Input on Current Project

[GJM]

.25 splits to the 3x5 is not a realistic objective.

[nycnoob]

I think people actually need, for the most part, far less technical shooting skill than we often think, not to say that people shouldn't train, it's just that most real world pistol fights just don't require that much marksmanship.

Perhaps, but I must confess that I bring a notebook to my practice sessions but NEVER actually write in it, because my scores on my drills are always worse then "they should be". Which is a round about way of saying that I really do not have a clear idea of my limits/capabilities even in non stressful practice situations.


It is really clear to me why there are so many defensive shootings where all the bullets miss.

[John Hearne]

I think people actually need, for the most part, far less technical shooting skill than we often think, not to say that people shouldn't train, it's just that most real world pistol fights just don't require that much marksmanship.

I think you're right, the actual shooting problem faced in most real-world fights is not that difficult when simulated on a square range with optimal lighting BUT....

A guy that barely passes that his agency's qual course but is able to bring 100% of that skill to the fight will win almost all of the time. I'd also say that a guy that shoots 95% but can only muster half of it in the moment is going to have problems. I think that most of us accept that some degradation in our performance is possible (I did not say inevitable) due to the complexity of and physiological responses to the situation.

One of the ways to make sure you have enough technical skill in the moment is to have a bit extra to spare. For years, I've said that you need a reserve of speed and a reserve of accuracy and you must be able to intuitively know how much of each to use to solve the problem. My sense of things is that it is easier to get on the gas pedal than the brakes for most people but what we need, more often than not, are the brakes.

For me, an ideal standard would be one that forces one to choose the right speed in a compressed time frame with minimal warning of what that threshold is. Barring that, a standard that forces one to transition between the gas and the brakes is pretty good. I think that is why the FAST fascinates me. For firing 18 rounds (3 times, averaging the results) I think you get a lot of feedback on someone's technical skill.

(For those that don't know Ken's Head Shot Standards they require three targets at 5 yards. The shooter fires a single head shot to each target three times, left to right, right to left, and then center first using a different ready position for each string. There is a par time of 1.5 seconds. Passing is 7/9 rounds in the head box of an IDPA/USPSA target. This is what Ken thinks is good enough - what do you think?)

[Dagga Boy]

John,
I'm betting this will be an after-hours roundtable discussion in Memphis.
I'm very interested to see where this takes you.

Ya Think.....

John, remind me in Memphis to have a discussion on "The finished gunfighter".

[TheTrevor]

Perhaps, but I must confess that I bring a notebook to my practice sessions but NEVER actually write in it, because my scores on my drills are always worse then "they should be". Which is a round about way of saying that I really do not have a clear idea of my limits/capabilities even in non stressful practice situations.

I don't know if you've seen my training journals, but here's a hint: take pictures with your phone instead of taking notes. Take a pen or pencil and note the distance, round count, drill type, etc right there on the target next to the bullet holes before you snap a pic.

On DT in particular, a clear pic of the finished drill target is all the record-keeping you need.

[John Hearne]

At the risk of too much detail, let me ask another question but with some background.

The human mind has two distinct memory systems - motor programs exist in explicit or implicit memory. Explicit memory comparable to memorizing capital's of all the states. It is more "fragile" and requires a lot of mental resources to access. Implicit memory stores motor programs that are well practiced. For instance a person may be senile to the point that they don't know their own name but if they played the piano their whole life, placing them in front of the piano will get you music.

On a physical level in the brain, motor programs in implicit memory are fundamentally different and heavily myelinated. Skills that exist in implicit memory are commonly called "overlearned" in reference to the process needed to create them. Skills that exist in this realm are said to have "automaticity" as they can be executed without any conscious thought (if you've ever tap-rack-banged a revolver, this is why). Skills that are overlearned and exist in implicit memory are very robust and not as subject to degradation under stress than other less well learned programs.

With these understandings, what level of performance do you think is indicative of someone who has overlearned the technical shooting skills? (Do you think that passing Ken's Head Shot Standards is indicative of overlearned skills or something that can be pulled off by a shooter who is still actively thinking through the process of shooting?)

(Mandatory Disclaimer - I am talking about the skills themselves, not other very legitimate concerns such as target identification. Target ID is a distinct skill and should be overlearned as well)

[SouthNarc]

What level of performance do you think is indicative of someone who has overlearned the technical shooting skills?

John I think I understand your question so I'll give you an example from my course work.

From an encroachment problem to verbal interaction and then into an entanglement from a sucker punch.

