Red flags to our concrete thinking that present glitches in the matrix

As we’ve discussed, heuristics are designed to speed-up the processing-analysis using a combination of perceptual filters we have discussed previously – experience, exposure or immersion, nature, nurture, age, gender, class, state, environment, culture, previously-training & education, by-proxy learning, et al. Perceptual filters not only help one develop credibility in certain areas of specialization over time (and generally cumulatively), but they inevitably make us, well, “us.” It’s important to know that we are not a one-dimensional entity but a three-dimensional that is made up of the whole of the sum of our parts. We are “us” due to a vast array of influences, experiences, personality, impactful events, genetics, moods. And THIS is why it is ALWAYS the individual (man or woman), not any system, method, art, style, technique, tactic. Those are the stable elements to the forever fluidity of that individual – and fluidity…context – always reigns supreme. Most know this whether they are able to articulate it or not. Easy, at least we think.

As many seem to perpetually thinks it’s the other way around (stage 1/surface) and that the important thing is those things listed above, it’s much rarer to find someone who knows it’s always “the individual.” (stage 2/shallow) They know it through and through as their cumulative life experiences have consistently led them to that conclusion. Fewer understand what makes up those intangibles that make it the individual – what we term those “perceptual filters.” (stage 3/mid-level). They grasp that we are shaped through a number of influences along the way that make us us and give us our understanding of things. Yet fewer are those who understand that, while the above may be true, the map is not the territory. Our experience is just that, even with the whole sphere of knowledge and perception we’ve obtained over our lifetime from the various sources. Our perception is still flawed as our truth is not at all necessarily the full and complete one that exists in actuality. It is just our version of it. The way we filter it.

And, because perception of reality is ALWAYS flawed and unreliable when lined-up alongside actual reality, there are certain caveats that come with our perceptual filters – the inevitable and irresistible “flawed filtering.” That’s an important discrepancy to acknowledge as it allows us to manage and factor-in these issues with our perception of situations, scenarios, circumstances to more closely align the two when utilizing heuristics to make important decisions.

That being said, what are some of those caveats? What skews our view of things? Alters assessment, analysis, dissection of important, risky, conflictual, dangerous, threatening situations? Why is it important? When we accept and acknowledge our limitations on the current state-of-things, our abilities and capabilities, our discrepancies with the actuality, any contextual lag – it gives us a greater chance on performing in the necessary manner to achieve whatever the desired result may be; survival, success, performance, best-case scenario, good-enough…inevitably whatever is dictated by that circumstance. It’s entirely one thing to find out what makes yourself tick – yet another to understand the limitations of that understanding so one can align with the current reality of things and make grounded decisions based on the incoming stimuli.

So, again, we ask, what are some of those red flags?

a. BIAS. Cognitive biases that are skewed by faulty and disconnected perceptual filters. There are many, including confirmation bias (pilfering information that backs an already-believed axiom), Dunning-Kruger (the simple road with minimal information is always the easiest to fathom), status-quo (denial), eternal-optimism (always looking on the bright side), eternal-pessimism (always looking on the dark side), the halo effect (gesture doesn’t signify personality), anchoring (1st bit of pertinent info sets the table), hindsight (always 20-20, right, looking back…crystal-ball narratives are always created post-event), group (I’m in with them and they’re all doing it, so…), self-serving (my work when rewarded, their fault when blamed), and so-on-and-so-forth. Biases are vast and multi-functional and always context-appropriate; they cloud our judgment, period. (eg. You overrule or disregard valuable advice given to you by someone with better, clearer, or emotionally-detached perspective than you in a specific context because you da’ man; even though your inner-alarm is going off, you side with your posse because they couldn’t possibly steer you wrong…could they; They look more like me, therefore, I relate more to them and will side with them)

b. CONTEXT-MISDIAGNOSIS. You erred in your assessment of what was actually unfolding before even relying on conscious decision-making or heuristics. The context was not at all what you diagnosed and, therefore, either that conscious decision-making or heuristic-recall/rolodex were never a given a chance to succeed. (eg. You cause a very unneeded scene when a gentleman was staring at your wife from across the room – when they went to grad-school together and hadn’t seen each other for 20 years; You get involved in a lover’s spat thinking the girl was in trouble and it turns out she is the aggressor and turns on you; That panic in the parking lot with screaming and running is for a movie)

c. OVERCONFIDENCE. You over-estimated your ability and capability to get the job done. Ego. Cockiness. Pride. Either way, your belief in yourself in certain complex or difficult circumstances can be overblown or your view on achievable outcome extended past your ability to pull it off. (eg. You believe that, even though there are 4 of them, you’ve beaten 4 in controlled-sparring class before so you should have no problem here either, regardless of their holding weapons; Since you’ve spoken in front of family at Christmas, doing so in front of 300 strangers should be no different; Fake-it-until-I-make-it)

d. UNDER-ESTIMATION. To some degree, the mirror-image of the above. While they often go hand-in-hand – they needn’t. I can be grounded with ego and pride yet still under-estimate an opponent or situation. (eg. The common industry misjudgment of assuming that the boogeyman, stranger-danger, or the predator “outside-the-gate” is the one we predominantly need to prepare for when it’s far more often true it’s someone we know, trust, interact with, work with, or is a satellite to our life; She’s young and inexperienced and a “she”, I should have no trouble putting her in her place; I bet I could finish that project all by noon…)

e. TRANSFERABILITY. The unerring belief that because you have experience and exposure in a given area, it automatically transfers to every other relatable or offshoot area. (eg. Since you’re a martial arts master, you also know about firearms, defensive-driving, 1st-Aid, and survivalism as a by-product because all things safety is clearly your lane; I had a like-situation once, I bet if I do the same thing here, the outcome should be the same; I’ve dealt with people with his profile before, I’ve got him figured-out before we even begin this; I can skate on ice, this roller-blading should be no different; It worked in Canada, it should work the same here in Costa Rica)

f. LOCUS-OF-CONTROL/INFLUENCE. Though our experience and exposure far greater, instincts more finely-honed from our perceptual filters, have handled similar situations with far more frequency, have already acknowledged any personal biases that could blind clarity – we listen to someone else for whatever reason. Our significant other who knows us best – sometimes to their and our detriment (read: their own biases.) Our boss who has more power and clout over us. Peer pressure from others “outvoting” you en masse. Someone else driving or paying the bill. An ally more uninhibited, risk-taking, reckless, naïve, or oblivious than we are. Loved ones slow to react or unknowing of the dangers or having no familial protocols in-place for this sort of occurrence. A group of people with previously-thought similar goals and motives who display shades to the pure colors we originally thought. Tribalism.

These are some of the issues with personal perceptual-filter overreliance that can influence both conscious decision-making and heuristic-recall. They cloud our judgment and make that very perception designed to help us all blurry and foggy, taking away the big advantage we may have from the appropriate tools we may have for a given thing. It’s imperative that these are understood prior to important decision-making as they act as blind-spots that take away our edges we have over potentially-diverse situations.

While this is getting a little more into the deeper-end of the pool, the shallow can get us in trouble as it only partially-educates us. Gives us an unfocused perspective. Leaves out valuable information. Renders some otherwise valuable knowledge obsolete. And I’m positive you can handle the deeper-water if it ups success on potentially-serious and impactful life decisions for you.

A view of the Cooper Color Code for the 21st Century’s 2nd decade

Time to delve just a little further down the rabbit-hole of another sacred industry-cow, the Cooper Color Code.

For those of you who use the “Cooper Color Code” for risk-assessment (and note there’s nothing wrong with this unto itself and keep on trucking if that’s your thing, but…), some things you may not (or may be and ignore anyway) be aware of if passing this on to others as the original intent.

a. It was originally intended to be a mindset tool for lethal-force scenario reaction to escalating violence, not a situational-awareness or threat-assessment one. An escalating in-fight dynamic of thinking-while-fighting (remember “the thinking fighter”…) to assess when the risk of serious injury or death was present or increasing and be able to switch accordingly, applying the gradual or sudden amount of intentional violence needed according to circumstance.

b. That that act, lethal-force, is not nearly as easy as so many industry-people and online-warriors pay lip-service to. Cooper acknowledged that in its inception, it was “…a means of setting one’s mind into the proper condition when exercising lethal violence, and is not as easy as I had thought at first.” It is not easy to end someone’s life, not nearly as easy as Internet cowboys talk. (Note that when I speak of this, I speak not of someone who’s partaken in the act – I have not killed and that should say something – but have assessed, evaluated, and contemplated on it very thoroughly, have been faced with the choice, and had serious damaging intent in a number of high-order events) Talk is cheap, context is a thing, innate human resistance to take another life of the same species too. This is why many, including myself, train what I term “gears.”

