Why Scenario Training - Part II

“Teaching people a large number of sword techniques is turning the way into a business of selling goods, making beginners believe that there is something profound in their training by impressing them with a variety of techniques. This attitude toward strategy must be avoided because thinking that there is a variety of ways of cutting a man down is evidence of a disturbed mind. In the world, different ways of cutting a man down do not exist.”

― Miyamoto Musashi, The Complete Book of Five Rings

Okay so in Part II rather than focus on pointing out what people do wrong per se and trying to poke holes in what people do. I would rather offer ideas of how one can make their situational or scenario training more effective.

Now one thing I want to point out is that while a lot of techniques are derided all over YouTube, the truth is from a physics standpoint if you have sufficient skill the vast majority of it can work if the person trains their body to make it work. If you don’t develop yourself and train properly in the body it’s very hard to make things work because techniques are just that, techniques, it is you that make it work. It’s like playing a musical instrument you can be shown the greatest techniques in the world but if you don’t develop your hands, your timing, dexterity, etc. it’s not going to happen for you.

True there are some things that do not work but that is because they are unworkable in the first place. But when we are talking about things as basic as chops and elbows there’s nothing magical about them. They work because that’s how the universe works. The side of my hand or elbow into your neck with as much force as I can muster is a problem for you.

Also, because it needs to be said, your physical ability is a part of your ability you cannot separate them. Even if you don’t have a lot of physical ability whatever you can learn to do in the body is still a part of your ability so the key is learning how to work around things you cannot do for whatever reason.

Anyway…

Framing in Context

If you get nothing else out of this part I’m going to cover, this aspect alone will exponentially increase the effectiveness of the training you do. I don’t care what you study if you get this part the ability of your students will explode. If you are already doing this, then this will only reinforce what you are doing, if not? It will aid you in your quest to develop more effective training scenarios and situations.

Scenario and situational training are difficult to do because it's all about the context in which it is framed and usually it's done in an obtuse manner because usually people start with the wrong premise. Which is why I don't comment on stupid shit I see on YouTube unless I’m asked a specific question about something; life is short.

Framing training the right way places the exercise, drill or whatever in the proper context so that it makes sense to the person receiving the information because that’s the point. To help them understand the information they are receiving. A good way to do this is as follows:

• Explain to them what you want to show them; you can either show them up front or demonstrate it and then explain it to them afterwards.
• The key is if you explain it to them afterwards then you need to tell them that you are going to clarify everything at the end. The point is there are all sorts of ways to do this and no one way is solely the right way, it just depends on what you want to do or how you want to present it.
• Whatever method(s) you use, depends on what is important, but this now allows you to gain their cooperation and places their mind in a state where they are receptive to the lesson.
• You then show them how to do it, and then you let them do it. You summarize what it is designed to do either at the beginning or the end, but you have to provide that overview or the purpose behind the lesson is lost.

Working Back Through Time

"A man cannot understand the art he is studying if he only looks for the end result without taking the time to delve deeply into the reasoning of the study.”

― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

Using this technique, I’ve placed it in the context of focusing on developing the training in the form of first asking questions. The key here is you want to develop the ability to ask logical questions as you structure what you are going to teach.

Unfortunately, most situational training puts the cart before the horse and starts from the perspective that the bad guy has already partially succeeded in their attack.

Then after the bad guy has gained some tactical advantage, they offer a solution to the problem. But they fail to ask the most important question not what to do if this or that happens but “How does that happen in the first place?”

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen I’m just questioning the rationale of presenting it in this fashion. For my money by framing the situation in this way you are presuming that not only is this the way these things always go down, but you are subconsciously training people to allow the bad guy to put their hands on the student then offering a solution that overlooks the obvious.

Before you even get into techniques on how to deal with this or that. The place you want to start in your analysis as you present a situation is in a base level thinking and walking through the things that generally have to happen before it gets to that point. For example, looking at the word cloud the questions I always ask are as follows:

In the image below I’ve laid out some hypothetical questions based on a specific but a common situation that is presented. You want to start with the situation and then work backwards asking a number of questions along the way.

