Category: VoM Blog

The following is an excerpt from my upcoming book on Orientation:

There is no guideline, no certification, and no list of criteria that makes one a “qualified instructor”, other than having relevant, good information and having the ability to share that information systematically, over and over, to different types of people successfully. Outside of that, the information quality and type changes based upon the experience level of the teacher. How that person processed that stress and experience and then is able to transfer it into useable information to people from different walks of life and different approaches to learning is really what makes the quality part of the instruction.

Among instructors, there are way more people without experience than with. Of those that have it, some have a one-time event or maybe two. Some, like myself, have prolonged exposure: a childhood of extreme violence in the home and throughout adolescence, a violent teenage life on the streets of Murdertown, USA (Youngstown, OH) in the late 80’s and early 90’s, followed by 5 years day-in-and-day-out in the dangers of prison, and then rounding out with years of high-level training in both civilian and closed LE formats. Others, have multiple tours in very hot theaters and war zones overseas with day-in-and-day-out stresses of the threat of death and people dying around them, or years and years of no-knock raids on violent fugitives. Those who have both the years of exposure and experience find that it is usually mixed with one or two serious events that they are able to take and turn them into an amazing presentation to help others prepare, like Jared Reston and his awesome OIS Debrief (which I have attended and highly recommend).

I teach from experience. I have shared just about all I care to about my past. I am someone who grew up in a deep criminal family, with lots of violence, and ended up doing 5 years in prison for EXTREME acts of violence…if you think that you know everything I’ve ever done, or that I’m going to tell all, you are naive at best. If you think that I could do those things yet since other things are not documented then nothing else happened, then you are in the wrong business because you understand zilch about what’s out there and who you may be dealing with. I do not want my legacy painted with stories of my misspent youth. My views on the training industry are colored by my years of experience in the criminal world, with many of my family, friends and enemies of the past having been extremely violent criminals, killers and otherwise dangerous people. (And for you semantics loving kids out there, no that isn’t me saying I know it by association, I myself was a very dangerous person that committed extremely violent acts). That experience makes my bullshit radar go off about too much of the “self-defense” being taught out there. Many of you have zero idea what you are up against, yet you have all the answers despite never having been tested.

Stories aside, my material on the subject stands on its own merit and always has. If you choose not to believe me I don’t care and I have no time for you. This is especially true if you have never read my book, attended a class or lecture, or listened to any of the hundreds of hours of audio I have out there for free. I have no concerns about putting my views out there because I earned those views with blood and tragedy, and I put the work in to make them consumable to good people. People who have that same level of exposure will recognize it immediately. You can’t fake the funk on that level.

So what is experience?

What is “experience”? Of course, having been in real fights with weapons is direct experience. But the guy who’s been a cop for 20 years, even though he never shot anyone, he has relevant experience, too. He’s pulled the gun and aimed it at a human. He’s been through the quick decision processes, the chemical dump, the distractions, the exclusions, all of the shit associated with deadly situations that happen quickly, he’s seen it repeatedly for years. That’s experience. Can he tell you about the aftermath of shooting someone? Maybe only by proxy of seeing his buddies deal with it. Still experience but not direct. Get it? It’s the repeated exposure, the repeated conditions for decision making and stress management under consequential threat, these are the things that create a database of information for analysis. If the individual is good at analyzing the information and then packaging it for the consumption of others, then he may be able to teach you something that the guy who never got into a confrontation could never tell you about. It’s just a fact.

This is differentiated from the average person who has never been a cop, or military, or a violent criminal and has maybe one mugging or home invasion. This doesn’t mean you are now “experienced” and can teach people about the ins-and-outs of fighting criminals. There is an element of deep-seated thought processes that only takes hold after prolonged or repeated exposure, an element of understanding. It leads to a level of preparation and problem solving that you just can’t get to in any other way. Not even loads of force-on-force training will get you there (although you will certainly be closer).

One major separating factor in any skilled trade, be it carpentry or painting cars or fighting in violence, is the ability to fix problems as they arise, on the fly, and continue toward the objective. Anyone can learn the plan, the move, the technique, the fast draw…whatever. But knowing what to do when the draw is stuffed, or you don’t get the chance to work the original plan, or the universe didn’t align everyone just right so you can do the move you practiced so much, that’s where it changes. Most people “think” they can adjust for this, until they do it and realize what a technical skillset it is to be able to maneuver through problems effectively. And this is only one of the many effects that prolonged exposure has on the tradesman.

In almost every other technical trade, it is widely known that an individual is not fit to be a leader or teacher unless he can manage the projects with the experience necessary to avoid problems, but to also be able to expertly guide the team or students through them when they are unavoidable or happen accidentally. Yet, in the violence business we are so quick to give a pass around this all important step because it is a rare set of skills and experience to possess it seems.

