Marcus Wynne's Blog, page 2

REPOST: (FROM 2012) The Evolution of Mindset Training, Part 1 — Some Random History

I first wrote this series back in 2012.  It was more for my purposes and some of my students and colleagues, but maybe there’s still interest in it yet.  Most of the material remains valid except for the references to the DARPA programs which have since moved on (I beat their old training goal of 50% reduction significantly by clocking in a 85% reduction in specific training programs, but bragging is unseemly.)

It’s interesting for me to watch the evolution in mental aspects training in combative applications. When I started researching and developing ways to inculcate mental training into combative training in the 80s, the only people (officially) involved in that were the folks parodied in the movie THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS. Ronson’s book of the same name, in my opinion, was one of the best pieces of disinformation ever put out about a sensitive training program, but it does make for amusing reading.

For better historical information, check out http://www.amazon.com/Search-Warrior-Spirit-Fourth-Disciplines/dp/1583942025. Heckler-Strozzi does an excellent job of documenting the early evolution of the training. One of the students he trained in this particular project (again, parodied in THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS) won a Medal of Honor. Jim Channon, immortalized by Jeff Bridges in the movie, was a LTC tasked with developing mental aspects training in the 70s. A good overview of what he did is here: http://ejmas.com/jnc/jncart_channon_0200.htm.

As you may imagine, the “New Age” flavor of the mental techniques examined (which included bio feedback, meditation, active visualization, etc — remember this, we’ll come back to it) put off a lot of people. The level of distaste, dislike and distrust for the “touchy-feely” approach was reflected officially in a generally sweeping condemnation of the 70s and 80s era programs, captured specifically by a dismissive overview conducted by the National Research Council report drafted in the 80s and published in 1990 here: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=1580

As a counter-point to the criticisms leveled by the NRC in the Enhancing Human Performance report, COL John Alexander, Major Richard Groller and Janet Morris wrote and published a book titled THE WARRIOR’S EDGE (not to be confused with a book by a trainer who adopted part of the title for his book after I pointed out this particular reference to him). THE WARRIOR’S EDGE is out of print but still available here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Warriors-Edge-Front-Line-Battlefield/dp/0380716747/ref=dp_ob_title_bk.

MAJ Groller also published an article in the handgun press (JPEG below) which was the first detailed examination, naming names and giving statistics, of the JEDI PROJECT focused on enhancing combat marksmanship.

I was at the time involved in developing training for Air Marshals and other people at the former FLETC facility at Marana, AZ, which also hosted, at the time, a number of other government organizations involved in counter-terrorism.

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I was part of an informal working group that included people like Bob Taubert http://www.amazon.com/Rattenkrieg-Science-Quarters-Battle-Pistol/dp/0977265943 who was at the time with the FBI SOAR Unit, Ed Lovette http://www.amazon.com/Defensive-Living-Preserving-Personal-Awareness/dp/1932777091/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355681350&sr=1-1&keywords=defensive+living who was, at that time, conducting training for a government agency involved in counter-terrorism, Dave Spaulding http://www.amazon.com/Handgun-Combatives-second-Text-Only/dp/B004RTMXY6/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1355681403&sr=1-2&keywords=handgun+combatives+2nd+edition and a number of other notables in training. I was fortunate to have an extensive roster of cutting edge mentors and contacts, derived from my employment as a protection specialist and trainer with Lofty Wiseman and Dennis Martin’s CQB Services operation:

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While at FLETC, I had access to a facility and a cadre of role players, and I was fortunate enough to be given a free hand in designing certain aspects of training. I had the opportunity to experiment with and then implement some of the early concepts that evolved into “neural-based training” — incorporating elements of accelerated learning, cognitive strategy mapping, expert skill set transfer to novice learners, etc. — on multiple groups of students. And I didn’t have to have an approved Human Use Protocol.

