The Art of Manliness - Beyond OODA — Developing the Orientation for Conflict and Violence

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:10.920 The OODA Loop. The OODA stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It's a strategic tool

00:00:16.260 designed to help people make better decisions when facing any kind of competitor or opponent.

00:00:20.540 My guest today says when that opponent is a seasoned criminal, the orient component of OODA, 0.99

00:00:24.800 a person's mindset, is the most underestimated and critical part of the model to understand.

00:00:29.120 His name is Varg Freeborn, and he's the author of Violence of Mind, Training and Preparation for Extreme Violence,

00:00:34.580 and Beyond OODA, Developing the Orientation for Deception, Conflict, and Violence.

00:00:39.120 We begin with how Varg's life story has uniquely positioned him to understand the dynamics of violence

00:00:43.500 from the perspectives of both perpetrators of crime and the would-be preventers of that crime.

00:00:47.560 Varg shares how he went from being a convicted felon to a self-defense and firearms instructor

00:00:51.220 who's worked with both civilians and law enforcement.

00:00:53.680 We then turn to why it's so important to understand the difference between the orientation of an average person

00:00:57.540 and the orientation of a violent criminal, and why, when the two collide,

00:01:00.820 the latter has a real advantage over the former.

00:01:02.980 We enter a conversation with what you can do in terms of mindset and training to close that gap

00:01:06.440 and be better prepared to handle a violent encounter.

00:01:08.920 After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash orientation.

00:01:13.040 Varg joins you now via clearcast.io.

00:01:15.220 Varg Freeborn, welcome to the show.

00:01:30.440 Hey, thanks for having me on.

00:01:31.860 So you are a strength coach, and you're also a firearms and self-defense instructor

00:01:36.460 who trains both civilians and law enforcement.

00:01:39.820 And you've got two books out that are really good.

00:01:41.640 You've got Violence of Mind and then Beyond OODA Loop.

00:01:44.000 And I hope we can discuss some of your ideas there.

00:01:46.680 Before we do, I think it would be helpful to talk about your background

00:01:49.960 because you got to your career as a strength coach, as a self-defense instructor,

00:01:54.940 a firearms instructor, differently than a lot of other firearms instructors.

00:02:00.420 And I think it'll help understanding your background to help readers understand

00:02:03.420 your approach to self-defense and violence.

00:02:06.360 So what was your upbringing like?

00:02:07.700 Tell us the story.

00:02:09.260 So I grew up very, very rough.

00:02:11.500 I was basically raised up in a dope house, and my mother was 16 when she had me.

00:02:18.660 So a single teenage mom. 1.00

00:02:20.460 She had probably seven or eight brothers and sisters, and they were all drug addicts,

00:02:26.520 alcoholics, gang members, drug dealers.

00:02:29.600 So the house I grew up in was very violent.

00:02:33.060 I experienced very violent things at a very early age.

00:02:36.040 Which nearly became the victim of a stabbing when I was seven.

00:02:42.220 So someone was loose in the house and stabbing my family members and came after us.

00:02:47.260 And my mother and aunt were able to get us barricaded in my grandfather's bedroom with a toolbox.

00:02:55.280 And basically, the attacker was stabbing through the hollow corridor.

00:02:59.860 It was a very memorable moment for me as a young kid.

00:03:03.700 I was, you know, again, like seven years old.

00:03:05.560 So it's pretty dramatic.

00:03:07.020 That was an example of, like, that things like that happened quite often.

00:03:11.740 Had a, you know, a cousin murdered.

00:03:14.300 Best friend was murdered.

00:03:15.640 One of my uncles was murdered.

00:03:17.780 So it was a pretty rough upbringing.

00:03:19.300 And so from a very young age, you saw violence firsthand.

00:03:23.300 You experienced it.

00:03:24.560 I think at one point, your mother remarried.

00:03:27.680 And your stepfather, very violent, strangled you.

00:03:31.040 I think you took a baseball bat to his head.

00:03:33.900 And he stopped messing with you after that.

00:03:36.340 So your teenage years, same thing, continue on, just getting more intense.

00:03:39.580 And then there's this moment, you ended up in prison.

00:03:41.980 What's the story there?

00:03:42.800 Yeah, so I was 17.

00:03:47.000 And, you know, obviously, there was a catalyst for this event.

00:03:52.160 And the beginning of it was a relationship with a girl.

00:03:55.600 And so from out of that came, you know, a guy that was angry with me over who I had dated.

00:04:04.840 And he just pushed this thing over.

00:04:07.860 And it went on for like six, seven months.

00:04:09.680 He was much older than me, outweighed me by about 100 pounds.

00:04:14.600 And he relentlessly pursued me for about six months.

00:04:18.360 And I really tried to avoid him.

00:04:20.620 I was trying to kind of, you know, get my life on track and pursue things that I wanted to do

00:04:26.920 and get away from the nonsense that the, you know, beginning of my life had been marked up by.

00:04:33.320 So I was trying to avoid this situation as much as I could.

00:04:37.900 And unfortunately, I wasn't able to.

00:04:39.980 And one night he found me at a house party.

00:04:45.040 And this was like one o'clock in the morning.

00:04:47.120 And he had two of his friends with him.

00:04:48.400 And he was incredibly drunk and high, just really out of his mind, intoxicated.

00:04:54.400 And he initially had tried to get me to leave with him and his buddies.

00:04:59.940 And it's one of those things where someone's incredibly drunk and they think they're making

00:05:04.340 sense, but you, they're not making any sense at all.

00:05:07.760 And that's kind of what it was like.

00:05:09.260 He really thought that maybe he could convince me that we were friends and that I could leave

00:05:13.540 with him safely.

00:05:14.300 As I said, this was a time when, you know, my best friend was shot in the head and thrown in a lake.

00:05:22.080 One of my cousins was murdered.

00:05:23.780 So when someone like this guy had been is telling you that they're going to kill you,

00:05:29.140 it's something that you take, you know, serious back then.

00:05:31.980 In that environment, that day and time, it was something that you would take serious.

00:05:36.380 So I didn't take it lightly when he said that.

00:05:39.520 And that night, basically, he ended up cornering me.

00:05:43.740 And I told him a bunch of times, I was even to the point of witness coaching by this point,

00:05:49.140 where I'm like saying things for people to hear it because I know something bad is going to happen.

00:05:53.480 And I'm trying to at least lay the groundwork that, you know, I'm trying to avoid this situation.

00:05:58.140 I want people to remember that.

00:05:59.580 Of course, they didn't.

00:06:00.440 But he comes and corners me in a back room, and I see that his friends had went outside and pulled the car back to the back door,

00:06:07.600 which is where the back room was also.

00:06:10.620 So I'm thinking to myself, this is about to go really bad, right?

00:06:14.800 Because if these three guys that outweigh me and outnumber me get a hold of me and put me in that car,

00:06:22.080 who knows what's going to happen next, right?

00:06:24.240 So I just made my mind up that I wasn't going into the car.

00:06:27.080 And he reached up, and I told him several, several times, leave me alone.

00:06:33.740 Don't touch me.

00:06:35.580 And, of course, he was just persistent in doing what he thought he was going to do.

00:06:39.560 So when he reached for me, he grabbed me and began to choke me.

00:06:43.000 And that's when I pulled a blade, and I went to work on him.

00:06:46.360 And I stabbed him a couple dozen times, and he didn't drop until the last one.

00:06:52.100 So it was very eye-opening to the resilience of the human body and how much it takes to actually stop someone who's determined whether they're intoxicated or not.

00:07:05.100 And during that situation, he had a lacerated internal artery in his neck, a lacerated jugular, and a collapsed lung.

00:07:17.100 And he was in pneumothorax, and he still survived.

00:07:22.340 So however that comes out, he survived those injuries.

00:07:29.520 And then when we went to court, he wasn't the tough gangster anymore that was going to kill me.

00:07:35.700 He was the afflicted victim of a vicious attack and on and on.