Laid out in a more sequential manner starting with the situation and working backwards you can then logically pull it apart. These are questions you need to answer and resolve first! Eventually arriving at the root of the problem, whatever that is. For example,

These are just the type of questions that I would ask before teaching some situational technique or discussing a given scenario, but the idea is for you to think through the problem so that when you present your solution to a situation. You can also answer them should a student ask instead of the BS answers people normally give because they have never really thought about it themselves. Where instead they are only regurgitating what they were taught without any critical analysis if it is even feasible or logical.

My point is unless the bad guy is going to materialize out of thin air like on Star Trek something had to happen for them to get there. And those are the steps you want to walk people through so that when you offer a solution, whereas should the bad guy get their hands on them for some reason, then when you show them how to counter that specific attack it just makes more sense.

By framing it this way it not only places the situation in context, but it makes more sense. It also allows for you to then help them develop the moral certainty and perfect clarity so that when they act, they do so less out of fear but self-preservation. Your job as an instructor is not to create confusion but clarity, certainty, and true confidence (which is different than false bravado).

Overcoming Hesitation

"You win battles by knowing the enemy’s timing and using a timing which the enemy does not expect.”  

― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

The other thing is, and this is a pet peeve of mine, this notion that you have to wait for someone to physically touch you before you put foot to ass is just stupid. You need to help people get over that.

I remember when I was doing some work with a unit in Afghanistan and on one of the walls just as you left the perimeter, they had a sign up that read,

“There’s someone out there who wants to kill you, are you going to give them a chance!?!”

Yeah like… no kidding…

And this is my point, someone you don’t know from Adam approaches you and they don’t look like a Girl Scout selling cookies. Game on!

The reason for this way of thinking or at least part of this I believe is that many people have a sense of fairness and as decent people they’ve been conditioned to believe that you should never throw the first punch. I was having a conversation sometime back with a client who has kids in school, and we were discussing this mentality and I told him part of the reason so many people feel this way. Is because they are afraid of getting in trouble for fighting or hurting someone. Much of this I told him starts very young.

For those of us like myself who spent ample time in the principal’s office growing up for fighting at school. You know and I know no matter what the reasons you were sent to the principal’s office. If you were in a fight after hearing what happened they only want to know one thing, “who threw the first punch?” It doesn’t matter if you had every right to defend yourself if you threw the first punch you got in trouble. You know it and I know it.

As stupid as that sounds it’s the truth. But this is the kind of stupid nonsense that is the beginning of this way of thinking, there’s no logic to it just stupid people following some arbitrary rule that somehow the victor in the fight or the one who struck first had to be the antagonist. All they’re doing is conditioning people at an early age to become victims. Doing unto others that was probably done unto them―just like monkey’s wiping their backsides on the ground because they saw other monkeys doing it.

Just stupid!

So, let me get this straight, you or I should get beat up to avoid getting in trouble? Well, I guess I’m going to have to get an “F” for the class I missed that day. But that same mentality carries over into adulthood where you have people telling people if they use deadly force to protect themselves especially if they used a weapon, they could get in trouble for it (i.e., go to prison). Hell, I even know of people in law enforcement who’ve pushed this mindset. Never mind the fact that they wouldn’t do it. Unreal…

Let me tell you something if it comes down to my life or the bad guys, or God forbid the lives of my wife, other loved ones, friends, etc.

Just to be clear, I will “rock” that orange jumpsuit. That’s just where I’m at.

Anyway…

Once you have framed the situation in context as you train people you can then teach them the technique for a given situation from the perspective that “should this or that happen, here’s something you can do.” Then show them the technique and have them practice it until it becomes flawless.

From there then have them practice the technique where there is resistance to varying degrees. The idea is to then give them something more realistic to deal with so that they learn how to overcome resistance and find other ways to either make it work or know what the limitations of a given technique may be.

This is exactly how we do a lot of training and experimentation in the military where we push something to failure so that people once they know how it works, understand its limitations. From there then you can teach them how to overcome the limitations or how to resort to a different technique to get around obstacles such as strength, size, etc. and on it goes.

I could get into a number of specific situations, but the bottom line is it really doesn’t matter what the situation is that you want to train to. If you’re not asking the right questions up front it doesn’t matter.

