 are extremely important in technical matters as well as operational issues. All aviators know what a loose bolt can cause in an airplane. An out of place or dysfunctional bolt can make a plane “No Go”, which means waste of time and extra cost.
Everything is interconnected like links in the chain, and if a few mistakes come together, disaster scenarios can be inevitable. It is important to follow all the established rules, starting from production to end users. There should be a goal of setting international standards and improving quality control mechanisms every day. Because we don't have the luxury to say just "sorry" for unrecoverable incidents.
Fasteners are with us in every aspect of our lives; in elevators, planes, vehicles, household items, electronics, teeth and body. I think that studies and R&D for this sector must be supported.
Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky reckoned the bible had it right: in the beginning there was the word. Then thinking. The Wikipedia hive mind puts it this way: “Vygotsky... believed inner speech developed from external speech via a gradual process of internalization, with younger children only really able to ‘think out loud,’ he claimed that in its mature form inner speech would be unintelligible to anyone except the thinker, and would not resemble spoken language as we know it (in particular, being greatly compressed).” In other words, your thoughts are incomprehensible to anyone but you. And I have my doubts about that too. Anyway, in terms of armed self-defense...
Thinking under fire is impossible, right? The vast majority of people who survive gunfights can’t tell you what they were thinking. At least not much and certainly not sequentially. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I was on autopilot.” Again and again shooters will tell you they acted without willful intent. The operators amongst them will say “I reverted to my training.” Like it’s not a good thing. Like it’s the only thing.
I call that the “Muscle Memory School of Gunfighting.” Proponents argue that there’s only way to ensure that you’ll achieve something near adequate performance in a gunfight: train and train and train and train until all your actions become instinctive. So when the S hits the F, you react appropriately. Without thinking. Quickly.
The danger with this philosophy: you react without thinking. If a self-defense scenario doesn’t conform to your unthinking/instinctive expectations—say, you never trained for multiple attackers or a firearms malfunction—you mentally “freeze up.” This does not compute. What now? Hello? Body to brain? What now?
That’s why the best simunitions training uses stop – start methodology. The trainer shouts FREEZE in the middle of a scenario and asks questions of the motionless participants. They stop reacting unconsciously, look around and think about their actions and options. Alternatively, the scenario plays out. The trainer immediately interrogates the participants—before their memory of events disappears.
A lot of people dismiss this kind of training—and all that tacticool running around—as childish play. Just so. “Through play the child develops abstract meaning separate from the objects in the world,” Lev wrote, “which is a critical feature in the development of higher mental functions.” By “playing” at armed self-defense [some] students develop the ability to think about what’s going on on an abstract (i.e. emotionally detached) level when a defensive gun use (DGU) occurs.
Try keeping a videogame-like running monologue going during self-defense practice. OK, not like the braggarts on YouTube. But not a million miles away either. “Gotta find cover now. Where are the other threats? Don’t need to reload. Who’s calling 911? Must call 911. Cell phone left hand. Holster gun? No, not yet.” Etc.
If that’s difficult, do it out loud, initially. Hey, it worked when you were three, why wouldn’t it work when you’re 53? But above all, don’t “let” yourself freeze. If you’re not going to talk yourself through a DGU at least give yourself a running pep talk. Loop the words observe, orient, decide, act. Or adapt, improvise, overcome. Anything other than “holy shit” or “this sucks.” Know what I mean?
I want my minute back, too. But I won’t. Get it back, I mean.
As for talking to yourself, I believe it’s an excellent practice. I’m so into it, I talk to inanimate objects. But I never expect them to talk BACK.
I would guess that what the simunitions training “stop” practice does is enrich the pre-conscious complexity of our brain’s reactions, i.e. we still don’t consciously think once the trouble begins, but we ‘don’t think’ at a higher level…laugh. Vygotsky is bad science, I would say. The brain thinks in pre-verbal mode. Some call it mentalese. The words come later. “The Language Instinct,” by Steven Pinker, is probably a good reference. It is also known that you decide things before you become consciously aware of your decision. The same research is what killed off the notion that your thinking is limited by the vocabulary of your native language.
I think it’s excellent psychology. What does science have to do with it?
Maybe the “brain thinks in pre-verbal mode”, but I sorta doubt it. Are you aware in the least of the voice in your head that talks to you all the time?
In most ways it’s our enemy. I won’t get technical here – as if I would consider it – but in meditation, the aim is to be still until you can totally quiet that voice. It’s at that point, and ONLY that point, that new and novel ideas emerge. And let me tell you, if you can achieve that inner quiet for even thirty seconds, you will get so elated you will become positively GIDDY, and find yourself laughing, despite yourself.
It’s an excellent, maybe THE most excellent, way to clean out the clutter and dreck from your conscious mind. It’s my belief that each and every shooter can benefit from some sort of meditation. Clearing the mind is one of the best tools you have. And we all have it, but it’s obviously easier for some than others. But it can be done.
“I hate getting C-4’d” Did not know that was a word.
One simple mantra: “front sight – front sight – front sight – front sight”.
As in “Focus on the front sight and put that in the center of mass.” THEN tell yourself to move, reload, etc. – but you have to hit something while you are talking to yourself.
After the “Yo, Yo, Yo” I stopped the video.
We do have a certain level of preconscious (or unconscious) natural reactivity that is critical in a multiplicity of martial arts. Ever knocked something of a self or counter and, without consciously thinking about it, snagged it out of mid-air? How did your hand just automatically go to exactly the right spot, even when you don’t even look at that spot? Amazing how fast it happens. This is what training does; it teaches us to unconsciously react to a threat, to movement. I used to fence in college, and if you are not familiar with the sport, the blades move too fast to follow. But the real experts (I fenced with two Hungarian Olympic champions, one the team coach) instantly react when you just start t move to attack. For example, I remember once trying my best to make a direct attack on one of these Olympians (1968 Saber silver medalist for Hungary), just moving in a straight line from point A to point B. In the half second it took me to do that, he did a stop cut to my wrist, parried the attack, and did a chest cut–before I landed my attack. Unbelievable. But a lot of this skill is encoded–and we just have to get past our conscious mind to access these abilities. Which takes lots of practice to the point you stop thinking about it, only doing.
Well, that was certainly different. But not just for the video game clip.
Of late, I find my internal dialogue is set to sarcastically disassemble.
can. You aren’t mentally prepared to help anyone, much less yourself.
But then, in a stressful DGU, how would you know when to say when?
It’s the oldest response to a threat; fight or flight, and when to do which.
If you’re not doing one, you’re doing the other…or probably should be?
Does that qualify as sound thinking, or just ancestral primate behavior?
I talk to myself all the time, but I had no idea that I was preparing for self-defense. I thought I was just trying to remember where I left my bifocals.
He seems like the kind of person to pick up an actual gun, fiddle with it, sweep actual people, and toss it down saying its too “noobish”. Id be surprised if he knew were the bullet comes out. In a DGU hed be screwed.
Instead of articulating what you should be doing; seeking cover, scanning for threats, reloading, etc… I think the emphasis should be on articulating what is happening to you; especially if you are in public. Be loud