Discussion On My Dojo List

[msneen]

Would it be propper to say that OODA is a different animal when looking at the close quarters, extremely rapid pace of a H2H fight when compared to say military operations, SWAT planning, and even air combat? Like my SWAT example, you can look at the use of equipment anf tactics as methods of entering the opponents OODA cycle. But thats a different application of the process from how say a boxer manipulates OODA with feints, combinations etc.

Similiar to how basic military tactics can be applied from the level of doctrine all the way down to individual soldier skills.

I think so. In boxing or h2h, you would almost always have to evaluate your technique or strategy against the unconscious OODA cycle in compressed time frames.

On the other extreme, in Naval warefare with large ships, and possibly in Tank warefare, it seems likely that most of the OODA cycles can be conscious and still fast enough, because big ships and tanks just don't move that fast ( I know, newer tanks are pretty fast. I was just on Pendleton a few weeks ago with a tank crew ).

In SWAT or Air Combat, you are going to have a mix. Some of your techniques and strategies are long range enough that they only need to beat the conscious OODA of your aggressor. Others are up "inside" and are running in compressed time frames, and therefore need to be able to beat or act upon the unconscious OODA.

This creates the hardest environment for the team, because it is easy to think you are in a situation where you and the aggressor(s) are all running in conscious OODA, and you find out the aggressor has managed to "up the speed" and you need to be able to process in unconscious OODA.

Back when I was training teams, one of the things we noticed was that many of the teams were running in conscious OODA, in situations when they should have been running in unconscious OODA.

I remember a Marine team we trained in CQB in the early 90's. We were doing force on force training. All of them had radios, and when then encountered aggressors, they tried to get on the radio and communicate to their team leader, which held them in conscious OODA, processing the wrong loops. They ultimately learned that they needed to be in unconscious OODA and handle the attack first, then when they were somewhat safe, communicate and call in a flanking attack from a different room.

I was just watching discovery channel last night. They had the "camera sighted rifie" for looking around corners in CQB. Unfortunately, One of the problems with it is that it places the user in conscious OODA, whereas an aggressor in unconscious OODA could easily defeat it by rapidly attacking and getting inside the user's conscious OODA.

Now, if the camera sighted rifle user had good teammates, they would be creating safe shadow for him, and pick up the attack while in unconscious OODA themselves, but if they were capable of that, they probably wouldn't have been all that interested in using the camera sighted rifle in the first place.

Anyway, I appreciate your posts. They really make me think. If you think I am off base on any of my ideas, I hope you will say so.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[Tgace]

I remember a Marine team we trained in CQB in the early 90's. We were doing force on force training. All of them had radios, and when then encountered aggressors, they tried to get on the radio and communicate to their team leader, which held them in conscious OODA, processing the wrong loops. They ultimately learned that they needed to be in unconscious OODA and handle the attack first, then when they were somewhat safe, communicate and call in a flanking attack from a different room.

Part of that is the exact reason why on my team only one person (the entry leader) makes communication contact with the command post. When actually in a "CQB" environment, just plain yelling between the operators is far more effective.

 

[msneen]

Part of that is the exact reason why on my team only one person (the entry leader) makes communication contact with the command post. When actually in a "CQB" environment, just plain yelling between the operators is far more effective.

Agreed! I would bet money your guys are reading each other's body language rather than talking whenever they can see each other.

Language seems to use the conscious mind, and pushes you into conscious OODA cycles, whereas reading body language of your teammates can communicate a large amount of information at the unconscious level, hence unconscious OODA cycles to interpret it and almost no cycles at all to send it.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[Tgace]

What I like about the OODA concept is that it "goes back" to basic principles. There is a tendency to go into "overdevelopment" within tactical circles. Pedantic overthink resulting in communicating every little bit of information over radios, complicated formations and entry plans, pages upon pages of SOP (should be "Simple Operating Procedure" IMHO) etc. and overdependency on technology and gadgets instead of just looking at them as tools. OODA fits in nicely with the KISS concept, anything too complicated is going to extend your cycle.

