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Article: 03-2006
Mental Training
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!