00:07:42.160 And this type of thing was just, it was the most unbelievable thing I've ever experienced in my life to see how the stories shift.

00:07:49.440 And all of a sudden, you become a villain in a way that's like, it's getting ready to take your life away.

00:07:55.500 And so I ended up being convicted.

00:07:59.400 And I started out with an attempted aggravated murder charge, which was 25 years.

00:08:04.360 And I was able to plea that down with some help from some family members who scraped together some money.

00:08:11.020 And I was able to plea that down to a two- to five-year sentence.

00:08:14.120 And I ended up serving the entire five, probably due to being such a model prisoner.

00:08:19.300 But yeah, so that was basically how that went down.

00:08:23.260 And then when you were in prison, you continued to see violence firsthand.

00:08:28.020 What was prison life like?

00:08:30.160 Oh, for sure.

00:08:31.120 Now, this is something that, and I don't claim to be hardcore or be an expert on anything.

00:08:36.460 And I don't claim to be an amazing fighter or anything like that.

00:08:39.260 But I can tell you that I was in prison during one of the most violent times to be in prison.

00:08:45.060 Because if you look at the violent crime statistics and the murder rates, which is going back up now for reasons that would be another discussion.

00:08:55.900 But before 2020, violence was way down and used to be able to say, oh, the murder rate's down 50%.

00:09:04.660 And it was true. 0.94

00:09:06.020 Because if you look back to between 85 and 95, the violent crime and murder was up to 50% higher during that time.

00:09:15.480 Well, by the early 90s, in 94 was when I got convicted and locked up.

00:09:21.280 Most of those people had been locked up, right?

00:09:23.840 The ones that weren't dead.

00:09:24.800 So it was a time where you had the most violent street criminals in the longest time that we had seen for a while.

00:09:34.380 And they were all locked up and the prisons were overflowing.

00:09:37.400 And so when I first got there, it was so overflowed that we ended up being put in a gymnasium that was converted to a bunk room that had probably 400 bunks in it.

00:09:52.880 So you got 600 to 800 people shoved in this gymnasium that was a basketball court, right?

00:09:59.580 And this is an intake prison.

00:10:02.420 So an intake prison is they bring in everyone to this initial facility and decide where you're going to go as a parent facility from there.

00:10:11.400 And they'll ship you to wherever in the state they want to.

00:10:14.540 And so the problem with an intake facility is that you're in there with everyone.

00:10:18.960 If you're minimum security, you're bunking with a maximum security guy.

00:10:24.440 I remember I had one cellmate that had murdered five prostitutes with a claw hammer.

00:10:30.040 And so you have to go to sleep at night with these people.

00:10:34.520 And this is the type of thing that was your introduction to prison, right?

00:10:40.460 Like 19 years old and I'm like 135 pounds.

00:10:44.140 And I was a pretty violent kid for sure, but this was like the big leagues, right?

00:10:48.940 So your introduction is a paradigm shifting experience for sure.

00:10:53.200 So you, I want to talk more.

00:10:54.240 Maybe there's some insights we can take that you've learned about violence from your experience in prison.

00:10:58.240 And we can talk about that later, but you, you serve your time.

00:11:00.700 You do five, you get out, you're a felon.

00:11:03.880 And mostly when you're a felon, like you can't vote, you can't have a gun, you can't work at a government job, et cetera.

00:11:09.180 But you were able to do all those things.

00:11:12.860 What happened there?

00:11:14.540 Well, I was fortunate enough to have been locked up in Ohio.

00:11:19.220 So the Ohio has an automatic restoration of the right to vote, the right to sit on a jury, and the right to hold public office when you're released from prison.

00:11:30.320 The thing that they don't have is an automatic restoration of firearms rights.

00:11:35.980 And that's obvious.

00:11:37.080 Most states, you can't even get it back.

00:11:39.900 But Ohio did have a restoration process.

00:11:42.680 I had continued to fight my case while I was in prison, and I continued to fight my case when I got out of prison because I always believed that I acted in self-defense and I had no choice.

00:11:53.340 And basically what happened after I got out is I finally got them to sit down with me.

00:11:58.900 And they said, look, we're not going to open this case up because if you cause us to open this case up again, we're going to take you right back to the original 25 years.

00:12:06.520 And we're going to disregard the five that you served, which is a tactic that the state will use anytime they don't want to do something.

00:12:13.600 So what they did do is they said, we will give you a restoration of your rights and give you all of your rights back.

00:12:20.460 And so I thought, okay, that's a pretty good deal.

00:12:23.760 So they gave me a restoration of all of my rights to vote, sit on a jury, hold a public office, and own and possess firearms as allowed by state and federal law.

00:12:35.000 And then they issued me a concealed carry license, but they never removed the felony.

00:12:39.480 So I have a very unique situation of being a felon that also is allowed to carry a gun.

00:12:46.140 The felony was never expunged.

00:12:47.560 It was never removed from my record.

00:12:48.980 And if you pull up my record, I get pulled over, they pull it up, they're going to see the felony and they're going to see the restoration and then they'll see the concealed carry license.

00:12:59.960 So it's a very interesting thing.

00:13:01.160 But I was able to fight that enough to get at least that back.

00:13:05.400 And that took quite a few years for that to happen, for sure.

00:13:10.380 So you got your rights restored.

00:13:11.560 And now you are an instructor.

00:13:14.140 You teach police officers and military guys about self-defense and firearms, right?

00:13:19.140 I do.

00:13:20.020 I am semi-retired from the active training part of it here in the recent time since COVID, actually.

00:13:26.220 That kind of pushed me into a slowdown for sure.

00:13:28.760 And then I just never kicked it back up because I just never intended on retiring in that business anyway.

00:13:35.560 And so it was a good time to kind of semi-retire.

00:13:37.940 But I still work with, I'll be at Ohio Tactical Officers Conference this year.

00:13:42.920 And I'll be at maybe one other conference.

00:13:45.680 And it'll be working with civilians and law enforcement and military guys.

00:13:52.600 And I do like to train.

00:13:55.440 I do like to teach.

00:13:56.380 And the way that I accomplished that was after I had gotten my restoration, I started to see the boom that was happening in self-defense training.

00:14:06.320 And one thing that I seen was this huge gap in information between reality and what was being taught in the mainstream of that industry.

00:14:16.660 And so all that I wanted to do was fill some gaps in for people and say,

00:14:20.580 Hey, you know, based on my very real experience, this is not how that typically goes.

00:14:26.820 And you're going to need to prioritize things differently than what you're being taught here.

00:14:32.020 And I was pretty early on grabbed by law enforcement guys and pulled into the law enforcement training world.

00:14:41.580 I was sent through a lot of closed enrollment training on the LE side.

00:14:46.020 So I've been to breaching school, ballistic, thermal, mechanical, explosive breaching.

00:14:51.860 I've been to just hundreds and hundreds of hours of CQB training from different angles and different disciplines and different agencies.

00:14:59.900 I was certified all the way up to full team CQB instructor, which I will never do, but it added to my knowledge base for their benefit as well as mine.

00:15:11.660 And, you know, I've done law enforcement, executive protection training and just on and on to things that I got fortunate enough to get pulled into.

00:15:19.800 So I was able to train at a very high level on that side of the fence after having a very real experience on the other side of the fence with violence.

00:15:31.060 I've been involved in multiple stabbings.

00:15:33.640 I was involved in stabbings in prison.

00:15:35.300 I've been stabbed multiple times myself.

00:15:38.040 I have at least one body part missing from the stabbing.

00:15:40.620 And so this was something that really rounded out my experience and my perspective to be able to see these things from both sides of the door, basically.

00:15:51.960 Yeah.

00:15:52.180 Let's talk about how does your personal experience with violence change the way you approach or think about training people in self-defense?

00:16:00.180 I mean, what gaps do you see in traditional self-defense training that your experience can fill?

00:16:10.160 Like, what's the difference between the way you approach it and the most other self-defense instructors approach training?

00:16:16.800 I think that it didn't change anything for me.

