[ Training Scars ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today I want to talk about training scars for a moment.
That is the idea that there are certain tasks or procedures that you have to practice,
and if you don't practice them just exactly right there will be really catastrophic consequences.
Whether it's anything as banal as getting disqualified from a competitive shooting event,
to as serious as getting killed on the streets in a gunfight.
This is a subject that kind of came up, it kind of came to light with Finnish Brutality this year.
Specifically with a number of people commenting on the rule that was implemented
for this year's match that you have to retain empty magazines.
Now for what it's worth, that rule was instituted
to minimise the time interval for stage reset between shooters.
Because if you don't have to go track down everybody's
empty magazines, everything just runs that much more quickly.
So it really made sense from a logistical perspective for that rule to be in place for the match.
But I saw number of people commenting that
retaining empty magazines is a negative thing to train.
You don't want to practice that, you don't want to ingrain that habit in yourself,
or else you run the risk of ... essentially being that California Highway Patrol officer
that ... we've probably all heard of (and I don't know if this story is true or just apocryphal)
but the idea of a Highway Patrolman who was found dead after a gunfight
with his pockets full of empty spent brass.
The point being he did all of his training the same way
in a shooting range where he was keeping empty brass.
Instead of letting it hit the floor, he would empty the revolver into his hands and then
put the empty brass in the pocket.
And when he actually got into a real gunfight, he spent his time
trying to properly deal with brass instead of returning fire,
or ... reloading or getting behind cover, which he should have been doing.
So the concept that I see from some people, which I think is a serious mistake,
is that ... you have to figure out the ideal methodology for every task that you're practicing.
And you have to make sure that you practice it that way every time,
lest you get yourself into a habit that will have problems at some point down the road.
And I think there's a huge glaring problem with that,
which is you can't necessarily predict exactly what behaviour is going to be best suited
to any given situation that might hypothetically happen in the future.
For example, if you're practicing shooting with a mind toward preparing yourself
for a military engagement or a civilian self-defence engagement,
there are lots of things that you cannot do in your practice environment
that would be good habits in the real environment that you're trying to prepare for.
Things like just if you're at a public shooting range you can't be swinging the gun around up range,
which is something that you very ... possibly might need to do in a real situation.
So where I think we get the real problem is the concept of training
as simply building a pre-constructed habitual response to fulfil a specific task.
How do I draw the pistol? Well I always draw the pistol by going through A, B, C, D, E, F, specific motions.
And I want to ingrain that to the point that I don't even think about it, it just happens automatically.
Or any other thing, reloading for example, what do you do with your empty magazines?
Well, I always want to drop them on the ground because that's the most efficient,
effective thing to do with them, and they are empty so I don't need them.
The problem I see of course is that that may prepare you
for one very specific set of conditions, but it won't prepare you for anything else.
So on the one hand, if you are practicing for a specific competitive environment,
or something that has a very rigorous set of rules and that's all that you're trying to prepare for
then absolutely, that sort of rigorous ... identical training is in fact your best option.
But if you want to have a well-rounded skill set and be able to respond to a variety of things,
I think what you actually need to do is train yourself to be able to have a mental focus
on both the big picture of what's going on, as well as
understanding, recognising or being conscious of what you're doing
with those individual tasks that you are trying to do at the same time.
So in this case if we're thinking gunfight, you need to be able to
keep a situational awareness of what's going on,
but also recognise what you're doing when you are reloading.
Like to notice that, "Hey, I'm getting shot at. I should just dump these revolver cases on the ground
because I don't care about them, instead of holding onto them and putting them in my pocket."
And I think the way that you do that is by practicing
a variety of different skills in a variety of different conditions
to the point that you're building an ability to work with the tools at hand
without straight-jacketing yourself into a specific set of motions.
So I guess the point that I'm getting at here is I think ... we typically hear about training scars as,
"Oh, like you shoot USPSA, so you are going to develop some bad habits
like standing stock upright in the open to reload a pistol
when you ought to be reloading it from behind cover like the IDPA guys do.
And thus you shouldn't shoot USPSA because it will develop these detrimental habits."
In reality, I think the actual answer is training scars come from
not having enough practice, not from having too much practice,
regardless of whether that is tactical training, competition shooting,
or to some extent even just plinking out at the shooting range.
That's not going to help you as much as something that's perhaps a little more task focused
and ... done with a specific intent, but it does build some skills.
