http://www.avoidthefight.com/training/courses/interior-environments/
Took this course this past Friday evening..... OUTSTANDING !!! A MUST TAKE !!!!
You will NOT be disappointed.
Having also taken this course with Bullit, I second what Bullit stated.
At the very outset, the instructor (Citizen) emphasized that the course would be "a thinking and seeing" course. He used some quotes as foundations: (Howe) "you can't shoot faster than you can see"; "we need shooters who are thinkers and thinkers who are shooters"...and (Grossman/Seidell) "need correct threat identification"; "need a correct response selection without conscious thought".
There was some brief discussion about Boyd's "OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) Loop" and how the self-defense individual needs to "get into it" faster than the perpetrator by perhaps 1) closing the gap between Decide and Act faster than the perpetrator, or 2) condensing your OODA quicker than the perpetrator, or even 3) closing the gap between Orient and Decide fast than the perpetrator....and Citizen emphasized that these were just some thought provoking concepts for us as participants to realize the importance of disrupting the perpetrator's Loop however it is necessary to gain the advantage. This discussion was foundational for the upcoming visual exercises and ultimately the simulation/simunition airsoft threat/non-threat exercises. The instructor emphasized that in our training we must not minimize the Observe and Orient aspects of the Loop by primarily focusing on the Decide and Act aspects.
The course involved some very interesting classroom discussion and experience with "Rapid Threat Recognition" (DVD-based) vision exercises for the participants to self-assess their 1) peripheral vision identification abilities, and 2) abilities to visually identify "weapon or object" in varied paced formats, which traversed the spectrum from relatively easy to do (ample visual time) to very challenging (short visual glimpses). One of the foundational concepts here was to place some training emphasis on the first "O" of the OODA Loop since many self-defense classes emphasize the Act aspect or maybe the Decide + Act aspects of the Loop.
Citizen then explained the multiple aspects of "reading" a doorway, and he subsequently demonstrated how to tactically approach an "open out" door and an "open in" door as well as subsequent entry into the area beyond the doorway. After each of us individually practiced the exercise, the instructor had us then apply that knowledge and skill in various room settings in a building. Each room setup was different with threat/non-threat scenarios, and Citizen even changed the setups for each of us in each of the rooms so that we couldn't gauge what to expect based on the sounds of the prior individual's use of their particular airsoft guns.
During this exercise, we verbally expressed our observations in real-time as we did a sequential process of what we were visualizing throughout the entry into the room and subsequent eye contact with the targets via the instructor's "target discrimination process": "whole body"--->"hands--->"waist"--->"immediate area"--->"foreground and background". There was no timer so that we could build a skill set based on what we had just learned in the earlier exercises at a comfortable self-pace. Citizen would emphasize that if we can't do it well slow, then we aren't going to do it well fast. His choices of targets complemented the exercises very well!!
The course culminated in an impressive exercise of repeating the aforementioned room entry and sequential visualization process, but with the added element of identifying colors and objects behind targets....after you exited the room post-action and under his questioning of you. A take-away was that we didn't always see what we thought we saw when we were in the hype of a dynamic scenario. For me, having also participated in various legal aspects of lethal force courses, this was impressive as I could imagine 1) how one might actually take out a perpetrator when it really was not a threat, and 2) how an opposing attorney would have a field day in such a scenario!
All in all, an excellent course with an excellent instructor who has quite the impressive background of skills, knowledge, AND applied experience.
