So we've talked about a number of different things today and all important tools as far as preparedness and, and being able to survive in a, in a austere environment. if you notice in my slides, I spent a lot of time talking about attitude and awareness. and, and that being the most important tool that, that one has in in their path. if you have the right attitude and you find yourself aware of your surroundings and what's going on. You're going to be protected. You're going to enjoy life a whole lot more. if you panic, you're going to die. Pat, you actually were the person who introduced me to to this oh so many years ago. >>Long time ago. >>Long time ago. do you want to talk a little bit about awareness and maybe some >> Yeah, sure. Skills or games that people can play to kind of increase their awareness. >> Yeah, the first thing when talking about awareness, don't limit it to just being in a wilderness setting. awareness applies to all environments, whether it's urban, or you know, out here in the middle of the woods. it probably makes more sense, you know, being in a wilderness setting with some of the things we're going to say but awareness is awareness regardless of where you are. And in you know, the situations that Mike's talking disaster response and just being prepared it's, it's ultimately one of the most important things that you can know and learn about. what I mean specifically by awareness is, is basically a combination of using, utilizing all your senses. we tend in today's society to be very eye-dominant if you think about in a of course the day what senses as of, you know, hearing, sight Taste, touch and, all those, we've pretty much focused on sight, okay. sadly, you know, you don't have to sniff the wind anymore or listen intently for, you know, approaching animals or whatever, so we're, we're kind of limited. But, if you try to involve all those senses that is going to make you more aware of your environment. we'll, we'll kind of run through the various ones we'll start with vision or sight, and again, if you kind of compare what we do we have what's called tunnel vision. if you think about just looking through a pair of binoculars in the course of the day, whether you're on a computer screen, or television, or whatever you do, we tend to look straight at things one way to increase your awareness is to get out of that mindset and kind of to focus on something called wide-angle or splatter vision. it's basically looking out on a landscape and instead of focusing, like you're looking through binoculars. Kind of take in a more peripheral view of the environment. if I'm looking at these trees here most people would look just at the tree, the trunk, the branches. Look at the other, the negative space in between there. that's the spot where you're likely to find, you know birds, wildlife and different things like that so it's a matter of just kind of tricking the brain into, into looking a little closer into things and holistic view as opposed to just a straight on tunnel vision view of things. So any activity that you can do to kind of increase that. even some sports, are very in tuned with that wide angle vision or that periferal vision, if you think about basketball, okay. You're bouncing that basketball, well you got other people coming at you from all different sides, so you just naturally slip into wide angle vision. so lot of sports, you know can kind of simulate that or stimulate that a little bit. but just being aware of that when you're, when you're outside. And trying to look, you know, in those places you don't normally look will be will be a big help in, in kind of promoting that a different type of vision. >> One one exercise I do with my class actually, is I'll have everybody stand up and Put their arms out, straight out a 180 degrees, and usually even have them start a little bit behind them. And then I have them just look ahead, relax their eyes a little bit. Start wiggling their fingers and move their hands up and stop when they can see them. I can see my fingers move right now. And that's a 180 degrees. Most people don't, don't realize that we, if we relax our eyes and pay attention to that periphery, we, we see 180 degrees, particularly motion. so what I'll do as an exercise sometimes, is I'll focus on something, as we normally do, I'll, I'll look off and I'll see a tree or Look at anything and then I'll relax my eyes and see the periphery, notice something in the periphery or out of that center area, focus on it and then go back to it. It bobs in and out of that kind of relaxed vision and focused vision in and out. And, and that can be really helpful. >> as far as increasing your sense of awareness and what you can see. >> Yeah, the big part with that and that's me and Mike both, we hit that real heavy with in search and rescue. You know, with new recruits and our team members is because when you slip into that type of vision you're much more In tune we're noticing movement, okay? Again getting back to tunnel vision, you're looking in a particular spot. You don't see what's going on beside you. If you get into what Mike just described there and you