Most that I see that escape the entanglement and can access the gun, rarely are able to get it into their eyeline despite having the range to do so. They bowl the gun and point shoot from a below eyeline, half hip-ish position.

So from my perspective, I would say that a first time ECQC-er who can do that, has his presentation "overlearned".

Am I tracking with you and is that an appropriate example?

[John Hearne]

Am I tracking with you and is that an appropriate example?

I think that is a perfect example and one hell of a way to test the existence of the skill set.

That particular skill test is very complex because you are dealing with a novel situation and the person is likely in an elevated state. In theory, someone who has overlearned skills may not do it correctly the first time but once they recover from the novelty of the situation, could execute the skill in subsequent iterations.

(FWIW, training has a lot of goals and the teaching of motor skills is probably third. Good training should remove novelty and create valid mental maps for the problems a student is likely to face. As a complete aside, the students level of physical fitness can potentially mitigate some of the degradation.)

While I hate to use the words, a rough way to think of "overlearned" is "subconsciously competent." There is the saying that amateurs practice until they get it right and professionals practice until they can't get it wrong. Skills practiced until they can't be done wrong are overlearned.

[SouthNarc]

That particular skill test is very complex because you are dealing with a novel situation and the person is likely in an elevated state. In theory, someone who has overlearned skills may not do it correctly the first time but once they recover from the novelty of the situation, could execute the skill in subsequent iterations.

(FWIW, training has a lot of goals and the teaching of motor skills is probably third. Good training should remove novelty and create valid mental maps for the problems a student is likely to face. As a complete aside, the students level of physical fitness can potentially mitigate some of the degradation.)

That correlates exactly with what I've seen in 10 years now of open enrollment ECQC. So at this point I've witnessed north of 5,000 simulated, near full contact, simunitions based entangled gunfights.

The elevated state from being in front of the class, wearing the helmet, and not knowing what's getting ready to happen already produces a notable effect. Combined with deviating from a playlist into dialogue and then sudden close violence has consistently resulted in dropped guns, people shooting themselves, other people watching and missing the intended target all together.

But....you know this from doing the course.

That's one of the reasons I'm so hyper aggressive about adding the interactivity component to firearms training.

If you can sit in and observe the Experiential Learning Lab that I'm doing at the conference this year I think your input would be valuable.

[Mr_White]

With these understandings, what level of performance do you think is indicative of someone who has overlearned the technical shooting skills? (Do you think that passing Ken's Head Shot Standards is indicative of overlearned skills or something that can be pulled off by a shooter who is still actively thinking through the process of shooting?)

This is a really imprecise and subjective statement, but for myself, when I was coming up in training and taking a bunch of classes, I feel like I was getting the material pretty ingrained at somewhere like ~40 hours in. That included the usual drawing, shooting, keeping the gun running, incorporating movement to all of that, post-shooting procedure, theoretical instruction in avoidance, threat ID and assessment, and basic personal tactics, and could apply those consistently and successfully in scenario/FOF training (which, while good and intense to a degree, was not as intense as ECQC. It still engendered stress though.)

That's where I would subjectively rate myself as 'competent' for however much or little that is worth. Now, that doesn't mean I was very highly skilled at shooting and gunhandling. But I think I had ingrained those skills, such as they were at the time, to a subconsciously functional level. And that's approximate to what I see in students now.

There's certainly a lot of room to be better than that, from mindset and mental preparation, to tactics, to technical skills with the gun. I've since gotten a lot better, and I've seen a lot of peers and students get a lot better too.

I also believe that one cannot separate these components as they are all inextricably interwined. Superior skill CAN lead to superior confidence. That confidence CAN lead to coolness - the word that sums up mindset/crisis management better than any other word. As long as one doesn't think that superior skills supplants all other considerations, I believe that superior skill brings a lot of advantages in a firearms related conflict.

I strongly agree with this. That's a point that speaks directly to me and I think a lot of other people, too.

I am never going to amass a significant amount of experience in armed, hostile, and ambiguous situations. If I do a good job at awareness and avoidance, and am not unlucky, I'll never get any experience beyond awareness and avoidance.

I deeply believe in confidence being a cornerstone of success in conflict. Confidence allows unhesitating action and the aggressive application of solutions in a timely manner. Confidence is a vital component of an effective tactician. As you say, confidence can quite literally lead to the coolness that is so important. That's something I've seen develop in students, at least within the bounds of the training environments that we use. Confidence based on experience is great, and probably the best kind. But real experience isn't the only way to build confidence, and real experience won't be available to everyone. Confidence can also be built through questing for ever-higher levels of technical skill, through mental preparation, through the simulated experience created in scenario/FOF training, etc.

