Sure does help knowing when and where you’re gonna be hit, sir. — Heartbreak Ridge

One of the traps I find myself falling into is practicing for cut and dry scenarios.  The bad guy is always going to look like a bad guy.  I will always have situational awareness to the point where I know who is and who isn’t a bad guy.  All ‘surprises’ are predictable.  The target zone on the bad guy is easily recognized.

But it’s probably not going to be like that.  If I ever have to defend myself or the family, I’ll probably know the aggressor by his or her actions, but will I know which of the people around us are uninterested parties, which are associates of the aggressor who aren’t going to get involved, and which are more than willing to become part of the problem?  Will I even know about all of the people around me?

We can’t train or practice for every scenario.  We can prepare for the most probable situations, but we must guard against practicing in “God Mode”.  We can’t all afford force-on-force training, but having a buddy throw a dud round in our magazine or set up a shooting stage that we don’t know about beforehand is better than stationary cardboard with big bright targets pasted to them.

What do you all do to improve your training and keep it from becoming predictable?