As I’ve discussed in a previous entry, we ALL have 2-3-4 extra gears on a sliding-scale when we leave the comforts of our training, every one of us. We can all learn to turn it up on command. We can all crank-up the aggression and intensity. And we all have innately another level of violence within our internal animal when it’s needed. This bears itself out in countless survival stories. With proper context, that act becomes a far greater possibility if needed – an act of situational necessity, not one of impulse, process, or emotion. The question is, can we bring it up when we need to…thus the invention of the color code – an understanding of gear-shifting. That’s a far more profound internal question to ponder and think deeply on than a daily threat-assessment one of daily living.

*Note that I also distinguish heavily between mindset and the vaunted “killer instinct” that many use as a buzzword. I find that killer instinct, as generally used, is the willingness to flick some magical switch and turn from humble, mild-mannered librarian into someone capable of suddenly killing. Generally, a pretty damn unachievable pipe-dream. Mindset is something cultivated over time. With great internal analysis, context, and pre-event assessment giving explicit detail to the when, why, and for what. How one carries or handles oneself daily and ongoingly with a clear contextual framework and having adapted that mindset to one’s perceptual filters – nature, nurture, higher-calling/greater-place, experience, knowledge/education, capability, training, etc. One simply cannot develop the first without factoring in the second. You are who you are and that does not change suddenly. Just as one doesn’t suddenly become capable of being cruel to animals, creating a Ponzi scheme, or faking it until you make it. It was either there or it wasn’t in some way, shape, or form. I am not a Jekyll-Hyde theorist.

c. That the creator himself was heavily against the use of the model as a risk-assessment one, though admitted that the other use of the model was not necessarily wrong, just that (paraphrasing) it wasn’t what the original model was intended upon creation. He also made reference to the idea that the combative mindset was not impacted or directed by the amount of danger perceived or present at the time of assessing. It’s one’s ability to overcome psychological resistance, innate restraint, nurture/nature, spiritual-belief, cultural taboos & social-stigmas, affected states…. Inevitably those perceptual filters…again. (and again, and ag….)

Cooper’s words in 2005, roughly a year before his death:

“In White you are unprepared and unready to take lethal action. If you are attacked in White you will probably die unless your adversary is totally inept.

In Yellow you bring yourself to the understanding that your life may be in danger and that you may have to do something about it.

In Orange you have determined upon a specific adversary and are prepared to take action which may result in his death, but you are not in a lethal mode.

In Red you are in a lethal mode and will shoot if circumstances warrant.”So, moving on, some downsides of the utilization of a situational-awareness model (as it is so often used, at least, from irresponsible regurgitators) pre-violence over an escalating-force one mid-violence:

1. Hyper-vigilance: over-taxing system/exhaustion, long-term health risks, unfocused attentiveness to loved ones present, agitation, paranoia, prolonged anxiety, and sleep issues. After over-excess one might become disconnected from normal society and suffer from the same long-term health risks as uber-stress, anxiety- and nervous-disorders.

2. As we’ve discussed here, it’s accepted in some circles that we operate with dual-systems intrinsically. One (system 2) that is soft-wired: assessing, deducting, analyzing, rationalizing, deciding, hypothesizing, etc. (trained, experienced, exposed, learned, educated) One (system 1) that is like a hard-wired response to spontaneous, quick-need, immediate-circumstance situations where best-outcome/highest-chance/good-enough solutions are demanded. (evolutionary, innate, natural, inbred)

This system 1 response is a built-in warning or alert that lets us know when and if something is off and intimate something is amiss, in need of attention, or worth assessment for risk, threat, danger, conflict, or violence. By being hyper-vigilant, there’s also a risk present of dulling this system 1 and choosing to see everything, desperately looking for something odd, curious, or out-of-place instead of being alerted to something authentically of concern. Translation? We’re so intense on what could, might, may be there that we may actually miss the actual things that may be important in the background. So, in a nutshell, NOT “always, forever, and inevitably” BUT “when, until, and if.” We are constantly in self-defence trying to re-invent the wheel, overwrite evolution, make things better that are there for a very precise reason and have kept as alive over the centuries from far more determined predators than we generally have now.

3. Being so constantly tuned-in when we’re with loved ones all the time worried about their constant and perpetual safety will distract from what is actually important – enjoying our time with those very loved ones. Remember, as we’ve repeated on this blog over-and-over, one can split attention but not focus. Our focus should be on those very loved ones so as not to waste a minute of our time attentive to the unnecessary and irrelevant, waiting for something that may never come. Even from an industry-perspective, one CAN be split-attentive. One cannot be split-focused. Again, somewhat repeating the above, If you are focusing on what’s NOT there consistently, you WILL NOT be on the thing that is. That’s the danger of incessantly looking at things that aren’t present or existent…constantly, it gradually tunes you out to the thing that eventually may be that actually is of-importance. Contemplate on that for a time. Be split-attentive on things that warrant it, not focused on things that aren’t.

4. An add-on to being hyper-vigilant is the actual fact that you likely draw much unwanted attention by actually being in the state itself. Anxious, paranoid, uber-aware, on-guard, scoping people and situations out – will likely do the exact thing you do not want: draw gazes. If you’re scoping everyone else out, there’s rarely a doubt that the attentive-eye also does the same with you, now searching for the same things you’re looking for – but with more ominous intent. They notice things that stand-out as well. I find simply walking confidently, acting calm, moving with intent, and projecting that I’ve been at the races a few times is generally a far greater deterrent than acting jacked-up and tuned-in incessantly. You’re not acting comfortable, calm, and in-control when you’re hyper-vigilant, it’s simply not possible. I’ve tried and generally found far more trouble than I was trying to discourage.

5. “Situational awareness” is rapidly becoming a redundant industry-buzzword akin to “tactics.” Pre-incident indicators. Body language. Micro-expressions. Flinching. Restaurant seating positions. Strategic body-positioning. Jesus. Over-significance on the insignificant. Be in the moment. When. Until. If. The current utilization of the Color Code adds to this and gives it greater credibility when many in the industry are trying to downplay its significance already.

It’s also uber-important to have transferable tools in a holistically-diverse toolbox, and I believe in having a well-rounded full life over one-dimensionality. So, IF this was intended as lethal-violence model and not a situational-awareness one, AND the odds of us facing lethal-violence with ongoing regularity in our daily lives are rare if for many non-existent, I like to play with the idea of these models having viability in other, more occurring areas of my current life. Where else could the color code fit? Or is it a one-dimensional mindset tool? If it is indeed mindset-directed, the levels of intensity or commitment would seem to relevant to almost everything in life that have a focused intensity to accomplish and mission-statement with which to do so.

To me, one of the major elements of all these models – dual-systems processing, perceptual filters, the OODA Loop, the Color Code & gears, man vs. system, heuristics, flow, aviation and driving allegories, the adaptability/critical-thinking/momentary decision-making/resiliency – ALL interact with, off-of, and in a vast process of behavioral components to achieve one thing, performance-capability. Every one has its own cog in the wheel and contributes synergistically and symbiotically in the whole of that capability, whether it’s success, best-outcome, good-enough result, excellence, or whatever the appropriate end-goal, which is determined by circumstance, scenario, or situation.

While it may not seem like an important thing in the whole, understanding that none of these works independently from the others as stand-alone entities, and knowing that they all interact in some extremely important way, is a far more important clarity than compiling some vast amount of techniques, moves, sequences, or tools. They are inter-dependent…not independent.

Decision-making shortcuts designed to aid overloaded cognition

Heuristics is a generally invisible term in the self-defense/martial arts, even in branch areas of pertinence. What are heuristics? Consider the previous OODA-Loop article the “what” and “how”, heuristics the “why.” Heuristics are those little mental shortcuts and internal scripts we utilize to make the “best decision possible” under current circumstances, situations, and scenarios. They are designed to speed-up the processing-analysis using a combination of perceptual filters we have discussed previously – experience, exposure, nature, nurture, age, gender, class, state, environment, culture, previously-training & education, by-proxy learning, et al.

Mental shortcuts are taken based on reference-points to the most alike, closely-aligned, previously-similar occurrences we’ve had and the most successful outcomes we’ve come to with those occurrences. As this is generally not a fully-conscious process and is innate, we’re generally or often not even aware we’re even making these mental connections and references. The mental rolodex is generally surfed for closest successful (or unsuccessful with limited familiarity and rapidly assessing previous errors for unsuccessful result) scenario with which to make a like and highest-percentage or greatest-“survivability”decision.

