Do you feel that your Martial Arts training enhances your situational awareness?

I think most us would agree that in LE, situation awareness is critical to our safety and that of the public. The hint of a move..a reach for a weapon..a move towards escape. The odd noise when you are manning a security post..a gut feeling something is not right.. Do you think that your MA training makes you aware of those slight moves that become something more?

My specialty for years was footprint tracking in woodland situations. Lost people, escapees and those subjects looking to get away by fleeing into the forrest. I learned to be aware of any slight noise or movement..anything that would betray the location of the subject I was hunting.. When you are on a security patrol..the odd light that is out that creates just enough of a shadow for somone to get under or over a fence..

I feel that I have become even more aware due to my regular MA training.. What has been your experience?

R,

did your MA experience increase your situational awareness more that what you got in the military?

I would say the SA I got from MA is a little fraction of what I got from the military

"Experience is the hardest teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson after."

"In a real fight, experience is something you get shortly after you need it."

I believe that you learn far more from experience than you ever do from training. Of course, this is why so much training these days is geared toward providing the student with a synthetic (scenario) experience from which to build.

yeah, that makes sense.

when I was in the military, we used beduin (arab nomads) trackers. you couldn't get the job if you didn't grow up in a tent, and have family who had done the job. they would do basic with infantry, and then do a long course with the tracker unit. they were fantastic, but had very high mortality rates, because they would walk into so many ambushes.