catch movement at all, you're going to detect that. And the, and the possibilities are you know, like Mike said 180 degrees. Some people even see a little behind them in the 200 degree range. So. That's pretty amazing, and again, it's just going to make you more aware of anything going on within that range, as opposed to straight in front of you. Okay, so that's, again a real good thing, to have, to make you more aware, in the case of search and rescue, it's obviously pretty important if you're trying to find clues. which will lead to you know, the person that you're looking for. Other activities we, we've kind of, done in that regard. sometimes we'll square off an area and throw a whole bunch of pennies down. And everybody has to kind of, go find every one of the pennies. And that kind of, forces them to kind of, look in detail. do the same thing with tracking. it's real easy in tracking to get into tunnel vision. And we try to stress you know, look holistically at, at the at the tracks in front of you. Not just at the detail, so that's another, another example of you know, how you can get trapped into tunnel vision. And a lot of times that can you know, not be a good outcome. if you don't kind of, take that wide angle view. So several ways like I said. But the biggest thing is kind of, just get away from what we normally do. Which is stare at computer screens and TV screens and. >> And get outside and you know, try to practice some of these things. >> One game that you played out here that I particularly enjoyed, and that was pipe cleaner men. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah [LAUGH]. >> So, taking pipe cleaners in different colors. Form them into little stick figures. >> Mm-hm. >> And then. Stick them along the trail, all within sight of the trail. And then, either forget about 'em, if you're the person that put them out there, or have other people, you know, you put them out there for other people. And then, walk down the trail, and see how many of the pipe cleaner men that that you see. as I recall, it was a, it seems pretty obvious, but it was a pretty challenging endeavor, actually, to find all the, all the pipe cleaner men. >> There's always a few that go missing. >> Yeah, there always are, and when you point 'em out at the end, it they're obvious, you know, and we just don't see 'em. >> Right. It's and again, just, it takes experience to get out there, and you know, do some of these things and get, get comfortable. you know in a different environment than we're used to. So, that's. >> two areas that, that, two other senses that, that I try to pay attention to. And that I find pretty true are being smell and hearing. Certainly touch and taste are, you know, right up there, but smell and hearing, you know, there's just an amazing amount of smells that are out there. You can smell the weather when it begins to change. There's a different smell on a summer day versus a winter day, that crisp, clean air >> you know, that's a pretty emotional, stance as well. >> Hmm >> And then hearing, paying attention to what we hear, not filtering it all out is pretty important. >> Hmm, yeah, some things you can do with those senses, as far as activities with snow, I mean, Especially we're coming into spring now. Spring, throughout the summer, well any season, but it's more pronounced in the spring and the summer when the plants come on. Just walk around, and a lot of times you won't need to even touch the plant. You can smell different plants, but if you just rub their leaves real gentle You can sometimes get a smell off of that, or the flowering part. Get really good at that, and then just, you can step back quite a distance and start picking up the smell of things, and then go find it. Isolate it, and again, that's one way to kind of zero in on the sense of smell, and then go prove that you found it. so, if you keep practicing those things you'll start to pick up a little more, you know real subtle stuff, and you'll be kind of surprised. Sadly, again, smell and hearing both we don't really need that much to survive today so you know those senses are still there, you just need to bring them back out. Give them a shot. the herrings another good one, simply just cup your hand behind your ear and then increase your hearing by about 10%. So a lot of times, faint sounds, you know, just, again, try to zero in on the sound and go find what made the sound. so we're getting into spring here, the birds are going to be going just crazy here, Lots of different species, this site here, just in the mornings is beautiful out here. You might here 20 different species of birds and they just chirp and chirp and chirp. zero in on 1, focus in on 1 and go find it. >>Uh, get close, identify it, and then, you know, zero in on another one. So those are all again, some good activities to heighten those senses of awareness. >> Even in the urban setting what I've found is I'll be walking through downtown Oakland which is where I work, and I try to pay attention to what I hear and what I feel, you know? so is there someone walking near? is there someone coming up behind me, and a hundred times, you