We use heurisitics daily…and often. What should we wear. What list of things we need to accomplish within our day, and in what order. What do buy for groceries. Whether to put gas in the car or not. Whether to have that second or third cup of coffee. All the way to whether to make that big business deal, buy that house, or trade-in that car.

They are also shortcuts that can be to better understand and become effective at a thing. Taking a route to the beach where you remember that there was recently bad weather that wore-away a part of the road might lead to a route-change. Visualizing images to better understand that mathematical problem to help come to the proper solution. Making judgment on someone who does yoga and has long hair falling into a certain profile. Lumping someone who believes in a certain political-party into a universal bucket of their representation as a person.

It’s also very pertinent to risk, threat, danger, violence, and conflict, where the immediate risk is exponentially higher.

For example, you see a very sketchy individual staring at you from the street corner while you’re inside a retail-store. Instead of knee-jerking into a volatile response, we peruse that rolodex rapidly for previous experiences with this, including those that are similar yet different. Context is rapidly glossed-over with potentialities that factor-in – time-of-day, volume of people around, other things he could be staring at or things on you that catch his attention (the writing on your shirt/your stand-out clothing), his threat-potential (age/gender/disability/physique/clothing), and a host of others. All within seconds. Then a highest-probability-of-success conclusion that may include a simple acknowledgement of awareness, greeting, smile, glare, ignoring, approaching, questioning, restricted-vision aperture, exit, etc.

Heuristics increase in that success-probability the greater experience, exposure, knowledge, training, understanding of these decisions we have. Flaw is a built-in element, noting that there’s always number of positive outcomes that can be gleaned from a number of different choices. And error is also present, in which case this process is repeated and, with greater information and developing-circumstance, those heuristics refer back to other, more refined and more accurate incidents of reference.

Regardless, heuristics are designed to limit the cognitive-load and alleviate indecisiveness, hesitation, and inaction from the vast input of incoming stimuli. Now, they can be very wrong very easily as well. Cognitive bias and misunderstanding of the circumstance itself can cause that quick decision-making to be offline from the get-go. An overconfidence (Dunning-Kruger) of one’s previous experience, exposure, success, and environment can absolutely lead to overconfidence, underestimation, or misdiagnosis. That’s an element that needs to be addressed and acknowledged. No single incident transfers directly to another. Different context; people, dynamics, environments, times, cultures, and the like can all lead to those heuristics leading us to entirely wrong conclusions.

All of the above perceptual filters independently can affect the accuracy of those heuristics as well. Different assessments come with different states. If I’m happy I may assess the same situation differently than if I was mad, or distracted, or anxious. My childhood may contribute to me analyzing things from a perspective of isolation or one-dimensionality. My outdated lessons learned from one generation past from my parents/grandparents/uncles/aunts may be outdated and not pertain at all to current, modern circumstances – or to the environment/culture I’m currently living in. Spiritual-belief may cloud my ability to see the danger or risk in a given situation. Training in one thing may not transfer well to another thing – or even an unprepared-for scenario or mis-evaluation of opponent.

While I don’t think these elements can be completely reeled-in or controlled, I do think that self-awareness, cognitive-bias checks, and regular re-evaluation of blind-spots and emotional-state can help with increasing accuracy. Regardless, they are there to assist in problem-solving, learning, and judgments that generally has higher-stakes, bigger repercussions, more risk, and minimal time. Yet another in a long-line of innate tools that help keep us alive that generally go either ignored, misunderstood, or unknown – and yet another thing most martial arts instructors won’t/don’t/can’t explain to you.

A complex breakdown for the purpose of simple articulation

As we likely all know by now in the industry, the OODA Loop is a catch-term and buzzword that so many use and few understand. We gloss over it, minimize it, dumb it down for the masses. Maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, it so often seems like the dumbing-down is done not to make it more accessible or understandable on a level to the uninitiated but because that’s really all the instructor understands about it. An inability to articulate so it becomes a forced over-simplification instead of one that has been streamlined due to a deep understanding of the concept itself.

So, due to this, I’ve decided this article will likely be somewhat unreadable (and therefore likely unread) to what the low-attention span and compartmentalization for surface-spewing that most these days seem to require. Complex – intentionally. Longer because I want to delve a little deeper.

So what is the “OODA Loop?” It is a cycle of human processing originally designed for combat operations that is now utilized almost everywhere – business, martial arts, learning, law enforcement, law, and everything under the sun. Boyd himself said, “…decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe–orient–decide–act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain the advantage.”

Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. Seems simple enough. But where do these elements delve from? What shapes whether one is effective or ineffective? What dictates whether one is effective at one thing and yet ineffective at another? Or effective at one thing and ineffective at the same thing at a different time? Or similar-but-different scenarios that may draw entirely different outcomes? It’s one thing to understand the process itself, another entirely to understand how it works under real-time events. So. What goes into these 4 elements that decides whether they fail or succeed? Let’s go inside the loop:

OBSERVE: Unfolding events, scenarios & circumstances that trigger alarm, risk, threat, anxiety, conflict, danger, to processing information, learning new skills, assessing incoming stimuli. We’ll try and stay focused on the area this blog generally pertains to: risk, threat, danger, conflict, violence.

As “observe” generally insinuates the visual, this would included environmental stimuli (barricades/barriers, obstacles, escape routes, engagement range, angles, space, apertures, distractions, type of risk/threat/danger/conflict/violence, etc.) It would include the number of pertinent parties such as allies, dependents, opponents, tertiary parties, relevant agents to the outcome. It would include the spatial dynamic – on-foot, seated, in-car, on bike, etc. and including the sometimes neglected idea that it could asymmetrical in nature. Meaning the threat could be in a different spatial-dynamic than you, more than one (which can and does overload senses and processing-speed), a different species, hell, in a different environment. (online/surveillance/different country) if we’re looking at the macro.

It can include accessibility to pertinent tools to attack, defend, shield, distract, project, threaten – primary, secondary, tertiary. (weapons, tools themselves, identifiable tertiary options) and accessibility to pertinent tools (weapons, tools themselves, identifiable tertiary options), control of own emotions

ORIENT: This is the area where what I define as “perceptual filters” come into heavy play. (https://blog.mandirigmafma.com/index.php/2019/08/02/perceptual-filters/ ) Note that your hard- and soft-wiring can and does either increase your processing speed…or make it lag and stunt. What are perceptual filters?

INTERNAL FILTERS

1. Mission/Self-Perception: one’s grander purpose. Spirituality (religious, agnostic, atheist, spiritual), existential place/acceptance, fear-of-death, insecurity about the afterlife, peace with greater power, comfort with life-and-death cycle, etc.

2. Experience – macro=experience/experiences, micro=exposure: events and decisions in life that shape our way of looking at things and making future decisions

3. Nature – internal wiring, personality traits, personal values/beliefs/morals/internal wiring/personality/mindset *nature/nurture can tend to overlap and have influence on each other, negatively or positively, so as to be clear

4. Condition (mental/physical/emotional/psychological): long-term health/condition (mentally-ill, with disease or illness, disabled, gas-lighted), physical capability that gives confidence and knowing limits of self-performance,

5. Physiological State/Emotional/Mental: tired, angry, sad, happy, distracted. euphoric, bitter, drunk, high, stressed, aroused

EXTERNAL FILTERS

6. Nurture – Parental grooming/influence, upbringing, familiar dynamic, learning from example, familial structure/familial dynamic, imparted lessons

7. Environment: habitat, neighborhood, micro cultures, influencers, surrounding people

8. Culture: rituals, superstitions, social norms & acceptances, taboos, practices

9. Age/Gender/Sex/Race/Economic Class: filters and their assessment can dramatically change whether from a woman’s perspective vs. a man’s, a black person vs. a white one, older vs. younger, poor vs. well-off

10. Education (training/by-proxy/self-learning) Learning from the experience of others, research, self-assessment, case-study, peer forums, data, grounded-alignment of own circumstance

Now, alllll these combine to make our responses to and assessment of wildly-changing, 3-dimensional, multi-dynamic circumstances very unique – and which is why most martial cookie-cutter approaches fail miserably under the limelight of reality.