Limitations to This Type of Training

Now, not to sound like Mr. Peabody on this but I would be remiss if I didn’t discuss some of the limitations to this type of training because there are factors that influence the effectiveness of any technique. For my money pretty much anything you do with intention and utter ruthlessness where you can either catch an attacker off guard or as my Master always says, “throw a monkey wrench in their movement” will work.

The problem is and this is a one of the reasons why there is some merit to the criticisms many have of situational training is in order to pull it off requires some degree of skill. More often than not these things are presented as if you perform the technique, it will magically work. Or that without practicing it over and over and over and over and over, somehow, you’re going to pull it off in a real situation.

The truth is if it is not automatic you may not be able to pull it off no matter how simple the technique. Sure, your instructor can probably pull it off, they practice and teach it all of the time, but can “you” do it without ample practice?

The other thing I see is people practice techniques but do little to develop their bodies and the underlying skill, speed, strength, to be able to do it. Nor do they consider possible limitations they may have to performing said technique. For example, of someone is much stronger than you it may be mission impossible. In other words, you’re going to have to figure something else out. Again, this is why you train to discover those things and figure something else out before things get dicey (I’m going to return to this in a separate blog post at some point).

Finally, there is the element of having the moral will to injure or kill another person if need be. Sure, poking someone in the eye is easy and it does work, but do you have to “will” to actually gouge someone’s eye out? Punch someone in the throat? Use a weapon on them? Easy to talk about it but it’s another matter to be willing to do it. That in and of itself is another level of mind setting that has to be inculcated in you as you train. This is exactly why in the military in this day and age of smart weapons we still teach bayonet fighting. It’s not about the bayonet, it’s about developing the will to get in someone’s face and run them through and put all their bloody shit on the ground.  

Laying Bare False Gods

Another limitation to this type of training because it just needs to be said, is that there is a mentality out there that subscribes to the notion that under duress you can only function at the gross movement level. Now to be fair there was a time that I once subscribed to this way of thinking but over the decades I’ve’ come to realize to put it mildly… this is bullshit.

Just like notions of how reaction time works with the often incorrectly quoted Hicks Law (which isn’t a study of how basic reaction time works by the way but how our initial reaction time is slowed when more stimulus is applied over a short time frame). The 10,000-hour Rule which cherry picks the conclusions of Ericsson and Pool’s research. The Tueller Rule (aka 21-foot rule). Theories on temporary hypo-frontality and incorrect theories that we only use 10% of our brain, multitasking, and dozens of other what are known as neural myths.

All believed by many in defiance of the known universe.

Bah! Humbug!

As a result, these neural myths shape training in a way that make it impossible to perform certain techniques effectively because they are framed from the wrong perspective of how things actually work. Garbage in, well… you know the rest.

Part of this I also believe is based on an incorrect understanding of fear, how we process it, how it affects us mentally and physically, and how we as humans can actually train ourselves to manage fear. Where we become desensitized to the noise in the signal filtering out what is not important to fight through whatever we are dealing with.

Think about it the whole of goal of training people at the indoctrination level in the military is to progressively desensitize them to danger, training them to manage fear. In combat we don’t spaz out flopping around like fish. Even in the most poorly trained armies’ people don’t behave like that.

Let me just say unless you’ve had people try to kill you for real, don’t tell me about fear.

Understand that fear is not only human, but it can be managed with the right training which is the point of training in the first place. If it were not so then how to we do things in combat that require not only fine motor coordination like shooting, moving, and communicating, aiming weapons with precision to include at close quarter, traversing machine guns on the T/E. Negotiating obstacles. Come on, really?

Before we go any further let me define some things here because people throw this stuff around so, what does gross movement level even mean?

• Gross motor skills - Gross motor skills involve large muscle movements of the arms, legs, and torso. These movements are performed by the large muscle groups and are not very precise. They include many fundamental movement patterns such as walking, running, jumping and throwing. 

• Fine motor skills - Fine skills involve precise movements using small muscle groups. These movements are performed with great detail and generally involve high levels of hand-eye coordination or tactile sensitivity.

The reason people cannot do many things in self-defense requiring some degree of fine motor skills is because they never train it. Is using a gun a gross movement or a fine movement?