00:16:20.340 It was more cultivated from a very young age, so I didn't have a changing moment for myself.

00:16:24.620 But what I do see in the difference between myself and what's taught by most of the instructors, especially when I started this business, is the prioritization of decision-making and the components that go into decision-making over weapons and techniques and things like that.

00:16:45.620 So I think that your least experienced instructors will always be weapons-focused, technique-focused, speed-focused, always thinking about those types of things.

00:16:57.580 And your more experienced instructors tend to be more decision-making focused and cultivating the ability to make good decisions when faced with very dire consequences and fast-moving situations.

00:17:08.620 So I think that's probably the biggest marker between the two that I see.

00:17:14.540 Yeah, I've noticed in my own experience, I've taken firearms training.

00:17:17.800 You go, and you're just kind of doing like a choreo, like a kata almost.

00:17:21.540 It's like, oh, here you can do this draw, and then you're going to take a step.

00:17:24.960 And I mean, it was fun, but after the experience, I don't know if this is actually going to be useful in a real-life situation.

00:17:31.180 Yeah, it's kind of like if we remember the times of the McDojo age in the late 70s into the 80s when everybody wanted to learn karate because Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris were the main things on the big screen, and everybody wanted to do that.

00:17:47.660 And then when reality hit that whole movement in the face with MMA, and you don't see karate and Kimpo black belts dominating anything anywhere in any ring, that was like a wake-up call for that.

00:18:03.840 And I think the firearms industry has had that coming and is experiencing it now to a certain extent.

00:18:09.120 But when you have guys coming back from, and not necessarily like 11Bs or something, but like special operations, guys that have been in very heavy situations, heavy fights with very small numbers, very up close and personal, you'll see more and more the decision-making process is almost all that they will focus on.

00:18:30.520 The weapon skills are very professional to a standard, and that's it.

00:18:35.240 Like you just, here's your standard, work until you can achieve the standard, and then work to maintain it.

00:18:41.500 And that's the simplicity of the weapons part of it.

00:18:44.160 The rest of it is all being able to make the decision, being able to see the situation for what it is, analyze the information, synthesize it with what you already know, and then move forward with good decisions that will keep you and your people safe.

00:18:56.560 And that's the difference that I see, that you really need to focus on if you're going to really think about getting into a fight.

00:19:05.560 Like you say, you know, the kata, is it going to help you?

00:19:09.520 It might.

00:19:10.600 It might, because it may be there when you need it, and you'll do this perfect move, and it was the thing you needed at the time.

00:19:17.180 But the likelihood of those circumstances lining up like that is very low.

00:19:21.180 Okay, so let's shift gears to your book.

00:19:23.840 So there's Violence of Mind, and your most recent one is Beyond OODA.

00:19:26.700 And OODA Loop was developed by a guy named John Boyd, military strategist.

00:19:32.300 It is a decision-making model.

00:19:34.400 And you hear it used a lot in the sort of tactical self-defense world, but you have a different emphasis that a lot of guys miss, and I want to talk about that.

00:19:42.300 But before that, for those who aren't familiar with OODA Loop, can you give us a big-picture overview of what it is and how it's used in the tactical world?

00:19:51.180 Yes, so John Boyd, who retired a full colonel from the Air Force, was the developer of OODA Loop.

00:20:00.200 And it's not really a loop, and it really grew and developed beyond that first conception that he had as an OODA Loop, which was very much like Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, which is what the acronym stands for.

00:20:16.160 And it became a very complex series of loops, and there's bypasses, and there's different mechanisms within this process that change how a person makes decisions, how quickly they make decisions, and how quickly they can act on it.

00:20:32.600 And so I've never been a big OODA Loop guy.

00:20:36.460 I've never used OODA in my training.

00:20:39.020 I've never used it as a model in the lectures I do or any of the classes that I've taught.

00:20:44.800 But I do focus on the orientation part.

00:20:47.560 And one of the things that I think people miss the most about the Observe, Orient, Decide, Act concept is there were many, many, there was 30 years of development that went into that with Boyd.

00:21:01.520 And for most of that time, Chet Richards and Chuck Spinney were working very closely with him.

00:21:08.060 So there were actually three people involved in the development of that concept.

00:21:11.860 Boyd gets full credit because it was his idea, and he was the main driver.

00:21:16.740 But it couldn't have been what it became without the other two guys helping him and being very close friends with him.

00:21:23.560 As the stories go, they would get these crazy phone calls from Boyd at 2 a.m., and he'd have this breakthrough idea,

00:21:29.660 and they'd have to get out of bed and listen to the type of person that Boyd was.

00:21:34.800 And without those guys there, this would have never became what it did.

00:21:38.300 And some guys will get stuck on the simple loop that it began as and think that's what it is.

00:21:45.220 And I've even heard it so incorrectly put as to say that orienting was physically facing yourself towards the threat,

00:21:52.200 which couldn't be more farther from what it really is.

00:21:55.940 And I think that the other guys will consider themselves guru of the concept,

00:22:01.600 but they'll point towards things like the aerial attack study, which was Boyd's work in the 60s,

00:22:06.460 and completely disregard what he did in the next 30 years of his work life.

00:22:11.420 So what I think that is most important to understand about OODA is basically your orientation is what drives your decision-making and your actions.

00:22:24.680 And your orientation is, as he put it, a repository of your genetics, your cultural inputs, your value systems, your experiences, your confidence.

00:22:33.380 All of those things are what actually drive and influence your decision-making process.

00:22:40.940 And I think that's really, for me, the most key takeaway from OODA that you can have.

00:22:47.060 Yeah.

00:22:47.260 I mean, even Boyd said orientation was the most important part.

00:22:50.520 Because orientation is based, like this is a kind of way to summarize,

00:22:52.880 it's like your mental models of how you see the world or perceive the world.

00:22:56.580 And, again, like you said, like Boyd says, your genetics, your culture, your upbringing, your personal experience with violence,

00:23:05.060 all color how you see the world.

00:23:07.420 So orientation will influence how you observe, right?

00:23:11.460 Yes.

00:23:11.760 And then orientation will also determine how you make a decision.

00:23:15.660 And orientation will also determine how you're going to act.

00:23:18.620 So I think, like you said, I've read a lot of articles when I've heard,

00:23:22.220 I've gone to the gun range and had some guy tell me about OODA Loop.

00:23:24.500 So they just kind of glance over orientation.

00:23:27.120 They just focus on the observed part and then decide and act.

00:23:30.160 But then if you look into it, like you guys did, like orientation, that is everything.

00:23:34.340 I'd be better just to focus on that when you're thinking about the OODA Loop.

00:23:37.660 Yes.

00:23:38.160 Yes.

00:23:38.580 And actually, of the two guys that worked with Boyd, Chet Richards and Chuck Spinney,

00:23:43.260 I actually was able to develop somewhat of a relationship with Chet Richards during the writing of this book.

00:23:49.180 And he obviously wrote a review for the book.

00:23:52.000 And he also really advised me on the first part of the book where I'm talking about the OODA Loop.

00:23:59.000 So this is not something I just flew by the seat of my pants.

00:24:02.300 I took this to the source and I was like, hey, here's my perspective.

00:24:07.260 What do you think?

00:24:08.020 And I had no idea what would, you know, I didn't know if he'd come back and say, 1.00

00:24:11.160 you're a foolish guy and you, you know, you, you're way off base. 0.98

00:24:14.880 And, you know, so I threw this at him and he came back and was super excited about it. 1.00

00:24:18.600 And he said, you know, this is exactly, he's like, you've got Boyd figured out here.

00:24:23.740 He said, this is exactly what Boyd would get excited about and would want to talk about

00:24:28.540 and want to work on when he was still alive.

00:24:31.620 And he said, this is a, you know, a very important book.

00:24:33.940 And I felt great about that when he said that.

00:24:36.420 And I said, okay.

