Observation - To Observe

Blog Article/Post Caveat (Read First Please: Click the Link)

Have you ever heard the song of girl watching? I remember a song from the time as a teen that drove the male to watch girls, especially at our beach in Daytona, Florida. Now, as karate Sensei and senpai, have you really delved into the critical importance of watching or looking or “Seeing” in our environment?

Have you heard of the OODA loop or, “Boyd’s loop?” Yeah, I thought so and you already know how important the “observation” step to that loop is because if you are not watching, seeing - really seeing, then the rest of the loop means nothing in the scheme ok karate and self-protection. 

Take a look back, to see, in the historical archives of bloggers like Rory Miller and Marc MacYoung on the subject of observational skills used as a first warning ability to turn on, or to flip the switch, to a higher alert level of observation. 

We talk about being observant but seldom spend enough time on teaching how, why and especially “What” to perceive, look for and to orient higher levels of attention on to actually “Avoid” threats in our environment. 

The ultimate goal is observation so that we orient in advance on potential threats that provide adequate time for us to decide on “getting out of Dodge” as an appropriate, safe and advantageous method of handling potentially dangerous threats.

What do you think or how does this sound to you?

Note: It is interesting this thing called, “Serendipity” because this morning when watching a Netflix documentary on surveillance it inspired this article and then not moments later I get notified that Marc MacYoung’s book on “Multiple Attackers: Your Guide to Recognition, Avoidance, and Survival,” came out for Kindle on Amazon. Along with his great book on self-defense as well as the books by Rory Miller, there is no excuse for folks to not have a foundation studied and understood that our minds can reference if and when we start to enter into an environment that may, could and possibly become a group dynamic with violence. 

ADDENDUM:

Consider: direct vision, peripheral vision AND conscious sight, unconscious sight?

• direct vision: what we see, or think we think we see, in a small area mostly in direct line of sight of our eyes. The interesting thing here is that the stimulus must be something we know about or have experienced or trained for. 
• peripheral vision: that area outside the direct visual line of sight that many believe has a greater potential of being noticed. 
• conscious sight: what one is viewing or seeing in thier sight that they are observing with conscious thought but this kind of sight means being on alert along with knowing and understanding what it is you are looking for.  
• unconscious sight: this is almost exclusively the main concept of seeing that people instinctually have from nature that triggers the “freeze, flight or fight” response. It is that unconscious effort of seeing while not consciously focusing on what we see allowing instinct-like processes to trigger the FFF response so that we hone in our observation and orientation abilities. This requires a ton of learning, understanding, training and experiences both actual and creative. 

For reference and sources and professionals go here: Bibliography (Click the link)