This is a very interesting thread.
Let me relate VERY quickly a story of mine: I was packing up for the day, out in the desert. Had nothing but my .45 on my hip (Para-ord P-14). Suddenly a lizard burst out of the bushes and runs between my legs. I found this very odd for a lizard to charge me, and found out why: there was a snake chasing it. The snake slithered up between my legs, then saw me at the last second (snakes have very bad vision). It coiled up where it lay, right in front of me. It was in mid coil when I realized that a bad situation was forming. Being in the crosshairs of an agitated snake, looking at my groin from a couple feet away, when the snake is scared is a bad place to be (it was a rattler, I had the tail and head saved). Keep in mind, this is happening in milliseconds here. I registered danger. This was life threatening danger, I was out in the desert by myself, a decent hike from the car and a long drive from a hospital and I had an excited rattler coiling up in front of me. Definitely life endangering, and I certainly perceived it as so. I reacted before I even realized it: I snapped free the thumb break on my hip holster, brought the gun up while stepping back into a classic mod weaver, clicked off the thumb safety and double tapped the snake. I took it's head clean off. When I double tapped the snake, it sprang into the air and then back with the impact of the bullet (I am not sure if I caught him right when he was striking, by the way he flew up and then back with the impact of the bullet as if I caught him in the head as he was coming forward), then I fired once more for a total of three shots. I did not finish the last double tap. It took me to the middle of the second double tap to realize the situation was over, so I halted firing. I had to tell my finger to stop firing. My conscious mind had to take over and stop my reaction, because I was reacting as I had programmed myself to and I did not even realize it. It happened so fast, I didn’t even realize what was going on until it was over. As I looked around I realized I had stepped back into a perfect modified weaver, just like I had always preferred, but I do not know how I got there. I reacted just like I had trained, even down to firing controlled pairs until the target stopped moving.
Now, some things to note:
In regards to another thread, I did NOT hear a loud noise of the gun going off even without ear protection. I heard it, but not very loud, and I don’t recall any hearing damage.
I DID look AT the snake and not at my sights, BUT (a BIG "BUT" here), I am an instinctive shooter and rarely train to use my sights anyway. I hit better or just as well without using my sights. Some people don’t believe me, but that is a discussion for another time. So, yes I did concentrate on the threat, but I train that way anyway, so that is no big revelation.
Oh yeah, BTW, I hit the snake three times, took his head off with two shots right at the ‘neck’ and severed him mid body with one shot. This was a moving target, very small, and I would consider it an "ambush". I had no idea it was coming, I had to react instantly from a relaxed state, and I don’t believe it would have mattered if it were a bad guy lunging out of the bushes with a knife or a snake lunging out of the bushes with poisonous fangs, I would have…and did…react the same to the ambush, exactly like I train and practice to react down to the detail (which means you have to be very careful how you practice, because you will react EXACTLY how you practice, even with the bad habits like standing still when you should be looking for cover etc, if you practice standing stationary all the time).
I did talk to my Physiology professor today who is a medical doctor who chose to specialize in the field of physiology. In so many words, he told me in no uncertain terms that you fight like you train. No, there is no technical term called "muscle memory", but just like many common terms (eg "Shock") that are construed by laymen, the term is not medical but the premise is.
An example given by my professor is the playing of music, say a guitar. If a person did not have ‘muscle memory’, then, for the time it takes to fire all the synapses and process the movements, no one could play the guitar very well at all. The tempo would be very very slow. But, practicing creates open pathways through your synapses that speed up the routes they travel. Action potential, the ability to fire off an impulse, gets a much lower resistance and the impulses can be fired very rapidly, with little stimulation. Your action potentials and synapses become used to being fired in that progression, and they automatically follow a practiced routine at lightning speed. According to basic laws, energy seeks the lowest resistance or the most conductive route. If you have programmed action potentials to fire in progression, and the resistance lessens along that route, then you will automatically take that route as a fall back reaction (which is why it is so tough to UNprogram bad habits in technique). So, when you practice a movement, like dropping into the weaver stance, and bringing your gun up from the holster, you are programming your muscles to take that route as the path of least resistance. In other words, you will perform like you practice, period. If you don’t practice, you won’t perform. This is called "freezing up" when you see a person gets in a fight/flight situation and just freezes. They are trying to access their memory to recall how to react, but they have not programmed it into reflex, and since their memory is blocked, they can’t recall or consciously tell themselves how to react. The key is to practice enough that you don’t have to consciously recall how to react, you just react.
When the time comes, you will not have the ability or time to recall your training, you will just react. If you have practiced, then your reaction will be what you have practiced (the more complex the movement, the more practice you need to make it reflexive). Your nerve reactions will electrically follow the premise of taking the path of least resistance and your reflexes will have you react to stimulations like you have trained them to. The action potentials that you have trained will be the path of least resistance and you will in effect, react just like you have trained and practiced. The key word here being PRACTICED.
