What Does Kung Fu Have to Do with a Tabletop Exercise? More than you’d think. Most tabletop exercises are treated like a one-time event: run the scenario, capture action items, move on. But real incident readiness isn’t built through documentation, it’s built through training. Drawing on lessons from lifelong martial arts training and real-world vCISO work, this session reframes tabletop exercises as a structured skill-building program, not a one-time test. Attendees will leave with a clear framework to rethink tabletop exercises as a structured skill-building program: developing fundamentals first, progressing through increasing complexity, using facilitation as coaching, and creating a culture where mistakes are treated as training data instead of personal failure. The result is a repeatable approach to exercises that improves decision quality, reduces chaos, and builds resilience that holds when the pressure is real.