Defensive Training: Training at the Speed of Life

I'm here with Ken Murray, author of Training at the Speed of Life Ken, this book is known by instructors throughout the industry. It's something, it's a must read. If you're interested in doing reality-based training and certainly if you're doing reality-based training, you need to have read this book. Why should a student who's interested in high level personal defense training also read this book? Well, it's, Training at the Speed of Life was written as sort of three books in one, Rob, it's an intellectual piece, it's a training piece and it's a functional piece.

So there's a lot of culmination of tactical thinking in there. I've been fortunate in my life to have stood on the shoulders of giants. I've rubbed shoulders with some of the top names in the industry, which is great. And I've been able to take a lot of concepts from them and make it contextual to the reality-based training realm. If I have any talent at all it's in philosophizing, if that's a word, from anything from movies to cartoons to deep philosophical thought on things that are contextually appropriate to reality-based training.

So, I've been told that it's a pretty smooth read in making a lotta the complex issues in defensive training a little bit simpler. And then there are some of the principles of reality based training that are a how-to, as well as the actual nuts and bolts of reality-based training, where there are forums and procedures that you can follow if you're looking to get into reality-based training. And I would like to have, as a trainer, a better quality of student. I want a more educated student. So someone comes to me for training, I want them to challenge me and my principles to make sure that I continue to evolve as a trainer.

And so, that if I've got somebody that already understands the terminology and the functionality of reality-based training, it just makes my job as a trainer a lot easier. So, whether someone is interested in doing the reality-based training or participating in the reality-based training, Training at the Speed of Life is something that you're very comfortable with them reading and knowing. It's not secrets. It's not the Holy Grail that only the instructors can drink from. It's really knowledge for everyone that's involved in the training industry and could probably even help someone who isn't gonna go attend training, but gonna think about how to improve whatever they're doing for their own practice development.

Well, and that's it. Because what I teach is a set of concepts you can parachute any technology into those concepts. I've found that people who have studied these principles do better with their Little League team. They do better with their families, because we teach the Socratic approach to dynamic debriefing. I used my daughter as my best little Petri dish growing up for a lotta the communication skills that we teach in Training at the Speed of Life.

One of the amazing things about my daughter is she's never brought me a problem without an accompanying solution because as a father using the Training at the Speed of Life principles, I taught her how to make decisions. Have you ever been out to dinner with somebody that can't choose from a menu? I have, I've been out with people who purposefully won't choose from a menu. Well, a lot of these people never learned how to make choices growing up. My daughter growing up had to choose as a two year old, do you wanna wear the red dress, the yellow dress or the blue dress?

She had to make a decision and she had to live with the consequences of that decision throughout the day. But, I always made her make a decision. And so, it's the, don't hand me a wet baby, phenomenon. You can hand me a dry baby, 'cause that's gonna be something I'm gonna wanna cuddle. Don't bring me a problem without bringing me an accompanying solution.

And Training at the Speed of Life sort of embodies those principles and you can use those principles universally. That's great. I highly recommend it, not only to instructors, but to anyone who's interested in understanding their training and their preparation for the worst case scenario at a higher level.