(1) Why Some Students Excel & Other Students Struggle
Have you ever wondered why some students excel at shooting precision shots while other students struggle or even fail? A student’s success or failure has very little to do with their “natural” ability. At Insight, we have found that a student’s ability to understand and grasp the concepts required to shoot consistent precision shots is dependent on the instructor’s ability to teach to the student’s specific learning style and learning strategy.
Example: I’m sure you can remember a “special teacher” when you were in school that made learning fun, easy and enjoyable. The reason that teacher made learning so easy was because their specific teaching style matched your specific learning style. Most instructors “teaching style” is the same as their specific “learning style”. This means that there will always be some students who succeed and others that struggle or fail. When you know how to identify each of your student’s learning styles you can change your method of teaching so it matches each students learning style. When you do this, every student will be a prodigy. Your student’s will look up to you and you’ll instantly gain their respect, just like that “special teacher” did in your life.
(2) Preloading the Belief: “I can do it!”
When I interviewed Tony Robbins (Motivational Speaker and World Renown Coach) regarding his work with John Grinder in training members of the US Army in “marksmanship”, he shared with me that their primary focus was on developing the participants “beliefs” about their ability to excel at shooting. They were able to get their trainees shooting scores of 97% just by preloading the trainee’s beliefs about their ability to shoot accurately.
This is why it’s so important to get “every” student shooting 1-1/2″ groups starting with their first 5 shots. Anytime you allow a student to throw a single shot, the student has the potential to adapt negative beliefs about their ability. These negative beliefs can create doubt and a lack of confidence. This creates a cycle of negative behavior and inaccuracy.
(3) The Trainee Must Have the “Big Picture”
In order for the officer to have a sound foundation he must have all the pieces of the puzzle. Imagine how difficult it would be to put a puzzle together if many of the key pieces were missing. We use a multi-sensory enriched PowerPoint program to teach all the elements of the shooting process. We found that it takes over 50 fully animated multimedia slides to communicate the process required to achieve precision accuracy on demand. It embraces every student’s learning style and strategy. It creates a phenomenon called “parallel processing” in which both hemispheres of the brain are engaged and stimulated. It integrates the information to the unconscious, creates associative links of the known to the unknown and creates a State of Empowerment and an expectation of success. This gives the student a big picture of what to do and includes the why and the how-to for completing each element required for peak performance. It creates a vivid map in the shooter’s mind so the shooter knows where the process will lead them and how to get there.
Most instructors are unaware that they are missing critical elements. Not knowing all the elements is like buying a puzzle and pouring out all the pieces on a table. If you threw away a handful of the pieces along with the instructions and the photo of the completed puzzle, it would be extremely difficult and time consuming for “whole to part” learners to connect the pieces together! We realize there are many different learning styles, and that’s why we incorporate a multitude of teaching methodologies into our training process. Providing the Big Picture is just one example. If your students aren’t shooting 1-hole groups by the end of the first hour on the range, you may be missing very important key elements.
(4) State Dependent Learning
The student’s ability to learn and recall information will be dependent on their emotional state which is created by the learning experience and facilitated by the instructor. It is the student’s emotional state at the time of learning that predetermines whether the information is understood, integrated and retained.
Before I understood the principles of “state dependent learning” I’d be flabbergasted at how a student could completely forget a full block of instruction on “safety and marksmanship” in less time than it would take to walk 20 feet from the classroom onto the range. It was like they were never in class. Their behavior had changed because their emotional state had changed. When you know how to guide the student’s mind so they can control their emotions, they are able to easily recall the information previously covered and begin shooting with precision accuracy “instantly”.
EXAMPLE: Effects of a negative state on previously learned information: I am sure you can relate to a time when you were taking a test in school and couldn’t remember the answer to a question until you left the classroom. Once the pressure was off and you returned to a similar state in which you studied (relaxed), the answer then popped into your head.
Guiding the student’s emotional state is a “double edged” sword. Researchers have found that emotions are the key to accessing previous experiences and memories, and they can also be a barrier to recalling information. Our emotions and long term memory are stored in the same area of the brain. If you think back to your childhood, I guarantee that there is a strong emotion attached to each memory. Therefore you must know how to effectively utilize, guide and create resourceful emotions that assists the student in achieving peak performance starting with the very first shot and then in high pressure simulations.
Every time you allow a student to shoot an inaccurate shot, you are allowing them to reinforce the negative behavior which produced the inaccuracy. This develops a negative emotional state within the student which will create a cycle of inaccuracy. Your students are dependent on you to guide them into a resourceful emotional state until they are able to successfully achieve precision accuracy with consistency.
(5) Controlling the Emotional State
If the officer’s emotions are out of control their accuracy will be out of control. The key component to a successful firearms training program is in teaching your student how to use their mind to manage their emotional state. “State Management” is the key to learning, behavior and change. When you integrate a block of instruction on “State Management” as an integral part of the fundamentals of marksmanship and set unconscious triggers in the teaching process, you can instantly create a resourceful state for the student. They will shoot with precision accuracy when they are on the range or when faced with a dangerous situation on the street.
If you remove the emotion from the shooting process the officer will tranceform into a biomechanical automaton and will produce machine like accuracy. We train instructors how to monitor their student’s state, interrupt negative patterns of behavior, and guide the student’s into maintaining a resourceful emotional state even under extreme conditions.
(6) Aligning the Officer’s Beliefs and Values for Self Defense
The studies by Lt. Col. David Grossman, author of the book “On Killing” makes it very evident that the alignment of an officer’s Beliefs & Values on taking life is as important to achieving precision accuracy as the alignment of the sights on their gun. We actually demonstrate in class how the brain “stutters” when it receives incongruent messages. A stutter in a gunfight translates into a miss on the street. In other words, if the officer has a deep seated value that “Life is Sacred” and they have a belief that they have to shoot someone in self defense, historically the majority of the officer’s shots will miss the assailant. They will fire intentional warning shots at the unconscious level. This follows the psychological theory that if you have poison ground, the tree will yield poison fruit.
