The Decision Making Loop and Response Training

Sensei Ryan Nicholls here, owner of, and head instructor at RKD Martial Arts, welcome to my Blog, Martial Arts Perth.

I wanted to look at the decision making process, commonly known as the OODA loop. In any given situation our brain goes through a number of steps in order to formulate our response to that situation. This decision process is an ongoing loop as each new piece of information requires us to go through the decision cycle again. Understanding how the brain processes information is a key point in self defence. If you understand the decision making process you can use it against your attacker, as at any moment in a self defence situation your attacker is going through the same decision process.

The Decision Cycle is known as “Boyd's Cycle” or the OODA loop. Colonel John Boyd, a US Air Force pilot and military strategist identified that combat is essentially a time based problem, and that those who could complete the cycle fastest in the constantly changing circumstances of a battle would usually gain a tactical advantage. There are four steps in the OODA loop – observation, orientation, decision, and action. These steps aren't a new concept and have been known by various things when discussed by various people, but OODA is the generally accepted standard.

Observation – this phase is where the brain gathers information. It sees your opponent, you in relation to your opponent, and the surrounding environment.

Orientation – because the brain can only process so much information at one time, it can't make a decision based on constant stimulation and must choose a moment in time on which to make a decision. Orientation is that moment in time, and represents the interpretation of the data gathered during the observation phase.

Decision – Exactly as it sounds, this point is where the brain chooses a response to the stimulation received.

Action – the final part of the OODA loop, action represents the brain giving the body a command, and the body acting on that command.

Not all stimulation is seen

While OODA is the generally accepted standard, when talking self defence I prefer to change the first two phases to Stimulation and Interpretation, as I believe these terms better explain the decision cycle in a self defence situation. I prefer stimulation because not everything in self defence relies on you being able to see and observe in order to gather information. An attack from behind may be preceded by footsteps that we hear (auditory stimulation) or failing that, our first indication of an assault may be the feeling of someone's arm around our neck (tactile stimulation). So rather than our input merely being observation, it may be any one of our senses, or any combination of our senses that provides the initial sensation that stimulates our nervous system and provides the necessary input against which we must make a decision. As a result, I refer to the decision making process as SIDA, not OODA.

While on the subject of stimulation I want to add one other sensory perception into our stimulation bunch and that is of our sixth sense. The sixth sense; often called ESP or Extra Sensory Perception; is a cue that isn't received through the five known senses of sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch. ESP is known by many names – gut instinct, gut feel, women's intuition, psychic perception, and much has been written and researched over whether or not it actually exists. Reading over numerous accounts of violent crime you will see one common theme – the victim sensed or felt that something wasn't right before it happened but chose to ignore this feeling, telling themselves that they were just being paranoid.

I'm not going to debate whether ESP exists or not but I will say this – if you feel that something is wrong, then something is probably wrong; do not wait for that feeling to be proven right. Treat any feeling as if it were fact and act upon it immediately. I can not emphasise enough that self defence is about making the cautionary assumption, and this includes assuming that all gut feelings are correct.

Interpretation is fairly self explanatory as it more closely describes what the brain is doing with the sensory information received in the first step. Interpretation is where experience becomes paramount. The brain takes all of the sensory input and searches through everything it has seen and done in order to tell us exactly what is happening. If your brain has no experience against which it can provide reference, it can't provide any context. While it is different to the adrenaline fuelled fright response, people can experience a number of types of freezing associated with the decision cycle due to lack of experience or, as I like to refer to them, "WTF was that?" moments. In order for us to go through the decision cycle as fast as possible we need context. Context enables our brain to interpret the sensory information and provide us with detail with which we can make a decision. Without context our understanding of the situation is limited and our decision and subsequent action may be inadequate.

Experience provides your brain with reference points with which it can determine exactly what is happening. The more reference points you have the faster your brain can provide an interpretation from which you can make a decision. Without these experiential frames of reference, your brain cannot resolve the stimulation received and has no way of providing an interpretation from which to make a decision, and freezes until more stimulation is received. In a self defence situation, that additional stimulation is usually in the form of pain.

While most inexperienced people get stuck at the interpretation stage, most people with moderate amounts of experience get stuck at the decision phase. They understand what is happening, they're just not quite sure what they should do, or even worse, they know three things they could do and can't decide which one is right. This is another freezing point in the decision cycle.

