Recognition Primed Decision-making (part IV)
RPD in the context of Personal Protection has two components. The first is Recognizing what is happening. The second is making a Decision about what to do about it. That Decision is the result of overlaying our ‘Options’ on ‘People’ and ‘Situations’ to achieve an appropriate response. Our response represents the Confront and Resist components of the Avoid, Escape, Confront, Resist model. The best decisions are made in advance and then implemented in the moment of need.
Part I of the series Recognition Primed Decision-making (part I) discussed the types of people we might encounter.
- Benign person
- Angry person
- Predator or angry person with personal weapons (fists, shod feet, etc.)
- Angry person or predator with a contact weapon
- Predator or angry person with a projectile weapon(s)
Examples of situations were also discussed.
- Area of limited visibility such as a parking deck
- Walking alone in unfamiliar territory
- Being in the presence of a person who makes us uncomfortable
- Having an unknown person approach us
- Being home in a state of Unawareness or Unfocused on personal protection
- Etc.
Part II Recognition Primed Decision-making (part II) listed our Reactions or Options to an attempted predation.
- Freeze
- Submit (at least temporarily)
- Negotiate
- Posture
- Flight
- Fight
- Unarmed
- Non-Lethal
- Lethal
Our Confront and Resist Options are based on our personal situation and value choices. These can change over time or rapidly, even second to second. A person may not be initially comfortable with carrying potentially lethal tools but be perfectly comfortable with unarmed combat or non-lethal tools. As time goes on, they may become more comfortable with a wider range of Options or they may not.
Changes in available tools varies with the situation. For instance, a person may not choose to carry a firearm in their place of employment but instead to lock it in their vehicle while working. During the walk from the business place to the vehicle, they might only be equipped with pepper spray and a flashlight. Immediately upon entering and locking the vehicle, the person may don a handgun and impact tool. During the walk, the person may choose a previously developed response tactic that only involves using the tools on their person. While this may not be the optimal solution, it is the one available at the time. Upon upgrading their Defense Condition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEFCON with a handgun, the chosen tactic may be different.
It’s useful to view the context of Boyd’s Process as an iterative and interactive model between two parties rather than the single party static model usually described. In a predation, the predator will make the first move, the intended victim will respond with a Reaction or Option, and then the predator will choose or react from his/her range of Options.
A predator also has a group of Options/Reactions when the intended victim begins to Confront or Resist rather than being caught up in the Victim Mix. Part V will explore what these are and how they affect our Decisions.
Tactical Professor books (all PDF)
- Thinking Clearly about Self-defense and Personal Protection https://www.payloadz.com/go?id=3377208
- Real Shootouts of the LAPD https://realshootoutsofthelapd.com/
- Serious Mistakes Gunowners Make http://seriousgunownermistakes.com
- Indoor Range Practice Sessions http://indoorrangepracticesessions.com
- Concealed Carry Skills and Drills http://concealedcarryskillsanddrills.com
- Advanced Pistol Practice http://bit.ly/advancedpistolpractice
- Shooting Your Black Rifle http://shootingyourblackrifle.com
- Package deal of Thinking Clearly about Self-defense and Personal Protection, Serious Mistakes, Indoor Sessions, Concealed Carry, and Shooting Your Black Rifle (50% off) https://store.payloadz.com/details/2644448-ebooks-sports-shooting-drills-package.html
Pepper Spray window of opportunity
“The small keychain type sprays only shoot about five feet.”
https://www.activeresponsetraining.net/your-tactical-training-scenario-defeating-pepper-spray
This is an important consideration when using pepper spray (OC) to defend yourself. Unlike firearms, the window of opportunity for using pepper spray, in terms of distance, is narrow. Most units that people will actually carry with them have a maximum range of about eight feet. As Greg says, the little keychain units, especially no-name brands, are limited to about 5 feet.
On the flip side, if a predator is inside of Personal Space (4 foot boundary) it becomes more difficult to deploy the spray because he’s at arm’s length. Once you can see ‘the look in his eyes,’ it’s probably too late to stick your arm out and spray him.
It can still be done but the technique is completely different. The best way is to stick the unit in contact with the predator’s upper lip with the nozzle turned upward and then spray the OC directly up his nose into the nasal passages. Or spray it into his mouth if you have to. It’s hard to do if you haven’t practiced it a few times.
The window of opportunity for successfully deploying OC is another example of the importance of Orient in Boyd’s Process. Knowing what your OC unit is capable of (New Information) and applying that knowledge to establish your ‘line in the sand’ is the process of Analysis & Synthesis that leads to better decision-making.