I think the main problem here is that too many of the instructors who do not have the experience need to justify their existence and relevance, so they attack the notion that experience is required to teach it. That’s my opinion and the also the opinion of many other very experienced associates of mine. Everyone lacks experience somewhere. Just be careful if you lack experience everywhere.

Being great or excellent at a skill can give you valid things to teach. First, you most likely put in the time and have mastered some skills related to the topic of violence: shooting, combatives, and mental toughness. You now understand the processes of skill development, conditioning, technique development and understanding that only come from long-term exposure and practice. So, there are teachable pockets of understanding there in both the micro-skills/skill sets and the process of skill mastery. So, yes, individuals that have never been in a fight but can shoot or box or grapple with great performance can also teach within the lane of skill mastery and micro-skill development with validity. But don’t pass it off as violence experience. By all means parade the skills you’ve earned, and your ability to teach those skills to others, but don’t get mad when someone points out the importance of experience when it comes to fighting.

In the case of a long-time veteran of military, law enforcement, or criminal violence exposure and experience, there is an added depth of understanding that is now transferable by proxy to students that you can not get from training or practice. It doesn’t always have to look exactly like what you are talking about today. For example, if you did a good amount of fighting with a rifle, and some in-close fighting at that, it’s not that much of a stretch to transfer that experience into developing fight readiness with a pistol. You understand the nuances of gear quality, retention, safety, accountability, skill development, movement, opponent behavior patterns, concealment, etc. But more importantly you deeply understand the fighting part, as well as the fight-with-a-tool part. Until you have been tasked with projecting that skill and violence into another human, then you do not understand the fight part. The fight part is huge; much bigger than you think.

I will add here how incredibly disrespectful it is when someone without experience tries to “check” or “call out” someone who has it. People who have been mentally and physically tested to the extreme have accumulated knowledge–about fighting, about the world, about themselves–that can’t be gained any other way. They have also proven to themselves that they have what it takes to make it, to prevail. I know it’s easy for people to talk shit about Navy SEALS and convicts alike, as well as any other experienced subset of people, but if you haven’t endured the worst of what human existence can throw at you, then you are talking shit to someone who literally understands YOUR limitations better than you do. They can see your insecurities and vulnerabilities like shining beacons in the night, and it’s quite annoying to have to listen to your untested mouth.

Until you have passed through BUDS training successfully, and deployed into high-casualty missions with a small team, or you have spent years kicking in doors on violent fugitives, and fighting suspects in dark alleys by yourself, or you have awoken every single day in the most dangerous place in the U.S. for years on end, locked inside with the most dangerous people in our population, and spent months on end locked in “the hole” (a small metal cell not much larger than a human-sized box), then you shouldn’t be running your mouth about what that person has or hasn’t done, or can or can’t do. I can promise you that you are hiding behind the law, behind the fact that it’s illegal to break your face. Not that I ever condone violence for vengeance, but I just have a feeling that you would be silenced quickly were you not a protected species.

“But, but, firearms instructors aren’t experienced either!!”

Ah yes, the infamous rebuttal comes forth: “99.9% of firearms classes are taught by people who have never been in a gunfight”. First, this was not an appropriate answer to my assertion that the majority of knife defense systems and methods were developed by people with no knife defense experience. The correct comparison would be “how much of what is taught in gunfighting systems or methods was developed by people who have direct experience with gunfights.”

The answer to that is, “a whole hell of a lot more than the knife defense systems or methods.” As I point out frequently, if you are in the right places in the firearms community, the systems and methods that are being taught are boiled down and refined by people who have enough experience in the world of actual gunfighting to be able to call bullshit on something. There are not many people out there knife fighting for a profession, but there are a hell of a lot of people out there in the business of professionally carrying and using a gun in multiple fields, and those people are very active and involved in helping to share and refine the information that comes back from the field to help shape the equipment choices, weapon and gear design, and the techniques, tactics and procedures of good guys in all fields.

If you are in the right circles with trainers and teachers who are staying up to date with information about what is coming back from the field, both overseas and on the streets here, then you are learning the systems and methods that have been born from real experience. However, the caveat here is that just because someone teaches SWAT, or is a SWAT cop doesn’t mean they are in the loop, and it is well known that many agencies fall victim to institutional inbreeding when it comes to instruction on techniques, tactics and procedures. It is also well known that military service does not guarantee one has the experience of small arms fighting, either. That’s not the “experience” I am talking about.

