Need the Hive Mind

[John Hearne]

I've been digging through this massive 130 page Canadian study as part of my ongoing research for my Performance Under Fire material. An interesting point I've picked up is that they distinguish between mastery and expertise. (Their words, not mine - let's not dicker about words). Expertise is a very, very high level of proficiency that is the result of arguably years of work and practice. Mastery is a lower level of competence but it is a form of competency.

For years, Randy Harris and I have said "you can either shoot or you can't." Some folks can shooter better/faster but there seems to be a minimal threshold in there somewhere. Examples we've used of being able to shoot are spinning a Farnam Rotator or passing the old Air Marshall qual. Being able to shoot seems to equal mastery for me.

This leads me to my question for the hive mind - where are these lines? What does mastery look like and what does expertise look like with a pistol. I'm thinking there's low level mastery, high level mastery, and expertise. What tests, standards, etc. do you place in each category? (I'm talking psycho-motor skills not tactics, mindset, etc. Standards that lend themselves to quantification.)

[gringop]

What the heck, I'll take a swing at that pinata.

Years ago, when I had more spare time I made Master in SSP and could do a sub 6 second FAST regularly. I passed the Defoor #1 test with ease. I dry fired a lot and practiced live fire at least once a week, usually more. I had reached a high level of Expertise through constant practice and training.

Now, I am lucky to practice live once month, do no dry fire and get to a match once a quarter. If I can get a sub 8 second FAST, I am thrilled.

I still have Mastery of the same mechanical skills, I can draw, shoot on the move, reload, do transitions, clear malfunctions, ect. without thinking to much about them BUT I can't do them at the same speed level as when I was constantly training.

So Mastery of skills is to the level of mechanical automaticity (right word???) but Expertise is automaticity plus constant/current training?

That's my SWAG for now. Looking forward to other contributions.

Gringop

[okie john]

Jeff Cooper used to say that an expert got the basics right every time, and that the master could shoot up to his piece, which he explained to be within the mechanical potential of whatever weapon he was using.

That seems to be the opposite of what the Canadians think, but I believe it's a useful distinction. An expert gets hits. The master thinks beyond hits.


Okie John

[peterb]

Maybe the difference between conscious competence and unconscious competence?

Both produce performance at a high level, but one requires full attention while the other allows some attention to other tasks.

[John Hearne]

Let me throw some example out:

Low Level Mastery
-Pass FAM Qual
-Spin Farnam Rotator in one magazine
-All in the 8 ring on the Hateful 8
-Dark Pin Run on Gabe White Standards
-7 Second FAST

High Level Mastery
-100% on Air Marshall Qual
-All in the black of the Hateful 8
-Turbo Pin on Gabe White Standards
-Sub 5.0 FAST

Expertise
-76/80 on Hateful 8
-Sub 4.5-4.0 on FAST

Expertise should be a very high level of performance, at the fringes of human capability. If GM is 95%, the expertise would be 97-98%.

[taadski]

Messing up the age-old well established definitional hierarchy of “expert” vs “master” will get you killed on the streets.

[Poconnor]

Why do people always try to come up with their own vocabulary ? What’s wrong with the four levels of competency?

[taadski]

This leads me to my question for the hive mind - where are these lines? What does mastery look like and what does expertise look like with a pistol. I'm thinking there's low level mastery, high level mastery, and expertise. What tests, standards, etc. do you place in each category? (I'm talking psycho-motor skills not tactics, mindset, etc. Standards that lend themselves to quantification.)

Seems like circling back to some of the automaticity discussions from a few years ago might be a good place to start looking. For example, Gabe’s chart comparing performance across a bunch of different standards and tests.

[fixer]

Does this issue of performance standards depend on a specific category? Like citizen, LEO, Military, competitive shooter?

[BN]

I think we had a thread on this a while back. Maybe Gabe has something.

I thought the levels were: Marksman, Sharpshooter, Expert, Master with Master the top level and expert/expertise below Master.

Why change something just to be different?