NLP and CQB

We are starting to delve more deeply into the concepts of Neuro Linguistic Programming so we can apply it to rapid learning in class.  Feels like I’ve just been reading a lot of metadata, now I am finally reading about the nuts and bolts.  If we can learn to use these techniques, students can absorb Combatives Concepts more quickly and be able to use them immediately.  Even beyond conceptual information, we want them to acquire skills more quickly.  I already know that some camps say NLP is a pseudoscience.  I am not so much worried about that because I keep reading about its application and find arguments quite compelling in light of other material I have read about the brain. 

Here is an interesting article by Lee Morrison (Urban Combatives) on his experience training with Marcus Wynne and applying NLP to CQB.  He was not able to go into a lot of the specifics because Marcus has developed his own approach.  If only we knew what that man knows! 

http://www.urbancombatives.com/marcus.htm 

I am currently reading a book that lays out the NLP concepts.  It applies them to maintaining health, but one should be able to apply them to anything in life.  I remember Marcus mentioning the book in another article, so I went digging for it.  All of this reminds me of another book I have that I didn’t get to reading yet.  It is entitled Sources of Power, and it is about how people make decisions, under duress, that save lives.  Do you ever feel like you have all the pieces of a puzzle, to unlock your understanding and take what you do to the next level, but you just haven’t figured out how to arrange everything yet?  Of course, there is always more to learn, even if you finally do put one of the puzzles together.

Know the Law That Governs You

Something that we have probably not talked about enough on this blog is the law and how it views use of force.  As you might expect, it is going to vary from state to state here in the U.S., as well as in other countries.  So, I highly recommend that you get online and read the local code that governs you wherever you live.  Whenever we talk about use of force, I am always a little surprised at what people do NOT know.  For instance, several individuals have expressed disbelief over not being able to legally shoot an assailant after disarming him.  Granted, if that assailant is still attempting to harm them, it is a different story altogether.  But, if he is no longer exhibiting threatening behavior, and they shoot him anyway, it is basically an execution.  If some guy throws the first punch, and I render him unconscious, AND I CONTINUE to beat him, the law is not going to look at me with a friendly eye.  It is easy to be vengeful and angry for his crime against me, but that doesn’t absolve me of committing my crime.  We have to make the distinction between force and excessive force, and if we use deadly force, we need to be able to articulate why.  Ignorance of the law of the land is never a good excuse, and I really don’t want anyone to transform an act of self-protection into a prison sentence.  Be safe and use your heads!

Training Notes

What is the best way to train Combatives?  We have been putting our thoughts together in preparation for a new class and re-vamping our current training methodology.  Our goal is to give people something they can use on the street as soon as they walk out into the world.  We have to create an immediate need for the training.  Unfortunately, many people have mental obstacles that prevent them from seeing the immediate need even though they express a desire to protect themselves.  This may be because they don’t really have a concept of what self-protection or real-world violence really entails.  You can hit students over the head with it, which is what some instructors try to do—you can scare them half to death with the brutal reality, but then you run the risk of losing students forever.  These are the very students that need help the most.  People have to be engaged as the individuals they are, because each of us has our own experiences, conditioning, etc.  We have to meet them where they are and bring them into the fold, so to speak, slowly.  People have all these wild ideas in their minds about fighting, based on what they see on television and in the movies, and the sports they watch.  But for real conflict that involves interpersonal human aggression, real mental preparation is required. 

We can tell people that fighting is not a goal, and we express this whenever we have an opportunity.  Certainly people need physical skills, also, for the times when all other measures fail.  Marcus Wynne talked about Combatives training, and expressed that people need to have the end in mind—what do they want to achieve?  Ah.  Imagery.  This keeps coming up in our research.  Students also need scenario training; we lead into this by again, creating the need in the beginning, and sharing real-life stories of survival and winning.  It is important to create a positive learning environment for our adult learners.  Even before running an individual through a scenario, the student needs to witness a trained response to a threat.  This way, they can model their own behavior after a successful response.  The scene should be set with descriptive imagery that appeals to all the senses, which helps to draw their minds into the situation.  Keep in mind that not all people can visualize.  We talked a lot about this in the Brian Willis’ Winning Mind seminar this past winter.  Some people struggle with mental pictures because they are simply not visually-oriented.  In fact, when they are told to close their eyes and visualize, they see NOTHING.  However, they can imagine with other sensory information.  If they are more kinesthetic, help them to imagine feeling.  If they are more auditory, help them to hear the sounds.  Assist them in imagining smells, and taste, if it is warranted.  Make an effort to paint the whole picture with more than just visual data.  

