The Approximation of Training
By Scott W. Wagner // 10/27/2017
Before I explain the topic at hand, let me give you a little background. It will help provide some context to what I am about to say.
Many of you know from reading this weekly column that I am a law enforcement officer and have been one for more than 37 years. I am also a Police Academy Commander and Law Enforcement Trainer, holding instructor certifications in all the major law enforcement topic areas.
I have been a Certified Police Firearms Instructor since 1986. I became a Certified Police Defensive Tactics Instructor in 1991. I was certified as an instructor in Aerosol Subject Restraints (chemical defense sprays) in 1993. I was the first law enforcement officer outside of California to be certified as an LAPD Arrest and Control Instructor in 1996. I was certified as a Taser Instructor in 2005. I also hold instructor certifications in three different computer-operated use-of-force firearms training systems: the J.udgement U.nder S.tress T.raining system, the IES Range 2000 and the IES MILO. In 31 years of law enforcement training, I have been able to work with and observe hundreds of police academy cadets, law enforcement officers and civilians.
Firearms and self-defense training are key foundations of the USCCA. Without our training component, we wouldn’t be an organization that covers all the bases for those who choose to defend themselves with or without the use of firearms.
Training before you get your concealed carry permit — and after you have obtained it — is very important. In Ohio, law enforcement officers are required to qualify on their handguns once per calendar year on a 25-round course of fire. While our state qualification course is sorely lacking, at least it is something. Hopefully you readers do more shooting and training than that every year!
But firearms training — any firearms training — is only an approximation of what will occur in the real world. It will condition you to certain real-life responses that approximate what you practiced in training — even if you trained in techniques that achieved “muscle memory.” A point of order here first, folks. There is no such thing as “muscle memory.” The biological and physical fact is that muscles can’t remember anything; they have no brains implanted in their structure. When you train in multiple repetitions, you are developing the neural pathways in your BRAIN that allow you to eventually repeat that same action without consciously thinking about it. The “muscle memory” term is used in training to help trainees understand better what they are trying to achieve: action without thought.
Once you have developed the neural pathways of certain actions to the point that they come without thinking, you can perform them very well under training environment situations. But, when you are forced to use those techniques in real-world defensive situations, they likely will be an approximation (albeit an important approximation) of what you learned in a classroom environment. This is because of the variables out there in the real world that you cannot predict or account for in practice. Those variables are:
- Your reactions, as influenced by physiological factors, including injury to yourself
- The actions or reactions of the most unpredictable and dangerous animals on the planet — other human beings
- Environmental factors