Shooter wrote: It'd be cool to read about ideas others might have for working up some drills or two-person work for no other purpose than to explore a blind alley. What can it hurt?
I have some ideas for drills I can post if someone is willing to actually try them and report their findings.
Hey Shooter,
Your post elicited some thoughts in a random sort of way that may or may not be in line with where you're going, but I thought I'd throw them out there in case something relevant crops up.
One of the big skills in my mind for both awareness and having a nicer life is the practice of seeing people as they are and not as we project them to be. Things like personal status, respect, fears, etc. all play into the filters you mentioned, and it's important to realize that other people have them, too. Sometimes when we have conflict it's because one or both sides are unable to communicate (or sometimes even acknowledge) what their underlying human needs are from the interaction. I find that most of what happens really has very little to do with me, and by not taking things personally I am able to gracefully and with relatively little stress resolve situations that other people consider quite difficult. A big part of this is actually listening-- and that means not responding either internally or externally until we've heard that the other person has to communicate.
So to make it practical, the big one is just to really try and see and be genuine with people in day to day life, and that includes family, friends, spouses, strangers, and everyone. Maybe a progression of that would be talking to scary people. Scary people can be scary because they're dirty, dangerous, beautiful, powerful, smart, or whatever, so it doesn't necessarily have to entail physical risk, although a bit of risk to one's self-image would be nice.
Regular scenario training can work, too, but the de-escalation language has to move beyond the standard setting boundaries and cultivating witnesses to actually recognizing that this is a disturbed person and trying to help them in a small way one person to another (even if that's just calming them down for 5 seconds). I've dealt with enough angry people in real life that I was able to do this sort of thing in scenario training as the "good guy," but I imagine it would take a pretty good bad guy/bulletman type to make it really powerful for the general populace in running a training.
I believe this type of habit starts to allow someone to see through the bullshit that people project, and allows for clearer signals when something doesn't add up. Plus it develops the habit of being aware of people in general.
As far as general observation, one trick is to remember things in order. So if walking down an aisle in the grocery store, at the end of the aisle and without looking back, try to remember everything on the shelves starting from the other end of the aisle and going through sequentially. Or after a workout, try to remember everything you did in the order that you did it. Not so challenging for lifting weights, but maybe interesting for a round of sparring or push hands or application work or whatever.
For a team-building type activity, here's something from my theater days: Have a group of people stand in a circle, and start tossing a ball around the circle to each other randomly and without talking. After a while, add a ball. Then another ball. Continue and periodically add balls as long as the group is successful. Pretty soon you get to where you have more balls than people and can keep up a good, fast pace. It's an interesting group dynamic, because there's a lot of unconscious communication that has to happen very quickly.
So those are all things that help to build the field and some underlying skills for the more esoteric stuff, but are not esoteric in and of themselves.