Conflict Immersion

by Jim Wagner

You’ve heard it said that 90 percent of a fight is mental and 10 percent is physical. I agree. It’s comparable to driving a car: The physical movements of steering, braking and accelerating are easy to learn. The hard part is constantly scanning for danger, obeying traffic rules and reacting to changing road conditions. Plus, it’s one thing to drive on a quiet country road with little to no traffic, but using the same skills in the bustling traffic of a major city can be daunting.

When it comes to conflict training, it’s important to get off the country road and test your skills in the fast lane. In addition to structuring your practice sessions to cover bar fights, solo muggers and aggressive panhandlers, you must train for situations that involve weapons, multiple aggressors and acts of terrorism—conditions that induce what the spec-ops world calls “compressed decision time.” It’s the fast lane of the martial arts, information-overload situations in which survival requires multitasking.

In the reality-based martial arts, the method for simulating compressed decision time is based on a police drill called the Conflict Immersion Exercise. The wonderful thing about it is that anyone who studies self-defense can duplicate it anyplace at anytime. All you need is a paper bag, a length of cord, a partner to serve as the “puller” and a little role-playing skill.

Start by punching a hole in the bottom of an ordinary paper bag. Next, thread the cord through the hole and duct-tape the end of it to the bottom of the bag. Then place the bag over the trainee’s head and run the rest of the cord to the puller, who stands directly behind the trainee, ready to pull the bag off his head when a signal is given.

While the student still has the bag on his head and is “blind,” a conflict scenario begins nearby. In the protective services, the trainee is sometimes surrounded by a hostile crowd. Other scenarios revolve around a hostage situation in which the student must handle charging aggressors clad in body armor. (They’re suited up so they can withstand empty-hand blows, blunt weapons and the impact of Simunition rounds.) In civilian training, the scenario might place the trainee in the middle of a riot, where the “thugs” are throwing tennis balls instead of bottles and rocks. Or it could be a large-scale bar fight or a bank robbery undertaken by multiple suspects. You can add noise and other sound effects, or stage the encounter in silence. The point is to ensure that the trainee has no idea what he will face or where the threat will come from.

When the instructor issues a hand signal, the puller yanks the cord to remove the bag from the trainee’s head. He has a split second to grasp the situation and take action. He must quickly scan the area and identify the main threat without forgetting that there may be other dangers nearby. This is compressed decision time.

For traditional schools that are new to reality-based training, the intensity can be lessened. Fit the trainee with sparring gear, and when the bag is removed, have two aggressors come in for the attack. Vary the scenario by adding a training knife or rubber handgun into the mix. When that becomes old hat, create gruesome “wounds” with stage blood, blow in fog from a fog machine, line up fellow students dressed as gang members, and arm them with air-soft or paintball guns—of course with the proper safety gear for everyone.

In very little time, the participants will begin to see the results: shorter reaction times, the selection of more efficient techniques and a reduced shock effect when they are suddenly confronted with the unexpected.

About the author: Jim Wagner is a police and military defensive-tactics instructor and a civilian reality-based personal-protection trainer. For more information, visit http://www.jimwagnertraining.com.