This past week I had several students get attacked by their lizard brain. For those of you confused by this lingo, the lizard brain resides in your brain stem and controls your instinctual actions. Some scientists also say your “fight, flight, or freeze” mechanism resides here. In layman’s terms, when a person is put into a moment of stress (or presumed stress), the lizard brain takes over and will control your actions without logical thought from the prefrontal cortex.
At the range I had students loading their magazines with the ammunition facing the wrong way. I don’t say this to dump on them but use the moment to illustrate how the lizard brain will sabotage the way you expect to act. All of these students were familiar with their firearm and they have all loaded magazines before. HOWEVER – when presented with a stressor, in this instance a pistol marksmanship test with an instructor looking over your shoulder, many of the students began to incorrectly load their magazines. What was also an interesting observation, most of them didn’t know why their magazines wouldn’t load correctly. Of course, after the first few volleys and the adrenaline dissipated, they were able to functionally use their firearms to good effect. Now the same stressors were present at the beginning as they were at the end. It was still a test, and as the range sup, I was still looking over their shoulder and scrutinizing their movements. So what changed? They adapted to the stress. The delta here is that if they were in a deadly force encounter instead of a training environment, would they have successfully overcome the threat? Probably not. It's not good enough to just go plink when you go to the range. Find ways to induce stress (safely) during range time. Get coached and use your range time wisely. Because here’s the dirty truth, if you can’t do a thing during training, then you sure won’t be able to do the thing in a moment of extremis.
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We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training. These sobering words have always stuck out to me ever since I first heard a shot fired in anger. In moments of extremis, your ability to think logically vanishes. According to Lt.Col. Dave Grossman, your “lizard brain” takes over and you’re only capable of doing what you’ve been (or untrained) to do. The colonel's book can be found here. Recently, an armed citizen ended an active shooter situation in a church near Ft. Worth, TX. The footage of the incident showed the assailant about 13 yards away from the defender. The response time of the defender is about 6 seconds, and with a well-placed head shot, he successfully ended the conflict. Concealed Nation gives a good break down of the events here. Caution - This video is graphic in nature. The main take away that armed citizens should learn is that the defender was very well practiced in shooting. Also notice how he was able to perform in a moment of extremis – two of his fellow parishioners were just murdered in front of him. His training is the only reason his “lizard brain” was able to function in this extreme circumstance and win the gun fight. If you carry, then you need to practice.
Did you practice yesterday? Good, get to the range again soon. Are you practicing shooting from the draw? Great, now practice shooting from the draw at a further distance. Can’t get to the range? Then practice with dry fire. Secondly, Texas LTC holders should also note that the range test has a distance of 15 yards to show proficiency. This length was similar to the distance of this active shooter incident. Could you make that shot in that time or quicker? The last thing I want you to notice about the footage is that the other armed citizen defenders (at least 5) drew their firearms but did not fire. Their training was able to shine through in this moment by not indiscriminately releasing rounds. They have trained and trained well. If you can’t do it at the range, then you’ll never be able to do it when you have to. Go practice. |
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December 2020
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