00:24:37.460 And then he even took the time to dig into personal letters that Boyd wrote him

00:24:42.860 and give me access to quote some of those and things like that stuff that people have never

00:24:47.300 even seen.

00:24:48.080 So it was a very cool experience, but the validation encoded in that was, you know,

00:24:53.400 extremely powerful.

00:24:55.300 And with the orientation part of it being the central, obviously the central focus of the book

00:25:01.020 and orientation also being the central focus of a lot of Boyd's work, especially in his last

00:25:07.200 15 to 20 years, I think that we can safely say that if you focus on the orientation components,

00:25:14.940 that is what drives decision-making.

00:25:17.140 Now, can a person's culture be changed?

00:25:20.400 Yes, but it's not an easy thing to do.

00:25:23.180 And at some level it requires what might even resemble brainwashing, right?

00:25:27.720 Where, and the military does a good job of this sometimes where they take young men and

00:25:32.580 completely change their culture to one of brotherhood and camaraderie and, you know,

00:25:38.680 you'll fall for the guy next to you and all this type of thing.

00:25:41.680 And that's what they send them effectively into war with is that new culture, this new paradigm, 0.68

00:25:47.340 this new system of values that they've instilled in them, right?

00:25:52.200 And if they genetically receive that, that's great.

00:25:56.120 The problem that I see with it is the big difference between the good guy and the bad guy.

00:26:02.560 There's an initiation process that happens in an orientation to violence.

00:26:08.080 And it's going to be probably your first big event, your first killing, your first, you know,

00:26:12.580 lethal force level event that is going to initiate you into the experienced.

00:26:18.840 And for someone who's been prepared for that or someone who seeks that initiation,

00:26:25.440 then it's a very different experience than for someone who does not seek the initiation and gets it.

00:26:33.740 And I think that there's such a violent shift in their mind and psychologically,

00:26:39.000 their paradigm has shifted so quickly and so violently that there's moral injury and other

00:26:45.060 things that cause severe PTSD to happen after a violent shift like that.

00:26:49.900 And I'm no expert, but from my own experiences and from talking to several of my friends who've

00:26:54.840 experienced war firsthand, these are the conclusions I come to.

00:26:59.000 And I think that the initiation process with the orientation is probably the most important thing

00:27:05.840 to look at and try to simulate or try to achieve at that point.

00:27:09.620 Yeah, I want to dig more into that initiation process and how it can shape orientation.

00:27:13.240 But before we do, I mean, let's talk about this.

00:27:15.760 So one of the things that Boyd talked about, so generally the OODA loop, is if you want to

00:27:21.080 beat the other guy.

00:27:22.240 So in any competition, he's basically saying there's an OODA loop going on in every competitor,

00:27:27.100 right?

00:27:27.520 So if you're the guy defending yourself, you have an OODA loop going on, and then the guy

00:27:32.220 who's trying to do something to you has an OODA loop going on.

00:27:34.880 And whoever can cycle through their OODA loop first is going to win.

00:27:38.080 But how fast that OODA loop goes depends on things like orientation, for example.

00:27:43.240 And you argue that if you really want to make better decisions when it comes to self-defense,

00:27:49.160 you need to understand the orientation of the person who's attacking you.

00:27:54.460 And I think a lot of people who are just sort of regular dudes who grew up in the suburbs,

00:27:59.180 they don't really understand the mind or the orientation of a criminal.

00:28:04.160 You've been in prison.

00:28:06.080 You've seen criminal life firsthand.

00:28:07.480 Like, what's their orientation?

00:28:08.840 Like, what is the orientation of a violent criminal?

00:28:11.520 And like, what's contributed to that orientation?

00:28:14.440 So we can't speak just generally about every criminal because just like every other profession 0.99

00:28:21.940 or subculture, there's the whole spectrum of human beings in there from idiots to experts. 0.94

00:28:27.240 But I think that the biggest difference when we're talking about serious violent criminals 0.98

00:28:33.280 that are going to do very high levels of damage or become lethal, that again, we go back to

00:28:40.960 experience, confidence, and initiation.

00:28:43.420 So the thing that's going to be lacked the most in the good guy group, whether it's law enforcement

00:28:51.400 or civilian and self-defense, is initiation experience and confidence that comes from both

00:28:57.640 of those things.

00:28:58.300 Now, when a criminal, let's say, for example, when you look at a young gangbanger who grew

00:29:07.920 up very rough, didn't have anybody really cared about them, had a really rough way to go,

00:29:12.820 was treated like trash at school and by the establishment and looked at very suspiciously if they went

00:29:22.620 anywhere and just was just rejected by the world, I'm not condoning or anything like that. 0.60

00:29:29.100 I'm just saying this is their experience.

00:29:30.520 This is their paradigm.

00:29:31.580 This is what they see around them.

00:29:34.080 And so they become angry.

00:29:35.780 They become violent.

00:29:37.120 Violent tendencies begin to grow.

00:29:39.620 And then they glorify that lifestyle. 0.75

00:29:42.640 And then they want to think about bucking somebody in a chest and putting their enemies down like dogs

00:29:48.640 and being a soldier and things of this nature start to become important to them.

00:29:53.420 They start to prioritize that very highly.

00:29:55.580 At this point, it's still a story that they're telling themselves about who they are.

00:29:59.360 And they may be like, yeah, yeah, I'll buck somebody to the ground.

00:30:03.260 And they're telling themselves this, but they haven't acted it out yet.

00:30:07.180 Now, the second that they act that out, there's going to be a very dramatic paradigm shift that

00:30:14.840 happens inside of their brain. And they're going to become a part of the story they've

00:30:20.040 been telling themselves, a part of the story that they've been glorifying.

00:30:23.560 So if they come home and they've got Tony Montana on their wall and they want to be

00:30:28.380 a big-time dope dealer and have the cars and the women and the pit bulls and all this stuff, 0.99

00:30:35.180 right?

00:30:35.760 So they start to live that story.

00:30:38.040 They start to make that story real.

00:30:39.840 And so when the story becomes real, the confidence level goes way up because now they've actually

00:30:46.680 done the thing that they said they were going to do.

00:30:49.000 They've experienced it.

00:30:50.200 They've proven it to the world.

00:30:51.680 They've proven it to themselves.

00:30:53.080 And there's no questions anymore.

00:30:54.900 It's a very real thing.

00:30:56.160 And it's known.

00:30:57.160 It's not an unknown.

00:30:58.940 And so the difference is for the good guy, right?

00:31:02.420 So the so-called good guy doesn't have that initial sociopathic tendency towards violence

00:31:09.320 that glorifies it.

00:31:11.580 And the initiation is going to be a very different experience when he gets it.

00:31:15.780 And if he's not properly prepared for it, then when it happens, it's going to be a violent

00:31:20.600 shift that might tear his psychological world apart.

00:31:23.160 And then there's going to be that whole thing to deal with.

00:31:25.680 And we see this when we see aftermath videos of officer-involved shootings where the officers

00:31:32.380 just break down and just uncontrollably go into trembling, crying, and things like that.

00:31:37.540 And it's male and female both.

00:31:39.560 It's not just one.

00:31:40.900 And we've seen this.

00:31:41.940 It's not a lot, but there are times where we have had the opportunity to watch that happen.

00:31:47.540 And that's that violent shift tearing their world apart, right?

00:31:51.120 And that's going to cause major problems for them down the road, whereas their counterpart

00:31:55.480 glorified it, looked forward to it, and now has benefited from it because it has completed

00:32:01.880 a story.

00:32:02.500 It has completed a mission for them.

00:32:04.720 And I think that that's the big difference between the criminal thought process and the

00:32:09.600 good guy when it comes to lethal level violence.

00:32:13.280 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:32:17.700 And now back to the show.

00:32:19.240 Okay, so the criminal has this predator orientation.

00:32:22.780 It's influenced by their past experience with violence, maybe growing up around it, experience

00:32:26.980 it firsthand.

00:32:27.980 It's shaped by the stories they tell themselves.

00:32:30.620 Like you talked about, sometimes these guys tell them stories like they're like the mob

00:32:34.400 boss.

