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Nimrod Nir
Nimrod Nir's picture
De-escalation training - how do you cross the acting hurdle?

Hi all,

having recently listened to Iain's newest podcast - A Return to Practicality: Karate & Aikido, it brought up some questions that I was intending to ask for quite some time.

For those of you who practice self-protection, and specifically de-escalation skills - how do you deal with the acting aspect necessary for the practitioners who embodies the criminals/enemies.

1. How do you overcome the initial embarrassment by practitioners who aren't used to acting or performing of any sort? How do you keep the training serious enough, so that maybe practitioners even get a little feeling of adrenaline and stress, and not make it "funny" or embarrassing?  

2. How do the criminals/enemies know what to say in order to intimidate or bring the defender to capitulate, or even make the scenario realistic? Most practitioners aren't exposed to this kind of verbal/intimidating violence. Maybe when they were in high school (for male practitioners) some of them may have caught some sort of juvenile version of it, but most grown-ups aren't familiar with this kind of violence. How do you handle it and keep it realistic?

3. When and if you manage to pass those two hurdles - how do the criminal/enemy knows when the defender did a good enough job, and they should "let him off the hook" or when they should escalate even more or even initiate the attack? Obviously, sometimes they should attack even if the defender did a good job, but I'm referring to the basics of the training. How do you measure the level of skill demonstrated by the defenders in de-escalating the situation? I'm more interested in the verbal aspect, because the physical aspect (maintaining the appropriate distance and angle, use of "fence") is clearer to me.

4. If you manage to pass those three difficult hurdles - how do you make the training more challenging? How do you make it more aggressive? How do you make the scenarios more difficult to de-escalate? What is even considered more challenging in this kind of training? 

Thanks in advance for the replies.

Zach Zinn
Zach Zinn's picture

I'm not entirely sure I've ever gotten past the initial phase of people just kind of awwardly doing it, but that is my fault for simply not emphasizing it enough, or doing the neccessary exploration.

What I have found is that even with people just kind of awkwardly "acting" the bad guy, some benefit is still had by having people pay very close attention to their reactions, and by having a debriefing after the exercise. In other words, having people pay attention to what they are feeling helped me to know whether or not the training was effective at all - were they actually feeling scared, etc.

In my personal experience, even if people aren't 100% invested or used to the training, it starts "working" somewhat and you start getting the fight or flight stuff happening, if only a little. Personality seems to affect a lot, more paranoid and vigilant types seem to benefit from it almost immediately, even with poor acting.

To a large degree, scenario training is all acting I think, the goal is have no discernible difference between an expert bad guy, and and an expert faker. It could take a long time to reach that phase, and probably depends a lot on the orientation of the class. Suspension of disbelief is everything. In that sense maybe it's comparable to getting into a movie with bad acting, you simply have to concentrate on the part of things that gets you to that suspension of disbelief.

I also think specificity of de escalation is important, for instance in many places you are as likely to be in a scenario where you are de escalating someone with mental health disorders as you are someone who is vaguely "criminal", and of course there are different considerations and different roles.

As far as specific "scripts", I've gone with a few real-life experiences and with stuff I've seen on video. People don't have to believe it initially, it's a "fake it till ya make it" thing.

I don't recall any of the details (which says something about my priorities I guess ha), but I know I seen have Rory Miller say some things on this, how to be an effective Bad Guy, etc.

Pierre
Pierre's picture

Yup, definitely read or re-read Miller's Meditations on Violence. He talks about giving your students permission to think and act "outside the box". I like the channel "Urban Combatives Netherlands", they can give you good ideas on how to be rough/realistic in training.

Jeremy McLean
Jeremy McLean's picture

Watching the locals and picking up mannerisms, quirks, slang and posturing always helps. Then imbed those cues in your scenarios. The old saying..."When in Rome".

Iain Abernethy
Iain Abernethy's picture

Hi Nimrod,

Nimrod Nir wrote:
How do you overcome the initial embarrassment by practitioners who aren't used to acting or performing of any sort? How do you keep the training serious enough, so that maybe practitioners even get a little feeling of adrenaline and stress, and not make it "funny" or embarrassing?