We utilize several techniques in our program for aligning the officer’s beliefs and values. The techniques used in this process stacks the officer’s motivational strategies so when they are required to escalate to the use of deadly force, they will not hesitate and will shoot with commitment and precision accuracy.
(7) Developing a Pre-Shot Routine
All the professional athletes, especially the “Adrenalin Sport Enthusiasts” I’ve interviewed use a mental rehearsal routine. It is one of the key elements for success and is a critical part of the firearms training process. A pre-shot routine is a consistent, systematic procedure. It includes a specific sequence of thoughts in conjunction with visual and motor movements executed prior to shooting a precision shot.
(It only takes 20/100’s of a second to execute a Pre-Shot Routine.)
The Pre-Shot Routine is critical in minimizing a “Startle Response” and the effects of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.) According to Martha Kent a neurophysiologist and specialist in PTSD at Carl T. Haydon VA Medical Center in Phoenix AZ; “When an Actor acts on an object. It’s encoded in a modular way within the brain; Actor / Action / Object.” In a linguistic sense, it’s Subject / Verb / Object. She goes on to say “But in traumatic situations the structure gets inverted. The victim becomes the object.” The key to our process is to minimize or even eliminate the sympathetic response by teaching the officer techniques to pre-load their mind at the beginning of every shift and before engaging in any situation.
(8) The Neuro-Psychology of a Startle Response
According to the most recently published studies on the Startle Response by Jill Taylor, Ph.D. a Harvard trained “Brain Scientist” and author of the book, “My Stroke of Insight”; a Startle Response biochemically only lasts for 90 seconds. After 90 seconds the conscious focus of the individual is what continues to perpetuate the continued flow of hormones: cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine. As I’m sure you are aware as a firearms instructor, it’s the Startle Response that is the most debilitating trigger that affects an officer’s ability to remain in control of their emotions and accuracy. I’ve contacted Jill Taylor regarding this problem and shared with her that officers don’t have a 90 second “cool down” period in a gunfight to recover from these biochemical effects. She referred to a passage in her book: “The objective is to create an environment where the brain’s fear / rage response (amygdala) is not triggered.” Now we’re right back to the importance of State Management and utilization of a Pre-Shot Routine. We have developed a technique that we teach in our 2-day “Neuro-Psychology of “Instant” Precision Accuracy” course that works like magic in neutralizing the effects of the Startle Response and trance-forms the officer’s accuracy into machine like precision.
(9) Programming the Skills to the Unconscious
We integrate the skills of accuracy and tactical applications to the unconscious using a formal closed eye hypnotic induction before exposing the officers to high pressure simulation exercises. This allows the officer to first experience the application of the skill in a safe environment. By taking the officer into trance before going to the range, you can integrate the shooting process into any situation so the skills required for precision accuracy become contextualized into every application. You can condition the process so the greater the perceived threat, the more machine-like the shooter will become. If the shooting skills are programmed to the unconscious mind, the conscious mind will be free to plan and strategize tactically. This enhances peak performance and creates precision accuracy even under the most extreme conditions.
(10) Future Pacing
When you program the shooting process to the officer’s unconscious and change their behavior at the unconscious level, then all behavior required for shooting with precision accuracy originates from the unconscious making the process totally automatic. From then on the unconscious will drive the officer in machine like ways. Regardless of an officer’s previous firearms experience, all your students can have the ability to shoot 1-hole to 1-1/2 inch groups at 15 ft. and keep 3 inch groups at 30 ft. within the first couple of hours on the range, using less than 100 rounds of ammunition. Typically by the end of the first day, trainees will achieve a level of precision accuracy that will enable them to split a business card on edge at 15 feet. They will be able to achieve an average score of 97% on the typical police qualification course within the first 24 hours of training using less than 500 rounds of ammunition.
Once the skills are programmed to the unconscious, the proficiency is maintained much like the process of riding a bike. Even if the officer doesn’t practice or shoot for a period of months, they are still able to retain a high degree of accuracy. This process reduces the costs of remedial training and cements “all” the required elements of the process to the unconscious. Most importantly, it gives the officer the confidence and the precision accuracy needed to defend themselves in extreme conditions.
SUMMARY – Discover How to Supercharge Your Training Program
Want to learn how to have ALL of your students shooting 1-Hole Groups “Instantly”? Join our 2-Day course, “The Neuro Psychology to “Instant” Precision Accuracy”. Most Firearms Instructors tell us that they learned more about the neuro-psychology of precision accuracy and learned more teaching techniques in the first day of our program, than they’ve learned in their entire firearms training career. Insight’s methodology works and it is NOW available to you !
YOU WILL BE ABLE TO:
- Reduce your ammunition usage by 70%.
- Get your Academy Recruits qualified in 50% less time with higher scores.
- Reduce the number of hours for remedial training by 90%
- Give ALL your officers the skills they need to survive !
Once you are on the inside, you’ll see how easy it is to get all your student’s shooting with precision accuracy.
We look forward to meeting you at our next 2-Day Law Enforcement Program. You too can make a difference. Any assistance you can provide in making this process available to all law enforcement officers would be greatly appreciated, especially by those whose lives you will save!
Respectfully,
Matt Seibert & Sherrie Seibert
Insight Firearms Training Development
PO Box 12293
Prescott, AZ 86304-2293
(928) 776-4668
Fax (928) 776-4668
seibert@insightfirearmstraining.com
www.insightfirearmstraining.com