Is holding and swinging some sort of bludgeon or blade a gross or fine motor skill?

Or is it that we do both, where there is a balance developing this thing, we call “touch.” But we have to train to do the thing we want to do if we want to do it with precision.

When a boxer throws a punch is that a gross movement or a fine movement skill?

If it is a gross skill then, why are they able to land punches with accuracy with the right amount of force?

Is grappling with someone a gross or fine motor skill or both?

I guess it depends on your definition of gross versus fine motor skill.

Whether or not you subscribe to grappling in a fight we see people many of whom having no skill do it all of the time, and effectively!

Are the muscles in your hands small or large muscles?

Just asking for a friend.

My argument here is not whether it is gross or fine movement or a combination of both, but against the closed mindset that the movement in real fights “only” happens at the gross movement level.

Also, people put this stuff out there as if what they are saying is intuitive to everyone. But if you don’t define it, how are they to understand what it is?

Why this is important in how you think about this is because a lot of situational training is set up from this false premise. So of course, some of it looks corny, it’s set up under a false assumption of how people can really move under duress. If you watch some of this stuff and carefully observe people’s movement, as they apply many techniques, you’re first thought is who in the heck moves like that? Little kids don’t even move like that. But because they are moving with a specific idea in their head under a false premise about human movement it influences how their body moves and responds.

Or there are people who are critical of certain techniques because they have convinced themselves any type of wrist locks, holds, chokes, gouges, cannot work under high speed because, once again, they have been taught to think things can only happen at the gross movement level. Therefore, such moves are unworkable because they’ve already accepted a false premise that it can’t be done. Once you accept the false premise "it can't be done" of course you can't because you don't even try it. 

Don’t take my word for it talk to any street Cop, Marine, or Soldier who had to chase some bad guy, or wrestle one to the ground for some reason. People do some pretty incredible things.

My attitude is if you can make it work then you can make it work and good on you.

Though I've beaten a dead horse you need to understand this, which is why when people see techniques being demonstrated that they don’t agree with. They are quick to point out that it can’t be done under duress because one way or another they have accepted a false premise. Hock Hochheim wrote a great article on this years ago and he brought up some valid points and the truth is what it really comes down to is within the martial arts there is a misunderstanding by many as to how humans can move.

The reality is if you put that in your head and accept that premise well guess what? Of course, you cannot do certain things that require dexterity or fine motor coordination you’ve already accepted the premise that it cannot be done therefore for you it doesn’t exist.

It’s amazing, one would think as physical as many systems are that people would delve more into understanding human movement rather than just how to do something. Because if they did, they just might be surprised as to how many things are more workable than people think.

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

“Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye.”

― Miyamoto Musashi, A Book of Five Rings

So, anyway recently I was training a student and he asked me my opinion on my master, Grandmaster Perkins along the lines of movement as It relates to fighting, scenarios etc. I’m not going to mention the student’s name because he reads this stuff I write, and I didn’t ask if I could use his name. So, I told him straight out,

“John’s stuff is absolutely brilliant. I don’t know how he figured it out, but he broke the code on something that when I do my research I don’t find anywhere.”

He was like, “Really…”

So, I told him,

“Oh, yeah… Now, my man, I just want you to forget the principles for now, because there’s something else going on beyond that. He’s figured out how to train people without having to consciously think about what to do in the body and make correct decisions in a microsecond before it goes bad on you. Which is what you want! Now, you know why I don’t do a lot of scenario training. Since you’re just dealing with motion that’s where you want to focus much of your training and then do all those things to aid in just that.”

I’ve written about this before in previous blog posts, so I won’t get into it here. But it puts to the lie that you can only move certain ways. The truth is there is more we don’t know about human movement than we know. My attitude is as long as it’s within the laws of physics and human physiology don’t ever let anyone tell you what you cannot do.

If you train for situations or do scenario training good on you. I do conduct it from time to time, I won’t go into depth here I just don’t do a lot of it. But if done right of course it is of great benefit, my only advise is if you go down that path in whatever you teach make sure you are asking the right questions. You’ll find it will make life way easier and your students will get more bang for the buck.

Thanks.

LtCol Al Ridenhour, USMC (Ret)

Creator, Warrior Flow