In his book, Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge, Bruce Siddle outlines design methodology and four goals for training.  I have paraphrased, here: 

• Increase the student’s confidence in a skill at the subconscious level.  Quickly.
• Increase the student’s situational confidence through stimulus-training-response exercises.
• Utilize imagery [he calls for visualization, but go further!] to prepare the students for the threat stimulus, and a correct response to that stimulus.
• Train students on breathing techniques to gain control of escalating heart rate. 

He also discusses the seven phases of dynamic scenario training.  Now, in the text, he is specifically referring to shooting scenarios and room-clearing techniques, but these principles can be applied to any combat scenario, in my opinion.  I have paraphrased here: 

• Introduce fundamentals, letting students know what to expect, especially in terms of survival stress.  Give students techniques for diffusing the effects of survival stress.  Students must make a mental checklist of potential threats, the primary response and the secondary response options [what is a “failure drill”?].  Students may not remember stress management techniques initially, so remind them and explain how to apply them to combat performance.
• Perform slow-motion walk-through of the steps and procedure.  This is the soft-wiring of the motor program they are creating in their nervous systems.
• Perform segmented scenario, in sequence.
• Slowly begin the process of engaging a static target while moving.  Speed picks up only after consistent practice in this phase.  If the scenario includes shooting, the students are introduced to target discrimination.
• Role players wear protective gear and exhibit threatening actions—the threat is alive, now.  Students will become more nervous with this new variable and must be encouraged to practice stress management techniques.  Between three to five reps of the sequence improves accuracy.
• Role players can now fight back.  Again, the stress level will increase for students.  The threat is only a single target at this phase, and should be simple and quick, which helps enhance visual reaction time.
• Several scenarios should be designed to test students’ reactions to the fullest extent.  Role players must maintain control; students are still learning to react and are gaining situational confidence.  Survival stress management MUST be reinforced, and it takes several repetitions at this phase for students to become automatic and fluid.  If shooting is involved, scenarios should be varied so students experience both “shoot” and “don’t shoot” situations.

Notice how students are not just thrown directly into the meat grinder with this careful process.  It serves no practical purpose if we want the students to successfully reach the goal.  Variables are changed one at a time.  Role players must be properly coached. 

So, what if practitioners need to perform better?  Following a scenario, instructors can walk them through what went right, and what could be improved.  It is important to NOT focus on the negative.  The scenario can be broken down into segments, so as to work on each individual facet of a situation.  Instructors should minimize corrections, because realistic fights are never perfect or choreographed.  Students must feel successful following scenario training. 

We have talked in previous posts about the critical elements of close quarters battles, and they are: speed, surprise, and violence of action.  Kelly McCann says that martial arts is something you do with someone, and combatives is something you do to someone.  Just as Ignatius Piazza said in his blog the other day, “action is faster than reaction.”  Once the assailant has broken into your decision loop, you are playing catch-up, and it becomes more difficult to regain the upper hand.  If you sense an imminent threat, you cannot wait for confirmation because it may be too late.  Intuition, or sensing intention, must be your guide. 

In addition to becoming unconsciously competent through scenario-based training, students must learn how to articulate their actions for the legal investigation that invariably follows.  They become unconscious competent articulates.  Students must understand when to stop the onslaught when the target is no longer a threat.  If the situation has been diffused, people no longer have the right to physically engage the assailant, within the eyes of the law.  In our minds, it is important for people to win from a physical, mental, and legal standpoint. 

 

References 

Siddle, Bruce K.  (1995).  Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge: The Pscychology & Science of Training.  Millstadt: PPCT Research Publications.

More Thoughts on Mental Skills

I was on Dennis Martin’s Combatives Forum and I watched a recent interview with Marcus Wynne.  I hear him say, and I am paraphrasing a little bit: “All physical technique is worthless without the willingness to use it.”  He also says that the most important thing for a shooter is “the willingness to pull the trigger on a human being.” Of course, this gets right back to mindset and mental skills.  Without installing the proper mindset, training can be a waste of time and effort.  How does one tap into an individual’s innate sense of survival, that may be latent, or buried under years and years of conditioning?  It’s a very complex thing, indeed.  They must be able to access a state of mind in which they can do, as Wynne describes in The Neural-Based Operator, ”whatever must be done” under extreme duress, with something “close to anger and rage”, but more of a controlled, or “ferocious resolve.”  I believe Kelly McCann calls this “rage with reason.”  One’s belief system is certainly a big factor in all this, as it is the framework (acquired through personal experiences and cultural or religious indoctrination) for self-image and it directs his or her actions.

