How do we train for that?

While working on a gun range for over two years, I've watched many new shooters come in to shoot for the first time. It's always easy to spot the ones who aren't use to hearing the sound of a gun going off because every time a gun goes "boom", their shoulders shrug uncontrollably. BOOM! Shoulders shrug. BOOM! Shoulders shrug again. The loud noise coming from the firearm causes this "knee jerk reaction" and no matter how hard they try, they cannot control their nerves from jerking. It isn't until several minutes have passed that the shrugs become less and less noticeable until eventually they shrug no more. So what changed? Why did they stop shrugging? The answer is, time and repeated exposure.

While teaching a class one day about recognizing and reacting to an attack, a student asked, "How do we train for that"? Without knowing, he had answered his own question. Developing a quick response to an attack comes with having experienced the attack itself (in training). The type of training we're talking about here is more commonly referred to as reality based training (RBT), although I never really liked using that term. I didn't see the "reality" of it, I mean the situation was "real" in the sense of that's how a crime takes place, but the training was usually being done by someone you know and/or have trained with in class. And most often than not, the person or persons "acting" were only mimicking what they saw on TV or in a movie. They themselves had not been exposed to violence and thus were lacking the experience of "reality". Now ask yourself, would you rather take training from someone who has "been there and done that" or someone who is learned how to act by watching TV or a video? The smart answer is to learn from an instructor who has experienced the realities of crime if at all possible.

As a police officer I've literally handled thousands of crimes over the course of my career which I believe has given me an edge over other instructors in the field of "real" self defense training. My experience with violence and its victims has enabled me to recreate actual home invasions and assaults during my situational training exercises. During another training scenario a student approached me afterwards and said "my acting" was to the "T". He told me he was robbed at knife point one night while visiting Louisiana and stated that I talked, walked and acted exactly like the crook who robbed him of his wallet that night. It was a compliment of some sort which let me know the training I was giving was as realistic as it could get.

I refer to the type of training we do as Situational Training rather than "reality based", simply because we train to deal with attack situations not realistic attacks. What I mean is, in a real attack the criminal will usually pick the time and date and will most likely attack without any warning. How can you train realistically when you know what's about to happen while training in your gym (in real life sometimes you don't know for sure what's about to happen, you are piecing it together as it happens). But the attack situations (such as robberies, sexual assaults, or home invasions) are all too similar in real life and training for those types of situations just makes more sense. The constant exposure will definitely prepare your mental and physical responses better than any other type of self defense lesson. Basically, if you experience being cornered and find a solution, as opposed to studying what to do when cornered, you are most likely going to recall the experience than the study lesson when faced with "being cornered". Why? Because of the previous exposure to the situation, that's why repeated exposure (in training) is so important to reacting quickly in real situations.

So when asked, "How do we train for that?" just remember the BOOM and train until their nerves are no longer jerking. Train hard and stay safe.

Source : articlesbase.com