00:32:34.960 Or you talked about in prison, a lot of these guys would kind of harness this sort of warrior

00:32:40.000 ethos.

00:32:40.580 So like you had like the white guys getting rune Viking tattoos and like the Mexicans 1.00

00:32:45.020 getting Aztec warriors and the black guys getting Zulu tattoos.

00:32:49.260 So they're, that's a story they're telling, like they're a warrior.

00:32:52.140 Then you say like a really powerful thing that shapes a criminal's orientation is this idea

00:32:58.320 of initiation.

00:32:59.040 Let's go back to this.

00:32:59.660 Like what, what is an initiation for a criminal?

00:33:03.380 Like what does that look like?

00:33:04.360 So it can be very literally an initiation into a gang where you have to shoot someone to get

00:33:09.820 in, or you have to commit some kind of a beat down or some, you know, some type of a violent

00:33:13.820 act to prove yourself and also incriminate yourself in front of the group because there's

00:33:19.440 a type of a leverage there that comes with that.

00:33:22.640 And so that's that an initiation could be something as simple as that, or it could be more esoteric

00:33:28.640 in nature that it's not specifically called an initiation to them or their culture, but when it

00:33:35.400 happens, it has the effect of making the story they've been telling themselves about this violent

00:33:41.060 soldier, you know, that they're, they're a warrior and they're, they're down for the, you know, the cause

00:33:45.940 they'll go down with the, with their crew and they actually do it.

00:33:49.380 They back it up and they survive.

00:33:50.940 That is an initiation from a story that was not founded on anything true to now living a

00:33:59.040 story that's founded on truth.

00:34:01.120 I do these things.

00:34:02.580 I've done these things and I'll do them again.

00:34:04.840 And I know how to do them.

00:34:06.340 I know how it feels.

00:34:07.460 It actually feels good.

00:34:09.060 And I will go for it when I need to go for it.

00:34:11.760 And I don't care at that point.

00:34:14.000 And there's also a memento mori aspect to that too.

00:34:18.680 I think at the highest levels where people are accepting the live by the sword, die by

00:34:25.280 the sword philosophy in their life, where they accept it.

00:34:28.820 They're like, someday I'm going to get bucked to the pavement, but until that day, I'm the

00:34:33.220 one doing the bucking.

00:34:34.740 And so that's something that comes at a time when the actual transfer to real action from

00:34:45.040 thought takes place, that's when those thoughts become really powerful and they're backed up

00:34:51.680 by experience.

00:34:53.720 So you can have a guy that gets tatted out and runs around and is jacked and he's on

00:35:00.600 TRT and he's doing all this stuff, but he doesn't have any real experience to back it

00:35:04.760 up.

00:35:04.840 So if he's called out on the carpet and the bell rings for him on any given day and he's

00:35:10.140 got to prove it, is he going to have what it takes to do it?

00:35:14.260 You don't know.

00:35:15.420 I've seen some really tough looking guys that talk tough, act tough and live a really tough

00:35:20.560 life that hadn't actually done anything.

00:35:23.500 And when I see them get called out, they crumble, just absolute crumble.

00:35:28.160 And so there's that moment when you're facing someone who has had those moments and they've

00:35:37.140 passed it with flying colors and maybe they've done it multiple times.

00:35:40.880 I tell stories in the book about people I've met that have been shot 11 times in four different

00:35:47.580 shootings.

00:35:48.320 You go up against that guy, you're not going up against an amateur, not at least psychologically. 0.99

00:35:54.200 He might not be a great shooter, but he's a killer and he's not afraid to die. 0.98

00:35:59.480 And he probably thinks he's pretty damn hard to kill. 0.95

00:36:02.240 And he's proven that that's true so far, right?

00:36:05.060 So when you're facing that type of orientation, it's a deficit.

00:36:11.160 It's a deficit for the good guy.

00:36:13.460 Okay.

00:36:13.540 So with criminal orientation, the criminal tells himself certain stories.

00:36:17.240 He's initiated into violence, either literally or just through experience.

00:36:21.760 And the more he experiences violence, the more confidence he gains in its power.

00:36:27.820 You know, he's able to use, he's more comfortable with using violence as an answer to situations.

00:36:32.880 And he's more, I don't know, he's like more comfortable operating outside, you know, standard

00:36:38.480 societal moral values.

00:36:40.580 So that's the criminal orientation.

00:36:42.460 Let's talk about the orientation of the non-criminal.

00:36:45.180 What stories do they tell themselves about themselves and what parts of the average guy's orientation

00:36:51.900 can become deficits when he encounters a criminal?

00:36:56.300 Yeah.

00:36:56.580 So one of the most dangerous things you can do as a good guy is develop the notion of righteousness,

00:37:04.180 right?

00:37:04.380 And I've seen this very, very often where they have what's also known as good guy syndrome,

00:37:11.060 where you just think automatically you're the good guy, so you can just act and everybody's

00:37:16.400 going to clearly see you are the good guy.

00:37:18.220 And that's honestly not how that goes.

00:37:20.620 It's not at all how that situation goes.

00:37:23.300 And if one thing goes sideways, you're going to be called out into the court system and then

00:37:29.280 you're in for a long, hard haul.

00:37:32.380 And it is not an experience that anybody should want to go through.

00:37:37.640 There's a very, very high chance of being convicted at some level.

00:37:44.200 Most over 95% of cases in the country end in a plea bargain of some sort based on an independent

00:37:50.540 study done for the Department of Justice some years ago.

00:37:53.820 And that, I think, is very accurate from what I've experienced in the system.

00:37:57.580 Um, you, you, they overcharge you, they'll hit you super hard, they'll throw everything

00:38:03.120 at you, and then that leaves room for them to strike a deal.

00:38:06.520 It's just the same as you go for, you know, a car, you want to buy a car, and he's like,

00:38:11.260 I want $10,000 for his car.

00:38:12.720 And you're like, man, I was thinking more like $7,000.

00:38:15.020 Really, in his head, he wants $7,800.

00:38:17.900 So he's, he's shooting you at $10,000, you come at $7,000, you get to $78,000, you get

00:38:22.420 the deal, you know, you wanted it for less, but he gets what he wants.

00:38:26.400 Courts are the same way.

00:38:27.660 They shoot high because they want to hit you low and boom, now you're going to prison or

00:38:33.440 you have a felony on your record and you're disarmed for the rest of your life.

00:38:36.900 So it's something that you have to really consider very deeply.

00:38:41.840 And I think that the, another problem about it for the good guy is understanding the selective

00:38:48.980 valuation of life and selective or the sliding scale of morals, right?

00:38:53.680 And, you know, I'd like to correct you on saying that, you know, the criminal has no

00:38:58.300 morals and they, you know, just do whatever they want.

00:39:00.700 They do have morals.

00:39:01.760 They have a selective valuation of human life.

00:39:04.480 A lot of them would not, you know, they might shoot your mother, but they wouldn't shoot their

00:39:09.100 own mother, you know?

00:39:10.380 So there's a, there's definitely a selectiveness there and it can change too, because one day

00:39:15.520 they might not shoot their, you know, the mother of their children, but another day that

00:39:19.220 it might change, right?

00:39:20.100 So it's very selective and it's a sliding moral scale.

00:39:23.480 And there's also justification built within that.

00:39:26.320 And so the justification part of a sliding moral scale is the problem.

00:39:31.020 That's, that's the hardest part to solve.

00:39:33.180 Once you develop a sliding moral scale, you are vulnerable to justifications like righteousness.

00:39:39.300 So you feel like you're the good guy, you're on the side of, of good fighting evil, and

00:39:46.480 you go too far in a defense case and you anchor shot somebody once they're down, anchor shot

00:39:52.660 them a couple of times, meaning that they go, they hit the ground, they stopped doing what

00:39:56.160 they were doing that was bad.

00:39:57.860 And you put a couple in them just for good measure.

00:40:01.000 That's illegal.