These are the factors that combine to make rapid decisions on-the-fly to quickly-changing scenarios. They are unique to us – as our responses, therefore. We analyze, process, assess, deduct, and perceive things very, very differently, which is why the autopilot, mechanical, machine-like, technique-per-situation mentality of most traditional martial arts, static gun classes, self-defense regurgitators generally fails when understanding the deeper meaning of all this. (The surface-meaning is often sufficient when little price is paid, daily-testing isn’t omnipresent, environment is relaitvely safe and suburban, and risk is minimal or minute. If, for instance, experience and exposure are low, training is flawed, mission is undefined but environment is 95% uneventful, a moot point and likely irrelevant, right…)

DECIDE: Based on and influenced by our individual perceptual filters. We make decisions based on our internal database, generally. Previous similar experience, loops/deja-vus, influence from past successful decisions, incoming familiar changing information and dynamics, etc.

However, something to note and that I hear few people bring-up, is the influence our own personal biases have on situations, and this can lead to very bad decision-making and choices. Our biases often lead us down roads that may have worked one or multiple times before but might not here. Influence better-judgment. Default our response without proper-assessment. Give inappropriate response.

What else unplanned-for can influence decision-making?

The influence of other persons or parties present. Fear and hesitation. Overload of stimuli. Unpreparedness. Newness of circumstance. Lack of confidence in one’s training. Too many options and the belief that there’s only one correct one. So what, other than the obvious, can help alleviate the potential of these? Well, coming to grips with the importance of these elements is a good start:

1. Knowledge. Holistic, ongoing, continually-evolving.
2. The willingness to accept being wrong and change.
3. An understanding of one’s own biases that come from those personal perceptual filters we discussed above.
4. The acknowledgement that circumstances change, nothing is static, and uncertainty is uber-present.
5. Mental flexibility.

Generally, the more impactful these factors are in keeping your own biases at-bay, the more they’ll have been worked-out prior to shit hitting the proverbial fan. In the midst of real-time stress, pressure, volatility is an awful times to realize that the “map is not the territory”, that your version of the world is not how the world actually is.

ACT: I have come to the hard-fought conclusion that the higher-percentage options and those that up the survival-quotient the greatest are those cultivated by and based on adaptability, critical-thinking, momentary/snap decision-making, and resilience. (developing that last one is an element for a different article altogether) Understanding there are no one-size-fits-all, singular-solution, “one right answer” outcomes and there are always more than one way to do a thing – and do it successfully, is another rarely discussed.

The diversity and specificity of “acts” is limitless so let’s return back to general human conflict-response, of which we’ve discussed thoroughly in a previous article, of where I’m going to plagiarize myself a little. (https://blog.mandirigmafma.com/index.php/2019/06/12/human-conflict-response-an-in-depth-look/ )

Let’s break them up into soft-wired (learned, developed, cognitive, “by-design”) and hard-wired (innate, instinctive, evolutionary) first. We have the generally-accepted fight, flight, fright, or freeze that are over-quoted so there’s absolutely no point in beating a dead-horse. But we also have those below, whether done consciously or sub-consciously, and noting that these can be used physically, verbally, or psychologically as well to serve different purposes:

1. Posturing/projection.
2. Submission.
3. Avoidance/Evasion. It is NOT the same as flight/run/escape.
4. Negotiate/Mitigate. Different than submit in that you’re actively attempting to find resolution mid-conflict.
5. Deflect/Distract.
6. Plea for Assistance.
7. Attack. Going on the offensive. (verbal or physical altercation)

As we have broken them up into both innate and learned response and applied them to both verbal and physical response, we can also broaden this further, based on time. What about delving into the sliding scale of physical-altercation types? Are there others that show themselves if we’re ambushed? Given no downtime to prep or ready ourselves? No signs of impending danger, at least that we caught prior? While these are generally instinctive and evolutionary, they can also “act” as a trigger to get to the orient stage of the cycle and access training/fight capability/internal resilience. On that point, sometimes the orient stage jumps directly to the act stage, that instinctive/evolutionary response (or what I call “innate survival-skill mechanisms”, system 1: evolution/instinct) that keeps us alive or functional just long-enough to access training/mindset/capability (system 2: trained/ingrained) ( https://blog.mandirigmafma.com/index.php/2018/06/06/intuition-and-reasoning-systems-1-2/ ) …

1. Turtling.
2. Flinching.
3. Covering.

How about ongoing stress? A looming threat or upcoming unavoidable confrontation? Enemies who pressure you over time? We can add a couple more to the above, as well. Remember that “acting” can be done prior to an event, as can the entire cycle itself. Think of a series of interlocking cycles that lead to proper preparation, understanding, and foresight of events to come and culminating in successful performance of a/the final or highest-order event.

1. Hyper-vigilance. (panic, confusion, ultra-aggression and overkill regarding daily reactions, constantly tuned-in and jacked-up) It’s worth mentioning that hyper-vigilance and freezing are often coupled together in the industry but medically they are 2 VERY different sides of human trauma and PTSD, as most professionals will attest to.
2. Informing. Educating oneself on fear, adrenaline, the enemy, the coming event. Planning tactics, re-evaluating options, reconnaissance. Studying the opponent and/or self. Anticipation of outcomes. Psychological warfare.
3. Activate. Breathing, meditating, and the like to calm oneself, change state, frame the stress in a different way, and come to terms with the process-stress.

Note that inaction, or not acting, is itself an action, whether proactive (strategic/tactical) or reactive (hyper-vigilance/fear causing inaction).

Note also that scenarios are 3-dimensional, organic, and fluid. So the acting and decision stages may sometimes be altered by changing stimuli, greater information coming to light, alternative options presenting themselves, or outside influence. They then return to the observe/orient phases to recalibrate best-possible avenues/solutions as change presents.

Now, is all this necessary to share with students? No, of course not. But, returning to the fifth-stage of the learning cycle (understanding, articulation, making simplicity out of complexity), I like to test myself to the point my capability of sharing important ideas is coherent and cognizant. Deep-understanding allows for simplistic-imparting.

Immersion: Childhood Lessons Transferred to Current Circumstance

Growing up in a harsh climate, and inevitably in what is widely considered the coldest city with over 500,000 inhabitants in the world, we never thought of these as “life-saving” or “survivalism”- it was simply life. Living. The day-to-day. It was the Prairies: isolated, no mountains, ocean, protection, wind, hail, black ice, frost, and the like. 6 months of the year. Yet any one of us that conspired to teach it as “survivalism” would have been laughed-at and mocked. Growing-up in a particular environment tends to make light of what are acknowledged as perceived norms – even when they’re not.

Manitoba has what is considered an “extreme humid continental climate”, where there are great differences between summer (up to 35-40 degrees Celsius) and winter (down to -35 to -40 degrees Celsius – not including that awful little phrase called “windchill.” (which often tends to add another 5-15 degrees onto the minus-total) It was vulnerable to numerous weather systems like blizzards and Arctice high-pressure systems. It was also also brutally hot and humid in the summers, with hot winds and scorching heat. That’s, at its utmost, a 75-80-degree shift in climate that the human body (and mind) grows to become accustomed to at a very young age. I grew up in it. It was home. It was really nothing special, or at least seen as such, for the first 38 years of my life.

A recent conversation with a friend brought up the idea of some of the tools and protocols utilized and taught regarding that winter climate. Note that there was no such thing as GPS, smartphones, wifi-connections, and the like back then. You were on your own. You had to prep BEFORE you left the house and in anticipation of worst-case scenario. Freezing to death and hypothermia were very real dangers if not done and something unexpected occurred. So our conversation, of its own volition and considering the current global playing-field, brought back some reflections on the practices my father and others taught me back in the day, likely many of which got me to this point in time:

ON-PERSON

Walking around, playing hockey, sledding, ice-fishing, playing outdoors in -20 brought some interesting bouts with frostbite on any exposed skin, which sometimes froze in under a minute depending on the temperature.

-“long-johns”/long-underwear, under-shirt to build layered-protection (generally 2-3 layers in extreme temps/climes)

-toque/bellaclava to protect against cold, wind, frozen rain, and friends

-snow-pants to go over the other 2 layers of lower-body clothing

VEHICLE “BUG-OUT BAG”

If ever hitting the ditch on a rural country-road in the midst of a blizzard, things could get pretty dicey at times.

-1st-Aid kit (lighter/matches, kindling, compresses, teabags, bandages, wraps, small splints, candles, etc.)

