The Monkey in Training Environments

I am on the Monkey train this week. I am reading ConComm by Rory Miller and he writes about the Monkey, i.e. the title and book cover pretty much indicate this. Anyway, it made me think of the Monkey and how when folks are in the Monkey mind they tend to escalate things right up to the fight. In this post I want to provide an example to show that even in training where everyone "KNOWS" it is training the Monkey can take you right straight to violence.

In the Marines we were tasked with training to assist authorities in controlling mob activity, i.e. protesters, etc. Half our team were fully decked out in combat gear minus weapons except the baton. The other half were the protesters and we were mandated to use every verbal scheme or tactic to aggravate the other team members to help them prepare so they would remain steady and not lose it. 

Well, both sides were going pretty good. Then one of the team members working the guard side suddenly went beserk and attacked a protester. Remember the protesters were not allowed to become physical. The guy apparently carried his personal knife in his pocket, pulled it and then slashed at the protester in question who happened to be in his face.

Lucky for us there were a lot of monitors and the other troops, both sides, took quick action to detain and control the person who lost it. I am not saying this type of thing happens in training a lot but it only takes one instance to create a bad situation. Maybe we allowed the protesters too much latitude in how they teased and taunted the guard side but in training you need to achieve reality as best as possible while maintaining control and safety. 

So, if you train and teach self-defense - the full spectrum - then you need to make sure that things don't go beyond safety and control so things don't accidentally go ballistic. It can be tough sometimes to keep perspective when the Monkey is being teased and taunted continuously in possibly dangerous situations. 

Then, maybe I am just over thinking and over obsessing these types of things. Even if I am, thinking about these types of possibilities should, at a minimum, get the old gray matter thinking and evaluating and implementing if warranted. Yes?