Changing environment drills:

1 Take your rifle and LBE and crawl under your Jeep or whatever vehicles you may have. If you get stuck under, learn to remove and change the gear around you and learn to make your world more than your immediate environment (look around you and note the people and other things you can hear and see and smell from down under) Progress to pushing and rolling a partner under the vehicle while minding the environment and than going under and having a partner move around the vehicle as you strive to reach him with your partner. This will force you to think more than one step ahead and teach patience. Progress to breathing passes: you are supplied with X breaths to move under the vehicle with your kit or with your kit and partner and every time you take one breath away… Another way to learn to move well and to avoid getting exited is to have a partner tell you at random to hold your breath and complete the drill. Progress to closing your eyes and doing the drill while orienting toward a specific sound or scent ( a can with burning gasoline for example, I am sure you will explain this to your commander before you perform the drill) Progress to having people cover the exits from under the vehicle and you have to exit while they use their rifles with measure to push you back under.
2. Close your eyes and turn in place while holding your breath until you cannot hold your breath anymore. Compose yourself using swift intake through the nose and sharp but longer exhale through the mouth. Now have your partner direct you by sound to the vehicle where you need to enter and exit through the other side (or other exit if no other side exists) when you do this drill you focus on making the least amount of noise to learn to pay attention to every surface and to every joint not just in you but in your contact and surroundings. Progress to moving over your vehicle with your rifle and LBE and here have a partner throw light rocks at you so you learn about silhouette and it’s manipulation. Focus here first on what you see from different vantage points and than on what others can see and in your head know how you are visible from different angles.
3. Have the vehicle drive slowly and you move from opening to opening in your gear to dry fire at whatever you recognize. Use breath counting to stay within yourself and know when you tense up. Have the driver stop from time to time and you then freeze for 60 breaths to learn how you can clean your movement and how to better use the surroundings. Progress to working with eyes closed inside the vehicle with people outside throwing light rocks at you and you move within to dry fire at them. Have a few straps tied inside so a partner can pull on them as you move to allow you to avoid becoming fixed or ritualistic. Progress to having one partner sit in the vehicle and you take him out and look for wounds on him. Do this using a dropping breath count and add closed eyes and duct tape and strings and most of all stiffening and grabbing in your partner to learn to stay relaxed even if a contact is slightly burned or dazed and does not recognize you for the saint you are. Have your partner also grab you and refuse to let go and learn to dry fire and move under this situation and also to use your rifle as a stick or lever to pry him from you once you are not in direct fire.
4. Stand a few steps from your partner and throw your checked rifle from one to the other. First do this while standing and than while sitting and than laying down. Talk during the drill because many times people are separating movement and talking to two different actions and you need to clean this out so you can direct communicate and fire at the same time. Progress to throwing and catching using just one hand at a time (using just your left hand or just your right) and than to catching the rifle with the crooks of the body alone ( for example pressing the rifle with your right forearm to your chest as you move away from the straight trajectory throw) Progress to sticking a ripe piece of meat or something else of a disgusting nature to the end of the barrel and attacking first walking and than running your partners, Use your body to clean the path and your arms and legs to continue the path and adding to it (for example if there is a stick covered with grease stuck at the barrel I move to avoid it and as I turn with my entire body my shoulder rolls to allow my forearm to come up with no tension and my hand first slides and than adds downward movement to the underside of the barrel while my other forearm adds elevation to the soft part of his throat and he loses sight of his rifle which makes separating it from him all the easier, Remember out of sight is not out of range and a loaded rifle dropped can still kill or alert others of your lack or awareness)
5 Have a partner hide over a hill or a Long hut and have him remove a piece of the environment part by part. Monitor and pay attention to what you don’t see or hear. For example if a tree is lacking birds than perhaps someone is sitting under it, If a car has no cats sleeping on the hood than perhaps it is too hot or not at all, if a branch rustles you still have to breath. Focus on your breath and use this eye drill. Connect two things that fixed your attention like a tree and a rock and divide the distance between them by three. Dry fire to the two spots in between and than progress to going deeper 7 times between the spots or lines you just drew in your mind. Repeat the drill at night and note how light and shade create lines which do not exist. Use this drill and shifting your location and turning to clean yourself of this allusion and soon you will be more comfortable with less imaginary friends at night.
6 Do a backwards drill. Enter a vehicle with your head or legs first, get out of bed with your hands and than your legs and most importantly do a tactical drill from the end to the beginning. Start with you and your partners post making sure the contact is either secure ,broke contact or decomposing and move back from there to being just injured or out of bullets and work back and forth from there, descend to adding more distance and people to the contact side, descend to not really knowing which threat or where it or they are. Descent to sitting all in the vehicle with your gear on and one of you is napping and his rifle is secured with a strap to the vehicle and not free to work with, descent to having a partner not show up in time to the cleaning pit and learn to run the drill both ways learning to clean out the only linear thinking and perception. This very annoying way will teach you to avoid counting your cards with half a deck and to see rather than look.
7. Draw two lines about half a mile apart and have all your partners stand or sit at one line and one at a time you have to crawl roll drive or in any other way pass the distance unnoticed. You can use someone else’s clothes or vehicle, you can crawl in a ditch or climb and slither atop a long hut, you can start a small fire in an abandoned storage (safety comes first ..) and simply walk in place sight and learn to be inventive and creative in cleaning the ground. Use the sun to your advantage it is the biggest flashlight you will ever see and remember that noise travels slower than gossip so if someone not involved sees you rest assured it will pass forward in the same way a stray dog can alert an entire village even if it is not dining there.
8. Use artificial light or fire at night to turn off your eyes night vision and allow them to adjust again while you work to complete different tasks as tying ropes together or any of the drills that count for you. Repeat the drill a few times and learn to depend less on just on sense and to avoid tensing and freezing when your conditions change. Do the same drill with loud noise at the range or during one or more live fire drills but keep this to a minimum as too much exposure will damage your hearing sense.
9. Close your eyes and have a partner make a constant noise using a radio or anything else. Follow the noise with your rifle aim and whenever he stops the noise you get one breath time to open your eyes and dry fire at the partner or another target he may be introducing by his movement. Repeat this drill a few times and than change it to giving you one breath time by making a sound and than use your honesty to help your partner learn to move with less noise by dry firing at him only when he makes noise as he completes different tasks as firing himself at you (when you fire you let others know where you are to some extent and you need to recognize this) or clearing a wounded partner from the drill area.
10. Have a friend work to surprise you once or more a day for a week and than you do the same for him. work to keep breathing and to learn how you were not paying attention. Remember that surprise can account to locking the shower door from outside and waiting for you to become angry or simply jumping you during a debrief from a fire drill when you think things are over and it is time to catch on some much needed sleep.