I am awed by top athletes in any sport. They are so attentive to every detail, so focused and so practiced. Their actions and movements are fluid, like poetry in motion. The story goes that former pro basketball player Larry Bird was hired to do a TV commercial. The plotline required that Bird miss a free throw. So practiced was Bird at shooting free throws that it took more than 20 takes before he intentionally missed. Whether or not this story is true, imagine your firearm skills being practiced to the point it was hard to miss!
Motor Programs
Many firearms trainers use the term "muscle memory" to describe firearms skills such as the draw stroke or presentation of the pistol from the holster, as well as skills such as forming the grip, trigger press, reloading, etc. Yet muscles certainly don't have memory. What's really happening is a well-choreographed series of neural-muscular actions brought about by a lot of old fashioned repetitive practice. Professional firearms instructors can learn a lot from studying sports science. Firearms training relates to performance of human beings in times of deadly stress, where the very survival of the officer is based on their skill. It's simply not enough for an instructor to say, "We've always done it this way," or, "This is the way I learned how to do it."
Richard Schmidt, PhD, is one of the founders of adult motor learning theory. I had the opportunity to attend a law enforcement lecture that the good doctor did years ago. To say it was enlightening and had direct implications to law enforcement firearms training is an understatement. Schmidt and co-author Craig Wrisberg wrote a book, "Motor Learning and Performance" (Fourth Edition; Human Kinetics; 2008), that I have in front of me as I write this column. I won't bore you with the science, but suffice it to say that many things we have done in law enforcement firearms training are not based on the science of how people learn skills.
From Schmidt we learned the classification of motor skills into fine, complex and gross. Skill performance can deteriorate under stress; for that reason we should, whenever possible, base our survival skills on gross motor movements. With firearms and suspect control techniques, this degradation is based on the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) reaction to a threat. It is hormonal, not exercise-based. Although we may measure an SNS response using heart rate, elevated heart rate does not cause skill degradation or fight or flight; the autonomic nervous system does, triggered by the brain.
But there are a couple of motor skill classifications that most instructors don't know or don't pay attention to, as well as some types of training that are more conducive to learning a survival skill.
Blocked Practice
When we introduce a skill to new students or a new skill to veteran officers we often use blocked practice—the learner performs the single skill over and over, with repetition being the key. Example: Using static line drills, we can have 10 shooters on one line practicing their draw stroke. Static line drills are closed skills—the student is stationary or the movement predictable. "When the whistle blows, draw from the holster to a two-hand hold and fire two rounds." The students stand on the line, the instructor blows the whistle and, you know the drill. Repeat. Whether based on the sound of a whistle, a target turning or some other visual or auditory stimulus, the student practices an isolated target skill or movement.
Next we can add movements to these drills, which are sometimes referred to as "value-added." Practicing that draw, we can also incorporate a step off-line during the stroke, or a down and scan to break tunnel vision, a tactical breath before recovering to the holster, a reload with retention, verbalization, etc. In other words, we add value to the drill by practicing other aspects.
The problem with these blocked practice sessions: You get better at practice, not necessarily at gun fighting, which is the whole purpose of our training.
Random Practice
Schmidt recommends that practice sessions move to random practice as soon as possible. In random practice, the student must download the appropriate motor skills from short-term memory. We are then forcing them to practice the mental download, which is how the skill will be presented on the street. In defensive tactics training, this would mean practicing a variety of movements, e.g., front push kick, to forearm, inside takedown to prone handcuffing. In random practice we are forcing the student to learn, not just practice.
How does this play out in firearms training? Let's say that we're working on the use of cover. In blocked training we have five shooters standing away from tall cover on the range. On the start signal they move behind cover and roll-out from the strong side and fire the required shots. We repeat these blocked actions again and again. We then train in subcategories, using cover from kneeling and then on to firing from cover using a prone position, etc.
In random training, we have the shooters moving around behind a variety of cover props. On the whistle, they find cover and shoot from behind it. Using the "whack a mole" game at the fair as an example, they're told to move and vary their positions to make a more difficult target, since the bad guy can fire back. If the cover is tall they may stand, if shorter they may kneel, if all they have is a very low port—simulating firing under a car, for instance—they may use urban prone. They are forced to coordinate their fire, movement, reloads, etc., with a partner by communicating. Modern firearms training refers to these drills as line scramblers or scramblers. Schmidt refers to these types of skills where participants must adapt their movements in an unpredictable way as open skills.
As instructors we must move our students to random/open skill training as soon as possible. This does not mean that they have to run individual scramblers wherein they are moving through a course of fire by themselves; it means that once the basic skills are learned we must introduce line scramblers that require the student to identify and download the correct motor program and interact with their environment to put accurate fire on target while communicating to their partners and dispatch, all while minimizing the threat to themselves. In short: Shoot, move and communicate.
Give Them More
After using both blocked and random practice over the years, I've made several observations. First is that standing in one spot drawing a handgun and firing a specified number of rounds on a stationary target does not properly prepare officers for a real-world gunfight. It gives them practice at that isolated skill. Certainly they must know the fundamentals of marksmanship and know how to "run the gun" smoothly and efficiently without conscious thought. But we've got to give them more.
Next is that each time you incorporate a value-added drill, such as stepping off the attack line, the group size on target will increase. As students smooth out their motor actions, group size, with practice, will decrease.
Lastly, student performance in random training may not look good. Standing on one spot in a closed skill practice session may result in small groups on targets, but when they are forced to engage in random motor movements, based on reacting to the environment or to simulated threat, more learning takes place. And that, my friends, is what we are really after.
Of course, we can conduct even more realistic and relevant training by incorporating other modalities such as air soft training—but that will be the subject of another column.
Remember: We want to develop problem-solvers and thinkers, not just trigger-pullers. There is a lot going on in an actual violent armed encounter. To win, our officers must be skilled thinkers and shooters. That is accomplished by looking at the science of motor skill development—not just static target shooting!