 

[Tgace]

Another thing that comes to mind is a concept in LEO circles of the Yes,Maybe, and No person. When dealing with people (from a LEO perspective) you have Yes people, who do what you ask and maybe you just use a guiding hand to maintain control and/or be prepared for an attitude change. You have Maybe people who are between doing what you want and outright resistance. They are good candidates for PPC techniques and locks before they get too resistive. Then theres the No person who is fighting/fleeing. Getting locks, PPC on them is extremely difficult and you enter into the gross motor skill range of technique.

I would think that the difference between them all is their Decision phase. 2 have already decided (yes Ill go along and No Im not) and the third is stuck between the two.

 

[msneen]

What I like about the OODA concept is that it "goes back" to basic principles. There is a tendency to go into "overdevelopment" within tactical circles. Pedantic overthink resulting in communicating every little bit of information over radios, complicated formations and entry plans, pages upon pages of SOP (should be "Simple Operating Procedure" IMHO) etc. and overdependency on technology and gadgets instead of just looking at them as tools. OODA fits in nicely with the KISS concept, anything too complicated is going to extend your cycle.

Back when I was training, some of the "bigger" teams were proponents of making mock ups of the area they planned to hit. While it is a great idea to know the floor plan of the area you are going to operate in, they were going so far as to define which man would go where while clearing each room.

I never thought this was a good idea for well trained operators. If you stay with the plan, you are not only likely to be in conscious OODA mode more often, but you will likely have to purposely ignore observations that could send you into much more efficient actions. I have seen numerous situations where having furniture, planters, hanging clothing, etc., or the locations where you encounter aggressors; make the difference between clearing any one room before another, or the difference in entry techniques on any given room.

You are very right about gadgets. Unfortunately, multi million dollar gadgets look much more appealing than multi thousand dollar training. When an agency puts together its list of assets, the gadgets all show up but the training/skill level doesn't show up anywhere on reports.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[msneen]

Another thing that comes to mind is a concept in LEO circles of the Yes,Maybe, and No person. When dealing with people (from a LEO perspective) you have Yes people, who do what you ask and maybe you just use a guiding hand to maintain control and/or be prepared for an attitude change. You have Maybe people who are between doing what you want and outright resistance. They are good candidates for PPC techniques and locks before they get too resistive. Then theres the No person who is fighting/fleeing. Getting locks, PPC on them is extremely difficult and you enter into the gross motor skill range of technique.

I would think that the difference between them all is their Decision phase. 2 have already decided (yes Ill go along and No Im not) and the third is stuck between the two.

Excellent Point! In fact, I would go so far as to say that the better your tactics leading up to the encounter, the more "No" people you will turn into "maybe" people. I would suggest that many of the "maybe" people are "no" people that are running conscious OODA cycles, but can't reach a decision that they think leads them out of the situation.

If the team or officer is sloppy on approach, he / they are likely to encounter more "no"s than the team / officer that has a "tight" approach.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[Tgace]

Most times just having multiple officers on location changes No people to Maybe people. Locking up the first Edited to conform to MT's Rules who causes a problem changes a lot of them too.

 

[Tgace]

Nice link to Boyd and his theory,lots of reference links...

http://www.lexnotes.com/misc/johnboyd.htm

and another...

http://www.fastcompany.com/online/59/pilot.html

 

[msneen]

Good Links. I've read the second a few times but hadn't seen the first.

I've been thinking about the relationship between OODA and Commited attacks.

With totally committed attacks, the attack develops slower and lasts longer, and unless you are really good, you are trapped in a big long ooda cycle as well. With short uncommitted attacks, you have trouble making anything decisive happen, but you can run numerous short fast ooda cycles, constantly adapting to the situation.