The decision phase actually involves two stages: solution analysis and solution selection.

Solution analysis – in this step the brain takes all the parameters provided by the stimulation stage, the interpretation of what that means from the interpretation stage, and devises a number of solutions that could potentially solve the problem. This is also where experience can assist the decision making process because if we have experienced this situation before (and particularly if we have solved this situation before) we will have a much smaller number of potential solutions to choose from.

Solution selection – this is the actual decision, where the possible solutions that could solve the problem are assessed and one course of action is chosen.

Action is the final stage of the decision cycle. It is the execution of the technique chosen during the decision phase and is the step in the decision cycle that most martial arts and martial artists focus on. We train our punches so they are fast and powerful, our kicks so they are balanced and strong, and our blocks to be solid and always ready to protect us. We hone our techniques so they are fast and effective. Training action is useless if you never get to it. If you freeze at any of the three preceding phases of the decision cycle you will never get a chance to execute your perfected technique, or any technique for that matter. Because of this, it is in your best interest to ensure that response training is part of your training regime.

Repeating and refining technique is an important aspect of training to make it second nature, but it is only one part of the speed equation to make actions faster, response training is the other. Response training is how you train the complete decision making process. Rather than trying to execute a specific technique in a given position (from a predefined attack), response training requires the attack to be random and the response to be unscripted. For example, rather than having an attacker throw a cross punch and having the defender execute a defined response (a specific block, lock, throw etc, which is what we do in technique training), response training requires that the attack be random and the response from the defender be spontaneous. This trains your brain for random stimulation, interpretation, solution analysis, solution selection and decision action – in other words, the full SIDA process.

In early stages of response training the attack may be limited but still random (for example, hand techniques only) and the response can be limited as well (any throw). As your experience increases, the randomness of the attacks should be increased too, until ultimately, there are no limits on what the attack could be or how it can be initiated.

Now in response training it doesn't matter that you can't remember the name of the technique immediately or even if you remember it at all! The attacker and defender aren't characters in a video game who must call out the name of the technique as they execute it! What matters is that you can execute a successful technique when you need it. Be aware in any of your training what it is you are training. Perfect technique with poor response will render the technique ineffective as will poor technique with a lightning fast response. Ensure that you train technique as well as response – both are necessary in a self defence situation.

If we look at an example we can demonstrate the full SIDA loop in relation to self defence in action.

1. While walking down the street late one night I see a man 10 metres ahead reach into his jacket. As he pulls out an object I see it reflect some light from the street light (stimulation)
2. My brain thinks, “that is a weapon” (interpretation)
3. My brain says I can stand and fight or I can run, and decides running back the way I came is the best solution (decision)
4. I run as fast as I can (action)

If you look at the example of the SIDA loop, it clearly indicates a situation where a decision was made on incomplete information. In that situation I saw the flash of light off an object. What that object was was unknown, so the decision I made could have been completely unjustified, or it may well have saved my life. All I saw in that example was a light flashing off of something and I erred on the side of caution and interpreted that to mean it was a weapon. It could very well have been a mobile phone or a cigarette case, which made my subsequent action over the top. However, if that reflection had been off of a gun or a knife then that action was the best thing I could have done. Self defence is about making the cautionary assumption – it is always better to assume hostile intent and be prepared for it than it is to assume passive intent and have to react when hostile intent becomes apparent.

Lastly, on the subject of action and reaction there is a saying that states that 'action is always faster than reaction'. The reason for this is simple, one person's action provides the stimulation for a second person to start the decision cycle, so a person who initiates an attack is on step four of the decision cycle (initiating their action) which triggers the second person to start step one (stimulation input). While the whole decision cycle may only take a fraction of a second, in a combat situation a fraction of a second can make all the difference. It is sometimes why a pre-emptive strike may very well be the best defensive action to initiate. As Colonel John Boyd identified, combat is a time based problem where a tactical advantage is available for the person who can complete their decision cycle fastest. A pre-emptive strike puts your opponent into a defensive state and means their brain has to react to your action, rather than the other way round, giving you the time advantage in this particular combat situation.

Thanks for reading – until next week make sure you subscribe to the blog, and if you have any subjects you would like to see covered, post them in the comments section below.