Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A Little Something From Mac

This will mostly speak to the LEOs, but in his ongoing series of different things people train for Mac wrote:

"This shows the heart of defensive tactics – not wrist locks and pig piles, but control. Control; first and foremost, of yourself, no matter how you feel about it – control of your slamming heartbeat, dry mouth, deadened ears, trembling hands that cause the front sight of your gun to disappear and the face of the man who may be about to die become huge, distorted into gargoyle-like ugliness. Control of your tactics, your partners, the perp, the environment; control of the outcome. This is very unlike, and infinately harder than the simplicity and single focus of combat (kill) and self-defense (escape). In defensive tactics, you have to exist outside yourself, be a witness to the action, in order to stay objective. You have to control your mind, body and spirit as if all three were tools, and still remain focused, and committed to, the mission, the outcome. Can this kind of objectivity be trained, be learned?"

Good stuff.





5 comments:

Master Plan said...

Indeed I thought that an excellent summation when I read it over there as well. The rest of the series have been insightful in their own ways, says me. ;-)

Ann T. said...

Dear Rory,
I think establishing control in conflict is essential, whether you have a gun situation or not. But i agree that a vast number of posts on police procedures have to do with exactly that; how to approach a car, a person, a place with forethought.

The second thing if you aren't an LEO is to relinquish control at the right moment too, or alternately, know one's place in the pecking order, and I think maybe that's the difference.

Sincerely,
Ann T.

Kai Jones said...

In defensive tactics, you have to exist outside yourself, be a witness to the action, in order to stay objective.

In therapy talk this is called mindfulness: noticing your reactions and the outside world while they're happening but from one (mental) step back, so that you can analyze, judge, and change them.

You have to control your mind, body and spirit as if all three were tools, and still remain focused, and committed to, the mission, the outcome. Can this kind of objectivity be trained, be learned?

And in therapy they do believe it can be learned and taught.

Rory said...

Kai- Yeah, and that's a good reason why it is important to look outside for some insights and teaching methodologies (I noticed early in college that the group dynamics class offered by the psychology department had little to offer, the one offered by the school of Forestry had the best insights I've seen outside of the military).

The big issue is maintaining the distance when your hindbrain is trying to put you into survival mode and your stress hormones are rising. And avoiding the scripts people get sucked into when they are emotional.

Ann-
Instead of relinquish control I would phrase it "recognize when you don't have control and don't pretend that you do" and recognize what in a given situation you can control and what you cannot. Is that another way of phrasing it? Or am I stuck in my own groove on this one?

Jonas- I agree, of course.

Ann T. said...

Dear Rory,
Yes, I like your phrase better. It's a kind of control to know you're not the best man or woman for the job, too, and to act accordingly. Or as Kai puts it, also better than me, a kind of 'mindfulness'.

I like the forestry class metaphor. The best writing class I had was art history--not creative writing.

Thank you,
Ann T.