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Perception Versus Reality: How Having Enhanced Gear Changes the Game in Your Training Arena

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Jose Medina

Throughout my career I have had the opportunity to train in plenty of force on force training exercises as well as develop and coordinate scenario based training operations for law enforcement and military operators worldwide. I have had the privilege to don many of the innovative training suits in the market from the original REDMAN gear to FIST which was used for our live baton training. Then as time went on innovation came to life with a more light weight suit which made the ability to move faster and strike harder an intense reality change in how trainers and students create reality based training. In came the High Gear suit which made the ability to move faster and conduct role playing operations more realistically. The ability to create better role player scenarios, train in serious self defense training programs now came in the form of lighter weight impact reduction suits. So I thought…

In comes the Spartan Gear Hoplite Training Armour Elite Suit which added some major dimensions to the “perception” of impact reduction suits. You see, where the others have major place in our training arenas, the Spartan Gear Hoplite Armour Elite took it to the next level by adding some great features and on feature that is most important in how we train. The extra security velcro straps mounted on the helmets and the other suit attachment areas has made training even that much better without losing velcro strap attachments whether it is the leg straps or upper torso areas. But here is the real critical part: Colors and perception.

It is important to understand that people need to perceive and see assorted colors and descriptions of figures and shapes when confronting subjects in the the real world. Not everyone is wearing all black ninja outfits and there arenʼt many people wearing all red from head to toe in the streets on an every day basis. During critical incidents, witnesses may be asked about what or who they saw and they normally provide general information on the suspect or suspects. This comes from their “perceptions” and what their eyes see. This same process applies with law enforcement officers in the field where they will provide descriptions of subjects they see during their encounters. It is a very important aspect of training and it is needed to help officers deal with use of force situations. Whether it is active shooter training, SWAT training, self defense training or officer survival training, we must teach and educate our personnel the concept of “perception and observations” and color is one of the most important aspects in reality based training.

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What the Spartan Hoplite Armour does for advanced trainers is provide assorted color torsos that allow for trainers to change up characters wearing the suits from Royal Blue, Crimson Red to Military Green. When training in very fast movement training systems where subjects move quick and operators move quicker to the threat the Spartan Gear color systems give the added element of descriptions of subjects without just sticking to the all black or red colors provided by other suits. In the end you want your operators to train and respond to the world of “reality” and the Spartan Gear Hoplite Training Armour Elite brings true perception to life.

Jose Medina is the President & Director of Operations at Awareness Protective Consultants, LLC. He is an 18-year police veteran, USMC, SWAT Operator & First Responder.

Read Jose’s complete bio here: http://www.apcsecurities.net/7.html

Find out more about APC and there programs here: http://www.apcsecurities.net/94.html

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Stress Exposure Training – Part 3

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This is the final installment of a three-part series on Stress Exposure Training written by Ger O’Dea of Dynamis Training & Insight

Hoplite Training Armour allows us introduce contact in a gradual, sensible and realistic way so that people can conduct those ‘personal experiments’ which are referred to by the SIT methodology.  Incorporating equipment such as the Hoplite Training Armour allows us to drastically increase the intensity of our training sessions compared to what we could achieve without it.

We can gradually build up the intensity of the confrontation experience for our trainees, while maintaining a low-risk training environment. Using our Hoplite Training Armour let’s us take the theoretical guesswork out of the training, SAFELY.

Even where we work low-intensity training sessions, with for example trainees who will have only one day with us, we can begin to give them closer-to-real-life experience of what it feels like to make aggressive contact with another human being.  This is something that many people have never experienced and which is deeply challenging for them.   Phase One and Phase Two of the SIT approach provide excellent preparation for this phase, even given just a couple of hours with the trainees.

Incorporating contact during training, which the Hoplite Armour allows us to do, has significant benefits.  It allows trainees who have never struck another person in anger, to do so for the first time.   The trainee can then go on to experience that moment again, and again.   Each time, she will ‘groove’ her response a little deeper, re-inforcing the decision she made, the tactical needs in the situation, the physical sensation of initiating a strike and the results it produced.   She will also be ‘grooving over’ any residual doubt, hesitation, fear or panic which she may have brought to the situation.

Specific to the Hoplite Armour, we can say with some authority that it allows the average person to use most of their capacity in delivering a strike to another person with a very high degree of safety for the person inside the armour.  A full Hoplite suit covers the whole body and allows maximum movement potential in all three combative dimensions – standing, clinched or grounded.   

Training according to this SIT model benefits when the role-player inside the Armour can closely replicate the behaviours that will be seen in reality (‘training fidelity’ which I will address in a following article), including the pre-assault behaviours and in responding with realism when impacted by the other role-players in the exercise.   

Hoplite Armour in particular allows the role player to broadcast pre-assault behaviours and impact behaviours extremely well because it is a lightweight, low-bulk suit which transmits small tell-tale body-language which are being broadcast.    This is highly important because our trainee needs to be able to react and respond to the earliest signs of confrontation (as shown by body language changes in the aggressive person) and also to the earliest cues of a physical assault when initiated. 

By experiencing the uncertain, spatially chaotic and rapidly-unfolding nature of high-speed scenario replication, the trainees become inoculated, to an appropriate degree relevant to the depth of their training, to it.  This is particularly successful if they are guided and mentored through the exercises by an experienced trainer who can use coaching methods to motivate them to persevere.

Want to know more?
All Dynamis Training Courses incorporate these advanced concepts in training for confrontation management.

They will be running the BTEC Level 3 Self-Defence Instructor Accreditation course on July 27th – 29th, 2011. The course will provide progressive self-defence, breakaway and officer safety instructors of all kinds with a framework for teaching self-defence which is legally sound, risk-aware and has a basis in the science and psychology of inter-personal conflict as discussed here on theDynamis Insight Blog.