-blankets

-extra set of clothes

-distilled water

-area map

-sometimes a CB radio (citizen’s band)

EXTRA ADVICE

-full-tank of gas at all times (if needing to run a stranded vehicle for hours/overnight to keep warm)

-jerry-can of extra gasoline (5-10L helps if needing to re-fill, noting that continually revving a vehicle if stuck in deep-snow/ice exhausts gas at a more rapid rate than otherwise)

-if stranded and vehicle running, make sure to open a window/the windows open a crack to prevent the effects of progressive carbon monoxide poisoning, which has been known to kill)

-a battery-charger and cables so one can self-charge one’s own battery are an extra often worth having

-chains/floor mats/blankets can be used quite efficiently for traction, rocking, and momentum when stuck as many unfamiliar make the mistake of just revving for all it’s worth, thinking that will get them unstuck before the motor blows

-the extra-set of clothing and blankets can do wonders if needing a change of clothes from wet snow/water to prevent hypothermia

-many times I’ve simply used “permeation” of visualized body-heat from friction or closeness to warm frozen/very cold extremities or digits

-body heat is better than frenetic rubbing, which can cause cardiac-arrest if done too rigorously to an already-traumatized body

-change to winter tires with greater-grip than summer-ones

-if your back-end starts swinging-out while driving on ice, turn the steering-wheel in the direction the rear-end is swinging and be prepared to counter rapidly (but not drastically) as the tires re-catch on pavement or re-stabilize on ice (it’s a very, very subtle skill)

-brake gradually, not strongly

-stay with your stranded vehicle, don’t attempt walking if in rural/unknown areas

-snow-blindness is a thing: staring at all white or white with sun-glare can cause tracers, spotting, and perception problems while driving

-and many, many others

Okay, so why am I writing this at this time if it generally doesn’t pertain to my current life’s concerns? EVERY different harsh environment contains its own nuances, intricacies, and protocols that allow for not just survival, but excellence and, well, life to occur with minimal glitches. NOTHING replaces growing-up in that particular environment – whatever it is, not training, not short-term exposure, not research, not education.

Immersion is the number one method of getting good at a thing. When it becomes a neglected reality, an acknowledged part of daily-living, an unconscious acceptance – that’s a pretty unbeatable adaptability. That person will likely have forgotten more than you’ve training to remember – cut-away the irrelevant, unimportant, and insignificant while you’re only trying to absorb. “Paring” is the grandest sign of excellence. Of mastery. Of understanding. Experience, exposure, adaptation, immersion all contribute to learning to pare. Keep that in mind as the pandemic drags and remember the original March myths and perceptions that have already, 9 months later, inexorably been refined….

My apologies in advance as my new site is down for maintenance and I wanted to get this out in the meantime. I keep hearing this perpetual mantra of “returning to normal” or even some “new normal”…but I´d like to bring-up something that likely a lot of you, including me, might not want to hear, nor have let it cross your mind. What if this is the new normal. Right now. This. The current. What if we are now living in forward-time waiting for a sense of old normalcy that will never return and we have subtly, almost imperceptibly, moved into what will be in time be considered the new normal…or infinitely waiting for our awaited new normal while this has long since become so. A sense of stasis, police-state, solitary-confinement where lockdowns, restrictions, curfews, quarantines ARE that new normalcy. Settling, accepting, defaulting. A slow-moving trajectory of progress almost un-intuited by the “naked eye.”

I so often hear people talking of one or the other: either that this is all one big conspiracy (“normal” never changed) or that the virus is very real and quite tangible (waiting on that new normal), but these are not exclusive and nothing exists in a vacuum. They can both simultaneously be true. Here, we just received warning that a new wave was predicted shortly. Coincidentally, this is supposed to occur during or shortly thereafter “Semana Santa”, or what is considered holy week here, where people get-together with family, loved ones, and trust-circles over the week to celebrate, well, whatever it is you choose to celebrate. So there is inevitably no proof, scientifically or via study, that there will be any spike – outside of the governmental concern for civilians not listening to protocols and going-out (somewhat legit, but…). That might be justifiable – dictating populace-action to lower spread via fear-mongering and repercussion – or it might not be. I´m not here to opine either way. But it does bring up some very interesting future conundrums.

What if the new normal contains the government at whatever point of choosing and for whatever reason – political-tactics at coming election, to control or calm citizen-dissent or dissatisfaction, to implement new laws as a by-product of growing consternation over any number of current occurrences by having a new template for mass population-behavior, to incorporate growing military or police presence or boundary over-stepping – by utilizing these lockdowns, restrictions, quarantines, curfews for other reasons with upcoming viral-threats, real or imagined…or implanted. Let´s be real, it´s one year in and these are now talks that we SHOULD be having – the repercussions and bilateral effects of all this. I´d like it to be made clear while writing this that I still wear a mask, I still social-distance, I still adhere to protocols…as I said, these 2 are not exclusive and this is not an article on conspiracy.

Let´s take a look at some of the collateral-results of the last year. I´ll use my own life as a template and example. My circle of trust has grown exponentially-smaller over time and continues to do so. My projects are with people within that circle, generally away from mainstream social-media, and I have kept them relatively quiet. My future-plans have taken a stark detour by necessity as survival – indefinite survival – becomes my existing and ongoing norm, not in wait for some “new normal.” This is my normal. I am not waiting for anything. Sudden directional-changes, altering future-expectation, rationing, predicting resource-alterations as they increase or decrease, minimizing. The bubble has gotten smaller-and-smaller and there´s really (really) no end in-sight. The vaccinations are continually flubbed or backlogged. People have stopped checking numbers and analyzing data. Poverty, hunger, indigence, homelessness, struggle surround. We are inevitably trapped in the monotony of a day-to-day rinse-and-repeat cycle, akin to Groundhog Day and, similarly, with the idea some end or positive outcome will arrive if we repeat that day to its most effective conclusion. Time. Time has become of the essence while sitting here battling Groundhog Day.

Dreams, future-plans, savings – the things that essentially give us hope, something to work towards, goals, motivation, striving-towards – have been put on the back-burner, shelved, waylaid, hell, eliminated, sometimes out of necessity for current survival, sometimes out of a will to believe they´ll re-enter mainstream thought after a time, sometimes obliterated from circumstance. A global-shift has been made to virtual over presential so subtly we haven´t even noticed it become regular. Human personal- or physical-interaction slowly diminished and often unneeded. A growing reliance on social-media, acceptance, entitlement, speed, instant accessibility, (we´ll term it…) voluntary-tribalism, and gratification. Misinformation and fake news being accepted as par-for-the-course. Media dictating what we should think, feel, buy, believe. Fear, anxiety, impulse, tension, stress, insecurity, unknowing, unpredicting. Bombarded by useless and utterly-meaningless information. More plugged-in to tech. Less need for communication, interaction, proxemics, reading, state, learning replaced by models, templates, cookie-cutters, formulas, equations, data. Instincts and intuition dulling or misfiring. Touching and laughter and connection falling by the wayside. A.I. predicting what we need and want at a fingertips´ notice. It´s all just temporary until the status-quo returns, at least in some semblance of recognizance, right…

Even on a micro-level, we are settling. For temp-jobs we´re not long-term satisfied with to ride the storm out. Stocking-up on resources that are unnecessary. Believing that we are only temporarily altering long-term life-goals. Holding-off buying things that will make our lives easier. Halting moves with greater opportunities. Stunting our children´s imperative trait-development and social-development in the meanwhile. Open-ended projects because, who knows what will happen and we have indefinite periods of void to achieve them.

Massive societal-change, contrary to popular-belief, does not occur with one big event altering the fabric of modern-living. (And I state this confidently in the midst of a massive societal-level event, acknowledging the irony and brashness) Quite the contrary. It is altered long-term almost imperceptibly, subtly, gradually, innocuously. Frog in boiling water. Little-by-little and while we “wait for that new-normal” to assuredly arrive. Whether because of vaccination. By a loosening of governmental-control. By numbers decreasing. Mortality lowering. Masks and distancing being alleviated. Businesses and industries and economic sectors re-opening. People going out to social-events and activities again.

I often wonder, however, what if the next pandemic were to come immediately after this one “subsides.” What would happen. How would we manage – or would we. Would this be steeled-in as the new norm under our noses with the view that we might not even notice. Would this be the breaking-point for a huge volume of vulnerable people, more so than the virus could ever account-for. While we are stuck in a seemingly never-ending cycle of monotony – remember that technology, advancement, and evolution move forward, with or without us. Virus or not. Legit or not. AND there are societal repercussions that will be felt in a heavy, life-altering way even if everything up ‘til now that has transpired is 100% legitimate and authentic.

