Mental
Training
By: Richard Wright
Note: The
author has been a law enforcement officer in South Carolina for 8
years and is a state certified CWP Instructor as well as NRA
certified. Additionally, he is an affiliate instructor for OPS and
DTI. He has personally trained with Mike Voigt, Bennie Cooley, Gabe
Suarez, Jim Crews, Ken Hackathorn, Mas Ayoob, Greg Hamilton and
several others. Since 1996, he has been an NTI practitioner.
We have
traditionally been taught that they best way to learn something is
by doing it. Get some basic lessons in the fundamentals and then go
out and practice. The world of sports is full of examples where this
is true. Whether it is skiing, surfing or the all American sport,
baseball, we are all taught the basics, and then we rush out to
play, to put what we have learned to the test. If we continue
putting into practice, the basics of what we learned early on, then
our skill advances and we get better.
But does that
translate to the field of fighting with a handgun? Well some of us
may venture forth and engage in a number of running gun battles and
emerged unscathed, bloodied, but victorious and a seasoned,
experienced gun fighter. I am afraid the rest of us mortals may not
fare so well. This is akin to being given a test, before you have
been presented the lesson. You may pass…but then again you may not.
And failing here is unacceptable. So how do we get experience in
something as dangerous and complex as this?
Some suggest
visual imagery. We have all observed this as we have watched the
Olympics, the gymnast standing ready, eyes closed, body swaying as
he pictures himself going through a perfect routine. This came about
as sport physiologist and psychologist worked together to learn how
athletes could improve their performance. What they found is that
the chemical that stores memory does not know the difference between
real or imagined events. It is just another chemical interaction
that stores this memory in the brain. The enhanced value to mental
imagery is that they could perform this imagined task perfectly. In
a similar discipline, such as an IPSC event, where the participants
have had a chance to walk through a stage, they will close their
eyes and imagine themselves shooting this event. Eyes closed,
waiting for the beep. On the signal moving and drawing their gun as
they step towards cover, engaging in multiple targets, ejecting the
magazine and reloading as they sprint towards the next target. All
performed perfectly in his mind! Imagine, perfect practice!
Another
example of the power of the mind to believe what you tell it. Twice
a year, every airline pilot goes through flight training mandated by
the FAA. Even though they know that the flight simulator is just a
box, planted on the floor, incapable of flight. Within minutes of
being put into this stressful environment, his mind believes what he
is seeing, and reacts to the various stimuli as if it they were
real. On the conscious level, they know that it is not real, but on
a subconscious level, it is as real as it can possibly be. Often
leaving the training white knuckled and shaken by the experience. I
suspect that this can also serve as an inoculation therapy. What
that means is if this stressful event should ever happen again,
somewhere in the rolodex of his mind, he will be able to recall that
it did, and what steps he took to rectify the situation, and emerge
successful. The key here, I believe, is to have emerged from the
ordeal successfully, while under stress.
We now know
this this type of visual imagery is invaluable in all kinds of
training. In fact, the more detail and content that we can enter
into our minds, the more real it becomes. Close your eyes. See the
serrations on the front sight as you swing the gun onto the target,
start the trigger press, feel the trigger move smoothly backwards
till, BANG(!) the gun goes off in a perfect surprise break, the
bullet striking the target exactly in the center of the target.
So how does
this type of training help us “on the street”?
A good friend
and mentor of mine, Tom Givens of RangeMaster in Memphis, TN. Tells
how he prepares for violent encounters every day. If you do not
subscribe to the local, big city newspaper, you should. In it, as in
most papers of today, there will be a section that details various
criminal acts that occurred in the city during the past 24 hours.
Tom suggests that over coffee each morning we read each and every
one of these and then ask ourselves the following question. What
would I do if I was in a similar situation? Picture yourself in that
scenario, what emotions would you be feeling? What sights and sounds
would be there? How would you react? And most importantly, picture
you surviving this confrontation and emerging unscathed! This is
vitally important! You must see yourself emerge victoriously!
Now the lesson
is not yet complete. Ask yourself why did this happen? What would
you have done differently to avoid being put into this position in
the first place? This becomes negative reinforcement. If you are
ever in a similar situation, don’t do that. Remember the old adage,
How do you win a gunfight? Don’t get into one in the first place!
If you do this
every morning, and only do 2 or 3 a day, within 1 year you would
have mentally been in 700 to 1,000 conflicts and emerged
victoriously from each one! Better yet, you will have learned what
people did wrong to place themselves in harms way, and what you
could now do, in a similar situation, to avoid the fight in the
first place.
Now we can
take this to the next level. Imagine being in your home or your car
or at work. These are places that we visit every day. Doesn’t it
make sense for us to preplan what we would do when the Boogey Man
comes? Well now we can. By utilizing the mental techniques discussed
in the article we can picture a scenario where someone comes in and
accost you. Where are the doors and windows? What furniture or
office equipment would act as cover? How would I get out of here?
How can I survive! How can I win!
Good reading!