Nuances
The Spirit of the Bayonet
“The will to meet and destroy the enemy in hand-to-hand combat is the spirit of the bayonet. It springs from the fighter’s confidence, courage, and grim determination, and is the result of vigorous training. Through training, the fighting instinct of the individual soldier is developed to the highest point. The will to use the bayonet first appears in the trainee when he begins to handle it with facility, and increases as his confidence grows. The full development of his physical prowess and complete confidence in his weapon culminates in the final expression of the spirit of the bayonet — fierce and relentless destruction of the enemy.”
Field Manual 23-25 Bayonet –October 1943 edition
Note the subtle distinction between the ‘spirit’ of the bayonet, “The will to meet and destroy the enemy in hand-to-hand combat” and the ‘final expression’ of the spirit of the bayonet, “fierce and relentless destruction of the enemy.” The first is philosophical, the second operational.
Recognizing how to put a concept into operation is an important step in turning information into knowledge. For instance, how can we operationalize the “O-O-D-A Loop?” My colleague Melody Lauer once asked me:
How do I use the OODA Loop? That’s not clear to me.
At the time, I didn’t have a good answer for her.
Now, I would say that the basis for making Boyd’s process operational is to dig deep into Orient. Boyd himself said:
Orientation is the schwerpunkt. It shapes the way we interact with the environment–hence orientation shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act. [emphasis mine] –Organic Design for Command and Control, slide 16
“I’ll shoot anyone I find in my house” is an example of an input to Orientation, probably a Cultural Heritage artifact from English common law of centuries ago. When we acquire New Information through training, observation, or experience, that also becomes an input to our Orientation. Then comes the hard part, Analysis / Synthesis. All the other inputs to Orientation coalesce through Analysis / Synthesis into decision-making that occurs ahead of an incident rather than during the incident. We may need to modify the plan and decisions as an incident unfolds, but that’s much easier and faster to do than making a plan up on the spot.
Examining, expanding, and integrating all of our Orientation inputs is what allows us to ‘make’ good decisions quickly. When we have formed a solid Orientation, we are actually not making decisions in the moment, rather we are ‘choosing’ from a menu of pre-made decisions available to us because we’ve already considered the benefits, objectives, and consequences and made a rational decision about what’s in our best interests. It’s how we avoid making Serious Mistakes. http://seriousgunownermistakes.com/
My thanks to Melody and Joseph Edward Timbs for provoking me to write this post. Also thanks to Steve Moses, Shawn Vincent, and Don West of CCWSafe for inviting me to participate in a thought provoking podcast about the topic.
We’ll get through this
The Assassin and I had White Pizza at Mellow Mushroom in Mayretta for lunch. It was good. The place wasn’t crowded with small disease vectors, i.e., children, which made our visit even more pleasant. A couple was sitting at the bar having drinks and a quiet conversation and a few other people were ordering calzones.
He and I talked about Personal Protection stuff, as we usually do. I showed him a new target I’ve designed and a Baseline Evaluation and Monitoring Course of Fire for new shooters I’m developing. Then I asked his input about the overlap and intersection between Steve Harris’ CAN/MAY/SHOULD/MUST paradigm, Ayoob’s Priorities of Survival; Mindset, Tactics, Skill, and Equipment, and my Making Good Decisions model.
After buying a new pair of jeans, I brought some pizza home for further feasting. Since I’m recovering from open double hernia surgery and was hurting a little, I took a couple of Tynols and then a nap.
When I got up, I decided to have a little more pizza. I don’t ordinarily drink beer but I like beer with pizza, so I broke out a Blue Moon. It was a very nice evening so I decided to finish my beer on the deck. Thanks to Daylight Savings Time, I was able to watch the sun dip below the treeline, which was pretty. The clouds were moving slowly, so I enjoyed watching them for a while. I also savored the sights and sounds of normalcy in the neighborhood. People were taking their walks, a neighbor was chipping some tree limbs he had cut down, a few cars drove by, and quite a few birds were chirping. As I sat there, I contemplated Werner’s Pentagon of Performance, particularly the ‘Stifle Yourself’ corner.
Then I came inside, fed the dogs, and let them out to run around for a bit. After they had finished their business, I let them back in and gave them each a small dog biscuit.
Since I hadn’t quite finished up my latest Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TacticalProfessor article, The Forgotten Teachings of John Boyd, I decided to knock that out and post it. It’s my second article this week about Boyd’s work, the first being A Tale of Two OODAs. Boyd’s scholarship is so superficially understood that I periodically have to address aspects of it. I decided to spend this month doing that since I have several weeks of convalescence ahead.
Being very averse to chaos and drama, I decided to write a short post here about my nice quiet day. Something other than the CV drivel that seems to be pervading every aspect of our lives right now might be pleasant for my subscribers and friends.