Dynamis is the UK Authorised Dealer for Spartan Training Gear and the Hoplite Training Armour.

Stress Exposure Training – Part 2

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This is the second of a three-part series on Stress Exposure Training written by Ger O’Dea of Dynamis Training & Insight

Applying the SIT model to Self-Protection and Confrontation Management

Phase One of training has to do with having trainees confront their own understandings of the nature of conflict and how they deal with it. A trainer may provide some exercises for the trainees – ‘thought experiments’ – regarding some conflict scenarios and garner the trainee’s response to this. Commonly, for example, a trainer might ask the trainees how they would deal with a much stronger opponent, with tattoos and scars and who looks ‘hard’, in order to provoke a discussion about the nature of intimidation.

This phase encourages the visualisation of conflict scenarios and the development of mental models, decision-making strategies and personal internal commitments to the issue of conflict. In our experience at Dynamis, a discussion of the law in regard to reasonable force and the case-law from that field offers an excellent vehicle for this phase of training as it has much to do with how emotional-cognitive decisions are made.

Phase Two of training has to do with skill development, at an intensity which gradually builds competence with the skills required to persevere and successfully manage the confrontation. Trainees are provided with relevant and effective skills which are comparitively easy to acquire given the amount of time they can devote to the training. We have written at length about the issues with much self-defence and breakaway training and the over-complexity, under-relevance of it here on this blog previously.

During this phase the trainees have the opportunity to rehearse the coping/confronting skills, re-imagining the process of the confrontation from one with a negative outcome to one with a positive outcome – reversing the ‘prey’ role which can crystallise in high-stress moments.

Trainees re-structure they way in which they approach the confrontation, using their internal dialogue and their internal associations differently now. Trainees develop, with time and opportunity, new problem-solving abilities which give them more options and alternatives during a confrontation – they begin, in short, to think more tactically about situations, because their level of stress-arousal is reducing as the problem becomes clearer and more familiar.

Phase Three of training provides the trainees with the opportunity to now apply their new skills in (again, gradually) increasing levels of intensity, although at this time the trainer should be focussing on bringing not just intensity but reality into the training. The focus here is on providing a variety of opportunities for the trainee to experience the entirety of the preparation which has gone before.

For example, in our training at Dynamis, the trainee will be placed in situations where they must now make decisions and take action based on their own beliefs and in accordance with Use of Force law, personal Duty of Care or Task Role, Risk Assessment, their ability to verbally manage the confrontation and then finaly their physical capacity to protect themselves or another. Running these scenarios can take from 15 seconds to 90 seconds to complete, depending on the amount of pre-assault verbal dialogue and the motivation/aggression level of the role-players.

The use of training armour can significantly effect the fidelity of this Phase Three training. At Dynamis, we use Hoplite Training Armour. In our next article we will discuss how the Hoplite Armour assists us to provide Stress Inoculation and Stress Exposure to our trainees.

Part 3 to follow…

Stress Exposure Training – Part 1

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This is the first of a three-part series on Stress Exposure Training written by Ger O’Dea of Dynamis Training & Insight

Training people to deal with the stress of a violent confrontation can benefit from the methods used in some psychotherapy.

This article deals with the use of Stress Inoculation Training to guide Self-Protection and Physical Intervention trainers in the development of robust training programmes which will be resilient in the face of intense confrontations.

Stress is a process whereby environmental demands evoke an appraisal process in which perceived demand exceeds resources, and that results in undesirable physiological, psychological, behavioural or social outcomes.”
– Salas, Driskell and Hughes, 1996

Stress Inoculation Training (SIT) emerged out of an attempt to integrate the research on the role of cognitive and affective factors in coping processes with the emerging technology of cognitive behavior modification (Meichenbaum, 1977).   SIT has been employed to help individuals cope with the aftermath of exposure to stressful events and sometimes it has even been used on a preventative basis to “inoculate” individuals to future and ongoing stressors.

In order to enhance individuals’ coping repertoires and to empower them to use already existing coping skills, the SIT model uses a three-phase approach.  

SIT Phase One – Breaking Down the Problem
Regardless of the particular stressor which we are trying to prepare them to deal with, trainees are encouraged to view perceived threats and provocations as ‘problems-to-be-solved’ and to identify those aspects of some situations and their own reactions that are under their internal control and those aspects that are not under their control or influence.

This is the first step in breaking-down a stressor which at first seems overwhelming.

The clients are taught how to breakdown these ‘global stressors’ into specific short-term, intermediate and long-term coping goals.  The trainees’ response to the stressor is re-packaged as being made-up of different components that have been identified and examined in detail.   The trainee builds an understanding of each thing that needs to happen for the stressor to become overwhelming.

High-stress situations tend to go through predictable phases and so the trainee who will be successful should go through a process of preparing, building up, confronting, and reflecting upon their reactions to stressors also.

SIT Phase Two – Developing Skills to Deal with the Problem
The second phase of SIT requires focus on skills acquisition and rehearsal  and it follows naturally from the initial conceptualization phase which came before it.   The coping or confronting skills that are taught and practiced in the training setting are then gradually rehearsed ‘in vivo’ and are tailored to the specific stressors trainees may have to deal with.

SIT Phase Three – Exposure to the Problem
The final phase of training and preparation provides opportunities for the clients to apply the variety of skills they have learned to deal with the problem across increasing levels of intensity.    This is where the inoculation concept – as used in medical immunization – becomes evident.  Techniques such as imagery and behavioral rehearsal, modeling, role playing, and  graded in vivo exposure in the form of “personal experiments”  are used during this phase to increase the trainees competence.

Part 2 to follow…