The experience I am talking about comes from the massive amount of people in the firearms community that have been in enough armed confrontations and shootings to be able to call bullshit on something being taught AND they are cooperating across divisions to refine the information. Two key elements must be together. The “knife defense” subset of the industry lacks this self-policing element, because there aren’t really people out there “knife fighting” for real as a job. But, there are guys out there carrying guns and using them everyday, and working to refine what works and what doesn’t in everything from equipment choices to gun handling to room clearing techniques (which DOES apply to the civilian in home defense and unfamiliar structure movement like malls, theaters, etc.). That information is coming from real work with deadly risks. It is incredibly difficult to get away with bullshit in the firearms training world, if you put yourself out there enough, because of these people. No other field of self-defense, knife defense included, can boast anything even close to that level of experience saturation. It’s self-policing to a great extent, and it is also continually refining the information being shared and taught.

The key element that will separate the two, IF we were to compare a great instructor who has no fight experience to one that does, is the mindset and understanding that leads to information synthesis. Orientation is the basis for all decision making, and experience is a gigantic part of that orientation. Fighting, especially deadly fighting, is all about fast decision making. Therefore, experience makes a huge difference in the mindset. Experience is the single most bolstering factor to genuine confidence, which is priceless in deadly situations. It goes back to that knowing how to fix it when things go wrong, and knowing how to follow through with the plan, or develop a new one, when you are punched in the face. It increases one’s ability to accurately read incoming information, and then synthesize that information with information they already have and trust, to come up with the best decisions possible. It’s just how it works. 

But, again, if you are not learning from people who have that real confrontation experience, and not just one person or one type of experience, but many experienced people from different fields, you are not getting a full picture. There is too much to learn from those who have been there, how they see things and how they think differently than those who have not encountered it. It’s just a fact. I practice what I preach, and even though I have had extensive repeated and prolonged exposure to criminal (and institutional) violence, I seek out people who have seen different parts of it. I want to hear what they think about it. How did they handle it the first time? Was it similar or different to my own reactions? Did they have the nightmares, too? Why or why not? How do those professionals approach structures and rooms, and why? What went into the development of their techniques and procedures that comes from a mistake or a real fight and how did they develop it? What does it mean for me? For my students? What would it mean for the accountant who’s never been in a fight, who comes to me for answers about defending himself with lethal force? This is the kind of shit people who have never fought can’t give you. They have no idea even how they will react, let alone helping you try to prepare how you will react. Think about this deeply.

If you are training “A LOT” and the “majority” of people you train with do not fit into that category, then yes in my opinion you are absolutely hanging out in the wrong end of the pool, so to speak. Meaning, you should seek out people who have direct experience in the stresses of deadly situations much more often than you have so far, so you may absorb some of those crucial viewpoints that ONLY come from having been there and done it. No, it doesn’t just come from LE or mil, you should find as many different people from different fields of experience within the topic as possible.

(Editors note: in the section following this, I go in depth about “information synthesis” and examine the differences between synthesized information, memorized information, and practiced information. Look for my upcoming book on Orientation in 2019)

Private Military Contractor International Magazine took a keen interest in my thoughts on violence and training in this very extensive interview. Check it out here!

Recently, I made a post in one of my groups about sparring a professional fighter, and how he reminded me that I don’t know jack shit about “professional boxing.” A few days before that, I made a quiet announcement that I took a side job as a bouncer, for fun and to meet people in my new town. A fellow instructor and good friend commented to me, “Nobody can ever say you don’t throw yourself out there. I really respect that. Door work, boxing gym, red man suit. Most guys with a rep immediately cease testing themselves and go into “authority” mode.”

Yes, I put myself out there. I put myself in losing situations often and I have my reasons for this. If you are serious about being good at something, especially violence, then I suggest you find your own reasons to do the same.

My friend is correct, many instructors instinctively go into “authority mode” once they achieve some recognition. It’s where they no longer test themselves or, more importantly, no longer allow themselves to be seen being tested. Because, they could fail. They could lose or perform poorly. And if that occurred, what would happen to their credibility and the draw for people to give them money for their awesome knowledge?

I believe that those fears along with the ego, are both at fault for the majority of people teaching in this business who decline to step up and get tested. The combatives instructor who never gets in a sparring ring or shows his students demonstrations at the same level he expects them to perform at. The Instagram instructor who is smoking fast and has a ton of followers, yet declines to show up for a professional level UTM force-on-force (FoF) class that’s hosted outside of his “tribe.” The guy who brings his sweetest shooting 1911 to teach a pistol class rather than the one he actually carries (and can’t shoot as well with).

I’m not saying that the guy who doesn’t get tested is automatically faking it, or whatever. There’s a ton of professional guys who are moving into their 50’s and 60’s who don’t feel a need to test themselves anymore. But, those guys have decades of boxing, fighting, rolling, law enforcement, task force, military or special operations under their belts. Some of them continue to get tested, to do work, to go after it and that is how it should be. Some of them spend their energy traveling and teaching others. But, if you didn’t spend literally years of your life doing actually dangerous shit related to what you teach, you better be out there getting tested on a regular basis.