I think it is enormously counterproductive to spend time and energy wringing our civilian hands at the fact that we don't have actual, real experience.

For those of us who won't ever amass real experience, I think it is that much more important and productive for us to avail ourselves of what we can - mental preparation, simulated experience, and a high level of technical skill, to build a (rooted in worthy preparation) level of confidence that increases our likelihood of prevailing.

Finally, I am also interested in the difficult question of what is "good enough" to allow you to focus on other skill sets. For instance, if I can consistently shoot a sub-6.0 second FAST, do I stop worrying about pistols, beyond sustainment of that level, and worry about fitness or empty hands or shotguns or rifles or whatever?

To me, this is a very large and complex question.

There's a good argument to be made for acquiring the broadest array of basic competencies rather than concerning ourselves with driving toward a particularly high level of skill in any one area. In that way, whatever phase/segment/modality the fight is currently occupying, we are not unskilled and don't just straight up lose at that point out of total incompetency.

However, to quote TLG, 'without enjoyment, there is no mastery.' I find great enjoyment in pistol shooting, and that is the true driver at this point behind my continued efforts at mastery. I think that a really high level of skill at individual aspects of this puzzle can lead to additional capabilities that could become useful.

If a BJJ black belt can bring a fight to the ground grappling phase, they can then bring the very high level of skill they've built to bear, and stand a great chance at dominating.

If a highly skilled pistol shooter can get a fight to occur much outside of arms' reach, they should own it (from the technical perspective.)

The problem with seeking great breadth is that mastery of each component discipline (stand-up, vertical grappling, ground grappling, knife, pistol, and the connective tissue to fluidly switch between all of them as appropriate) is all by itself nearly a lifetime study. Maybe a really dedicated person with a lot of time and resources might end up a true master of two component disciplines. Three, I don't know. But I find it hard to believe that anyone is going to actually be a really high-level kickboxer, a BJJ black belt, equivalently skilled with a knife, and shoot a pistol at GM level or sub-4 FASTs or something. The necessity of tradeoffs is inherent. There are some people who are very good in several component disciplines. But I bet they are not truly world class in more than one or two, and maybe not in any. And this is all well outside what's going to be accomplished by anyone other than a truly dedicated and highly motivated practitioner with lots of resources.

So, I don't know the answer to your question, but for myself, I have gone the route of trying to get some semblance of well-roundedness, then focusing on one area for mastery as my time and resources allow. It could be that I never actually finish that quest for mastery and maybe never go on to even attempt to master anything else. It could be that all I'm going to have is a basic level of skill on the ground that hopefully keeps me from getting summarily creamed there, but if I can turn it into a pistol fight...

EDIT TO ADD: I have some skepticism about the USPSA ratings for real-world skill evaluation. The more I study, the more I like bullseye based tests that require reasonable time pressure like The Test. Fights are rarely won by 0.10 second but the ability to put bullets in a 5.25" circle at reasonable speeds can be decisive.

I mean this respectfully and am interested either in any data or subjective answer you can give: how do you know .10 seconds rarely makes a difference? I'm not saying it does frequently make a difference because I really don't know. I tend to think that whatever instances do occur where a small amount of time made a difference may be hard to discern and thus invisible to us, but I'm not so sure that they don't exist. It's easy to measure shot placement after the fact, but much harder to observe the time frames involved, and pretty much impossible to know what would have happened if a given participant were just a little faster or slower. I'm just interested in why you think what you think.

I personally feel like USPSA rankings are pretty meaningful when it comes to technical skill with the pistol used, despite the issues of the classification system. USPSA is about accuracy at speed. I know a bunch of people who shoot USPSA (mostly Production shooters) with a gun and holster that is at least close to what they actually carry. I think those people, as long as they don't fail on one of the other ingredients - awareness, tactics, mindset, etc. - are going to do particularly well with the gunhandling and shooting aspects of the equation. I'd really, really not want any of those people trying to shoot me with a pistol. Even less than I want other people to shoot at me with a pistol. Especially with a pistol like the one they use in competition. Perish the thought if it's actually the exact same gun and rig they have used repeatedly under a degree of pressure and stress to address difficult technical problems in competition.

.25 splits to the 3x5 is not a realistic objective.

Sure it is. Dave Sevigny hits a .26 split to the 3x5 on his official record FAST runs. Come on, dare to dream! I'd say it could become a worthy objective at some point in the journey.