00:40:02.300 That's not allowed.

00:40:03.640 You're going to go to prison for that in almost every case.

00:40:06.420 But in your mind at that moment, if you've slid your, your moral scale too far to one

00:40:13.300 side and justified that by saying, I'm doing the world a favor here and I'm saving people's

00:40:19.260 lives, you're going to get yourself in trouble.

00:40:22.400 So most good people keep themselves in line by having a very static valuation of human life

00:40:30.060 and a very static moral compass.

00:40:32.320 Whereas the criminal and the, the higher level military guy, sometimes even the law enforcement

00:40:39.920 have to have the sliding moral scale there because you have to be able to change the

00:40:46.160 valuation of human life in the moment, according to what's being called for.

00:40:50.000 If someone's in front of you that is an innocent person and you know, they should be saved.

00:40:55.880 You have to be willing to step into harm's way to save them if that's your job or if that's

00:41:00.220 what you've chosen as your mission.

00:41:02.240 If there's someone in front of you who is a bad actor and they're going to hurt you or

00:41:07.380 other people, you have to, you know, conversely be able to make the decision to possibly end

00:41:11.780 their life.

00:41:12.440 And that's a very, that's a very tricky situation to be into morally.

00:41:18.440 And so the criminal develops that very easily because they have a lot of justifications

00:41:23.560 in their mind and society often backs that up.

00:41:26.780 And I can attest to that because even, you know, after getting out of prison and having

00:41:31.700 my rights restored, there's several times that I've been roadblocked even recently in

00:41:36.820 my life.

00:41:37.320 25 years after being out of prison, almost 30 years after being convicted, I still get

00:41:43.020 roadblocked from things.

00:41:44.160 I was just denied admittance into a technical school because of my felony.

00:41:47.960 And so these are justifications for some people to be like, you know what, screw society.

00:41:53.640 You don't want me.

00:41:54.340 You don't want me to succeed.

00:41:55.480 You don't want me to try to do things right.

00:41:57.440 So now I just move my scale and this is where I put you on the valuation of human life.

00:42:03.400 And it's that simple.

00:42:04.540 But the good guy doesn't have that.

00:42:06.280 They have to be more, they're raised in a culture that's more static about things like

00:42:10.980 violence is bad and don't do violence or, you know, things like that.

00:42:14.520 And it has to, that has to change into an adjustable, manually adjustable situation, but it has to

00:42:20.760 be backed up by professionalism because if, if there's not a professional structure behind

00:42:25.760 it, then you can lose control of that very easily.

00:42:28.780 And then you become not such a great person.

00:42:32.200 Okay.

00:42:32.220 So one potential problem with the non-criminal orientation is having too inflexible of a

00:42:37.840 sliding scale for your decisions.

00:42:39.880 I mean, you want to be able to adjust your approach based on the circumstances, but at the

00:42:44.320 same time, you can't overly tip into justifications that seem justified at the time, but actually

00:42:51.000 push you to go too far, like into a legal territory.

00:42:54.060 So you have to have like a sliding scale, but have hard limits on it.

00:42:57.960 I mean, you have to be a professional about your approach and you described, you know, being

00:43:02.600 a professional as, you know, being able to meet a minimal requirement of safety and accuracy

00:43:08.040 with your weapon.

00:43:08.740 If you decide to carry a weapon and conducting yourself with self-control and discretion under

00:43:14.080 pressure.

00:43:14.780 So you're, I mean, so you're only going to apply your skills and capabilities when they're

00:43:19.920 appropriate or where they're appropriate to apply and under the confines of the law.

00:43:25.860 So another deficit, you talk about an orientation for someone who sees themselves as the good

00:43:31.240 guy is an overconfidence about their ability to handle violence.

00:43:35.140 Like they think, okay, I've done the training and if I encounter violence, I'll just do,

00:43:40.240 you know, steps one, two, and three, and it'll work out like I expect.

00:43:44.040 Can you talk about that, that overconfidence?

00:43:46.860 I think that anybody that's been in real violence knows, you know, we used to have a saying in

00:43:52.600 prison that all the badasses were in the graveyard and that there's a very deep meaning to that.

00:43:59.220 And it, and it applies to, you know, soldiers, special, special, special operations guys that

00:44:03.920 know that some of the, they've, some of the best of the best have went in and died, you

00:44:09.600 know, and they've been killed by goat herders and, and guys in sandals.

00:44:14.280 Like, you know, it's so, it doesn't matter how much you train and how hard you go at it.

00:44:20.900 But there is also the factors of good days and bad days and that's it.

00:44:27.360 And, and sometimes it's just a bad day and there's nothing you can do about it.

00:44:31.740 You've seen the best fighters in the world go into the ring and catch a left hook and go

00:44:37.060 to sleep because it's just that day.

00:44:40.200 Right.

00:44:40.740 And so that's how violence goes.

00:44:42.600 You're never prepared enough to be untouchable.

00:44:46.380 Untouchable is not achievable.

00:44:47.900 And I think that there's a glorification of, if I train hard, I do jujitsu, I carry a gun,

00:44:53.960 I train at the range, I'm doing all this stuff.

00:44:56.240 I'm, you know, I'm just harder to kill, harder to kill, harder to kill to the point to where

00:45:00.480 they really over glorify their capabilities and they underestimate the very negative effects

00:45:07.380 and probabilities within violence.

00:45:10.140 And I think the violence is a very nasty, unpredictable thing.

00:45:13.960 And you could wake up on any given day and it's going to be a bad day.

00:45:18.680 And that's the, that's the truth of violence that I think most people miss.

00:45:22.140 All right.

00:45:22.340 So the orientation of a typical non-criminal can be a disadvantage when he goes up against

00:45:27.340 a criminal because he's not familiar with the realities of violence.

00:45:31.300 He's got a inflexible moral scale when it comes to making decisions.

00:45:35.180 And then he can also get caught up in his own sense of righteousness.

00:45:38.560 Are there any other potential deficits in the average person's orientation?

00:45:43.800 We also have the exploitation of social courtesies that, that work against us, which is a deficit

00:45:49.180 where we, we're not the aggressors.

00:45:51.720 We're not the offensive actors in any situation.

00:45:54.480 We have to respond.

00:45:55.820 We have to defend.

00:45:57.160 That means there has to be an initial action that takes place before we can go into action

00:46:01.300 as, as good guys.

00:46:03.000 You can't just smoke somebody because you think they're about to do something.

00:46:06.360 They have to actually begin the process of doing it for the justification, legal justification

00:46:11.520 to be reached for them to be dealt with at a certain level, lethally.

00:46:16.580 So there's a huge problem with deficit of orientation, deficit of experience, and also deficit of social

00:46:23.360 courtesy.

00:46:24.560 And those are, those are gigantic problems to overcome as a good person trying to learn

00:46:31.220 self-defense at a, at a highly violent level and try to match what's going to come at them someday.

00:46:38.120 Those are the problems that I think instructors should be trying to solve, not just getting people to shoot fast.

00:46:44.760 I think that's the last thing that they should learn.

00:46:47.360 The first thing they should learn is the decision to shoot and then learn how to shoot well.

00:46:52.320 So I prioritize decision-making and, you know, in the last several years, my class has devolved into

00:46:58.140 very concentrated force-on-force simunition UTM training away from a broad scope of like, you know,

00:47:08.220 square range skills and live fire skills and, you know, this and that and some combatives and all this.

00:47:13.300 And I'm like, all right, let's go down to the very, you know, basics of making decisions in

00:47:19.800 tough situations and putting people in hard situations.

00:47:23.420 And one of the unique things about my classes that I would do when I did the force-on-force

00:47:27.480 training was I would make, I didn't bring professional role players in, I would make the

00:47:33.620 students play all of the roles.

00:47:35.160 So at any point in the class, you could be a good guy, you could be an armed bystander,

00:47:39.800 an unarmed bystander, you could be an observer, or you could also be the bad guy.