Me? As I move into my mid 40’s in 2019, I’m still getting after it. I personally have tried to get away from it several times, building custom cars, music and guitars, doing sales…only to find my physical and mental health slipping away by living outside of what I know and love to do. So, there’s no way I could imagine actually doing it for a living such as I do now and neglecting to actually get in there and stay sharp myself. That means getting in the ring with an undefeated pro, or working the floor at a busy nightclub, or walking into a State Championship match as my first competitive shooting event. Even with having extensive experience with extreme violence and deadly force, I know I have gaps and I want to find them and fill them as much as I possibly can. It also keeps you humble, and that is important in my opinion.

In doing so, I seek failure. I am trying to find gaps in my abilities, my skills and procedures. I want to know where I am likely to fail. And if people, or even students see me failing, that’s even better. They are getting a real education at that point, from someone who has been involved in deadly violence and dangerous environments. Someone who will not give them some false sense of security of imperviousness through some magical training. Experienced fighters die at the hands of their enemies every day. It’s just bullshit to believe that some particular training, class or instructor can make you unbeatable, and it’s also bullshit to believe that any instructor is undefeatable.

Yet. that is the unintended consequence when we don’t a) help students experience failure and b) show them that we are all susceptible to failure and need improvement somewhere. I don’t fear the loss of credibility or authority, because I deal in realities. And the biggest reality about violence is we ALL can “get got” as they say. No matter how much you know, someone somewhere is better at an isolated set of skills than you are. We also all can “slip” and that is where failure comes in. I’ll step up and shoot anywhere against anyone. I’ll get into the ring and spar with anyone (providing they are trustworthy). Sometimes I lose, most times I learn, and I teach from what I know from years of training, study and direct experience.

I have always believed making yourself look perfect or undefeatable to be a huge disservice in the self-defense training world in the form of false presentation. I don’t think it’s truly a totally conscious scam…usually. It’s anti-marketing to allow your customer base to see you failing at the thing they are paying you to teach them. But we need to stop looking at it like that. It’s just wrong that people who have never been in violence are taught that this certain style or these certain techniques are THE WAY to be a hard to kill warrior, and they are taught this by someone they never see get tested. When they learn it, they are not seeing its failure points. Few dares to teach the failure points of themselves or their own gospel for fear of losing appeal. But the truth is, if you are teaching in a way that makes one believe that you or your methods do not have failure points, you are being dishonest with yourself and everyone who listens to you. And, just maybe, you don’t even realize that you are doing it.

So I did a thing…

First of all, I don’t refer to myself as a “tactical shooter.” It’s just a funny headline folks… Anyway, a few weeks ago, I shot a competition for the first time. Now, it wasn’t just any competition. It was the Florida State Steel Challenge Championship 2018, and it was the first time I had ever competed.

I have never shot in a competition, nor have I ever had any desire to. I know it’s beneficial in a lot of ways, and can be fun, it’s just not my thing. I spend a great deal of time focusing on the fight and I’ve been quite happy in my narrow lane of civilian extreme criminal violence. But a few weeks ago, a student and dear friend talked me into going to the steel competition and giving it a try. So I did. I showed up with my mostly stock Glock 19 Gen4 with RMR optic, a kydex holster I snagged from a local friend in South Florida, and I competed in the Carry Optics division for the State Championships.

It was pretty ballsy to show up with a true carry gun and compete against tricked out race guns (especially in the Carry Optics division) with longer barrels, trigger jobs, etc. etc. To add to this disparity, I had not only never competed before, I didn’t practice at all either! Hell, I haven’t even shot much this year period, except in classes I was either teaching or attending. With moving from Ohio to Florida, launching my book and traveling around teaching, I just have not put many rounds downrange this year.  But I had a logical plan. I wanted to show up with what I carry everyday, with no extra practice or warming up or pre-gaming it, and see how I performed not only against my own standards but against competitive shooters as well. Cold. Run what you brung. No excuses.

How do you think I did?

With a stock gun, shorter barrel, unfamiliar holster, no comp experience, no practice…I placed 5th in the Carry Optics division and shot my way into the B class. Keep in mind, this was state championships. I am pretty damn happy with that! Seriously, I beat some shooters who were classed above me, sponsored by well known companies, and had invested way more in time and equipment than I will ever put into competing. How can I not be thrilled to go in there and place that well? I am confident with my carry gun, and I proved to myself that that confidence is not false or misplaced when it comes to my straight up draw and shoot skills. And I did it cold, how testing should be.  

