Tools of Reality-Based Training

Hi, I'm Ken Murray, author of "Training at the Speed of Life". Today we're gonna talk about some of the tools of reality based training. There's all sorts of things that you can use within a reality based training frame. Rubber guns are effective. Those are things that we can use for drilling and finding our way to build physical skills. Airsoft guns are excellent tools for the next level of reality based training where we can actually use role players, or we can set up targets around the environment that we're training to shoot in. In the house for instance, we can use cardboard boxes that have towels in them and put man shaped silhouette targets on top of the cardboard so that the cardboard box is behind where the torso is. By doing things like this, we can come around hallways, work up staircases, go through doors, and practice shooting in an environment that wouldn't normally be bullet permissive. We can use laser beams, we can use full on scenario training where I have marking cartridges, proper protective gear, well-trained and well-scripted role players, and training staff that can help coach us through that type of process. If we're working with conventional munitions, we can still do some type of reality based training. Working with conventional munitions, I'm not at all a fan of static range training. It programs you to stand still in a gun fight. And unfortunately because of the way environments are built at ranges, you're standing shoulder to shoulder to shoulder with people where you can't turn around and leave, you can't move laterally. So the target really is in a 180 degree realm, it's just straight down that way. If we're going to be using conventional munitions to validate some of the things that we've learned with some of the non-conventional munitions, then it's best to find a range setting that we can do it in a 360 degree or at least a 270 degree environment so that we can make these decisions and moving around, moving forward, and moving backward. All of these tools and technologies play into the realm of scenario based training, including a simple theater of the mind. Going inside and imagining yourself going through a situation from beginning to end to debriefing yourself, is an extremely powerful learning model. The theater of the mind, the part of the brain that uses imagination doesn't differentiate between fantasy and reality. So we can get as much learning experience just going inside and using our imagination as often we can finding ourselves in a real situation. Psychologists have used this for years with sports athletes where they'll have athletes sit and imagine a nice clean run. We've been able to find that the same neurons will fire as when you're actually performing that event. So by finding ourselves in situations, and on almost a daily basis, looking at a situation from being in a grocery store to being in a gas station, and going and imagining ourselves in that situation when something bad happens, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna do it? Why am I gonna do it? Can I do that? We still wanna ask ourselves the same questions. We can put ourselves through a debrief saying, what did I do? Why did I do it? Can I do that? If so, why? If not, why not? You need to have the answers to all of these questions before you find yourself in a critical incident. Reality based training is one of the most powerful models for preparing you to become what we call a pre-combat veteran.