The OODA Loop

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. Let's talk about Colonel Boyd's OODA Loop. This is something that comes up a lot in tactical training environments. And of course we see it in magazine articles or we see it in a training class, or maybe it's in a course outline or people just reference it in the middle of simulation training. And I think it's important to really understand what Colonel Boyd was talking about when he talked about his OODA Loop. And the OODA Loop of course can be applied to a lot of the training we do in our programs here with ICE. And it's important to understand the way we interpret some of these terms that are used in the OODA situation. So our first O is going to be observe. It's important to understand that when we talk about observing, we're talking about perception. And perception can be conscious perception, where we see something and we recognize it and we know exactly what it is. And we actually go ahead and process it in the thinking part of our brain. Or observe can simply mean a stimulus that comes in and causes an automatic or an instinctive reaction. So just because you haven't actually perceived what you're seeing or what you're experiencing or what you're feeling doesn't mean that you're not reacting to it. And that's actually the term we talk about when we say instinctive reaction. So a reaction is something that happens in an automatic way. We've talked a lot about what some of those things are when we talk about tachypsychia, tunnel vision, the lowering of our center of gravity, you bring our hands up to defend ourselves. All of these things happen automatically. And they're actually reactions. We talk about observing. We're also talking about analyzing that information that comes in and the next O that Colonel Boyd used was orient. And orient means not just the physical act of turning towards something and going ahead and preparing ourselves to fight back and the way we normally think of orient. But we also orient ourselves mentally to information. Colonel Boyd talked about everything from our educational and cultural background and our formal training to help us understand how we orient to information mentally. The word I like to use is recognition. If we recognize something, that's a very powerful mental action. If we've had experience with something through actual real life events, or even through high level simulation or reading or lecturing or talking about it, even just daydreaming, visualizing something can give us a familiarity with a situation or an appropriate response to that situation, which only comes from recognition. So when we think about orienting towards something and recognizing it and taking that data in, if we recognize a situation, we're gonna be able to act much more intuitively. And in fact, that's our learned response. So once we've oriented towards a piece of information or several pieces of information that are coming in, we get closer to what our learned response is going to be. When we train at a high level or when we've had actual experiences, we recognize this information that's coming in, orient to a solution much faster and that'll help us in the next step of the OODA Loop, the part where we decide what to do. And decide, we have a very interesting reaction to that word decide as if we're going to figure out exactly what to do. And we're gonna have a information tree that's gonna go back and forth and we're gonna branch out on a decision-making process. Well, again, if we go back to recognition, that decision may be very, very automated for us. Now it'll never be an instinctive reaction. We'll never get to that level. When it's a learned response, it's going to actually have to involve cognitive processing. But by doing something that we recognize, by using our recognition power, we can get to this decision much faster. We can get to an appropriate response based on the information that's coming in, based on our orientation towards our observations. We're able to decide much quicker what to do. And in fact, in some cases, recognize immediately what to do. And that makes us more intuitive. It makes us more efficient. Of course, consistency in our response and consistency in our training approach help add to our ability to recognize and therefore our ability to make a decision more intuitively. And finally the A in the OODA Loop is to act. When we actually get to the part where we act, we are taking action to defend ourselves or defend others or avoid a confrontation. That act, of course, could be that instinctive reaction that happens automatically in response to an observation or maybe even just a stimulus that comes in that we don't have time to perceive. If there's a lack of training or a lack of time to go through a decision process, sometimes our body does things automatically that will protect us. The flinch response, for example. That is an action that comes instinctively. The other type of action is gonna be that learned response. And the more we train, the more realistically we train, the faster we'll be able to more intuitively put into operation an efficient action based on our observations, our relationship to those observations and our recognition or decision to act is going to come much, much quicker if we train more realistically. Of course, this is a loop. And the reason it's a loop is because this will be a recurring cycle. Once you take an action that's gonna cause some response, hopefully a very positive response in your favor but at any rate, once you act, you're going to then go back to observing and taking in information. So perhaps the first cycle of the OODA loop is going to be that instinctive reaction. So someone throws a punch and you barely perceive what's going on, but your body takes in the stimulus of that rapid motion out here in the corner of your eye and you flinch to cover up. And so you've gone through a very automated OODA loop. You've observed something, your brain observed something. Immediately the orientation of your brain to that information was to activate the amygdalic response. Activate the body's automated instinctive protection systems and flinch and that decision's made automatically. It's not a cognitive process. It just happens. And the action is to cover up. Immediately as that force hits your arm and comes in and you now are perceiving what's going on. You're able to now take in more information. Well, gee, this guy now is overextended and his body is wide open and his legs right here. I recognize that, and my orientation towards that is I've been in this situation in training before and I recognize that what I can do are several options. I can extend with my forearms and drive this person back. I can come in with a knee, maybe to some exposed area. I can take my elbow and whatever that decision is gonna be is gonna have a lot to do with our prior training and our own comfort level and the information that we're taking in. And then once we've made that decision, of course we're gonna act. So we've gone through two cycles of the loop and all we've done was cover up and maybe throw an elbow or cover up and extend back out to get on balance or cover up and throw a knee down into the common peroneal to try to stun this person or something like that. So that's two very quick examples of two cycles of the loop. And of course the loop continues until you're out of that critical incident, until you're done with the stress. Understanding the OODA Loop and understanding how it relates to training and how we can become much more powerful by integrating the ideas of recognition into the two center steps of the OODA Loop based on frequent and high-level reality-based training makes us much better prepared to use this concept and to integrate it into our system. Using this concept to justify a system or using our approach to the system to explain how the concept works are both great approaches to better preparing to use self-defense techniques and things you learn in training under the critical stress of a very chaotic, dynamic and quickly evolving situation. Getting through as many cycles as you need to as quickly as you can to end a situation or to avoid a problem is what Colonel Boyd's OODA Loop is all about. And it's what high level training is all about, is preparing you to make these decisions faster. You know, OODA Loop has been used as an example over decades for fighter pilots, Marines, all types of warriors. And of course, thousands of people interested in self-defense. Having a better understanding of it makes you better able to be prepared to defend yourself during the stress of a fast, chaotic, critical incident. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.