From my experience, really good fighters mix the two by leading in with no commitment, then committing when they think you can't deal with it.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[Tgace]

Yes. I would think the issue there would be being able to judge if you are committing yourself to a flawed attack just for the sake of "forward momentum", or if you are failing to commit to any attack waiting for that "perfect opportunity". Ive seen a few cops bull their way into a situation because they have always been taught that they must "take charge" in all situations and on the flip side seen some let situations get away from them because they didnt act. Training is the issue at the bottom of it all IMO. Which begs the question. What principles do you base your training on? How do you develop and/or evaluate the effectiveness of your training program?

 

[msneen]

Hope you guys don't mind me digging the old stuff back out, but I was going through the early posts in this thread and found the reference to "Hick's Law".

I know, OODA, Blah, Blah, Blah...

I guess an instructor somewhere had referenced it as a reason for not teaching more than one response to the same attack.

I researched it, and it is a formula to calculate the time it takes to choose among menu items or buttons on a computer screen. This would put you in a conscious OODA loop, and I can agree with his formula completely.

However, let's compare unconscious OODA in the same realm. I dare you to time a computer "gamer" while making decisions concerning multiple choices. Hick's Law is no longer applicable, as it is not in combat with highly trained combatants.

Maybe I'll write a formula and it can be "Sneen's Law".

For beginners, and those who don't practice much, you need to keep everything simple because they will likely jump into conscious mode quite a bit.

For advanced people who train often, they can train as many responses as they want because the unconscious will choose the one that best matches the overall pattern.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[msneen]

Person throws a right hooking punch which is seen and detected by the visual system

Visual system downloads this stimulus to the thalamus that sorts it and send it to the visual cortex of the brain

Visual cortex using the OODA loop, observes the stimulus, organizes it (right hooking punch), makes a decision as to how to deal with stimulus and then downloads the response to the amygdala

Amygdala then creates emotion and action through the body and the punch is blocked.

Dale, when you disagree with the quote, It seems that you are only disagreeing with the decision itself, not the process.

Does anyone know if this description of the physical processes is correct, and if it is a description of the conscious or subconscious?

This is another area I have been researching and experimenting on. Our minds deal with mental models that are several layers of abstraction on top of the physical systems that are actually doing the work.

Just like computer programming, most "user friendly" programming languages are several layers of abstraction above the hardware.

When a programmer wants to make something run really fast, like a video game, he uses a really low level language and writes instructions directly to the hardware.

If we as humans( or in my case, Neanderthals ) can figure out how to do this with ourselves, we should be able to process unconscious ooda cycles consistently faster.

Has anyone seen any research on this that is not written in geek-speak?

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[Dale Seago]

Dale, when you disagree with the quote, It seems that you are only disagreeing with the decision itself, not the process.

Does anyone know if this description of the physical processes is correct, and if it is a description of the conscious or subconscious?

I was disagreeing with it as an apparent description of a conscious-level, cognitive process: If this is going on consciously, it's going to be too slow and, like many officers in Darren's study, you won't see the knife that may be in the fist. (BTW, I once saw a guy on the street get stabbed in the skull by exactly that sort of "punch".)

If you are instead using peripheral vision and your perception of the "shape" of the attack and of the "safe-shaped space" it is simultaneously creating, it is (I believe) a faster process. It's still a 50/50 tossup whether you'll see and identify the knife as you're doing this. . .but it also doesn't matter whether you do or not. You can begin "finer calibration" as you continue moving.

When a programmer wants to make something run really fast, like a video game, he uses a really low level language and writes instructions directly to the hardware.

That kinda sounds like geek-speek for what I just said.

 

[msneen]

I was disagreeing with it as an apparent description of a conscious-level, cognitive process: If this is going on consciously, it's going to be too slow and, like many officers in Darren's study, you won't see the knife that may be in the fist. (BTW, I once saw a guy on the street get stabbed in the skull by exactly that sort of "punch".)

Makes Sense. Based on the description, it could have been conscious or unconscious.

