LOUDER THAN WORDS

One of the preeminent facets of self-defense is situational awareness. Unfortunately, those two words have become a catch-phrase-turned-mantra beaten to death by nearly every book, video, instructor and Internet forum about personal protection. But so much of the talk about situational awareness seems to be just people yelling at each other to make sure they have it. Rarely do we see a concise, level-headed, repeatable explanation as to exactly what mental processes make up this mystical “awareness” and how exactly we use them to protect ourselves from potential threats.

In contrast stands Orbis Operations — a company that provides training and support services to government agencies and military units around the country. Among their offerings is a set of classes on Situational Awareness Training. This training is based off a process that Orbis refers to as Human Behavior Pattern Recognition & Analysis. There are several variations of their SAT