Well, since we’re not all going to run out tomorrow and court danger every chance we get, we can certainly accomplish a lot through imagery, and through training “in state” or with full emotional content (ferocious resolve!).  It takes a willingness to go there, too, with scenario training, which some students still find frightening.  They think they want to know how to protect themselves, but then they are not quite certain what that means, exactly.  It means what we are always talking about: you have to become the predator.  Being a predator is sometimes a nasty, messy, distasteful business; it gets down to our primal roots as human animals.  But, what is the alternative in a lethal encounter?

Must. . .dig. . .further. . .into NLP!

The Mental Skills of Self-Protection

One aspect of training that is often lacking in the realm of martial arts is mental skills.  This involves learning situational awareness, developing a winning mindset, target hardening, understanding the fear response and how it affects the human animal mentally and physiologically, understanding intuition and how to inform it, understanding pre-incident indicators to violence, reading facial expressions and body language, confrontational management OTHER than fighting, etc.  A lot of people mistakenly think that self-protection is all about kicking butt–especially the un-initiated who have never trained before.  Sadly, much of the time, those who run the local dojos don’t pay much lip service to the mental game, or what I like to think of as “walkin’ around sense.”  It is our opinion, and the opinion of many experts we respect, that it’s best NOT to have to fight, and to avoid violent confrontation if at all possible.  Fighting is what happens when all other self-defense measures have failed, including running (i.e. flight) from an adversary.  Probably 95 percent of self-protection is mental.

Maybe many instructors assume people already have the mental game down—the people had enough sense to seek out training in the first place, right?  I find this is not necessarily the case.  It is also possible that the instructors are not well-informed themselves—it’s hard to teach what you don’t know!  We have periodically talked to people who have had years of martial arts training in one or more styles, and find that when do address aspects of mental defense, they have an “aha” moment.  They say things like, “Wow, I never really thought about that at all.”  Sometimes we’ll say, “Well, this defense against. . .(fill in the blank) is great, but how did you get there in the first place?  How did this guy get this close to you to put this on you?”  Sometimes the simple things seem so obvious, but they really aren’t to a lot of people, and it is a terrible disservice to many individuals who truly believe they are getting what they need to survive an encounter and to protect their loved ones. 

I had some interesting experiences when I was young that helped me begin the process of target hardening long before I even knew what it was.  First of all, my mother had fairly keen intuition.  She knew a thing or two about violence, and told me stories of her childhood (and adulthood) that I took very seriously and internalized.  I believe they fed my own intuition which, Gavin de Becker says, must be educated to serve us well.  I think this can be accomplished through direct personal experience, and through indirect sources, like the people we know or read about.  A disproportionate amount of the population is conditioned out of using intuition, and de Becker says that we are the only species that dismisses the information it provides.  This sixth sense is, in essence, our subconscious mind picking up on anomalies, or breaks in the pattern of our environment.  The subconscious can alert our conscious mind in many ways, including a sense of foreboding, goosebumps, a feeling, a persistent thought, and a myriad of other signals that tell us that something is amiss.  This reminds me of something I encountered with my mother when I was in grade school.  I was completing work on a science project at a local state park, it was early evening, and we were packing up for the day.  The park was empty, but we noticed as we made our way back to the truck that someone was watching us.  We kept vigilant as we walked across the parking lot, and a guy in an old, run-down car started circling the parking lot, almost like wolves in the wild circle around their prey.  We both had that sense of foreboding, the hairs on our arms and neck stood up and my mother looked at me and said, “We have to run.”  This was obviously not the response this guy was expecting, and we startled him as we sprinted to our vehicle.  He quickly changed direction, hit the gas, and his tires squealed as he sped out of the parking lot.  I guess we broke into his decision loop, and this is a good example of threat assessment and confrontational management that does not involve fighting at all!  We informed a park ranger, and he drove off quickly to investigate.  What his success was, I will never know, but I believe to this day that we both won what could have been a very ugly encounter had we been less aware and turned off our intuition.

As a young teenager, I also had the privilege of training with a progressive instructor in Tae Kwon Do.  Every month we had “street night”, when we dressed in our street clothes and discussed situational awareness and improvised weapons.  I wonder how many other schools do this sort of thing.  Mr. Story certainly gave us all plenty to chew on in our young, impressionable minds, and I am certain that it shaped me in a very good way for the future.  I have always been keen on avoiding bad situations, and extremely cautious in what I consider high-risk areas.  My college studies and jobs took me to high-risk areas frequently, day and night, but I can happily say that I never became a statistic in all those years.