I have a few thoughts about this. First, you’ll notice I said “testing”. For me, steel challenge breaks down to two things: fast draws and fast, accurate shooting. These are bare essential fundamentals for gunfighting, and if you can’t do them well, you shouldn’t be training for anything else yet. So, I wanted to go into this cold with no practice or preparation. In fact, the day before the match I spent the entire day and evening working on my truck. I didn’t do anything different than my daily life leading up to the morning when I headed to the match. I also unfortunately forgot my RCS OWB holster and had to have a South Florida friend throw a kydex one together for me, giving me a straight vertical draw when all of my holsters are canted, so I got the ol’ “unforeseen circumstance” thrown in there, too.

I simply wanted to see how I would shoot, with the added excitement of walking into a championship match as a complete newb. I wanted to see how I stack up against shooters who don’t think about much other than just the shooting component, and I did well. I even beat several of them.

Since I come from violence first, and then to the fight training world (resisting the use of “tactical training world” here), I have just never had an interest in competition. But I can say this, I didn’t feel “pressure”. I was a little amped up for the first few stages, but I never felt pressure or stress during the entire day. I was a little bored honestly. I’ve always taught in mindset work that stress is a perceptual problem, If a timer and/or worrying about how fast you can shoot “stresses” you out to the point of diminishing skill, then maybe it’s a good time to exercise mindset and self control . Rather than getting better at “shooting under pressure” maybe we can shoot well without allowing artificial pressure affect our minds. That’s how I approach procedural training like shoothouse, anyway. If i let artificial bullshit mindfuck me, how can i expect to perform clearly when the threat is real?  That’s my take on the whole “competition is pressure” thing. Unless you’re competing for that big money and your livelihood is on the line, I think my way is a viable way to look at it.

So, I tried that during the day, and it worked. I was able to perceive the situation in a way that felt like it was important to perform, but I was able to keep my heart rate down and push the performance. No one was going to try to kill me; easy day. In my mind, that is a more beneficial use of competition for a tactical or combat shooter, rather than getting amped up and shooting “hot” all the time. Any opportunity to control stress at the source instead of dealing with it’s outcomes is an opportunity every fighter should take. An easy way to do it is to be a professional. What do pros do? They do the work they trained to do. They show up, and they do the work. It doesn’t matter where, or with who, or if it’s raining, if it’s someone’s back yard or it’s a state championship. They show up and do the work they know how to do. That is the very thing that pros do. It’s a pretty simple attitude and it works. There are things I can’t or won’t overcome with that method, but I don’t train to swim with sharks or jump out of airplanes either. But, if it is within my lane, I will show up and do that work.

BUT, BUT, IT’S NOT USPSA!!

I teach the Skills-Techniques-Procedures-Tactics-Validation process. Steel Challenge is purely a skills level test (skills validation). This is true. It’s a straight up test of how fast you can get your gun out of the holster and hit various sized targets at various distances (up to 35yds). When I told a USPSA Master Class friend about my Steel Challenge adventure, he said, “Yeah, but Steel Challenge is to USPSA what laser tag is to CQB”. While I get the reference, gonna have to disagree with you there my friend. Drawing and shooting quickly and accurately are required fundamental skills in USPSA, and in CQB, and in gunfighting, period. Laser tag offers nothing to CQB. I’m sure he didn’t mean that half of the statement literally, but just because it’s a fundamental skill level doesn’t mean it doesn’t count. And hell no, I’m not letting anyone take away from the fact that I walked into a state match for my first time ever, with street gear, and placed very well. That shit was awesome.

I’m well aware that moving and shooting is more difficult, but not everyone can walk in cold and place is a state match with their carry gun either. Now that my fundamentals tested out well, I may venture out and shoot a USPSA match sometime soon, though I still have very little interest in it as opposed to spending my time training CQB.  There are things about USPSA that are absolutely counter to what CQB should be. In a structural fighting situation you might move dynamically, but you will not dash into the middle of a threshold, stop in an isosceles stance and engage numerous targets head on as fast as possible. That would not be advisable against real bad guys. So, if I were to do USPSA, I think thousands of reps of CQB work would be hard to overcome when working openings and thresholds and multiple targets, so that may screw me up there. However, I do know the difference and would work to get the speed dynamic flow down and not worry about it because I’d be shooting USPSA, not CQB training or fighting. But either way, maybe I’ll go try it for fun.

But, competition will get you killed…

I call bullshit on people who claim to not do well in comp because they are “tactical”. From what I can see, competition is some of the components used in combat in isolated formats.

Do you, in fighting, sometimes have to:

• Draw from a holster?
• Shoot with speed and accuracy?
• Engage multiple targets at varying distance?
• Reload with time pressure?
• Move and shoot?

