Increased risk under threat
You only have to look at amateur and professional sport to see excellent spatial awareness and primary decision-making capabilities.
Rugby league players while completely in mid-air scoring a try before their boots touch the ground over the side-line or Olympic wrestlers staying in bounds by opposing or yielding their opponents actions.
Spatial awareness in military self- defence and military armed and unarmed combat requires constant threat and situational alertness awareness checks and rechecks to identify risks dangers and changes in situation and threat.
Battlefield and urban terrain can present difficulties and dangers that can put a combatant at serious risk if they are not aware of them.
Protrusions hard uneven surfaces, drops, vehicles, windows and many more environment hazards or obstacles can cause serious injury or death.
Staircases are another environment that present increased risks that include not loss of footing and falling but also hard impact dangers.
Knowing how to go tactically on staircases to prevent falling regain stability and under decentralisation minimise risk and injury is something that must be learnt and practiced.
Adding to the previous required precautionary awareness is the reality of unexpected actions on assault and being engaged from one’s rear or side flanks where being competent in resistance yielding and counter actions specific to the threat characteristics is essential.
The combatant must be prepared to operate under constant threat and risk on any surface and in any environment. Unlike lined sports fields the battlefield or urban environment is full of risks and dangers.
The combatant must be observant aware alert and make deliberate decisions that are not only based on effective objective achievement but also on maintaining personal safety.
This requires constant fast mapping assessment and making of adjustments in position and state of readiness.
Identifying risks and dangers as early as possible provides the best chances of avoiding coming into contact with the risks dangers and realities of real life actions on encounters threats and environments.
Keeping the threat to one’s front or at worst to the side flanks and keeping your rear flank safe is tactically correct and risk reducing.
Understanding efficient orientation in regards to threat as well as escape and evasion routes is a military unarmed combat primary tradecraft practice.
Utilising effective footwork to maintain stability as well as set an expedient action ready status can save valuable milliseconds and get you out of harms range or into effective threat neutralisation range as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Controlled respiration turning all senses on undertaking constant fast mapping assessments and making necessary adjustments to increase safety as part of your decided option execution is positive and proactive.
Sliding foot work provides a constant ground affinity status and is a primary mil CQC practice for covering ground as well as being able to identify hazards by touch.
Employing torso rotational visual checking along with pivoting visual assessments maximises your threat and hazard assessment capabilities without compromising safety.
Effective utilisation of your peripheral vision under threat by means of point and place visual assessment scanning reduces the likelihood of falling victim to unidentified hazards and unexpected assault.
The employment of skills that provide ease of change of tack, including cohesive fluid contingency capabilities under threat can be life and limb saving.
The best of battle proven military self- defence and military close quarters combat skills employments will provide primary secondary alternate and emergency means of risk reduction.
Combined mental tactical and physical CQC skills practises will keep you alert aware and ready.
Tactics and skills that have commonality and are cohesive with autonomic reactions to sudden shock threat actions increase safety and set a ready threat neutralisation status.
Confidence and competence is maximised when the combatant is aware of situational related risks and dangers and can avoid them or reduce the risk to as lower level as possible in the execution of their threat neutralisation options employments.
Direction change obstacle hazard or threat avoidance or evasion as well as target mass reduction and stability maintenance increase safety under threat. Advanced visual scanning assessments and making adjustments provide valuable time for determinations on the best and safest means of threat neutralisation and execution of the decided means of threat neutralisation.
Real time rapid threat assessments under actions on as a result of physical responses skills and tactics that increase safety and hard targeting capabilities provide real time deliberate situational control and threat specific decided threat neutralisation skills employments capabilities.
Those that are not able to take control of the situation and make tactically correct means of threat neutralisation are more reactionary and less controlled and calculated.
Deliberate pre-determined responses reduce risk whereas autonomic reactions as a result of not being aware of a threat or hazard in time remove the capability to take definite deliberate decided counter actions. Under such threat without deliberate decision making you are left with your natural autonomic emergency mechanisms of self-preservation that are outside control.
Being competent in changing direction and risk reduction under actions on including under decentralisation is an indicator of spatial and situational awareness and as such increases capability in changing tact maintaining or regaining control keeping oneself as safe as possible and employing effective threat neutralisation.
Training in unknown environments with the factor of confusion ever present with no specific knowledge of the threat characteristics and with the knowledge that the environment and terrain presents constant dangers demands the combatant maintain a constant spatial awareness.