We’ll get through this. We live in the United States of America, the most wonderful place in the world and the best place that has ever existed on the Planet Earth. I give thanks every single day that I am so fortunate as to live here.
I have a question …
A friend sent me an email today that I think is very worthy of sharing. He is a twice retired POlice Officer, graduate of the elite Rogers Shooting School, and very seasoned firearms and tactics trainer.
What is your overall opinion of competition preparing you for a real gunfight?
I published my response on my Patreon page, which is generally limited to my subscribers there. It’s an important topic so I decided to make it publicly available. https://www.patreon.com/posts/33975252
Updated version of Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study
The link for the updated version of the AAS changed slightly but is now correct.
Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study is the most useful of all his documents in terms of tactical theory. Hardly anyone has read it, though.
Thanks to Rob Pincus, I have found a cleaner copy of Colonel John Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study (AAS). It was recreated by Mr. Mark Hart from the declassified 1964 version. The recreation is much easier on the eyes than the reproductions of the original mimeographed edition that are generally available.
Prior to Colonel Boyd’s AAS, fighter combat was viewed by the majority of fighter pilots as an intuitive skill rather than one that could be codified. Some conceptual principles had been developed along with elementary tactics such as the Thach Weave, but Boyd was the one who wrote the definitive book. Only Major General Frederick “Boots” Blesse had preceded Colonel Boyd in writing a book, No Guts No Glory, about jet fighter combat. Major General Blesse’s book wasn’t the exhaustive treatise on the subject that the AAS was.
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Updated version of Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study
Thanks to Rob Pincus, I have found a cleaner copy of Colonel John Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study (AAS). It was recreated by Mr. Mark Hart from the declassified 1964 version. The recreation is much easier on the eyes than the reproductions of the original mimeographed edition that are generally available.
Prior to Colonel Boyd’s AAS, fighter combat was viewed by the majority of fighter pilots as an intuitive skill rather than one that could be codified. Some conceptual principles had been developed along with elementary tactics such as the Thach Weave, but Boyd was the one who wrote the definitive book. Only Major General Frederick “Boots” Blesse had preceded Colonel Boyd in writing a book, No Guts No Glory, about jet fighter combat. Major General Blesse’s book wasn’t the exhaustive treatise on the subject that the AAS was.
Another visit to John Boyd and OODA
A friend of mine shared a memory of this article on Facebook. I’m glad that he did.
I’ve evolved my thinking about Orient to include more nuance but the article is still a good primer on the depth of Boyd’s concept and how we can and should apply it.
“Orientation is the schwerpunkt [focal point]. It shapes the way we interact with the environment—hence orientation shapes the way we observe, the way we decide, the way we act.”
— John R. Boyd, Organic Design for Command and Control (1987)
And please keep in mind that it does a disservice to Colonel Boyd’s ideas when they are reduced to a simplistic four point circular diagram.
The OODA Loop and Negative Outcomes – Part I
Proverbs 26:17 English Standard Version (ESV)
Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears.
Our Decisions usually determine our Outcomes as I’ve mentioned in a previous post. Many, if not most, of our decisions are made ahead of time. When we make the same decision repeatedly over time, that is obviously the case. If we have made bad decisions ahead of time, the likelihood we WON’T select that decision from our list of options is minuscule.
Line in the sand
Begin to attrit the enemy at the maximum effective range of your weapons.
That was one of the most important things I learned as a young Infantry Lieutenant during the Cold War. We would have almost certainly been facing Soviet forces larger than our own. We had to wear them down as they closed with us in order to destroy them before they could reach us. This is every bit as true today in the context of personal protection.
“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes” is a famous saying from the Battle of Bunker Hill during the Revolutionary War. Very few people understand that ‘the whites of their eyes’ basically represented the maximum effective range of the smoothbore musket. That’s the underlying concept of the order.
No matter what our weapons are, we need to understand their maximum effective range. Maximum effective range is sometimes limited by the weapon, as in the case of the smoothbore musket or pepper spray. In other cases, it is limited by the capability of the user. The firearms instructors and SWAT team members of the Los Angeles Police Department are capable of using their weapons at a greater distance than the average patrol officer. That’s not a slam on the patrol officers, rather it is a result of training, practice, and experience.
In order to know the maximum effective range of your weapons, you have to understand them and test them. This testing and understanding is a key component of John Boyd’s Aerial Attack Study. An integral part of ‘Orient’ is knowledge of the capabilities (Previous Experience) of your weapons.
Keep in mind that ‘line in the sand’ is both a chronological concept as well as a geographic point. If a situation goes on for a while, it’s time to put an end to it, one way or another.
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