Because that is ALL competition is, which should be easier because (aside from minor strategizing) you are removing procedural problem solving and life and death consequences from the task list.

Now, equipment differences are real, but only offer a reasonable explanation for a point spread, not a total excuse for poor performance. If you have a million reps in use of cover and working threshold angles, yeah you may not be awesome at USPSA right away. But they are two different things and should be treated as such. Steel challenge pretty much transfers right over in that it’s fundamental level skills.

So overall, I am super happy about my performance walking in off the street. I stand by my statements about competition not being any type of real pressure that tests how you will do in a fight under “pressure” (if I had a hundred bucks for every time I’ve heard that). I think I conquered that “pressure” thing by walking into the State championships of the third largest State in the union for my first match ever. But, I do think it’s a great test for isolated skills that you may use in a fight, so it’s a great way to push those skills up. At the end of the day I did not catch the bug and, even though I believe I could actually win with some practice and equipment upgrades, it’s just not my thing at this time.

I encourage you to get out and try new things with your skills. Don’t cop out and say you can’t because you’re a “tactical shooter” or whatever. Competition is isolated skills work. It won’t train anyone to be a fighter, but fighters can test isolated skills and self-control quite extensively in matches.  

(I wrote this a while ago on the old website, and by request am re-publishing it here. I no longer reference the OODA in my teaching very much, because I have found it–and Boyd–to be a point of contention to the point of distracting from the material.)

Mindset is a slow, subtle process. It will include “breakthrough” moments, but for the long haul it sets in slowly and creeps up on you. If you stick with it, one day you wake up and you “get it”. At a certain level, your journey really begins there.

This process happens more quickly for those who have experience operating in dangerous environments for prolonged periods of time at a certain stress level. That usually brings along with it life altering events that violently shift your paradigm.

At worst, for most, you may only have one confrontation in your life. Listening to people who have had many is an important part of preparing for that one. There are many verticals (LE, military, criminal underworld) that put people in a position to have to perform it, deal with the aftermath, live with it, and be ready to roll out and do it all over again the next day. Having experienced it does not necessarily mean you can teach others about it, but I do believe it is one requirement to be able to articulate it properly.

Many people can not deal with serious, paradigm-shifting confrontation well. That problem is rooted in the components of your Orientation: your cultural, religious, genetic, moral and ethical beliefs, along with your dependence upon attachments and your confidence (or lack thereof) in your capabilities.

Here, I want to focus on the importance of that “orientation” both as stressed by Boyd and through my own observations reached via training and fighting.

The OODA Loop
Created by Air Force Colonel John Boyd, the Observe/Orient/Decide/Act Loop has been discussed, taught and twisted ad nauseam in the training industry. Some say it’s not a process in the moment, that it is an after-action function. Others say that it is as simple as “observing a threat, physically orienting yourself to it, deciding what to do, and then acting upon that decision.” Perhaps they have not read the same writings of Boyd that I have, or they are working exclusively from Boyd’s earliest writings. While the earlier writings do point toward a command and control tempo and after-action system, his later work broadened the subject and Boyd himself clearly emphasized the individual fighter’s real-time experience with the loop specifically focusing in on the orientation cycle as the “schwerpunkt” which is literally defined as the “main focus”. Attached above is a diagram from Boyd’s A Discourse which he completed in June of 1995, two years prior to his death. It is important to note that this is the only graphical representation of the OODA from Boyd himself. (1)

Orientation is the only pre-existing condition in the OODA loop
In Boyd’s view, the orientation component is made up of: cultural traditions, genetic heritage, new information, previous experience, and the process of the analysis and synthesis of it all. In other words, your orientation is your filter through which all observations and decisions are made. It completely influences the observe, decide and act cycles. Two things happen in an orientation cycle: is the application of your pre-existing paradigm to the problem at hand, and the synthesis of new information coming in in real-time. It is the filter through which all things are observed and all decisions are made.

I believe that it is true that you can not “speed up your brain”. One of the best explanations I have ever heard was during a lecture from John Chapman where he stated, basically, that we are born with whatever processor speed we have and we can’t change that. What we can do, is limit what we allow to use our processor resources up. By training the basic skills to an nearly auto level, we free up our processor to be able to take in information and make decisions quicker and more thoroughly. This was during an EAG Shoothouse course and it made perfect sense by days 3 and 4, as the shooters began to have the basics of breach, dig corner, collapse sector of fire down to a science, allowing for brain power to be used on observation and processing new information–critical elements for success in hostile CQB environments.

