The Annoying Rightness of Bolke and Dobbs

[Dagga Boy]

Great thread and I'll just add my take away.

This is all about MINDSET.

If I'm wrong, remove me from this forum.

If you train to fight as if your life and the lives of your family and innocent bystanders depend on it, then you will not be chasing as fast as you kitteningly can do anything. Instead, you'll be chasing a method of guaranteeing your work at 100%.

Mindset is a third. If you don't have the basic marksmanship skills or have piss poor gun handling and crappy tactics, I don't care how good your mindset is, you will have problems. What I really take away from your post is "motivation". This is what drives Wayne and I in how we train. We train to the 100% goal for the type of encounters we are training to.

Trevor- interesting observation and keeping in mind this is on a course where you know ahead of time that you are getting. Imagine it as a surprise. You will definitely need a gear and focus change.

As far as what to do if it doesn't work. Keep working. The discipline will need to be to not kick the horse faster. We get students and even ourselves blow shots all the time. It is why we use that 100% goal...so we have trained to fix it and we know how to fix it. It is going to be a combination of sight focus and trigger press.

[BaiHu]

I agree with what you've been saying and I guess I need to clarify "mindset" into 2 types: Mindset and mindset. Big M is the mindset we use to control our training and Little m is the mindset we arrive at after proper training. Does that make sense?

[Dagga Boy]

I agree with what you've been saying and I guess I need to clarify "mindset" into 2 types: Mindset and mindset. Big M is the mindset we use to control our training and Little m is the mindset we arrive at after proper training. Does that make sense?

As long as it makes sense to you....

[BaiHu]

Some things are best articulated with my Italian hands

[Mike Pipes]

Warpedcamshaft,not Nyeti and not a dumb question.Shoot what is available as long as it is available,until something else becomes available. Clint Smith says when it hits the fan don't shoot faster shoot better....cya mike

[John Hearne]

On most of the lanes, the upper-left quadrant of that hostage head had been shot so much that the steel had actually been pounded back until its back corner curved back to touch the pop-up plate .... For me, this was a sobering reminder that there's a huge difference between making fast shots on a BG's briefly-visible head with no innocents at risk near/behind, vs doing so where driving the gun a little too far to the right in the transition meant a dead hostage.

I didn't mention it in my original post but one of the drills I ran on the simulator was a hostage situation. While it was only a two-dimensional problem, it was very challenging. You had a hostage taker very quickly moving around a hostage. The head would be exposed for just a brief portion of a second and then it was gone. It was arguably, one of the more complex shooting problems I've seen. I was less worried about my hits in the scenario that I first mentioned because I was actually able to hit the hostage taker in this scenario several times - something that few had done. It was very much like Awerbuck's Mirage target which is no cake walk.

Again, doing something on a well-lit, flat range in a chaos free environment is very different from the real world.

[Dagga Boy]

This sort of falls in with our thoughts on speed. The natural reaction in a shooting when things are not going your way is to go faster (kicking the horse). That is not the way to fix it. Trust me, part of your brain is screaming "hurry". What is hard is getting your rational side of the brain to override the panic. It is why we are so fixated on wiring up the 100% speed as what you get the most repetitions on so that in total chaos and your internal brain fight, the solution is readily available and well practiced. I know it always sounds illogical to not be always working to be a fast as possible, but we find that in total chaos mixed with fear and trying to make a "correct" legal, moral and ethical decision, may not be a good time to be working at your maximum controlled environment speed. All of a sudden that 70 mph 100% speed is starting to look like a good thing.

[TheTrevor]

In all seriousness, I'm reminded of Will Smith's shooting test in the original Men In Black. Dudes are blazing away at everything in sight; Smith watches, evaluates, and fires one perfect unhurried shot with full articulation of his decision afterwards. (Ignore the complete lack of muzzle discipline...)



The only thing missing is a brief partial target exposure...