You know, we have read some great books on self-protection.  One of my favorites is still Gavin de Becker’s Gift of Fear.  It is all about intuition, and the pre-cursors to violence.  I also like Erin Weed’s book, Girls Fight Back—it is especially great for educating young women, and I think of it is a practical companion book to the Gift of Fear.  Daniel Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence is a great read on human behavior.  The great Geoff Thompson, who lives on the other side of the pond, has a great book called Dead or Alive, and I really like Al Peasland’s Fence Concepts.  Those guys in the UK are really good about addressing the mental aspects of self-protection.  While you read, keep in mind that though many aspects of human behavior are universal, there are subtle cultural differences between Great Britain and the states; situational awareness is highly contextual.  In other words, you approach self-protection differently wherever you go, from the moment you step out of your house, to traveling into the city, to traveling to other cities and beyond the borders of your state and country.  One good example of this is the presence of firearms—this little equalizer changes the nature of the game quite a bit, and how you might approach certain volatile situations.  Other countries restrict the use of firearms more, or prohibit them altogether.  Attack Proof, by John Perkins, is a very interesting book on personal protection.  I love Bruce Siddle’s book entitled Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge.  This text gives you the scientific scoop on survival stress and how it affects our performance in combat situations.  It is geared more towards the law enforcement and military communities, but it has merit for anyone interested in self-protection because no matter how you slice it, a lethal encounter on the street is a combat situation.  I also learned a lot about survival stress from Lt. Col. Dave Grossman.  I took this blurb from Amazon.com that describes Grossman: “A former army Ranger, paratrooper, West Point Professor of Military Science and author of the classic book, ON KILLING, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman is currently the Director of the Killology Research Group and one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of human aggression and the psychology of combat.”  His CD set, The Bulletproof Mind, is absolutely outstanding, and I had the special privilege of seeing this amazing man speak to a group of LEO’s a few years back.  It had a huge impact on me!  I am currently reviewing Kelly McCann’s new release: Combatives for Street Survival.  His videos and writing are always practical, and he has tremendous insight into inter-personal human aggression, as well.  Great scenarios in that book.  It may sound a bit odd for civilians, or anyone outside of the bodyguard profession, but I even recommend reading up on surveillance counter-measures.  You would be surprised at how often the most ordinary people among us are targeted and stalked—it doesn’t just happen to celebrities or the very rich.

I have to mention one other great instructor who focuses a lot on winning mindset: Brian Willis.  Brian is a speaker, writer, trainer, and retired Canadian LEO.  His work is mostly geared towards law enforcement, but is equally valuable for the civilian community.  I read his Excellence In Training Weblog, and receive his Winning Mind newsletters.  They are so well-written and informative, and POSITIVE.  Links to both sites are in our blogroll.

In addition to all of the aforementioned, I read magazines and other blogs, most of which I try to share with you on this blog.  I learn so much from talking to people, too.  All of this informs what I do and shapes my perspective.  Not everyone would go about this subject with the same fervor, but I would say that self-protection takes education and training, and it becomes a way of life.  I have a lot to accomplish, and I want to preserve my life to see that through; it is a relatively small investment of time and effort when I put it in those terms.  In any case, I hope you’ll catch up on a little reading and construct a mental defense to complement your physical skills: fortify your mind and body!

Cheryl Watterson Interviews Melissa Soalt, AKA Dr. Ruthless

Perhaps some of you have watched her video clips on YouTube, or even her self-defense DVDs, such as Fierce and Female.  Here is an interview on blogtalkradio between Cheryl Watterson and Dr. Ruthless regarding her work (over 2 decades in this industry), self-defense as it particularly pertains to women, warrior mindset, overcoming fear of injury (what will happen if I don’t fight?!), and the importance of training with full emotional content.  Very interesting stuff, and good insight on training women, in my personal opinion.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/letstalkhomesecurity/blog/2009/09/10/Dr-Ruthless–Fierce-Famale-Self-Defense-Expert-Tells-It-Like-It-Is

Also, here is Dr. Ruthless’ website:

http://dr-ruthless.com/

Interesting Post on Improvised Weapons

Improvised weapons are the brainchild of a mindset, really.  We talked recently about using rolled-up magazines, and trained using them as weapons; certainly this is a great improvised tool to have around while traveling (a Filipino trick taught by Guro Dan).  Here is an interesting weblog on improvised weapons:

http://brillianter.com/2008/12/improvised-weapons-for-self-defense/

Get in the habit of looking around your environment, wherever you are.  Observe escape routes and even objects that can be utilized as weapons (especially if you are not already carrying concealed).  The prepared mind can quickly act on an opportunity, so flex those creative muscles.