If you are instead using peripheral vision and your perception of the "shape" of the attack and of the "safe-shaped space" it is simultaneously creating, it is (I believe) a faster process. It's still a 50/50 tossup whether you'll see and identify the knife as you're doing this. . .but it also doesn't matter whether you do or not. You can begin "finer calibration" as you continue moving.

Agreed. The problem is that "shape" might be defined as a mental model applied during the orientation stage, and then again in the decision making stage of OODA, and I have never met anyone who could do it without years of training. I have been training for about 25 years, and I doubt if I "get it" to your level.

It is almost unworkable for police / military training, which was the context of the original post.

That kinda sounds like geek-speek for what I just said.

ROFL - Yep, you caught me. I am a geek now.

Although Boyd went back to school in later life, so hopefully I'm following in the right footsteps.

What I'm looking for are ways that someone can become proficient extremely fast, and ways someone can get to your level in less time?

Traditional martial arts training methodologies are very inconsistent. Some people get 30 years of training, and some people get 6 months of training... repeated 60 times.

I used to have a friend in a martial arts class who could just never get it. With my current understanding of conscious vs. unconscious OODA, I understand that he was running in conscious mode all the time and couldn't process fast enough.

I think there are also some lessons that can be learned by knowing how the brain physically processes conscious and unconcious OODA loops.

So far I'm having trouble finding research on the subject by anyone who even seems to understand the distinction.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[Dale Seago]

. . .I have never met anyone who could do it without years of training. I have been training for about 25 years, and I doubt if I "get it" to your level.

As you sort of implied, it's more a matter of how you've trained than how long you've trained. Hatsumi sensei, for years now, has been harping on using kukan (space). It's something I stress right from the beginning in fundamental kihon training.

It is almost unworkable for police / military training, which was the context of the original post.

Likely so, for at least a couple of reasons. One is the time/budget constraints of military/LEO training, requiring a certain quantifiable proficiency level within a set time frame. The kinds of things they're taught are, as I see it, comparable to kihon-level to, at most, shoden-level training in a classical ryu. (And the same time/budget constraints were in effect during the Sengoku Jidai or "Warring States" period in Japan, too!) These kinds of things can be learned fairly quickly; in their basic form they work pretty well most of the time; and it's time- and cost-effective to teach them to large numbers of young, strong men who can heal quickly (or if they do bite the big one on the battlefield, it's no great loss because you can always conscript -- or nowadays, hire -- more).

As far as I can tell, it does take a fair amount of time to reach what I would call a "high" level of proficiency. How much? Well, years ago Jack Hoban asked Hatsumi sensei how it was that Takamatsu sensei had been able to teach him all this stuff from 9 historic ryuha in only 15 years. His answer was indirect: something along the line of, "I can teach you in ten years -- but you have to trust me, do as I say, and train the way I tell you to train."

Another reason this kind of thing is problematic for military/LEO training is the "mental shift" required. It's akin to that required for, say, fully seeing certain optical-illusion drawings and paintings like these or some of M.C. Escher's work.

Hatsumi's budo uses, as has been said of Russian Systema, "a different operating system". That doesn't mean it's inherently difficult, but it does mean that the differences are likely to generate mental and emotional resistance.

Jack Hoban has had a lot to say about this whole "space" thing over the last few years, but I really like what he had to say about it in his "New Year's Message" on the first of January, 2001:

I'd like to re-explore the concept of kyojitsu, or the juxtaposition of truth and falsehood, in light of what we learned last year.

It will take some consideration to move from where we are to where I think we can go. The first step requires a discussion of the concepts of in and yo. In and yo are like metaphysical polarities. Yo is usually thought of as the open, in, the closed. Yo the light, in the dark. Yo the positive, in the negative. Yo the full, in the empty. Etc. Well, how about yo as the opponent and in as the kukan?

I think most martial artists would consider the opponent, the physical opponent, to be the yo manifestation, wouldn't you? The place where the opponent is not, therefore, might be called the in. It is our first inclination to deal with the physical opponent. But what if we juxtaposed that? What if we considered the space the yo and the opponent the in?

