🙋♂️ Raise you hand if you’ve ever tripped or ran into something while reading or texting on your cell phone. Don’t lie to me, if you have a phone, you’ve done it. This has everything to do with your ‘Situational Awareness’. Every year there are thousands of serious injuries, and even deaths, attributed to ‘distracted walking accidents’ (yes, it’s a real term). In one of my more popular seminars for businesses and corporations called “Awareness, Avoidance, & Action”, I use a lot of videos of distracted walkers getting themselves into trouble to drive this point home.
But it’s not tripping or walking into a utility pole that we’re focusing on here. It’s the skill of being aware enough of our surroundings to possibly keep you from becoming a victim of a crime.
In my last post, I talked about how humans can’t multitask, but instead we “switch task”, and I gave you 2 practical exercises to help you learn to be a more conscious switch tasker (the license plate game and the alternate exits). It’s important to practice this skill so that we learn to listen to our inner warning system. I explained about STOP-LOOK-LISTEN, and why it’s so important.
In this post, I’ll add a few more, and I’ll talk a little about what to look for in PEOPLE when watching them.
More practice:
- I actually really enjoy this one. It’s a bit nerdy, but keeps the brain sharp! It’s also a bit of a challenge but it’s fun so as not to make you feel like you’re TOO paranoid😁. When walking through crowds of people like at the airport or a busy mall, or down a busy sidewalk, look ahead and try to pre-plan your path of least resistance.
Mentally, pretend you’re a race car driver and have to navigate through a 20 car pile-up where the cars are still spinning and rolling. Let your brain predict their future location based on their current trajectory and plan your adjustments to your path accordingly. For the most part, people moving through a crowd will do so predictably; either finding their own path of least resistance (focused movement), or making adjustments at the last minute to avoid a collision (distracted movement).
If you watch PEOPLE to see if their distracted or focused, you can start to predict their movement and formulate your path far in advance.
For an advanced version of this, as you plan your movement keep an eye out for exits, cover, and other escape avenues and try to include those in your contingency plan. Keep in mind which exits or paths are obvious and therefore where a large percentage of people will move towards in an emergency, thereby blocking it off or slowing you down! - When you’re in traffic and coming to a stop at lights, I’m sure you already know to leave space between you and the vehicle in front of you so that you can turn off out of your lane if you need to. But, where will you go?
Much like the walking exercise above, you can do something similar while driving. In face, we do this everyday automatically when driving, don’t we? Especially when we’re switching lanes trying to make up time and beat the traffic. But please don’t do anything distracting while you’re actually moving, you need to focus on the road.
However, when you’re stopping at a light, check your escape routes by noticing the other lanes, space on shoulders, width of sidewalks or medians, etc. If you have to boogie, you need know where you’re going to go before you have to go.
People watching: There is soooo much information you can get by watching how people act, move, and communicate. There are great resources out there too, such as the book “Left of Bang”, or attending seminars put on by people such as John Wilson of CBLTAC.
Like I mentioned in my last post, your survival cortex can sense when something is amiss with someone’s movement or behavior. It manifests in you as a “gut feeling” or a sense of creepiness about an individual. Of course, that is when you should stop-look-listen, but what should you LOOK and LISTEN for? Here are just a few of dozens and dozens;
- Body positioning in relation to others. We humans tend have conversations at what I refer to as the “fingers-to-elbows” distance. Almost universally when we converse, if you stretch out your same-side arms towards each others shoulder, your finger tips will be at about their elbows, and of course vise-versa, even in groups of 3 and maybe sometimes 4. Each person will also be slightly bladed from the other, with no one completely ‘squared off’ to any other person in particular. So anomalies you may see that might warrant attention are people standing too close when conversing which may be aggressive or intimidating. It may also just affectionate, you never know without context and supporting evidence. People standing too far from each other conversing could be discomfort. Someone completely squared off to you or someone else could also be aggressive or intimidating. Conversely a person who’s feet or hips are turned unnaturally away want’s out.
- Exaggerated movement, or it’s evil twin, lack of movement. I’ll use an subtle example of a lone person leaning on the wall of a building outside on a sidewalk. Someone trying to look inconspicuous might attempt to ‘act normal’ by looking around. The mistake they make is usually look around too much. Moving their head with their eyes from place to place without pausing to process might be an indication of someone trying act normal and blend in. Their body might also be shifting weight too often, and their arms may be moving needlessly. Conversely, that same person who is hardly moving if at all could be in ‘don’t notice me’ mode. People move all the time, and we do so predictably. Spend some time people watching and find someone standing or sitting alone and watch their movements. There’s a “normal” pattern, and when identified, it’s easy to find the abnormal ones.
- Sudden changes in behavior can also be indicators. Imagine you walk into a room and people that were just speaking stopped when you arrived? You’d think something was up, wouldn’t you. It’s the same in public. If a person or a group of people suddenly change their behavior as you approach, you might seriously think about finding a way to tactically retreat or adjust your path immediately. Often, you can see this change happen when someone else approaches that person or group ahead of you. Just because nothing happened when they passed by, doesn’t mean nothing will.
- Are they armed? This is a small piece of a larger group, and a good one from my friend John Wilson of CBLTAC. He talks about STP, which stands for swing, touch, prep. Those are indicators that someone might be carrying a concealed weapon. So much we could go into here, but to keep a long post from getting even longer, let’s just say this; watch for people constantly touching the same place, usually on their waistband or strong side pocket. It’s could be a subconscious ‘check’ to make sure their weapon is still there, or to make sure it isn’t visible, or an automatic response to discomfort. Also look for people “prepping”, which is basically constant adjustment of clothing, either over a subconscious fear of the weapon being exposed, or a subconscious practicing of clearing the clothing before drawing the weapon.
Hopefully you picked up another tip or two on learning to become safer and more aware of your surroundings on a daily basis.
If you’d like more information on having a seminar for your group or business, visit https://www.coloradokravmaga.com/corporate-presentations-and-seminar-information/
Happy Holidays to All!
J