Boyd also wrote something very similar about speeding up the tempo of the OODA. He suggested that it was not necessarily about speeding up yourself to be faster in the OODA than your opponent. For him, it was more about denying certain patterns and images from entering the OODA, thereby allowing the naturally capable tempo to emerge without being bogged down. This is exactly the same information that Chapman provided in his lecture: by eliminating the unnecessary thoughts, images and patterns from using your processor resources, you are clearer to focus on synthesizing the new information coming in.

The other part of this equation is confidence. Having confidence in one’s skill set, the fighter is able to choose the proper response (orientation pattern) to the threat. The result of this is that the fighter can maintain a constant effort of menacing the opponent with enough effective violence to constantly derail the opponent’s orientation to the situation. This will cause confusion, uncertainty, paralysis and eventually defeat. Orientation is thus broken up into two components: personal orientation to violence, and; fundamentals and confidence. As new information comes into your orientation, it effects those two components directly.

Personal Orientation to Violence
In order to be effective at responding to extreme violence, you must have an orientation that, at least to a minimum level, is permissive to participating in said violence. In other words, if you culturally just do not believe in committing violence on another living being, all the processor (brain) speed in the world will not help you defeat an attack. This is where the importance of cultural traditions and moral views comes into play in the observe, decide and act components of the loop. Through training, I personally stress that this problem can be solved by first establishing what I refer to as Clarity of Mission. Your personal mission will be dictated by who you are and what you need to accomplish. The missions of law enforcement, military and civilians are vastly different in very important ways.

If you are a civilian, your mission will be something like, “To make it home, with my family, every night, for the rest of my life.” That mission will identify a few critical elements: what you are willing to fight, and die, for; what you are allowed to do (laws, rules of engagement, use of force policy); and what your likely demands will look like in that mission. It is only through this information that you can put together an appropriate Training Protocol and begin to establish your orientation to the violence you may someday face. If you are not morally and ethically oriented toward performing violence, you will encounter very serious problems in dire self-defense situations.

Fundamentals and Confidence
Through proper training based on the likely outcomes of violent situations within your mission, you can begin to build a strong confidence in your ability to perform under the stresses of a deadly fight. We often talk about training the fundamentals until they are “automatic”. We need to repetitively train the fundamentals until we can perform them, repeatedly, without having to think about them at a conscious level. This is known as unconscious competence.

This is not accomplished by going as fast as you can. Have you ever taken a day and just went out specifically to practice slamming on your brakes in your car? Probably not. However, when the moment comes at 50mph and something goes bad in front of you, you will slam on your brakes with extreme unconscious competence and stop the vehicle (providing your situational awareness is in-tact and you’re not texting or reading this article: observe). The reason you can achieve the brake pedal movement flawlessly is NOT because you have practiced slamming the pedal at speed. It is because every week you have performed literally thousands of slow, correct repetitions of going from the gas pedal to the brake pedal. If you train your fighting skills in the same slow, correct and deliberate manner, you will find that when speed is needed, it will be there. Speed is a product of smooth and correct.

Improving the efficiency of your processor requires basic skills being ingrained enough to not have to use processor resources on them. Which allows you to then process information more quickly and thoroughly. This is the path to rapid and correct decision making in a fight. When you are not worrying about whether you can actually perform a movement or not, you are able to delegate those movements to the unconscious mind and allow your conscious mind to be fully engaged in the observance and decision making processes.

As the skills become trustworthy, you are able to go straight to processing your environment. This is a good step, but there’s more. The concept of maximizing your processor speed by not using resources thinking about the basics, allows you to not only solve one problem at a time, but to be able to flow through many problems, one after the other. It gets so good that you are able to set up subsequent moves with the ending of each solution. That is achieved after many, many hours of practice, force on force and mental training with positive mental imagery.
Positive mental imagery (orientation patterns in Boyd’s view) play a key role in keeping you on the quick end of the spectrum during a fight. Boyd wrote several times about denying certain mental images from entering your loop. We have all stepped up to perform at some point in time and failed. Whether at the range, or in a sport, we feared failure at the critical moment before performance. When you fear failure, you will picture yourself failing. This image will bog down your processing speed and prohibit you from performing well. Denying these images of failure, and other fear based anxieties, from entering into your observance and decision making processes will allow you to perform the fundamental skills necessary to prevail. It is truly difficult sometimes to imagine yourself doing something flawlessly correct, but it MUST be worked on.

