TL/DR: IMO Situational Awareness can not be taught only learned.
From the video: "If your
experience prompts you to recognize a pattern and that pattern feels unsafe, leave."
That is situational awareness in a nutshell.
That is the most important thing the video had to say.
My wife and I go out to eat maybe once a year. When we do I don't insist on sitting with my back to the wall where I can see the entrance. What I do insist on is a table in the back as
far away from the entrance as I can get. I do that because my
experience has taught me that if there's any trouble it's going to be at the entrance and I want to be as far away from that as I can get.
I've made this analogy before. In the book
Band of Brothers it's discussed that the general consensus of
veteran members of easy company was they didn't bother to get to know the new guy's name until they'd been with the company for a couple of weeks. The same practice was common in Vietnam.
The reason for it is because new,
inexperienced troops make stupid mistakes and they die.
Before I leave this analogy I want to point out that the new guys and the veterans all had essentially equivalent training. The new guys and the veterans all had essentially equivalent knowledge that they were going to a combat zone (the
ultimate "bad neighborhood") and they all knew they were going to be in combat.
The difference between the FNG and the veteran was having
experience to recognize dangerous or developing dangerous situations.
I said this before and I will say it again you cannot teach somebody situational awareness. You cannot decide to increase or decrease your level of situational awareness. You can decide whether a given action (such as varying your route home) is prudent or unnecessary but I don't believe that you can make a conscious decision to be more or less situationally aware in any given situation at least not for any extended period of time.
I've made this analogy before and I'm absolutely convinced it's correct, situational awareness is like a radar detector. The majority of the time your radar detector is sitting on your dashboard doing its thing and you're paying it no attention, until it picks up signal and it beeps.
The majority of the time your "situational awareness" is sitting on your brain's dashboard doing its thing and you're not paying any attention to it until it picks up a signal that your experiences taught you is bad juju.
When I worked as a security guard the absolute worst part of my job, the thing that I hated the most was approaching an unknown vehicle. Especially approaching an unknown vehicle after dark. I only ever did it when I
had to and every time I did it my heart rate would go up. my respirations would go up, my pupils would dilate and my body would go into fight or flight.
But never once did my brain think to itself "Oh this is a dangerous situation I had better increase my situational awareness."
Am I the only one that looked at this scene in the video and thought to myself this woman has put herself in a perfect position to get knocked flat on her ass with her arms immobilized and no chance to defend herself?
Various edits to correct grammar, spelling and typos.