Ju-Jitsu Dojo of Columbia's blog

We've talked about the OODA loop and how we train to shorten our reaction time and continually reset the attacker's. There's another phrase we sometimes use in class: Perceive, Assess, Respond.

In some scenarios - in the middle of a physical altercation - there isn't a lot of difference between the OODA loop and Perceive/Assess/Respond. The subtle difference seems to be that people use the OODA loop primarily to refer to what you do during an attack, whereas Perceive/Assess/Respond can be used both before and during.

Here are three recent stories from dojo members, illustrating how Perceive/Assess/Respond helped each of them decide what to do in the moment. >>> read more

First story

Some months ago, one of our dojo members mentioned that he'd gone out to lunch with co-workers. The conversation somehow turned to self defense, and it turned out that a female co-worker keeps pepper spray in her purse. Asked if she'd ever tried using it, her response was something along the lines of "no, how hard could it be?". >>> read more