Top

Survival Tips

A crash course in situational awareness & overall

day-to-day preparedness

Survival Trainer To:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Navy SEALS
Countless SF groups
Military & SWAT
The general public

By: Kevin Reeve
Founder: OnPoint Tactical

Copyright 2014 OnPoint Tactical LLC

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips]

Situational Awareness:
By Kevin Reeve, onPoint Tactical
I have a friend who stepped off the curb and was hit and killed by a
vehicle running a red light. He was 40 years old and his life was over in
one second. I almost made the same mistake.
While in England, I checked for traffic and confidently began to step into
the intersection, when my companion yanked me back. Id looked left
instead of right, the wrong direction in a country that drives on the left-
hand side of the street. It was a near miss and my companion chided
me: Thats why we call you Yanks.
I have spent a fair amount of time over the past several years trying to
define and refine my understanding of the term Situational
Awareness.
Most of the written material deals with very technical definitions that
for me hold little real world application. As I tried to make them fit my
own experience with awareness, I realized that the academic approach
was impractical.
So heres how I defined situational awareness. It is: paying attention
to what is going on around you. How is that for practical? It is more
than that, but the basic definition is the ability to scan the environment
and sense danger, challenges, and opportunities, while maintaining the
ability to conduct normal activities. In other words, to pay attention to
your surroundings while not appearing to be paying attention.
Awareness is a choice. One has to choose to pay attention. But once
that choice is made, the part of the brain responsible for monitoring the
senses, known as the Reticular Activating System (RAS) takes over. It
switches filters on and off that will fulfill your subconscious desire to
pay attention. By simply telling yourself to pay attention to certain
things, the RAS will scan for and acknowledge those things when it
encounters them. I have found three main obstacles to developing
awareness.
To understand the obstacles with awareness, lets define the most basic

Copyright 2013 OnPoint Tactical LLC

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips] 3

tenant of awareness:
BASELINE. The concept of baseline states that our environment has a
baseline, a homeostatic state of what things look like, sound like, feel
like when nothing much is going on.
In the woods, this is reflective of the noise and activity level of the area
when nothing much is happening. The normal state. For example, in
the late afternoon, things are normally pretty quiet. The baseline is
pretty flat. As we move into evening, the baseline changes a bit. Night
feeding animals are coming out, day feeders are going in. The increase
in noise and activity is still the norm. It is louder and yet still within the
realm of normal. Suddenly a predator appears. All the prey animals
react. Alarm calls go out, and the noise level suddenly spikes. This is
referred to as a concentric ring of disturbance because it radiates out
from the source.
In the city, each neighborhood has its own baseline. In one area, people
move at a certain pace, talk at a certain volume, stand at a certain
socially acceptable distance from one another, gesture in a certain
way. This combination of noise and activity constitutes that areas
baseline. Depending on cultural or ethnic norms, it will be different in
various neighborhoods.
Being able to develop awareness is dependent upon first knowing the
baseline for the area you are in, and recognizing any variations to the
baseline. These changes in baseline are learned from observation. One
must know the baseline. One must recognize disturbances to the
baseline, and one must recognize if those disturbances represent a
specific threat or opportunity. This requires knowledge of the
environment, knowledge of terrain. It requires that one recognizes
predator behavior. It requires one to see well beyond normal sight. For
example, an aware person will notice things others may miss: a youth in
a hoodie across the street whose movements mimic yours. Or a
dumpster set in such a way that requires you to pass close to it. It can
be threats or potential threats. You must constantly monitor and
assess. Over time, this becomes almost a background activity, requiring
little conscious thought.

Copyright 2013 Legacy Masterminds

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips]

The key to great situational awareness is the ability to monitor the
baseline and recognize changes. As I mentioned before, there are
three main obstacles to situational awareness.
1. Not Monitoring the Baseline. If you are not monitoring the
baseline, you will not recognize the presence of predators that cause a
disturbance. Other events can cause concentric rings as well. Any
unusual occurrence from a car accident to a street fight can create a
concentric ring. One of the keys to personal security is learning to look
for and recognize these disturbances. Some disturbances are
dangerous, some are just entertaining.
2. Normalcy Bias. Even though we may sense a concentric ring that
could be alerting us of danger, many times we will ignore the alert due
to the desire for it NOT to be a danger. We want things to be OK so we
do not accept that the stimulus we are receiving represents a threat. He
have a bias towards the status quo. Nothing has ever happened when I
do this, so nothing is likely to happen.
3. The third interrupter of awareness is what we define as a Focus
Lock. This is some form of distraction that is so engaging that it focuses
all of our awareness on one thing and by default blocks all the other
stimulus in our environment. This is when someone is texting and
walks into a fountain. The smart phone is the single most effective focus
lock ever invented. It robs us of our awareness in times and places
where it is needed most.
To be effectively aware, we must do the following:
1. Monitor the baseline. At first, this will require conscious effort. But
after a while, I find that I can monitor the baseline subconsciously.
2. Fight normalcy bias. This requires you to be paranoid for a while as
you develop your ability. Look at every disturbance to the baseline as a
potential threat. This will allow you to stop ignoring or discounting
concentric rings and begin making assessments of the actual risk. But as
you learn, people will think you are jumpy or paranoid. That is OK. It is
a skill that will save your life.
3. Avoid using the obvious focus locks in transition areas. It is ok to

Copyright 2013 OnPoint Tactical LLC

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips] 5

text while you are sitting at your desk or laying in bed. But it is NOT ok
to text as you walk from your office to the parking garage. Any time
you are drawn to a concentric ring event, do a quick assessment of that
ring, then stop looking at it (the event), and scan the rest of your
environment to see what you are missing.
Developing awareness is a skill. At first it will seem very awkward and
self-conscious, but with practice, it will become seamless and
subconscious. You will start to pick up on more and more subtle rings
of disturbance, and more complex stimuli. Eventually, people may think
you are psychic as they notice how you seem to sense events before
they unfold.