I do commend people that train for combat and realism rather than target practice. As a person of many years in full contact H/H combat training, I have no patience for improper and unrealistic training like we see in a lot of martial arts dojos. It is the same thing we see in a lot of training with guns. People try to teach the sport aspect and apply it to the street. Things are very different on the street compared to the dojo or shooting range. In my case, and in my studies, YOU REACT LIKE YOU TRAIN, period. In fist fights I have been in, working as a bouncer, I react just like I train (on the other hand, some guys train bogus martial arts, and don’t practice, and when they do fight, they don’t do any of the stuff they learned…the key word once again being PRACTICE as well as training in realistic techniques and situations). When I was ambushed and caught off guard and had to shoot to save my life, I did EXACTLY like I had trained. I fell back into a perfect mod weaver and shot EXACTLY like I trained all my life, including grip, stance, thumbing the holster open and thumbing the safety off, and it all happened before I could think about it.
I attribute most Police failures as LACK OF TRAINING first of all.
How can we expect cops to react properly if they don’t PRACTICE? It is no wonder we see cops shooting with no proper stance and poor form, not even able to get their gun out of their holster, or forgetting it is there….they don’t practice!
Personally, I think that using Police officers as a source of "how effective training is" is not a good idea. Those guys don’t practice at all. Police officers IN GENERAL exhibit some of the most pathetic shooting skills of anyone that uses a gun for self defense. This is because many (not all) of them don’t take their shooting skills seriously and they only shoot twice a year. It is no wonder they exhibit such horrible form when they are called on to use their gun to save their life. Now, use some people that are serious about their trade and actually practice and I think that we would see more disciplined reactions utilizing their training.
So, I suggest that everyone find someone that teaches the down and dirty street version of combat and go to them. Practice the basics, keep it simple, and practice the simple parts a LOT to ingrain them into your brain. When it comes down to it, you will fall back to the lowest level of your training, and the portion that you practiced the most because your body will resort to the synaptic pathways that are established with the lowest action potentials and the least amount of resistance.
I think it also needs to be said that some people just fall into the fright syndrome much easier than others, and also, experience seems to alleviate this. That is why "street hardened" cops or criminals are both very effective. They have seen the elephant, and they are less likely to fall into the panic syndrome and freeze up. I see this all the time at my work as a bouncer. You can’t trust the new guys until they prove themselves. You never know how someone is going to react. It does not matter how tough they talk or how mean they look, some people just do the wierdest things when the poop hits the fan. You can only trust the experienced guys who have worked the jitters out and have seen the elephant. They tend to keep their cool and not panic. There is a lot to be said for individual makeup and how people individually react, as well as experience.
Now, I don’t know everything on the topic, but much of what pluspinc is talking about like ‘chunking’ is basic psychology covered in Psych 101. I think this topic is weighed between physiology and psychology, a combination thereof, and therefore Glenn Meyer certainly knows the psychology portion very well, an area that I am not extremely well versed in. Being a Biochemistry major with an emphasis on Nutrition and Physiology/Neurophysiology, I am quite familiar with Cortisol, Epineprhine, nerve actions etc and the chemomechanical reactions that charge our bodies in fight/flight. I am certainly not any expert, but what I do NOT know, my professors DO know as they are the leading experts in the world on the topic. I, and my professors, have to respectfully disagree with pluspinc. You will resort to your programming when the chips are down. My professor, who is a physiology expert of the kind we can’t even fathom (this is someone who can go through every chemical reaction in the human body from memory, down to the molecule and element), states that specifically under stress, when being shot at, when fight or flight ensues, you WILL resort to your training if you practice, and he can see no reason why you would not. I trust his advice, and it also matches many other people’s reactions when their life was in danger and they resorted to their training without even thinking about it. The key is though, you have to repeat the procedures enough to make them programmed into your pathways. This is called practice. It has happened to me as a bouncer I have used my martial arts training many times, and I have been shot at and returned fire, and every time I acted as I trained. That is why I find it imperative to train in realistic techniques and I am careful to train for defense at the range: you will perform just like you practice. The key here is that the Officers that pluspinc are referring DID NOT PRACTICE enough so they could not resort to their training, because it was merely stored in their memory as something they learned, but it was not practiced and programmed into their reactions.
I suppose that for some people, panic ensues easily and adrenaline overrides their ability to act. They panic. SOME people might experience this sometimes, but to say that all people will forget all their training and practice when TSHTF is simply an overgeneralization. Every person is different. And, the more you practice and the more straightforward and simple your training, the less likley you will fail in the time of need.
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