This is not really such a bizarre concept in Japanese culture. For example, if you consider the art of Sho-Do (calligraphy), the yo element, the actual drawn character itself, is not light, but dark -- the black ink. The white rice paper on which the character is drawn is seen as subordinate. But a true appreciation of Sho-Do requires that one sees the painting as a whole. Therefore, the white space -- where the ink is not -- is just as important a place as where the ink is. This is really a type of kyojitsu, isn't it?

There is a discussion about in and yo that applies directly to warfare. In warfare, one might ask, which is the predominant element? In or yo? Is it control of the in (space or, more precisely, the key terrain)? Or is it control (or killing) of the enemy that is the yo? One could argue that you need control of both. But what is the best approach? is it the "body count", or is it "control of the most territory with the least amount of killing"? Don't be too quick to answer. Generals have argued about this for centuries.

Closer to the subject of our own training, it is clear (to me at least) that you must control both. Yet, our amateurish application of martial art "techniques" seems to be designed to deal mostly with the yo, or the physical element, which is the physical opponent. What if we made it our goal, however, to control the space as opposed to the person? Well, we began to deal with that last year. But let's go a step further. Let's consider the space to be the yo and the opponent to be the in. Let's use the concept of kyojitsu to juxtapose our very perception of a "fight" to be one of treating space as solid and solid as space. What would this "switcheroo" do to our opponent who, obviously, would expect us to deal with him? (Or her -- sorry about that!)

One last thing about this "Year of Kyojitsu. Kyojitsu is not just some kind of trick. It is as natural as night is to day, as cold is to hot. It is necessary. We just have not been seeing it for what it can be. Rather than being a negative concept, it is just an indispensable part of the whole. And I believe it is a part that we must understand and accept before we can progress as martial artists -- and human beings!

Sounds pretty deep, but it can actually be made fairly simple. Let's say someone is punching at you. That punch is traveling through quite a small volume of space, compared to all the space around it and between you and the opponent which it is not using. So why stress about the punch -- why not just go to one of the many places it isn't. . .or more appropriately, one of the many places it won't be at the moment you get there?

 

[DWeidman]

I think there are also some lessons that can be learned by knowing how the brain physically processes conscious and unconcious OODA loops.

So far I'm having trouble finding research on the subject by anyone who even seems to understand the distinction.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

Hey Mike (and everyone else):

Sorry - the past couple days have been hectic (hence my absence out here) --

I would like to point out that the 5 attack patterns (which are in a linear progression from Conscious to Unconscious OODA) are a (in)direct result of the study of the human mind....

1. Direct Attack (completely conscious)
2. Angled Attack (conscious)
3. Combination (conscious / unconscious)
4. Progressive (unconscious)
5. Baited (purely unconscious)

Just thought that would put things into perspective. Each one of them is an answer to a faster and faster OODA loop.

Great conversation though.

On another note - When people use Boyd (OODA) - they almost always think within the conscious loop - not the unconscious loop.

On another note - sometimes the Act is Non-Action (if you are working within the confines of the unconscious OODA loop) as you deal with the issue before it has materialized.

On another note again (feel free to pick any of these for more discussion if you are interested) - since the subconscious deals with OODA and thousands of other thoughts at the same time - I came the conclusion that OODA (in the iterative sense) is not entirely accurate. I suspect that there are SEVERAL OODA loops running in parallel -- and each tasked with something different (but again -- running in PARALLEL). So it isn't like you run:

OODA,OODA,OODA,OODA
|--------------------> (time)


But more like:

OODA
--OODA
OODA
---OODA
OODA
|--------------------> (time)

The move to slam a critical process up to CONSCIOUS OODA takes one or more (sometimes all) of the subconscious cycles with it.

Anyway -- that should add to where the conversation is heading.

-Daniel

PS. Hick's Law - as applied to H2H - is relatively useless in the advanced (sophisticated) realms (sorry) -- The basic scenario is that you don't adapt to the situation - but instead commit to forcing the situation to conform to your foundation. Anything that requires commitment is (by defintion) vulernable to being trapped...

