surroundings and begin memorizing details to see how much you can retain the goal is to be in a state of alert pin close attention to the details around you some may argue that this is being a bit paranoid and we're not necessarily looking for it to read around every corner what worried that something bad is about to happen but rather we're learning how to take notice and observe what is happening around you at all times you're an active mental state instead of being passive here's some additional tips position yourself to observe I recall reading an article from a soldier returning from Iraq and after constantly being under pressure from being in a hostile environment he found himself always looking for places when going to restaurants where he could see the entrance and positioned himself close to an exit when in a building or room position yourself to see entrances and if possible stay close to an exit because should a problem aterial eyes you will be in a position to observe an escape if need be if you've got those places were identifying your head should a problem come up you can quickly move to the last two phases of the loop of decide and act quickly which we'll cover in just a moment also learn to observe behavior that is out of the ordinary I'll give you an example imagine one night you go to an ATM to withdraw some cash there's no one around it's late out of the corner of your eye you suddenly notice an individual walking on the street in your general direction a few seconds later you notice they cross the street to your site while you're still handling your transaction at the ATM they've now changed our direction to walk specifically to your direction what do you do this is where you have to work through the steps of the loop which we'll discuss a little more also be a good watcher begin to not only watch people but see if you can pick up on people's mannerisms and behaviors learn to keep an eye out for any odd behavior now this doesn't necessarily mean that someone is a threat just because they're behaving a little out of the ordinary but take note nonetheless when things are not lining up and you sense a potential threat it's time to move to the next steps of a loop which leads us to point number two orient being observant is the first part of developing situational awareness but once you've determined that something or somebody is not following the baseline of expected behavior for the given environment we have to quickly compile and synthesize that information and piece things together decide what we will do next we all do this at some level whether we realize it or not when you're at a restaurant and someone begins to act out of the norm you often find yourself doing what you begin to it's actively turn in their direction they've got your attention it's at this moment that we need to quickly move to the Goethe loop cycle to decide what we're gonna do with that information that we now have we spotted an anomaly we're pivoting we're orienting ourselves to that issue to determine if we were facing a threat or not while many people can observe things that are a bit off the ability to orient and move through the next few steps are critical to require that you force yourself to engage in the moment this is the most important part of the OODA loop since many simply cannot move past the observed phase moving through the ability to orient yourself to actively engage in the moment determines whether we'll lock up if things escalate which leads us to the next point decide okay so we're in an environment more cognitive of what is happening around us so what would you do if you actually saw something out of the ordinary and you begin to orient yourself to face that threat this is where we must come up with a plan to decide how we will behave putting together a plan on the fly with information you have at your disposal and having your Minow rate actively engage allows us to overcome what our body will do naturally this is where many people that haven't made this decision to engage your mind to orient themselves to the threat instinctively default to their freeze or flight behavior the term deer-in-headlights refers to how if you shine a flashlight in a deer's eyes they'll freeze up now I grew up in the country and we have this happen many times driving down country roads at night if the deer is on the road in front of you your headlights will hit their eyes and they just freeze in place without going into a deep discussion of the body's flight-or-fight response it's at this moment that most people lose their higher cognitive thought process and let the hormones that are being dumped into their bloodstream by their body take over so how do we overcome this natural reaction there's a few simple things that can help calm your body enough to give you time to react these techniques are useful if times afforded you but sometimes you don't have that luxury these next two techniques will help you stay in control mentally step number one control your breathing your body will naturally increase your breathing rate as a threat is presented itself and your body is beginning to prepare you to run step number two now this is another very important technique to get the higher cognitive process going is to begin to ask yourself questions this delays a physio or response in the neurotransmitters to slow them down the best technique is to develop positive inquisitive self-talk in your head ask yourself what are you gonna do here prepare yourself and talk yourself through what you're gonna do to handle the situation now don't get locked onto the threat and allow yourself to freeze up but rather purposefully engage your mind and talk it through to find the solution that you can act upon which leads us to our next point act this is the final part that you dilute we've been observing we've oriented herself we've made a decision to engage with a plan now we must decide to act out of all the four phases discussed above in a hostile situation this phase may be the hardest for some people again life or death can be hanging in the balance in a matter of seconds if individuals are not capable or unwilling to quickly move an act in the previous step I brought up how critical it will be to actively engage your mind to form a plan deciding to move forward and to keep your ability to listen to your higher thought process versus succumbing to the rush of adrenaline that is now being dumped into your bloodstream it's in this moment that you must move and you must act while working on this video at a talk with a friend of mine James story over a train six who specialises in firearms and tactical training he uses two who dilute four students and one of the things he impresses upon his students when training them at the range and Firearms is to not just shoot at a paper target but to imagine a scenario in their mind where they may be shooting at an intruder who is threatening their family the goal is to teach us students to develop a killer instinct to begin train their mind and their emotions to engage if they have to face a hostile threat train the way you think you'll feel in real life if you're really in that scenario instead of just coming to the range to shoot paper targets be aggressive visualize a scenario and train accordingly situational awareness is a skill that you must work on to develop as you leave your home and visit stores or restaurants see if you can begin to train your mind to look for an exit observe what is happening around you and what is standing out make a decision to pull your attention away from your cell phone instead focus on the now focus on the people that are around you see how much you can memorize from your surroundings continue to sharpen your mind I'd love to get your feedback in the comments section below if you liked this video please feel free to like it or share it on social meet as always be safe out there

Channel: City Prepping

Views: 925,704

Rating: 4.9254704 out of 5

Keywords: prepping, prepper, situation awareness, ooda loop

Id: ihJCfuZfoT8

Length: 11min 22sec (682 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2017