Okay, so I've been pondering a question lately and my initial attempts at doing research on this topic haven't been really good. I'll try to lay out the problem to situate the question in the subject.
We know fairly definitively that stress, of any sort, can and does negatively impact marksmanship. We also know that historically, speed of shooting has often been less problematic in many high profile cases than the ability to actually hit stuff. It's also clear that there are still a very wide variety of thoughts and methodologies on creating combat-stress resilient marksmanship skill outside of raw, authentic experience. We know that there have been people going all the way back to the lever-action wild west days who have talked very much about "people who can shoot fast but can't hit anything," sometimes spoken by people who, in the same fight, were able to land accurate shots. We also know that many of these people have, throughout the years, appeared to be the exceptions rather than the rule. This appears to hold true (without doing tons of exhaustive research) across a very wide variety of extensively different marksmanship training methods.
Among these methods we have the shooting practices (largely hunting and rifle oriented) of the 19th century, into Rex Applegate and Bill Jordan, into the FBI school, into Modern Technique, CAR, Quick Kill, Russian, and IDPA/USPSA/IPSC developed techniques, Throughout this timeframe, it still appears that, on the whole, regardless of training, skill in stress-heavy marksmanship remains more an exception than a rule, particularly when testing under conditions that produce unpredictable stresses.
We also know that in the end, basic marksmanship, regardless of the techniques, is aiming to achieve one thing, the efficient holding and breaking of a shot while the gun is oriented in the right direction without disturbing or throwing that shot off target. The hard part appears to be actually achieving this result with any degree of repeatability under conditions that are unpredictably less than idea.
There are some open questions, however. One particular niggling problem for me is that it is not at all clear in cases of success, that we adequately understand what the fundamental causal factors in that success were. We can point to the observable facts that define success, which usually boils down to having hit the opposing target at least once (often no more than once) in the right spot (often very small). Sometimes this occurs before and sometimes after being shot. We can also point to observed behaviors that contradict some prevailing theories, perhaps of most import, that one will not use their sights. It seems clearly established that at the very least, it is possible to use one's sights in a combat marksmanship scenario with good effect. However, it is also clear that there are other cases where this was not the case and marksmanship was still achieved. Moreover, it is also not clear what the fundamental causal factors were that enabled effective marksmanship in that moment, and this last point is the most disturbing to me, and one that I'd like to look into more deeply.
Many, many of the arguments over marksmanship center around speed vs accuracy, or around sighted vs. unsighted fire, but these feel very superficial to me, because we can find examples of repeatable success if we look hard enough in all of the above combinations. Emphasis on any one of the various doctrines that arise out of such discussions doesn't appear to be sufficient to adequate address the issue of predictable causal impact on stress-heavy marksmanship performance.
We also have a clear point that various types of competition have been used by good marksman throughout the years, but it is also clear that this isn't necessarily a common factor, either. It's also clear that high performance in competition is not directly correlated with high performance in other areas, though it may be considered an improving factor to many, though it's hard to find data supporting this other than anecdotes. However, it's interesting to note that it seems that competition itself, rather than any specific method of competition is a stronger predictor (even if it is itself likely weak). That is, throughout the years, good marksman under stress have come from all manner of competitions, and not just "action shooting" ones.
Now, given this preamble, the question I'm trying to get at is good, solid research that has been done, or the closest that I can find to that, addressing the specific question of the actual fundamental causal factors in successful marksmanship (and I'm focusing specifically on marksmanship) within dynamically and unpredictably stressful situations. It seems that this is somewhat sparse or hard to find. It also seems to me that there are a few prevailing pop theories:
1. Stress and its factors are unavoidable on a chemical level, therefore, training should center around techniques, such as stances, sighting techniques, trigger and grip techniques, and the like designed to minimize the effects of such stress on marksmanship.
2. Stress and its effects are unavoidable, therefore, training should center around repetition of high precision techniques of marksmanship until adequate subconscious proficiency is acquired. An implicit assumption here is that it is not the techniques that mitigate stress, but the competency of executing the techniques that does.
3. Stress and its effects are situationally avoidable, therefore, training should center around situation-based scenarios designed to inoculate the practitioner against stress to enable specific scripts to be accessed without stress in those situations or situations like them.
4. Stress and its effects are generally avoidable, therefore, training should center around stress inoculation coupled with traditional marksmanship trained to adequate skill levels.
There are two big axes that are given here which aren't addressed in the normal debates. The first is whether or not stress can be eliminated or reduced or not. This is oriented around the proposal that perhaps the reason people due well in some situations and others don't, including in stressful situations, is simply that one of them is stressed, and the other isn't. You see this in competition as an experience factor, but also when you hear people commenting that they need to "settle down." How much of success in "stress" marksmanship can be accounted for simply by the successful marksman not being stressed, or being relatively less stressed than average?
The second is the question of repetition/competency vs. technical reconfiguration. In other words, how much of successful "stress" marksmanship can be accounted for by competency with a technique, no matter how unsuited to a stressful environment, versus the technique's suitability for execution under the effects of stress. There are some people, for instance, who advocate the changing of techniques (this goes beyond just shooting) under stressed environments under the claim that the more refined or precise movements are too unreliable to execute under stress, while there are others who advocate more theoretically optimal techniques be trained to a high degree of competency rather than altering the techniques.
It's also not clear that these two factors are independent. what effect does technique have on stress, for instance, and what effect does competency have on stress?
A third question is the issue of specificity vs. cross-domain transfer of skill. Some people are of the mind that the human cognitive capacity is inherently situational, and therefore, cross-domain transfer is almost fundamentally impossible. Under such a model, training for performance under stress needs to be conducted specifically and with targeted context. Others argue for a model that points to the flexibility of the human adaptability, and suggest that optimize for raw isolated performance followed by periods of adaptive practice. Both assume adaptation, but one assumes that you should train situationally, and the other assumes that you should train generally.
Most debates and research I've seen on this topic doesn't adequately address any of these three questions, particularly as they might be combined into stress marksmanship. As a few examples of problematic statements:
1. "Competition is a very good stress test, therefore, methods that work in competition are good enough." It's true that competition is initially stressful. However, most competitions are predictable and can be optimized for through both technique adaptation and repetition. Furthermore, I believe there is evidence to be had that continued exposure to competition would likely reduce stress levels experienced. Thus, it is not clear that competition is an adequate standard without further evidence.
2. "You won't see your sights," "you can train to use your sights," "you need to see what you need to see." None of these address the issues of degraded performance. Many people train to use their sights but then cannot adequately shoot. Many people evidently cannot see what they need to see when stressed.
Anyways, I'd appreciate any pointers anyone has to actual evidence or research that helps to address the issues of fundamental things that dictate successful marksmanship under these conditions as well as evidently sound and consistent approaches and methods for training to these factors.
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Originally Posted by revchuck38