That uneasy feeling that I have now is multi-fold: isolation, disconnect, repetition, and an eery feeling that this may already the new normal that we are always awaiting with such hopefulness. What would that look like to you? In the here-and-now? Is it acceptable? Would you be prepared to live the way you currently are this very minute for a literally indefinite period of time? Could you? What if survivalism is replaced with simply attrition? Survival IS actually your ability to just indefinitely tolerate the very way we’ve lived the past year, for many of us for the remainder of what´s left of life. There is nothing else coming. Stark and bleak, no…

What if we will have more pandemics (whether legitimate as I have seen predicted or feigned pandemic strategies and run-off for ulterior motive), governmental-templates as to how now to control masses and align populations for purpose, or long(long)-term repercussions of this one that snowball into very different global-national-regional crises that reverberate for years. Are you or will you be prepared for altering long-term strategies and goals if so? Have you thought about it? Or are indignant and steadfast in that you´ll simply do whatever the hell you want whenever you want to…and what if that is simply not feasible or achievable? What then?

I have thought long and hard on this, noting that I am a realist, not a conspiratorialist. BUT, I can also see some things transpiring, or that will transpire, or could indeed transpire…that I don´t like. And right now my spider-sense is going off. Accepting the current state-of-things as any version of “normal” would be a gargantuan step-back for humanity even if the perception is of evolution and progress and moving-forward.

I´m not here for being a pessimist or to give black-outlook. I do, however, want you to think about how you want to live your life and maximize your (both short-term and long-term) happiness, question the things occurring around you, research-educate-inform yourself on what is actually transpiring and how you can best manipulate for quality-of-life within the “construct”, and…

Keep. Being. Human. Talk to people. Engage. Interact. Share. Fail. Be vulnerable. Communicate. Minimize time on social-media. Be empathetic and coherent on your circle´s state. AND, Jesus, quite talking about “the new normal” as if it´s some noticeable thing that we´ll actually see and perceive when and if it arrives. Stop waiting. Stop putting your life on-hold. Stop letting the powers-that-be dictate when you can go back to living as you´d like. You may be (as the powers-that-be tend to ensure) thoroughly disappointed or devastated and have wasted a ton of time in the process. Plan as if there won´t be any “new normal.” It´s a construct built by individuals or entities that are stalling, answerless, lost, confused, or on-hold and should have zero bearing on your state-of-mind. Drop the new normal and create your own contented normal. I have grown to believe that that phrase has been nothing short of an albatross around the neck of the average person.

As we likely all know by now in the industry, the OODA Loop is a catch-term and buzzword that so many use and few understand. We gloss over it, minimize it, dumb it down for the masses. Maybe that’s not necessarily a bad thing. However, it so often seems like the dumbing-down is done not to make it more accessible or understandable on a level to the uninitiated but because that’s really all the instructor understands about it. An inability to articulate so it becomes a forced over-simplification instead of one that has been streamlined due to a deep understanding of the concept itself.

So, due to this, I’ve decided this article will likely be somewhat unreadable (and therefore likely unread) to what the low-attention span and compartmentalization for surface-spewing that most these days seem to require. Complex – intentionally. Longer because I want to delve a little deeper.

So what is the “OODA Loop?” It is a cycle of human processing originally designed for combat operations that is now utilized almost everywhere – business, martial arts, learning, law enforcement, law, and everything under the sun. Boyd himself said, “…decision-making occurs in a recurring cycle of observe–orient–decide–act. An entity (whether an individual or an organization) that can process this cycle quickly, observing and reacting to unfolding events more rapidly than an opponent, can thereby “get inside” the opponent’s decision cycle and gain the advantage.”

Observe. Orient. Decide. Act. Seems simple enough. But where do these elements delve from? What shapes whether one is effective or ineffective? What dictates whether one is effective at one thing and yet ineffective at another? Or effective at one thing and ineffective at the same thing at a different time? Or similar-but-different scenarios that may draw entirely different outcomes? It’s one thing to understand the process itself, another entirely to understand how it works under real-time events. So. What goes into these 4 elements that decides whether they fail or succeed? Let’s go inside the loop:

OBSERVE: Unfolding events, scenarios & circumstances that trigger alarm, risk, threat, anxiety, conflict, danger, to processing information, learning new skills, assessing incoming stimuli. We’ll try and stay focused on the area this blog generally pertains to: risk, threat, danger, conflict, violence.

As “observe” generally insinuates the visual, this would included environmental stimuli (barricades/barriers, obstacles, escape routes, engagement range, angles, space, apertures, distractions, type of risk/threat/danger/conflict/violence, etc.) It would include the number of pertinent parties such as allies, dependents, opponents, tertiary parties, relevant agents to the outcome. It would include the spatial dynamic – on-foot, seated, in-car, on bike, etc. and including the sometimes neglected idea that it could asymmetrical in nature. Meaning the threat could be in a different spatial-dynamic than you, more than one (which can and does overload senses and processing-speed), a different species, hell, in a different environment. (online/surveillance/different country) if we’re looking at the macro.

It can include accessibility to pertinent tools to attack, defend, shield, distract, project, threaten – primary, secondary, tertiary. (weapons, tools themselves, identifiable tertiary options)

accessibility to pertinent tools (weapons, tools themselves, identifiable tertiary options), control of own emotions

ORIENT: This is the area where what I define as “perceptual filters” come into heavy play. (https://blog.mandirigmafma.com/index.php/2019/08/02/perceptual-filters/ ) Note that your hard- and soft-wiring can and does either increase your processing speed…or make it lag and stunt. What are perceptual filters?

INTERNAL FILTERS
1. Mission/Self-Perception: one’s grander purpose. Spirituality (religious, agnostic, atheist, spiritual), existential place/acceptance, fear-of-death, insecurity about the afterlife, peace with greater power, comfort with life-and-death cycle, etc.
2. Experience – macro=experience/experiences, micro=exposure: events and decisions in life that shape our way of looking at things and making future decisions
3. Nature – internal wiring, personality traits, personal values/beliefs/morals/internal wiring/personality/mindset *nature/nurture can tend to overlap and have influence on each other, negatively or positively, so as to be clear
4. Condition (mental/physical/emotional/psychological): long-term health/condition (mentally-ill, with disease or illness, disabled, gas-lighted), physical capability that gives confidence and knowing limits of self-performance,
5. Physiological State/Emotional/Mental: tired, angry, sad, happy, distracted. euphoric, bitter, drunk, high, stressed, aroused

EXTERNAL FILTERS
6. Nurture – Parental grooming/influence, upbringing, familiar dynamic, learning from example, familial structure/familial dynamic, imparted lessons
7. Environment: habitat, neighborhood, micro cultures, influencers, surrounding people
8. Culture: rituals, superstitions, social norms & acceptances, taboos, practices
9. Age/Gender/Sex/Race/Economic Class: filters and their assessment can dramatically change whether from a woman’s perspective vs. a man’s, a black person vs. a white one, older vs. younger, poor vs. well-off
10. Education (training/by-proxy/self-learning) Learning from the experience of others, research, self-assessment, case-study, peer forums, data, grounded-alignment of own circumstance

Now, alllll these combine to make our responses to and assessment of wildly-changing, 3-dimensional, multi-dynamic circumstances very unique – and which is why most martial cookie-cutter approaches fail miserably under the limelight of reality.

These are the factors that combine to make rapid decisions on-the-fly to quickly-changing scenarios. They are unique to us – as our responses, therefore. We analyze, process, assess, deduct, and perceive things very, very differently, which is why the autopilot, mechanical, machine-like, technique-per-situation mentality of most traditional martial arts, static gun classes, self-defense regurgitators generally fails when understanding the deeper meaning of all this. (The surface-meaning is often sufficient when little price is paid, daily-testing isn’t omnipresent, environment is relaitvely safe and suburban, and risk is minimal or minute. If, for instance, experience and exposure are low, training is flawed, mission is undefined but environment is 95% uneventful, a moot point and likely irrelevant, right…)

DECIDE: Based on and influenced by our individual perceptual filters. We make decisions based on our internal database, generally. Previous similar experience, loops/deja-vus, influence from past successful decisions, incoming familiar changing information and dynamics, etc.

However, something to note and that I hear few people bring-up, is the influence our own personal biases have on situations, and this can lead to very bad decision-making and choices. Our biases often lead us down roads that may have worked one or multiple times before but might not here. Influence better-judgment. Default our response without proper-assessment. Give inappropriate response. What else unplanned-for can influence decision-making?

The influence of other persons or parties present. Fear and hesitation. Overload of stimuli. Unpreparedness. Newness of circumstance. Lack of confidence in one’s training. Too many options and the belief that there’s only one correct one. So what, other than the obvious, can help alleviate the potential of these? Well, coming to grips with the importance of these elements is a good start:

1. Knowledge. Holistic, ongoing, continually-evolving.
2. The willingness to accept being wrong and change.
3. An understanding of one’s own biases that come from those personal perceptual filters we discussed above.
4. The acknowledge that circumstances change, nothing is static, and uncertainty is uber-present.
5. Mental flexibility.