know, a 99 times out of 100 it's, it's innocent, just people walking by, but knowing that they're there before. >> Uh-huh. >> They pass you up or whatever can be really helpful. there are predators in the city. so you want to get a feeling for people who walk to close to you or, or walking up behind you. so hearing is Pretty important. >> Yeah. >> Sense, in regards to that. >> the last two senses taste and touch are pretty much overlooked as far as having any benefits. But again, you're, you're kind of dealing with the same you know, connections being made in the brain by involving as many senses as you can. taste can be, you know, I'm not talking about necessarily going out nibbling on plants or grazing in the field necessarily, but just in a course of a day, the things you eat, just start, paying mindful attention to, you know, what goes in your mouth and chew it slowly. And you know, just try to concentrate on that a little bit and you know, get a feel for, for taste. Try different things. one problem in our culture is most foods contain sugar or salt. so, we, we don't get a whole lot of variety at times. You know because everything's kind of tainted with those things. But, you know, try different things, savor them, and then a really good one that will expand your horizons is getting into edible, wild plants. You know, and trying those things as is, without a lot of adulteration, you know, spices and salts, sugars, and things like that sense of touch is, is, is another one that's often overlooked. And usually we think of that as, sense of touch, just going around and touching things, but it's more of a full body experience. It's you know, kind of like you were referring to Mike on you know, colder days, and you know, just kind of sensing that change. >> so don't limit it to just going around and picking things up. But we, we are, have very good senses in our, in our hands especially. we've, we've done exercises, you know, with search and rescue. >> Mm-hm. >> We've blindfolded people and they've been able to determine just by putting their hand about an inch over objects. You know whether it was wood, or whether it was steel, or whether it was a rock, just by the heat being given off and the receptors in our hands. And it's just amazing the abilities we have that go unused. But there's places here in the park at the mineral springs where on a warm day You could be walking down this really damp ravine. It's really tight and it's small, and you can just, you can feel the change in temperature. it's like walking into air-conditioning, and it's caused by the dampness. And the fact that the canopy is really thick and shaded, it keeps the sun out. And then you go another 20, 30 feet and it's you know, 10, 15 degrees warmer so. think of sense of touches, like a full body, type experience. >> Almost taking that one step farther and a sense of place, a sense of where you are. We've done some exercises where one person is blind folded and somebody else leads them around. And they'll take them, Into a confined space. They won't be touching anything, but they'll be in a confined space, and stand there. And that will have a different feel to it than taking them and, and taking them to a open space, like a field, and standing there with just that, that space around them. it's different. You feel differently. And you know, going back to the, [COUGH] the walking through Oakland and, and, and people around you. You really do get to the point where you can feel someone's presence before you actually [CROSSTALK] see them or. >> Or hear them or, or anything else. So, awareness really increases a, a so many senses. >> Mm-hm. >> so many senses on a, on a conscious but also on a sub conscious level. Yeah and, and again, the big emphasis here is to involve all the senses. To help you get you know, a little better at being fully aware instead of just focusing on, on, on one. But there's obviously a lot more to awareness, but that's you know, kind of, the ground level stuff. If you kind of, get into things like that, you'll have a better understanding of, you know, what we were talking about. And it does go a whole lot deeper than that but that's a really good place to start with some of those activities and just being out and experience various environments. And again I want to emphasize this isn't just limited to a wilderness setting. You know as Mike explained, you know, this all applies to, you know, being in the large metropolitan areas. >> Right >> And everything in between. So . >> Right. >> It's all positive stuff, that's very beneficial. >> And it's not just a disaster setting, where, you're in an austere environment and, and you're just trying to survive, it's enjoying daily life. you know, the sky this morning was blue and it was beautiful. you know, Doak Field out here is one of the prettiest places I've seen on cold crisp mornings. >> Mm-hmm. Yep. >> And summer afternoons doesn't matter. So increasing your awareness really increases your, your appreciation for the good as well as the bad that's out there. >> Mm-hm. >> And around you. >> Yep. >> So. >> That's awareness 101. >> That's it. [LAUGH]