[GJM]

This sort of falls in with our thoughts on speed. The natural reaction in a shooting when things are not going your way is to go faster (kicking the horse). That is not the way to fix it. Trust me, part of your brain is screaming "hurry". What is hard is getting your rational side of the brain to override the panic. It is why we are so fixated on wiring up the 100% speed as what you get the most repetitions on so that in total chaos and your internal brain fight, the solution is readily available and well practiced. I know it always sounds illogical to not be always working to be a fast as possible, but we find that in total chaos mixed with fear and trying to make a "correct" legal, moral and ethical decision, may not be a good time to be working at your maximum controlled environment speed. All of a sudden that 70 mph 100% speed is starting to look like a good thing.

This makes no sense to me. First, I have a problem with continually referring to "100 percent speed," when I believe you really mean 90 something percent speed. Second, I don't know any thoughtful person that would expect to perform at their maximum rate/personal record speed in a match, out hunting, or in a life or death scenario. Doing so suggests they know nothing about their ability to perform on demand, as opposed to hoping for their warmed up under ideal conditions without stress ability. Third, I absolutely don't get doing the bulk of your practice at what you refer to as "100 percent speed," and I refer to as "on demand performance" speed. Why wouldn't you want to practice harder, increasing your technical skills, so you only need to perform at 50, 60 or whatever percent of your ability, allowing you the time to shoot even more carefully, rather than have to execute at a high percentage of what you routinely practice?

[Mr_White]

Been following the thread but away from a proper keyboard for a few days.

There's a lot to agree with here. There's also some confusion. I'm trying not to respond to everything, but rather focus on the parts I have strong agreement and disagreement with.

I teach to a goal of 100% guaranteed hits-period.

our students held to a 100% standard of hits in a fist size group.

We strive to give them the tools to work at that 100% standard

FOR 100% hits.

The reality is not to get too wrapped up in the time, but wrap around super clean, efficient and consistent performance where it is a 100% remote control response you can perform on demand with little thought.

Darryl, let's talk about 100 percent.

Your taking this too literally.

Darryl, are you kidding me? You are the one who has said “100%” over and over, in this thread and many others. Then when questioned about that 100% figure, you say you are being taken too literally and don't actually mean 100%. That kind of imprecise statement is why there is confusion.

We want our people to absolutely dominate both the shooting part and the decision making portion. Not "survive", not "do okay under the circumstances", or have it come down to a battle of "experts" in court as to if you are going to prison or not. Nope, we strive for total domination and a complete (as in-the whole thing) victory.

Is there some trainer or school that doesn't want this? Isn't this what everyone wants?

How many times do you want to hit that wide open target with your .15 splits? If you want to run cyclic on a guy and bust a full mag in an opponents body in a couple seconds, knock yourself out. I am sure the investigators and jury will be totally good with it. We teach that if you are not getting solid reaction off the initial rounds, you should go to the head as a failure to stop.

Going to the head after some number of initial rounds is what I was taught too. Just hitting COM over and over and over is not the preferred response. And who specifically is promoting .15 splits for self-defense? The competition world doesn't even consider that a necessity. I don't have very fast splits and can't shoot .15 splits consistently, even without regard to accuracy. I've probably seen .15 on the timer once or twice ever.

We generally run surgical 2 body and single head shots in under a couple of seconds. In the same time I know I can get to at least 11 hits in the bull in the same time (and that was with a LEM). If I wanted to simply land rounds on mass with no regard for that bull standard, I am pretty sure I could empty a P30 into a typical target in the same time.

Empty a P30 into a silhouette in under two seconds? So, even giving you a presentation time of zero, you are able to shoot with .13 second splits with a P30 LEM. Got it. I wonder what kind of splits you can pull off with a 1911.

I would rather watch somebody use that to throw down a sub second failure drill than to see them dump a full magazine dump in two seconds. Hope that makes sense.

COMPLETELY agree with you there.

You will not have the accountability at the ragged edge of performance, pure and simple.

Again, I COMPLETELY agree, but there is something buried in there it seems like is our actual area of disagreement.

The strongest way to improve 'guaranteed/100%/on-demand performance' is to push way past that raw performance level in training and bring your entire skill envelope up. That will include improving your on-demand performance level. Exclusively practicing on-demand performance is just going to keep you where you already are. On-demand performance is the same thing as proper match speed, and is the way that everyone agrees things need to be done when they matter.