Like anything else, you just keep doing it. I have had loads of students find it awkward at first, but with practise it’s just another part of training. I joke at seminars that they eventually get so good that I can see subplots, character development, etc. Almost all drills / techniques are “clunky” and “awkward” at first, but we keep doing them and we get better. It’s totally OK if it’s a mess at first. Everything is! If they mess it up, then they just try it improve it a little next time. No one gets anything perfect on their first go. It does need to be stuck at though. It’s such an important part of self-defence that I feel it is mandatory for those claiming to develop competence in that area.

Nimrod Nir wrote:
How do the criminals/enemies know what to say in order to intimidate or bring the defender to capitulate, or even make the scenario realistic?

The instructor will explain the nature of criminal violence based on their own experience and the experience of others. There are lots of resources on this topic and the internet is awash with footage of real events. We try to recreate those situations, as best we can, in a way that remains physically and psychologically safe (keep in mind that some may have trauma around such events and therefore care needs to be taken not to add to that trauma).

Nimrod Nir wrote:
When and if you manage to pass those two hurdles - how do the criminal/enemy knows when the defender did a good enough job, and they should "let him off the hook" or when they should escalate even more or even initiate the attack?

Both. Sometimes the person(s) playing the role will allow themselves to be de-escalated (providing the other person does a decent enough job) and other times they will escalate regardless. We can’t reason with the unreasonable, so that’s one of the scenarios that needs drilled. We call these “shoot / don’t shoot drills”. You maybe able to de-escalate, you may have to pre-empt and escape, you may have to engage, etc and, just like in reality, you won’t know until the situation unfolds.

Nimrod Nir wrote:
If you manage to pass those three difficult hurdles - how do you make the training more challenging?

While you can certainly build up the intensity of these drills as skills and competence are developed, when you have reached a point of “realistic” you should not overshoot to “unrealistic” with every drill assuming a group of heavily armed, crazed killers who are on a rampage of unadulterated carnage.

I hope that’s of some help.

All the best,

Iain

Nimrod Nir
Nimrod Nir's picture

Iain Abernethy wrote:
I hope that’s of some help.

Certainly helpful. Especially from a teacher who teaches this stuff regularly at a high level.

Much appreciated,

Nimrod

sarflondonboydo...
sarflondonboydonewell's picture

A good question; another question is; can one? The truth is most have a good go. As Shakespeare said ‘the world is a stage and we are all actors on it’ so the potential is there. To mimic the actions we people watch unfortunately   we are dealing with humans and we don’t know what will actually de escalate this person to dis escalate another person. So the acting part is difficult. Also its recognising when a person is past de escalation because they are at the top of what I call their emotional escalator some would know this as blind rage; in fact road rage is a good example, at that emotional point not only can they not hear but also they cant rationalize. In term of violence it is raw violence; they can take on the world and do; there is no brake on the violence and there are many youtube clips showing that.

De escalation is more art than skill; it’s what I call manging emotions because it is a highly charged emotional situation. And to some degree all encounters are unique as humans are unique.

The aim of De Escalation is to bring people down from the top of the escalator to the bottom of the escalator. De escalation implies that I have  a sort of power over someone; I can  de escalate myself but don’t have a  magic power over others, as de escalation is a two way street. A person must agree to be de escalated and participate in that process. However the person will have  diminished  capacity to do so due to drugs, drinks etc which  means that they unable to participate even if they wanted to and  these are the  barriers. Its  identifying and dealing with physiological barriers to enable clear thought, clear communication to de escalate.

As we know under stress trying to  de escalate someone is very stressful; Fight or flight kicks in which results in elevate pulse rate, rapid breathing, hearing is decreased and tunnel vision kicks in. So trying to reverse that; very difficult.  Although this stress indicators are easy to mimic as we have all go through that is different circumstances apart from Martial arts.