In nearly every ninja movie you’ve seen, some guy dressed all in black enters a room late at night (usually through the ceiling), murders someone in an elaborate or sneaky way, then slips away unnoticed. Either that, or the protagonist finds them in the act and heroically dispatches them (sometimes dozens of them, one at a time of course), saving the day against their evil.

The reality of ambush, however, and the actual “art” practiced by Ninjas (aka Shinobi) in feudal Japan, centers more around catching one’s victim unaware in order to do them harm. Sure, there were specialized tools such as poisoned spike rings and throwing stars, but the weapon was not as important as the practitioner’s developed ability to sneak up and attack during the time when it was least expected. Rules of engagement didn’t matter, either – the goal was simply to kill, honorably or not, which is why the Shinobi were tasked to do jobs that the Samurai warriors ethically could not.

Those who are out to do us harm will not, believe me, ascribe to the same rules of engagement that we do, and so it’s important to be prepared for what we would not allow ourselves to do, in case “what we wouldn’t do” is used against us. So how do we fight ambush, if it is by its very nature a surprise?

“I FEAR YOU ARE UNDERESTIMATING THE SNEAKINESS, SIR”

Taken in this light, it’s easy to think that avoiding ambush is as simple as constantly being aware of everything going on around you. But realistically, that’s simply not possible – in fact, constant hypervigilance can lead to “burnout” of your senses and awareness, actually making you less prepared to recognize an actual threat when it presents itself. The more you are looking for the ninja, the more you condition yourself to him not being there 99.9% of the time, and thus the more your brain positions itself to believe that they aren’t there, period, at any time.

So what’s the solution to this problem, then? After all, we can’t afford to miss the 0.1% of the time when the Shinobi of the criminal world are lurking in wait for us. Some of the answer lies in the concept of situational awareness – which, I would suggest, is far more useful as a concept when you talk about it not in terms of paying attention to every single thing around you constantly, but to that which is unusual or doesn’t “feel” right to you. By using your awareness to its full potential, but using it intelligently and in context, you reduce the number of “false positives” which train your brain that nothing will happen in a given scenario, and hone your responses to come into play when they will most be needed.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should walk into a totally unknown scenario with blinders on, but rather to be aware of how you’re interpreting what is going on around you, as well as what you think it might be. A key concept practiced by the Samurai (and other Zen practitioners through the modern day) surrounds the idea of mindfulness – a continuous, clear awareness of the present moment, unencumbered by our interpretations of what might be, with a focus on what is instead. When we do this, we remove our own ideas and projections about a given scenario, which can color our perception of it and therefore our response to it. You can see why this is useful for public safety, where some of the time even our dispatch doesn’t get a true picture of what’s going on, because nobody really knows what a call will turn out to be until it’s actually done and over with.

So, as you go about your daily role in public safety, be it in law enforcement, the fire service, or EMS, keep in mind the concept of “practical awareness” rather than “total awareness” – you should always be alert as to what’s going on around you, but not what might be going on around you. The more you base your awareness in reality, the better chance you have of catching what’s actually going on, especially when something like an ambush (by its nature a very unusual occurrence) is in progress.

The truth of the matter is that these events do stand out from the ordinary in ways that your subconscious often can and will warn you about… but only if its voice can be heard without being drowned out by your often overactive conscious mind’s input.

Sometimes, unfortunately, that warning system may not have enough to go on. In those circumstances, your efforts toward observation on a daily basis will help that conscious mind to kick itself into gear and respond appropriately to defend yourself and others from a very real, and very much increasing, threat to the safety of people who spend their lives responding to the ordinary, but for whom the unusual may prove deadly.

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Greg Bogosian is certified as a Reserve/Intermittent Police Officer by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and spent twelve years working as an EMT-Basic, including four years as a field EMT and dispatcher for the City of Boston EMS. He was additionally a member of a Federal medical disaster relief team for ten years, with experience responding to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the pre-deployment of resources for Hurricane Ike. Greg currently has a passion for educating public safety professionals about matters which impact their lives every day, and welcomes feedback and suggestions in the spirit of ensuring that best practices make it out there for all to benefit from.