Generally, the more impactful these factors are in keeping your own biases at-bay, the more they’ll have been worked-out prior to shit hitting the proverbial fan. In the midst of real-time stress, pressure, volatility is an awful times to realize that the “map is not the territory”, that your version of the world is not how the world actually is.

ACT: I have come to the hard-fought conclusion that the higher-percentage options and those that up the survival-quotient the greatest are those cultivated by and based on adaptability, critical-thinking, momentary/snap decision-making, and resilience. (developing that last one is an element for a different article altogether) Understanding there are no one-size-fits-all, singular-solution, “one right answer” outcomes and there are always more than one way to do a thing – and do it successfully, is another rarely discussed.

The diversity and specificity of “acts” is limitless so let’s return back to general human conflict-response, of which we’ve discussed thoroughly in a previous article, of where I’m going to plagiarize myself a little. (https://blog.mandirigmafma.com/index.php/2019/06/12/human-conflict-response-an-in-depth-look/ )

Let’s break them up into soft-wired (learned, developed, cognitive, “by-design”) and hard-wired (innate, instinctive, evolutionary) first. We have the generally-accepted fight, flight, fright, or freeze that are over-quoted so there’s absolutely no point in beating a dead-horse. But we also have those below, whether done consciously or sub-consciously, and noting that these can be used physically, verbally, or psychologically as well to serve different purposes:

1. Posturing/projection.
2. Submission.
3. Avoidance/Evasion. It is NOT the same as flight/run/escape.
4. Negotiate/Mitigate. Different than submit in that you’re actively attempting to find resolution mid-conflict.
5. Deflect/Distract.
6. Plea for Assistance.
7. Attack. Going on the offensive. (verbal or physical altercation)

As we have broken them up into both innate and learned response and applied them to both verbal and physical response, we can also broaden this further, based on time. What about delving into the sliding scale of physical-altercation types? Are there others that show themselves if we’re ambushed? Given no downtime to prep or ready ourselves? No signs of impending danger, at least that we caught prior? While these are generally instinctive and evolutionary, they can also “act” as a trigger to get to the orient stage of the cycle and access training/fight capability/internal resilience. On that point, sometimes the orient stage jumps directly to the act stage, that instinctive/evolutionary response (or what I call “innate survival-skill mechanisms”, system 1) that keeps us alive or functional just long-enough to access training/mindset/capability (system 2)…

1. Turtling.
2. Flinching.
3. Covering.

How about ongoing stress? A looming threat or upcoming unavoidable confrontation? Enemies who pressure you over time? We can add a couple more to the above, as well. Remember that “acting” can be done prior to an event, as can the entire cycle itself. Think of a series of interlocking cycles that lead to proper preparation, understanding, and foresight of events to come and culminating in successful performance of a/the final or highest-order event.

1. Hyper-vigilance. (panic, confusion, ultra-aggression and overkill regarding daily reactions, constantly tuned-in and jacked-up) It’s worth mentioning that hyper-vigilance and freezing are often coupled together in the industry but medically they are 2 VERY different sides of human trauma and PTSD, as most professionals will attest to.
2. Informing. Educating oneself on fear, adrenaline, the enemy, the coming event. Planning tactics, re-evaluating options, reconnaissance. Studying the opponent and/or self. Anticipation of outcomes. Psychological warfare.
3. Activate. Breathing, meditating, and the like to calm oneself, change state, frame the stress in a different way, and come to terms with the process-stress.

Note that inaction, or not acting, is itself an action, whether proactive (strategic/tactical) or reactive (hyper-vigilance/fear causing inaction).

Note also that scenarios are 3-dimensional, organic, and fluid. So the acting and decision stages may sometimes be altered by changing stimuli, greater information coming to light, alternative options presenting themselves, or outside influence. They then return to the observe/orient phases to recalibrate best-possible avenues/solutions as change presents.

Now, is all this necessary to share with students? No. But, returning to the fifth-stage of learning cycle (understanding/articulation/making simplicity out of complexity), I like to test myself to my capability of sharing important ideas is coherent and cognizant.

*full-article written on Sunday, March 29th, 2020

This was the first thing I posted on March 14th, 2020:

“Remember how these events have generally developed throughout history stage-wise, should this all progressively get worse – and by all accounts it will. The repercussions of mass-fear-response are often felt faaar longer than the virus itself are. Inevitably hoarding, price-jacking, rioting, protests, store-sackings, mass-layoffs, education-pauses are inevitable. We’re seeing some of these already here. Each one of these presents different strategies and tactics to avert, mitigate, or manage.

Longer-term potential areas of concern: suicide, violence, crime, divorce, domestic-abuse, substance-abuse rates and other much-more affective elements will spike due to financial-loss and future-stability destroyed. Plan macro/long-term, not micro/short-term. I’m not fear-mongering but be aware of the phases that are historically-present as time progresses. And be conscious of how your actions and choices affect others and potentially impact your vulnerability with the above factors. Start now, not later. Being aware of how your behavior can be a detriment or contributor to a human-support system is part of your responsibility in a time of crisis. Whether you like it or not, at this point we’re in this together, and generally have to rely more on each other than our government.”

Now, regarding specific stages, here’s both what I see unfolding based on general human behavior patterning, past references, and some of which have come to fruition:

1. Shock and disbelief. And we see this manifesting itself in 2 distinctly different ways. A) Utter horror. Freezing. Scared to react, indecisive, disconnect from steps that need to be taken and which state is most effective with which to achieve them. And B) A casualness that borders on delusional, denial of circumstance, refusal to accept the new reality and an active (though very likely unconscious) desperation to maintain the old normalcy. Both have played out here in real-time.
2. Panic and fear. Paranoia, anxiety, immense stress.  Realization of potential consequences and, with that, rash and irrational decision-making that is intended to make-up for the wasted time from above. We saw this with the toilet-paper, soap, cleaning-out of store-shelves, hoarding, price-jacking, etc. Played out in real-time.
3. A period of relative calm. Gradual acceptance of current circumstance and a desire to get to some semblance of a routine, as much to convince oneself psychologically of the new norm and to “buckle-in” for the long-haul while the original shock is slowly alleviated than actual acceptance. I’m starting to see this now and we’ll see more of it in the coming days and weeks. Consider it the eye-of-the-hurricane.
4. Unrest. People getting agitated and angry at the status-quo, blaming whoever they feel is responsible. Government, big corporations, politicians, God, other nations, etc. Blaming  others unites groups of people and tribes. It builds and festers during some of the earlier stages and likely will hit at a crescendo when the shock and acceptance finally wear off and tensions start to grow within own households about where money/food/shelter/schooling will come from. Protests, disenfranchisement, anti-government sentiment start. Animosity between societal groups and classes. (ineptitude and ethics of politicians already won’t help here, to be sure) Pack mentality.
5. Explosion, whether gradual or pockets of sudden and unpredictable. As people start running out of money and resources, tensions and anger and frustration hit a boiling point as society hits an “every man for himself” modality. Violence erupts in the streets, looting, riots, domestic violence and child-abuse peaks. Suicide, alcoholism, depression, and drug-use spike. Divorce, theft, violent crime, unemployment-rate and murder-rate rise. Chaos starts taking over as despondence hits. Knee-jerk reactions occur. And we’re ALL immune as, as I stated earlier, if the rest of the world is in full-blown panic, we all have to be as well to be able to respond to, understand intimately, and make decisions based upon that chaos. (Are you ready for this potentiality in the variety of areas pertinent to dealing with it?)
6. The sun rises. People surprise when all are on the precipice. The crisis begins to subside. And, in spite of the far greater levels of collateral damage than the virus itself ever could have inflicted, a new normalcy returns as the storm has started to pass and the population craves some calm to re-build and re-establish a new normal. The long arduous climb back to stability, relative peace, and re-establishing futures begins. Maybe, if we’re extremely lucky, a re-setting of global values, essentials, basics, and focuses, though..

Make note that these things always build, with each stage being cultivated within the last or one previous. Overlap is part of the unseen/unconscious progression, they’re not spontaneous. To add, none of these phases have pre-assumed or pre-estimated durations and can go on for indefinite or long lengths. If there are potential 2nd- or 3rd-waves after a lull, repeat stages 2-6.

Now, there are, to me, so-called “wars” transpiring here on 3 different fronts.