Situational Awareness Chapter 2:

I like to look at situational awareness in the most practical sense. My
question as I have experimented with awareness is what do I do? what
do I look for? what do I pay attention to? The practical application of
situational awareness includes all the concepts in the first article.

You must avoid Normalcy Bias. You do that by monitoring the baseline
and recognizing spikes and concentric rings. You also must not make
the mistake of allowing yourself to be distracted.

Many of us spend a lot of time processing past events and worrying
about future events. If there is one thing that defines an aware person,
it is someone who lives in the present. They are not replaying
conversations from the day before, they are not thinking about the
utility bill that is due. They are not allowing distraction in the form of
extraneous thoughts to enter their mind. They are focused on the here
and now.

But what do you focus on? What do you pay attention to? I suggest
four things.

Baseline & Concentric Rings

Copyright 2013 Legacy Masterminds

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips]

When you enter the room, monitor the baseline. Look for the normal
ebb and flow of conversation, the noise and activity level. The speed
with which people are moving, their social distancing, their gestures, the
volume and speed of their speech. All of this comprises the baseline.
For example, the baseline in a library is generally very slow and quiet.
Whispered conversations, no running. A disturbance to this baseline is
actually very easy to detect. Someone yelling or running would draw
our attention. But in gym, where several basketball games are going on
at once, the baseline is different, and the same person running and
shouting would be in harmony with that baseline. In that situation we
may be drawn to the person in deep conversation in a corner of the gym.
Furtiveness and whispered conversation are out of baseline and should
draw our attention.



Threats
Whenever I enter a room, after a quick check of the baseline, I do a
check for threats. Usually this means I scan people looking for evidence
of individuals who are obviously potentially dangerous. This could
mean they are very fit, very aware, or that they are wearing shoot me
first clothes.

Fit individuals are not automatically a threat. But many threat-heavy
individuals I know are indeed very fit.

An aware person probably has some form of training in awareness. If
they are well trained, it will be hard to know they are paying attention. I
look for heads on a swivel, eyes scanning the room, essentially the
things I do when I am scanning.

For a few years I wore tactical pants and shirt all the time. One day,
someone pointed out that if they were clearing a room, I would be one
of the first ones shot, because my clothes spoke of training.

Once I have scanned and identified potential threats, I then scan for
sleepers. People I just missed the first time around who catch my eye
on second inspection. There is a look in the eye of a predator. I wish I
could explain that more completely. But when you see it, you will know

Copyright 2013 OnPoint Tactical LLC

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips] 7

it. Sometimes the hair on the back of my neck actually stands up when I
see them.

The threats can be in the form of non-human elements such as fire
dangers, blocked exits, precarious equipment.

Exits/Cover
Next I scan for exits. This means paying attention to the floor plan.
Spatial awareness requires conscious choice. Whenever I enter a new
building or floor, I pay attention to the layout, the locations of doors and
windows that can serve as exits, and structural elements that can
provide cover (protection from return fire). I am always playing the
game in my head where I war game in various situations. If I were at
the front of the room, and an active shooter entered, where would I go
for protection from fire.

My friend Kelly Alwood defines cover in four levels. Level one is return
fire. Level two is my associates return fire. Level three is my personal
body armor, and number four is ballistic protection from a structural
element. If I have those four levels, I will probably be safe.

Opportunities
Next I scan for things that could be useful in the event of an event. By
this I mean looking for tactical advantages, for possible improvised
weapons, distractions, high ground, cover (again). It can be something
as simple as the location of light switches. In short, anything that can be
used to my advantage. This requires some creativity and gaming.

Scenarios
I play out scenarios in my head all the time. If I am sitting in a meeting
experiencing death by PowerPoint, I imagine a situation. I hear an
explosion across the building. Something is up. What door to I go to?
Assuming the explosion is something dastardly, what is my assessment?
Dangers? Exits? Cover? Opportunities? How has this upset the
baseline? How far has the concentric ring traveled? About this time, the
lights go back on and the presentation is over. Like Walter Mitty, I have
saved the world again

Copyright 2013 Legacy Masterminds

[OnPoint Tactical: Top Survival Tips]

Now its your turn to train the systems and techniques that give you
optimal chances at survival. We have many courses available
including:

Urban Escape & Evasion
Wilderness Survival
Scouting & Tracking


Contact me below and say, I want
in!, I will reply with information and
registration dates for these courses. If
you have any questions, lets talk!

Email: info@onpointtactical.com

You bring the will, we bring the skill,
Kevin Reeve

Copyright 2013 OnPoint Tactical LLC