00:47:45.980 And one of the things I wanted them to do was be able to see the perspective of the bad guy

00:47:51.960 entering the situation, trying to accomplish a goal and look at all the problems he has to solve

00:47:56.980 because he has problems too.

00:47:58.440 He has an orientation problem.

00:47:59.880 He has confidence problems.

00:48:01.300 He has analysis and synthesis that has to take place.

00:48:04.560 It's not just as simple as walking in and robbing somebody.

00:48:07.080 I think that people have pushed this narrative that the wolf is at the door and is vicious

00:48:13.900 and they don't think like you and it couldn't be farther from the truth.

00:48:17.400 We all have the same exact processes that take place and being able to see it from that other

00:48:23.160 side, that other perspective gives you that insight to how to get into that, like how they

00:48:28.640 like to say, get into their loop and disrupt it, right?

00:48:31.060 So you're getting into that mindset and seeing the problems he has to solve so that you can

00:48:36.680 create those problems or manipulate those problems to your benefit and against his.

00:48:41.740 I think that's the biggest thing that we can accomplish there.

00:48:44.880 Okay.

00:48:45.080 Yeah.

00:48:45.280 So you're big on simulation training.

00:48:47.520 So at least you're getting a little bit of a feel of what an actual violent encounter

00:48:51.720 is like, you know, rather than just doing more of a kind of scripted training.

00:48:55.740 And I'd like to talk more about the kind of training you recommend in a bit, but you mentioned

00:49:00.520 earlier the idea of having a mission.

00:49:02.680 Can you talk about what it means to have a mission and what part does that play in creating

00:49:06.840 an effective orientation?

00:49:09.540 Mission is the most important thing that needs to be established when you embark on a journey

00:49:15.800 of self-defense and carrying a weapon and things like that.

00:49:18.600 If you're not clear with yourself about what your actual mission is, then you will not be

00:49:23.740 able to train properly, equip properly, or conduct yourself properly in stressful situations

00:49:29.300 because you don't have the proper boundaries and parameters defined.

00:49:34.240 A mission defines your boundaries, parameters.

00:49:36.360 It defines what you're willing to fight and die for.

00:49:38.940 It defines what is legal, what you're allowed to do, who you're allowed to do it to.

00:49:44.040 For example, a civilian that's carrying a gun needs to understand the state they live in, 0.99

00:49:49.320 the laws for self-defense in the state they live in.

00:49:51.960 Is there a duty to retreat?

00:49:53.960 Is there not a duty to retreat?

00:49:55.560 Is there a stand your ground?

00:49:57.420 Is there a castle doctrine?

00:49:59.240 All these things need to be understood in the mission because if your mission is not in

00:50:03.900 line with the external boundaries with the laws and where you live or the use of force

00:50:09.360 policies with the agency that you work in, then your actions and your training and your

00:50:13.800 equipment are going to vary outside of those allowed parameters and you're going to get

00:50:18.160 yourself in trouble there.

00:50:19.880 So I think that understanding how that works and where your mission is at first puts you

00:50:28.640 in line with the rest of the things that come after that.

00:50:31.860 And that is the most important thing to really consider.

00:50:36.300 If you don't have...

00:50:37.220 A lot of times I would start classes when I used to do live fire classes.

00:50:40.600 I'd say, you're carrying a gun.

00:50:42.740 You want to defend yourself, your family.

00:50:44.380 So what's your mission?

00:50:45.240 And most people would say, it's because I want to make sure I make it home and my family

00:50:50.800 makes it home so we can live our life together.

00:50:53.120 And that's a good mission.

00:50:53.880 I like it.

00:50:54.900 And then I put up a scenario where you walk into a gas station and the bad guy's got a

00:51:01.280 gun to the clerk's face and he hasn't seen you yet.

00:51:04.200 And you can make the decision to take the shot or you can step outside and call the police

00:51:08.260 and go home.

00:51:09.480 And a lot of people would say, I'm taking the shot.

00:51:11.280 And I say, all right, let's examine that for a minute.

00:51:14.160 If you got out of there and got in your car and called the police and went home, would

00:51:19.520 you accomplish your mission of getting yourself home and make sure you and your family make

00:51:23.440 it home safe?

00:51:24.380 Yes, you would have accomplished your mission.

00:51:26.220 If you went in and got into that fight and you got shot by the clerk because your gun jammed

00:51:32.060 or you slipped on some water or whatever could happen in violence and you die, did you

00:51:37.160 fail at that mission of making home and taking care of your family?

00:51:39.840 Yes, you fail.

00:51:40.960 So what is your real mission?

00:51:43.480 Now, I'm not downing people if they say they want to jump into fights and protect people

00:51:48.520 wherever they go.

00:51:49.740 That's fine.

00:51:50.640 But just state that mission clearly to yourself and to your family and then train for that

00:51:55.380 mission.

00:51:56.020 Don't tell yourself you're only in it for yourself and your family if you're going to

00:51:59.820 jump in and defend whoever else is out there around you.

00:52:02.420 And vice versa, don't say that you're going to jump in wherever you can and then you don't

00:52:10.060 protect your own family when you need to, right?

00:52:12.980 So having your mission stated is the way to get all of that squared away.

00:52:18.780 And I think that's going to attack the root of that initial problem.

00:52:22.520 How should understanding the orientation of a criminal, understand the orientation of just

00:52:28.520 a regular good guy who just wants to get home to their family and take care of their family?

00:52:32.700 How do you think that should change their approach to self-defense once they have that

00:52:36.240 understanding?

00:52:37.620 I think it's going to give them a more realistic perspective of who they might be dealing with.

00:52:42.240 And that's very, very important because I don't think that a lot of people have a realistic

00:52:47.700 sense of who their opponent might be.

00:52:49.740 And one of the things that I encourage people to do is spend some time watching death row

00:52:58.280 interviews and there's just countless shows on criminals and talking to, especially murderers

00:53:06.060 and serial murderers and things like that.

00:53:08.780 And just get a glimpse of what the mindset is in some of these people and their philosophies

00:53:15.840 and their viewpoints and how they just have zero valuation of human life for certain people.

00:53:22.500 And certain people meaning innocent people that they don't know.

00:53:25.640 They just do not value your life at all.

00:53:28.340 They don't value your kid's life.

00:53:29.780 They don't value your parents' life.

00:53:31.940 They do not value you.

00:53:34.680 And so understanding that is going to give you a better realistic viewpoint of the level of

00:53:43.320 threat you could be facing.

00:53:44.300 Also understanding the level of violence these people have experienced and how many times

00:53:49.120 they've been involved in violence and you may never have been in a real fight in your

00:53:53.120 life.

00:53:54.500 And so you're going up against it.

00:53:56.060 It's like going into an MMA ring with someone who has not only trained, but has a hundred fights

00:54:01.140 under their belt.

00:54:01.980 And you've, you know, went to a couple of eight hour classes.

00:54:05.920 It's, it's just ridiculous to think that, right?

00:54:08.680 So it's the same thing.

00:54:10.200 You have to get a realistic view of this to understand, okay, this is what I'm up against

00:54:14.940 and then establish your mission.

00:54:18.420 And with those two pieces of information, now you can go and put together a proper gear

00:54:23.820 and equipment acquisition protocol and a proper training protocol that are going to help you

00:54:29.820 address that problem better.

00:54:31.160 Because if you don't do those two things first, then everything you do after that is just your

00:54:37.020 wing in it.

00:54:38.160 Yeah.

00:54:38.200 Let's talk more about that training protocol.

00:54:40.380 Basically what we talked about today is that when your OODA loop is going up against the

00:54:45.160 OODA loop of a criminal, the criminal has certain advantages while you, the non-criminal has certain

00:54:51.740 disadvantages.

00:54:52.380 So I guess, I mean, the question is, you know, what can the average guy do to close that gap?

00:54:58.060 I mean, you've talked about the importance of simulated training and role play, which can

00:55:04.060 give you a closer approximation of what actual real world violence is like.