Victory: Utilize Self-knowledge to Win
Sun Tzu clearly was a fan of disrupting the enemy mentally with any means necessary. The Art of War is all about using deception, strength, speed and constant pressure to literally shape the enemy’s perception of the world coming at him. Boyd wrote extensively about the importance of uncertainty, both in eliminating it in your perception (denying those orientation patterns), and in creating it for your opponent. Uncertainty is the cradle of fear, anxiety and doubt. This is arguably the most important and fascinating aspect of fighting: attacking your opponent in his mind.
When we have reconciled our own orientation to violence through mission clarity, rules of engagement, moral application, and the proper training of fundamental skills to the unconscious competent level, we have gained an extremely valuable insight into how the mind works. Your opponent’s mind works in very similar ways, regardless of his mission difference from your own. By defeating yourself, you have gained the insight necessary to defeat your opponent. What was difficult for you to overcome, mainly uncertainty, is also his most difficult enemy. By applying violence of action, overwhelming force, or at least repeatedly denying your opponent from achieving his planned goals, you begin to cultivate the perception of uncertainty in his mind.

THIS is the essence of getting inside of his OODA loop. Literally changing the opponent’s orientation to the situation at hand to the effect of growing uncertainty. There is no way in this article to discuss the endless sub-topics of fighting, violence and fight psychology. In fact, it’s a struggle to truncate this information while not getting too technical so as to bore or go over the head of the non-fighter. However, it is important to note that within the above laid information rests all of the concepts from striking for your opponent’s vulnerabilities, and making your weaknesses become strengths, all the way to dealing with the aftermath of a confrontation and surviving the legal, social, and psychological effects of deadly conflict.

There simply is so much more to training than going to the range and learning how to shoot; or going to the dojo and learning some hand-to-hand art.

My primary goal is to train people to fight, these days mainly with firearms. Teaching shooting is easy, and somewhat boring. Fighting, however, is complex and takes years to cultivate. Especially if you lack that experiential shift of orientation. Which makes this task much more difficult in terms of teaching fighters. This is why I work overtime to expose as many of you as I can to the deeper thought processes that are involved on the other side of that paradigm shift.

Most people do not have the attention span or frame of reference for the long haul of learning and self-development in fighting. They come out for one or two shooting classes and think they are good to go. This is the definition of “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It’s very difficult to cultivate the thought process that is necessary for a non-fighter to realize that there is a vast of world of training that exists solely within the mind. Especially with the American Way of commercializing the “cool” stuff: technique, gear and lots of BANG action in the gym and on the range.

The big reward comes when the students who have never been in a confrontation recognize the genuine quality of the information provided by those who have. This enables them to realize that there is a big world inside the topic of violence, and no one has all of the answers. But the answers simply don’t come from people, who have never really been there, hypothesizing about how it all works. When they recognize those limitations within themselves, they begin to recognize them in sources of information about the subject, better sources are found, and learning occurs.

Take the concepts and roll them around in your head until you wake up one day and it’s there. The light will break through. Don’t let anything get your heart rate up, no matter how bad it looks. With clearly established Mission, internal and external parameters, threat assessment, and repetitive correct training, eventually you can roll through the problem and just look for work. You will know what you can and can not do. You will also know what eats at the mind of your opponent.

(1) Chuck Spinney (who some exclusively credit the diagram to) directly credits Boyd with the diagram, explaining how the diagram was developed as a “joint effort in the late 1980’s” between Spinney, Richards and Boyd himself. Both Spinney and Richards, who were there when the diagram was made, directly refer to the diagram as Boyd’s depiction of his OODA loop. see Spinney’s citation here and Richards’ citation here

(Before the Boydites jump on the hate train know two things:
1. I make no claims that I am interpreting Boyd as an expert, nor do I care to be an expert on Boyd. Boyd is simply one small drop of reference in a giant sea of fighting knowledge. The material in this article can and does stand on its own merit; a synthesis of information from various sources and my own experience.
2. I am more prepared for that debate than you anticipate, should you just not be able to resist. You should probably check my citations thoroughly prior to engaging, because I’d rather spend my energy doing more productive things!)

Underestimating your enemy; the difference between training skills and training to fight; adaptability, and more.

Listen to “Be the Wolf: Episode 2” on Spreaker.

Kicking off the new podcast with a recap of my 8 days with Forge Tactical at Alliance, and an in-depth look at why team tactics training is good for the individual, and attention vs. focus.

Listen to “Be The Wolf: Episode 1” on Spreaker.

Free downloadable E-book of a phenomenal interview of Varg Freeborn by Conflict Manager Magazine. Varg talks with Erik Kondo about violence and training for violence. A truly unique perspective based on direct experience with both extreme violence and high-level training.

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I was honored to have been invited to speak at the Friends of Pat event held at the Alliance Police Training Facility Aug 25-27. Matt Landfair of Primary and Secondary generously made this audio podcast of that lecture.

Varg Freeborn

Violence of Mind: Ambush and Concealment

Listen to “Violence Of Mind with Varg Freeborn” on Spreaker.