That Rhythm, Tho (Patreon)

I can't lie, the first time I heard the phrase "battle rhythm", this was where my mind went.

"Battle Rhythm" is a thing, and it actually has a pretty mundane (even dull) explanation: it is the synchronicity of movement that occurs during battle, battle planning, and staff operations during said battle. It represents a sort of orchestration of all the "moving parts" involved in events.

I hear the phrase "Battle Rhythm" the most at the Staff level, and usually in relation to how well a staff gets into a sort of predictable timetable of operations, with smooth hand-offs of tasks and duties to other staff members, and to their replacements during shift changes. But it really can be applied just about anywhere during an ongoing operation that develops it's own tempo.

When you know where everything is, where your counterparts are and what sorts of things they know and can handle, you develop a sense of comfort in your place of work and the expectations you have. That strange, hard-to-quantify sense of comfort and ease of familiarity with your work is something I jokingly refer to as "using the Force", since you just "let it flow through you and guide your actions".

Hopefully operations don't drag on for so long that a good sense of familiarity and established battle rhythm doesn't start to atrophy into a sense of complacency... because as any of us old GWOT fogeys can tell you, "complacency kills".

If you feel yourself slipping out of a well-choreographed battle rhythm and sliding into a sense of complacency, maybe get up and dance a little. Anything to shake off the cobwebs.