So when people say "training scars", to me that comes from that middle ground of
I've done something enough that I have a rote method of doing a specific thing.
A good example would be muzzle discipline. So if ... you only ever shoot let's say USPSA
or ... IPSC, your muzzle discipline is going to be downrange at all times.
And you're probably going to get pretty good at maintaining it
because you're going to be practicing things like 179 degree, you know, 180 trap targets.
If you then transition yourself into let's say
a 360 degree Simunitions tactical training environment,
well, there your safety zone is going to generally be vertically up and down.
And you don't want to be holding the gun horizontally all the time
because you stand a much greater chance of sweeping someone that ... you are not intending to shoot.
But again you go to the reverse, if you spend all your time training with a vertical safe position
and then you go out onto a 2 Gun or a USPSA stage you're going to be in big trouble.
Because ... if you've got that mechanistically ingrained in your head,
you're going to come back to here, and the moment you go a little bit back
you've broken the 180 and you're disqualified.
In a real actual shooting situation,
whether civilian or military, who knows what the safe direction is?
Are you in a crowd of people that you don't want to flag? Are you in the middle of nowhere?
It could be the safe direction is don't point it at that building, but anything else is OK.
Or it could be only point it at that building, nothing else is OK.
You don't know, and so ... if you want to build a diverse sort of a universal skill set,
what you need to do is practice enough that you can ... complete the big picture objective,
whether that is like find and engage targets,
while also maintaining an awareness of what you are doing on the small stuff. Where is my muzzle?
I need to be aware ... while I'm persecuting this target array
where am I keeping my muzzle if I'm not shooting?
And ... in my experience that comes from having a wide variety of experience.
And if you try to narrow it down and only practice the "optimal", the "best" thing,
inevitably you will find yourself in a situation where that's not the best thing,
and now you actually do have a training scar.
If you get out there and practice more, and shoot more competition especially,
you are going to build an ability to adapt to different dynamic circumstances.
And that's what I've seen in the real world.
Which granted for me is not a military world, it is a competition world,
but the people who perform the best with unexpected tasks and diverse new environments
are the people who have practiced the most in the widest variety of different environments.
So when I hear people suggesting that you shouldn't ... shoot discipline A, B, C, whatever,
because of the training scars that that will build, I think ... that's exactly the opposite.
If you want to build the best set of skills, you need to be practicing everything
from positional ... bullseye shooting through dynamic sports like USPSA or 2 Gun.
Anyway, let me know what you think. This is something that, as I said at the beginning,
kind of came up when I saw people discussing
the magazine retention rule at Finnish Brutality this year.
... Frankly, that's another really good example of it.
In fact to ramble on for another moment here,
I remember a story and ... at this point I don't know if it was a true story or apocryphal.
But from hurricane Katrina, with a guy who was doing private security
with a pistol and had a basic loadout of I think like three magazines.
But he's wading through three foot deep water.
And actually does get into a shooting engagement and realises,
and I don't know how quickly he realised this
but it's a perfect example of having to respond to dynamic circumstances,
he realised if I drop this empty magazine, ... yes, that's the most efficient thing for me to do right now.
There's no ammo in it, I don't need it, it's of no use to, me drop it.
Well, if it goes bloop into 3 feet of muddy water that he's wading through, and he will never find it again.
And if he needs to reload that magazine to use again later
because he's in the middle of a huge natural disaster emergency situation,
well he can't, he actually needs to retain those empty magazines if he has to use them.
So that they can be reloaded and reused later.
The exact opposite of what you would expect in most shooting situation training.
Yeah, you need to take the time to keep that magazine
because it may become extremely important to you later.
And people who have to my mind sufficient
and widely varied enough practice and habits can respond to that environment.
And say, "OK, I'm on a square range doing training
trying to get the best splits, I'm just going to drop my magazines."
Or, "Today I'm at Finnish Brutality where I have to maintain control of my empty magazines."
Or tomorrow, "I'm in the middle of a hurricane zone,
and if I drop the mag it's gone forever, so I need to keep it."
Anyway, those are my thoughts on it. What do you think, am I totally off base here?
I'd be interested in a military thought on this, because ... while I do have extensive experience
in different competition environments, I don't have it from a military perspective.
So let me know down in the comments. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this one.
Thanks for watching.