If the will, desire, or resources aren't available to do that pattern of practice and training – push in practice, reaffirm on-demand performance in practice, use on-demand performance in the field – and skills are just going to remain at a low, but hopefully and probably functional level anyway, then on-demand performance should probably be the sole focus.

This is the trap. Try doing that drill at simply being under 2.5 for awhile to the point that it's not directed at how fast you can do it, but to the point that it is consistent and almost easy. Essentially, how we would explain it in class is that 1.94 is you driving at 120 mph, now drive it at 75 and see how it feels. Should get to the point where you can do it all the time clean on auto pilot. When you are doing it on auto pilot, it will free your brain tasking up for a bunch of other things that are likely going to be more complicated than front sight, press, follow through.

Again, completely agree with you there. But the point lost in your breakdown is, how is someone going to get from where they used to be, down to 2.5 when at the ragged edge? Pushing. How is someone going to get to 1.94 at the ragged edge, so they can own 2.5? Pushing. How is someone going to get to 1.3 at the ragged edge, so they can own 1.5? Pushing. That is how you expand raw capability. On-demand application does need to be reaffirmed in practice, and that's the manner of execution needed when it counts. Practicing at 2.5 is just going to get you a lot of 2.5.

Can you imagine a competition of some sort where all four of those principles are what is in play and if you mess up any of the four you could be killed, maimed, jailed, ruined financially and become an outcast in your community. Your family may suffer a good deal of this with you.........wow, now we are talking some stress.

Ever read any of Jim Cirillo's or Kyle Lamb's comments on their experiences of relative stress in combat and competition?

My other thought is that we are seeing the results of bias from competition in how we take on these issues. Most of use, rightly or wrongly, have our speed clock calibrated by action pistol shooting - whether that is directly or indirectly. The problem with this is that there is no incentive to shoot better than an IDPA -0 or USSPA A zone. In fact, we are taught to shoot at a speed where we get those -0 and A's most of the time but not all of the time. This creates a mental grinding as we push for more accuracy in a combative realm as there are fundamental barriers to slowing the small bit that is necessary to deliver a 6" hit with great consistency. I'd love to see what shooting priorities develop in a match where the penalty for a -1 was a full second (IIRC, Hackathor and Vickers both wanted this for IDPA) or, a 6" -0 was used with maybe a 9" round -1 and anything else scored as a miss.

I have to wonder if the USPSA matches you have competed in are different from the ones I have competed in, because I see a ton of no-shoots and hardcover that reduce the A-zone by quite a bit, and make it very high risk to boot. A competitor is pretty well served by maintaining a margin of error between the POA and the no-shoot. Maybe like in life...

To your curiosity about manner of shooting in a match where there were a bigger penalty for inaccuracy...take a look at GSSF. I'm sure there are others, but that is a competition that punishes inaccurate shooting like mad.

...using a firearm...This requires a high level of evaluation before shooting and a high level of assessment of the force being used during that confrontation. Your "times" will be based on how fast you can evaluate a situation, how fast you can decide to act on that, the speed at which you can deal with the situation, and the speed at which you can correctly assess the response to the level of force used.

...

Doing it live will require evaluation before and during along with constant assessment. Much of that assessment is happening while you are shooting. Is that target still in your sights after every shot? Is it still a threat? Do you still have a clear shot? The key is to not forget about all that stuff. Wire your training so that the shooting part is automatic enough to free your brain and attention for those other very hard and dynamic things going on.

Those two paragraphs are well-stated, and I totally agree. Do you think those problems will be better navigated with more or less technical skill, in addition to the mindset and tactics?

Personally, I find it very hard to run at maximum speed. I find it takes a ton of my attention to be able to make solid hits at the maximum speed my trigger finger works at. I find that I really need a perfect grip, stance, trigger press and follow through along with hard focused sight tracking when running all out and getting acceptable hits. When doing these things, I have to give up tasking for my brain on things like threat assessment and evaluation, situational awareness, verbalization and communication, and a host of other things that may be a good idea to prioritize during a shooting.

You know one thing that frees your mind from the burden of shooting, and allows the mind to pay more attention to other things? Being better at shooting.