00:55:08.660 But beyond that, I mean, what do you recommend training wise?

00:55:12.280 Personally, I think that your, your individual strength and fitness is your most important component,

00:55:19.780 if that's available to you.

00:55:21.280 Now, if you're handicapped or you have some type of a disability that prohibits that, then

00:55:27.460 you, you have to recognize that deficit and go harder on the other elements like weaponry

00:55:31.580 and things like that, because that's a fallback.

00:55:34.480 That's not the go-to, but most people put that as a go-to first.

00:55:38.240 And I'm telling you that, for example, you know, we referenced me being a strength coach.

00:55:42.560 I run a, an online coaching program and I have several, you know, clients that are either

00:55:48.180 competitive in some sport or another, or they're just, you know, they want to, they're training

00:55:53.700 self-defense.

00:55:54.320 They just want to be stronger and better.

00:55:56.560 And for me, that's also something that was born out of prison.

00:56:00.000 I was fortunate enough to land in prison during a time when they still had free weights and

00:56:04.540 they still had a weight pile.

00:56:05.660 It was an amazing experience.

00:56:07.500 I'm certainly glad I got to experience it.

00:56:09.340 There's nothing in the world like the aggression of a prison weight pile.

00:56:14.540 It's a very, very unique experience that you cannot duplicate.

00:56:18.540 And I lived on that pile for the whole time that the weights were still in there.

00:56:23.220 And that's where I learned.

00:56:24.200 And this was at a time when, um, this was the early nineties and I was probably about 30

00:56:28.780 miles away from where Louie Simmons was Westside Barbell.

00:56:32.120 And so at that time, Louie had a lot of like very questionable characters coming through

00:56:37.600 that gym and, um, some of those same guys were coming through the prisons and stuff and

00:56:41.760 the information was just filtering out.

00:56:44.180 And so I learned very quickly, I went from being 130 pound kid going into prison to hitting

00:56:52.580 about, I peaked out about 200 pounds within the first two years.

00:56:57.120 And I was very significantly different.

00:56:59.340 I was different psychologically and I was different physically.

00:57:02.840 And I found life to be much easier, both in fighting and in avoiding fights when I, when

00:57:09.660 I became strong like that.

00:57:11.280 And it taught me a very, very important lesson about strength and its importance to survival.

00:57:17.380 Also, there's a difference between training in an atmosphere like that and training out

00:57:23.840 here on the streets.

00:57:25.440 Most people go to the gym here, they're trying to look good to attract, you know, a mate,

00:57:29.920 or they just want to, you know, be jacked and intimidate people or just want to look cool

00:57:34.020 on Instagram or whatever their motivation is.

00:57:36.200 And some people is for health, you know, but in there it's purely motivated by survival.

00:57:42.300 Like I need to get big, I need to get big fast and I need to be able to fight.

00:57:46.020 I just can't be a big dude just lunking around.

00:57:48.560 I have to be able to run, I have to have some cardio, I have to have some endurance, you

00:57:52.400 know?

00:57:52.980 And so the motivation for training is very different and that was ingrained in my mind.

00:57:57.340 And today I have my own gym at home and there's not a day that I step into my gym that

00:58:01.900 I don't slap back into that mindset that I was in, you know, you know, 27 years ago

00:58:08.080 on the prison yard weight pile.

00:58:10.280 And I'm, and I'm right back to where I was then, like, and this is, it's ingrained.

00:58:15.160 And so I think that if a person's going to train for this, if they're going to set themselves

00:58:20.540 up to be prepared to deal with a self-defense situation, your first and most important thing

00:58:27.720 has to be your strength and fitness.

00:58:29.900 Not only will it help you avoid fights because you'll look more formidable and that's not

00:58:35.040 always a deterrent, but it does work in some cases.

00:58:40.080 But if you do actually have to fight, you're going to be mentally tougher because being willfully

00:58:45.900 uncomfortable underweights and pushing yourself in a, in a training program is a, is a very

00:58:50.960 difficult thing to do.

00:58:52.660 And it's going to cultivate mental toughness, no matter how you do it, you'll also be physically

00:58:57.340 stronger.

00:58:58.440 And so you'll be much more capable of handling someone when they get ahold of you.

00:59:03.360 And also too, the, the biggest threat to your life is the, is the, you know, heart failure

00:59:10.460 and, and the multiple diabetes and multiple, you know, diseases and things that happen that

00:59:16.400 are killing people by the hundreds of thousands because they're obese or out of shape or out

00:59:20.580 of weight, uh, are, you know, overweight, they get, you know, older and they, their muscles

00:59:25.140 atrophy, their, their skeleton begins to droop and sag and their joints become disaligned.

00:59:31.200 And like, everything is just based on the degradation of their strength and integrity.

00:59:36.080 And so in today's world where we have this virus and it's already been proven that viruses

00:59:41.660 of this nature, lean muscle mass is generally an indicator of how well you will handle it.

00:59:48.420 The higher lean muscle mass you have, the less severe the symptoms typically are.

00:59:52.500 And that's been found in studies in the last two years and before.

00:59:56.200 So it's just a general good idea and it cultivates the foundation for everything else.

01:00:02.200 A lot of guys will jump straight into BJJ and, you know, the problem I have with that is that

01:00:09.400 you're getting off the couch and you're going to do something that's great, but you're going

01:00:13.840 and putting loads on your joints and you haven't done anything to prepare those joints to handle

01:00:18.480 those loads.

01:00:19.100 And that's physiologically bad.

01:00:21.200 It just does not make sense from that, from that standpoint.

01:00:24.500 As a, as a bar balance strength coach, I like to, you know, say, okay, let's do some bodybuilding.

01:00:29.580 Let's do some volume work to build up the, the connective tissues, the ligaments, tendons,

01:00:35.620 the small musculature around the joints gets you strong in those areas before we start one

01:00:40.920 rep maxing, before we start BJJ, before we start all of those things.

01:00:44.560 And that's just the approach I like to take with it.

01:00:47.700 And then weapon skills, of course, is, it's a good, it's a good step.

01:00:52.840 If you're so inclined to use weapons or carry weapons, make sure that they are the type that

01:00:57.460 are approved for use in justified self-defense in your area and your state, and also pick

01:01:04.300 instructors who emphasize decision-making over flash.

01:01:10.380 That's the biggest piece of advice I could give you for weaponry.

01:01:13.180 But those would be the order I would put things in.

01:01:15.400 So you have your strength and your health and fitness, your compatives, and then your weaponry.

01:01:22.240 Okay.

01:01:22.280 I like that.

01:01:22.740 That's a good, good rubric to follow.

01:01:24.500 So, well, Varg, is there a, this has been a great conversation.

01:01:27.480 Is there some place people can go to learn more about your work?

01:01:30.000 Right now, my main website is just vargfreeborn.com.

01:01:33.460 And I don't have, like I said, I'm semi-retired from classes.

01:01:36.600 So I'm doing one-on-one work and I'm doing some strength coaching and some, some lectures,

01:01:43.320 some lectures here and there.

01:01:44.780 But if someone wants to do some work or they're interested in something, they can contact me

01:01:48.380 through that website and we could probably work something out for sure.

01:01:52.440 Fantastic.

01:01:52.740 Well, Varg Freeborn, thanks for your time.

01:01:53.800 It's been a pleasure.

01:01:54.760 All right.

01:01:55.040 Thank you.

01:01:56.440 My guest today was Varg Freeborn.

01:01:57.680 He's the author of Violence of Mind and Beyond Uta.

01:01:59.960 They're both available on amazon.com.

01:02:01.600 You can find more information about his work at his website, vargfreeborn.com.

01:02:04.840 Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash orientation, where you can find links to resources,

01:02:09.080 where you can delve deeper into this topic.

01:02:17.520 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM Podcast.

01:02:20.220 Make sure to check out our website at artofmanlius.com, where you can find our podcast archives,

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The Art of Manliness - February 23, 2022

Beyond OODA — Developing the Orientation for Conflict and Violence

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