• A potential shift of global power, though subtle. A war fought in far different ways than superior firepower or armament-accumulation. At minimum, very possibly a shift in the global-power structure, from West to East, for example. Note that, to this point, no western country is close to getting below the curve while a number of eastern ones have shown the discipline, self-control and social unity (for whatever reason…) like China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and I believe Singapore, for instance. I’d say that’s hardly a coincidence, though I may be proven wrong. Inevitably, I see this decided by 21^st-Century means (tech, science, medicine, non-physical, etc.), and between very different mindsets of what “war” even is, survived best and with greater rebound by countries with different qualities and strengths than we have.

• Attrition. Whether humans can keep their shit together, be unified-ENOUGH to get through this, care for their fellow human, and not lose their sanity in the process. As this draws-out, it won’t just be isolation we’re battling, but financial/resource-exhaustion, psychological/mental/emotional illness/damage, spiritual-hopelessness, future-bleakness, familial-disintegration, and a long recovery even after winning an attitrition battle. Some of us, simply, won’t make it out of this.

• The virus itself, which still seems to carry some variables and unknowns that could be problematic. Mutations. Second and third stronger waves. Anomalies, Time to a vaccine while curbing mortality-rates, etc. And remembering that the other two above are entirely dependent on this one enduring, it was the trigger-point for the other two even happening.

Regardless, those that come out of this the best will be those that can survive the longest on the least for those of us (be it individual, group, nation) with minimal resources – that “other” 98%. That find their mental-resolve, have their head around exactly what’s all transpiring here, and show the greatest self-control, discipline, and patience – and that will be tested in even the strongest.

Now, as always, there are intangibles involved here. The mutative capability of the virus and its ability to end life with anomalies that are making themselves known, currently contrary to what we’ve been told. (affecting children, young and otherwise strong men, some extremely-elderly starting to survive, etc.) The erroneous, misleading, or entire lack-of statistics and tracking of some countries for various reasons that may alter/effect any positive results others have made. China, everyone in Central America outside of CR/Panama, Russia, Mexico, Ecuador, Brazil, some in the Middle-East allll are purported to have diversely skewed statistics, whether for lack of technology, means, and capability to track viral origins/strains or intentional due to erroneous lack-of-controls and not wanting to lose their place in the pecking-order…playing tactics/strategies. The human element: people still simply do not understand the long-term ramifications of all this. I hate to bring up a perpetual buzzword but Dunning-Kruger has never displayed itself with such rigor. Confirmation biases are peacocks pluming their feathers. The opposite is true as well – people can and have surprised and united at the most daunting of times, as history has borne out. (Which people will we be…)

We here, in Costa Rica, are so far maintaining an exponentially-consistent growth on the curve, people are generally listening, and the government has handled their part quite well (admittedly) BUT that could all change in a heartbeat with the human factor loosening the strings, thinking the worst is over or a short-term crisis, or simply just being restless and missing the “old normal.” Very precarious at the moment as, maybe more so than the virus itself, we ourselves will determine how long the financial/economic strain will draw-out and how long the attrition that affects the psychological/emotional/mental/spiritual limits will last. A much better question that should be asked at this point than the perpetual “How long can this last?!!” is “How long do you want this to last and are you doing your part in your backyard to it lasts as short a duration as is necessary?” Time will truly tell….

Lt. Col. David Grossman, of “On Killing” and “On Combat” has become quite renowned for his use of the sheepdog metaphor for those who “protect the public”…law-enforcement, military, martialists, security, men, etc. I’ve always thought this an immensely derogatory term as it assumes that the general public is filled with stupid, unthinking, incapable sheep and puppets, yet we see these same regular untrained people surviving violence with just the “technology” that evolution gave them…daily. It also puts us, the supposed “sheepdogs” on some self-important pedestal of superiority.  Regardless, let’s actually break down the real qualities of the actual sheepdog breed to see if we can understand further his correlation:

“The Old English Sheepdog (or “Sheepie”)….can be quite the clown, and is demanding of attention. If left without companionship…he will become unhappy, destructive, and noisy.”

“They make sensible watchdogs with a deep, ringing bark, but they’re not guard dogs. In fact, there is timidity and skittishness in some lines, sharpness in others.”

“….since the vast majority of them are bred to be show dogs or pets, rather than working sheepdogs, their herding instincts are typically-diminished or absent.”

“…we’ve seen too many with neurotic behaviors, including hyperactivity, fearfulness, and aggression.”

So, in conclusion, I’d actually say Dave was entirely on to something from the people I’ve interacted with in-person and on the Interweb that are in-love with labeling themselves this term. From the above definitions, I’m actually starting to see his point, from talking to so many “sheepdogs” over the years. I’m just not sure he realized that he was ironically-correct, not actually-correct.

Well, with a term pandemic in full-swing and us owning a bed-and-breakfast that hosts foreigners from a vast array of foreign nations, I’ve used it as an opportunity to test the staunchly cultural social graces that often are taken for granted…and how to get-around and manipulate them. Handshakes, hugging, kissing, and physical-contact of any kind being non-recommended. As the fist-bump, forearm-press, and others have already been omnipresent in the media (and, t o me, can create awkwardness with those you don’t know or aren’t familiar with, I find) , I’m going to present s o me different options I’ve been experimenting with with success, some quite socially-acceptable, so me not as much, others maybe not at all, but, hey, my and my family’s health is more important to me at that point than formalities.

• Making less and shorter eye-contact. Feigning a missed-handshake or hug can prevent an outright perceived slight. No-touch.

• Angling the body. As direct squaring-off and eye-contact (especially between men) generally insinuates a firm-handshake is coming, angling the body away c o upled with the above break in eye-contact can cause hesitation and the mental perception that the opportunity to establish dominance or neutrality has passed o r was missed entirely. I’ve often been coupling these 2 with a smile and immediate turn-away to bring them to the registration area. When followed by small-talk, questions on their flight or time in the country usually quashes formalities and takes things to the next phase smoothly and subtly. No-touch.

• Distance-control. In social situations I use what I call “active hands”, especially when a multitude or group of people are present. That way I have a buffer in-between myself and any one I’m not comfortable with or don’t know. I control space and distance. No-or-minimal-touch.

• Immediately angling and going for the shoulder or elbow combined with a welcoming smile. Warm, welcoming and it entirely overruns the handshake entirely. Can be an invisible touch or light-touch but better to touch clothing than skin.

• If there’s an advance with movement from distance, I’ve combined #4 with, upon physical-touching range, turning and walking with them in the direction they were heading. Works well in more open-spaces like the street, park, or mall. If they’re leading and stop, continuing conversation usually renders a handshake, hug, or kiss awkward or awkwardly-late. Light-or-no-touch.

• When I don’t catch the handshake or hug on-time, I apologize warmly and feign having a slight cold or allergy and tell them I don’t want to have them start their holiday off sick. Especially with current events, I get zero argument or offense. Light-or-no-touch.

• OR, there’s simply being direct. “In this time of insecurity heath-wise, it’s probably safer for both of us if we don’t shake hands/hug/kiss, I hope you understand…
• Hey, even utilizing temporary body odor, sweat, or halitosis can keep people at-bay, if worse would comes to worse. Remember, we know little of this strain as of yet so it pays to be extremely cautious and some people simply don’t get it.

Another thing I’ve personally been doing when out in public (of a different safety variety) is making sure I have my sunglasses on as much as I can. The first known case here was apparently an American from New York who knowingly interacted with a known infected acquaintance but didn’t let it prevent him from travelling here, I’ve noticed some online resentment towards gringo, of which I’m generally lumped in with as a Canuck. While it’s pretty hard to “go grey” here, I can limit the exposure to my blue eyes, which give it away upon sight.

With men it’s often more difficult to avoid as the dominance game is instinctive in most men, especially those from Western countries. Even apart from that, I admit the handshake is almost reflexive to me and I’ve both erred and had to consciously strain to keep aware as it’s a politeness we’ve had ingrained since childhood, at least in my household. More than once my wife has reprimanded me for not only shaking hands but not even being coherent I’ve done so .

In closing, as I had to explain to one particularly casual guest, while it’s not an epidemic or total chaos at this point, and calm and rationality should be implemented instead of panicked frenzy, there are still some things we simply don’t know at this point. Whether it returns stronger a 2nd or 3rd time around, why it affects certain segments of the population and not others, and how it got to be so much more contagious than other strains. Plus, history is littered with epidemics that started off as familiar and seemingly known before wiping large segments of populations. So, while calm should take precedence and it may all turn out just fine, there’s a reason that grand-scale precautions are being taken.