Blog Post on NLP

I started delving into the concept NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) earlier this year after reading an article by Marcus Wynne posted on Dennis Martin’s website.  It was entitled “The Neural-Based Operator.”  NLP techniques were developed for programming (or re-programming, as the case may be!) the mind for success in any endeavor.  Some say that NLP has no scientific validity, and others swear by the techniques.  I have an open mind, and I already know how powerful focus and imagination are in making me better.  The author gives examples on applying NLP towards martial arts training, and I love the name of this blog–The Urban Samurai. 

Urban Samurai: Mind Training/NLP

Thoughts on Knife Training

 

We attended a knife seminar this past weekend.  A lot of the techniques and ideas were a review for us, although we did some cool drills on the ground that involved drawing the knife from the pocket and fending off an attacker who is also on the ground, kneeling, standing, etc.  I was having significant difficulty drawing my folding knife from my pocket.  Then, I would scramble and try to draw it quickly, fumbling around like crazy and having very little success.  My partner kept reminding me that a smooth draw is a fast draw.  I realized he is right, and some variables had also changed from my usual training.  First of all, I was wearing pants with unusually deep pockets.  These are pants I don’t normally wear and the pockets presented a new challenge—swimming through the sea of material to even grasp my knife.  Secondly, I have trained so often with a fixed blade, but even so, we often do drills with the knife already in the hand. 

 

If I am going to consider carrying a folding knife, I have got to draw that thing from my pocket, click it open and present it a bazillion times until it is like second nature to me, and this action needs to be smooth and controlled before it is fast.  As I write this, I am thinking about Kelly McCann’s new combative knife video that I recently reviewed.  He talks a lot about drawing smoothly—it stands to reason that if I cannot even get the weapon out, it is probably not super useful to me.  In my mind, if you are going to carry any kind of weapon, including a gun, you also need to train some open hand skills.  You may need to fight someone off before getting to your weapon.  Now, I don’t know why you are switched off at that point, but we all have momentary lapses in attention.  Just accept that it can happen and train for it.

 

Now that we are on the subject of Kelly’s DVD, I must recommend it.  The instruction is very practical, as you would expect it to be, and stripped down.  Nothing fancy—hey, it’s combatives!  He gives you ideas for training equipment (so you can train really hard, and probably be hurting and bruised anyway) in addition to great training concepts.  After watching it, I am really considering going to a very small fixed blade like the one he prefers.  It fits nicely into his pants, and let’s face it, fixed blades are totally un-complicated to draw.  It is strictly preferential, though, so stick with whatever you like, and of course, whatever your local law allows.  He also talks some about fighting strategy as it relates to the aftermath: legal ramifications.  Kelly uses the knife offensively and violently as he would with any other combative technique, but his aim is more to dissolve the attacker’s intention and commitment towards the attack, and I know why.  This is really a liability issue, because we have to be able to articulate why we opted to use deadly force.  It is always better to avoid the fight, if we can, but things don’t always transpire that way.  I am prepared to use deadly force if someone is bent on my destruction, and I made that decision a long time ago because I have a right to be alive.  I think this is where training and imagination really come into play.  Practice mentally and physically for the what-if encounters and make decisions while you have the luxury of time.  Make a vivid imprint of how you want to behave.  I remember Brian Willis telling amazing stories of police officers winning violent encounters, even when they were seriously injured, because of imagination and effective training.  Situations are always in a state of flux—never static.  There will probably be new variables you did not imagine.  Yet, in these real-life stories, the officers stuck to their purpose and won anyway.

 

You are probably thinking that if there is a point, I can feel free to come to it at any moment.  There is truly a lot to consider when carrying a weapon, whatever weapon we choose.  There is a lot of responsibility that goes along with it, even if our weapons are just our bodies.  Not everyone is going to go at personal protection with the same fervor as me and my cohorts, but certainly some basic considerations should be made since self-defense is a personal responsibility.  I could probably rattle on all day about my thoughts, but if you are truly interested in basic knife training, you should check out Kelly’s DVD.  Great stuff, and very succinct (as he likes to put it).

 http://www.paladin-press.com/product/1166/48

OODA Cycle

Many months back, I geared up to write about the OODA loop/cycle.  This simple acronym stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act.  We talk a lot about this decision loop concept in the Gutterfighting class and in self-defense presentations.  I culled my resources about Colonel John Boyd, who originated the theory of OODA (and created a model), and began to write on conflict and winning.  But honestly, I don’t know that I can do a better job than what has already been done here, so why reinvent the wheel?  It is a worthwhile read:

OODA Cycle by Ken Gould