This is in exact opposition to what we strive to be able to do: to gain superior position and let techniques REVEAL themselves.

 

[msneen]

Hey Dan,

In what sense do you mean that the 5 attack patterns are in a linear progression from conscious to unconscious?

I'll have to try it with the boys so I can analyze more recent experience, but I don't think my direct attacks are any more conscious than my progressives. In fact if anything, my progressives might be more conscious, at least in the decision to use them, because they aren't something I use a lot.

Each one of them is an answer to a faster and faster OODA loop.

Can you expound on that? It seems like each of them is an answer to an aggressor presenting a better initial shape and level of response. I agree with you that each is a response to a faster and faster ooda loop, right up to the baited attack. If he was processing fast loops, would he fall for the bait?

When people use Boyd (OODA) - they almost always think within the conscious loop - not the unconscious loop.

By "use", do you mean when they talk about using OODA? I agree with that because most people don't understand the concept of an unconscious decision.

I suspect that there are SEVERAL OODA loops running in parallel

I've been wondering about that. I started reading about cognitive neuroscience yesterday because I was interested in exactly which parts of the brain control conscious and unconscious processing. I'll have to keep looking to see whether or not there is any research on whether parallel processing is possible, or if it is just really fast serial or serial swapping combined with chunking that looks like parallel processing.

The move to slam a critical process up to CONSCIOUS OODA takes one or more (sometimes all) of the subconscious cycles with it.

Hmmm. Interesting. Conversely, while 1 or more cycles may get kicked up, numerous others actually remain unconscious and continue to happen, although I think training helps this as well. You rarely see the full "deer in the headlights" reaction from a well trained person.

You probably saw my post, but Hicks law(at least in the context that Hick's wrote it) only applies to conscious processing. Anyone that Hick's law applies to in a self defense situation is in big trouble right from the start.

Regards,

Mike Sneen

 

[DWeidman]

Hey Dan,

In what sense do you mean that the 5 attack patterns are in a linear progression from conscious to unconscious?

I'll have to try it with the boys so I can analyze more recent experience, but I don't think my direct attacks are any more conscious than my progressives. In fact if anything, my progressives might be more conscious, at least in the decision to use them, because they aren't something I use a lot.

They are in relation to the opponent and his ability to use conscious / subconscious OODA -- more tomorrow...

-Daniel

 

[Tgace]

On the "use" issue:

IMO the "utility"of OODA is primarilly in planning. The military doctrine of manuver warfare is neck deep in it and many decisions just above the soldier to soldier fight have a lot of "conscious" use of it. Generals and planners determine target lists and large scale operations with it. In SD situations I would say the "utility" of OODA is in the pre-fight, de-escalation, evasion phase. When the blows start flying your training better take over. Take this example. An LEO approaches a vehicle. The driver gets out with a weapon. If the officer turns and runs for cover, the BG gets the OODA "jump" on the officer and can start shooting uncontested at the fleeing back. Now if that officers trainers evaluated the situation beforehand and trained the officer to move laterally between the vehicles and return fire, the officer presents a new orientation problem to the BG giving the officer the opportunity to enter the opponents cycle. The training was based "consciously" on the OODA doctrine, but its implimentation by the officer is totally unconscious. He sure as shootin isnt going to be thinking "I have to move laterally between the cars to present this BG with an OODA problem."

I dont understand the "when people use OODA" statement. Do some people actually say they are consciously trying to apply OODA principles during H2H? Or are teaching others to believe that?

Hicks Law "utility" is in evaluating training. Dont waste time ingraining things that have no use. A scientific angle on the KISS principle.

Much like "The Book of Five Rings" and "The Art of War" this stuff provides "principles" that you can use to "leverage" a situation to your advantage or to evaluate your training,much like we take advantage of natural human physical reactions and mechanics when training (a blow here will make your opponent do(X) or move in this direction, etc etc.).

At least thats how I see it.