I shared my results freely with the other members of our “working group” and got plenty of feedback from the guys who were out doing the deed in the late 80s and early 90s. After I left federal service in 1993, I continued the work and shared the information as I found it. I found excellent testbeds for the concepts (relative to unarmed combat) in the martial arts and “front door security” world of the United Kingdom, where security professionals regularly engage in full on unarmed combat against armed or unarmed (and skilled) opponents; my testbed for armed combat was in South Africa, where I was invited by the South African Police Service to present material to their frontline operators in what was, at the time, the most violent urban area in the world. The SAPS incorporated it into a module titled MENTAL CONDITIONING FOR CLOSE COMBAT, required for all National Police officers in the mid 90’s.

Meanwhile, back in CONUS, “mental training” was relegated to lectures on mindset, many of them growing from COL Cooper’s original Gunsite lecture on mindset http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Personal-Defense-Jeff-Cooper/dp/1581604955 which influenced and continues to influence multiple generations of combative instructors. As it should. But talking about mindset is not the same thing as training it.

I started publishing in 94-95 a series of articles, primarily in COMBAT HANDGUNS, SWAT, GUNS AND WEAPONS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT (some of them archived on this blog) focusing on sharing with a larger audience some of my findings. These included introductions to the OODA Loop, situational awareness as an attribute, and training that focused on installing and enhancing the mental platform for combat. There’s some good overviews archived here: http://www.kalijkd-u.com/dev/kjkdu_articles.php?aid=1&title=Marcus+Wynne:+The+Way+of+the+Jedi However, writing about mindset is not the same thing as training it.

I was laughed at quite a bit and denounced for “New Age” bullshit. One notable, at the time, trainer made a point of denouncing “so-called accelerated learning” in his popular book; I notice that in subsequent editions he’s deleted that. Perhaps after these folks started focusing major effort on that “so-called accelerated learning: http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Accelerated_Learning.aspx

I just plowed ahead and continued to do my thing. I measure my success by the number of lives saved by people I’ve trained all over the world.

Lives saved, dudes and dudettes. That’s what it’s all about.

So fast forward to the second decade of the 21st century and what do I see? I’m so far outside the tactical community I may as well be Obi Wan out in the desert, but I do see a return by cutting edge trainers to the essential foundation of the warrior’s skill set — mindset and mental attributes. I also see that technology and research is catching up with the work that was done back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Here’s where the cutting edge research is today: (these are out of date, go look at http://www.darpa.mil for new stuff)

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Accelerated_Learning.aspx

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Enabling_Stress_Resistance.aspx

http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Strategic_Social_Interaction_Modules_%28SSIM%29.aspx

http://advancedbrainmonitoring.com/advwp/publications/

And here’s *some* of the really cutting edge technology that’s becoming available:

http://advancedbrainmonitoring.com/advwp/publications/

http://www.npstwo.com/default.aspx

Everything Old Is New Again.

The Article That Started It All —

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From A New Novel In Progress…

I’ve been hitting the cognitive neuroscience and gunslinging stuff pretty hard lately.  I’m going to put on my novelist hat here for my die-hard readers out there (thank you, by the way, for sticking with me all these years) and post a snippet from a new novel in progress.

You can find my most recent novel, WYLDE:  BOOKS 1-3, which is a collection of the first two WYLDE novels with a new and final book.  I went through and cleaned up plot lines, typos, etc. and put it together in a GAME OF THRONES length tome, which you can pick up for a mere $5.98 on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/WYLDE-BOOKS-1-3-Marcus-Wynne-ebook/dp/B07LDZ3JWV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1548885663&sr=8-1&keywords=wylde+books+1-3

If you’ve already read WYLDE, please consider leaving a review on Amazon.

The new novel considers a recurring question in my fiction:  Who watches the watchers?  With the recent revival of the amazing 80s series THE EQUALIZER in Denzel Washington’s remake, the remake of DEATH WISH and some other higher quality revenge and action series, I thought I’d tackle that sub-genre of action and adventure.

The new series is called THE REVENGERS.  It’s the WYLDE series meets THE EQUALIZER. I expect the first one to be out late May.  Sign up for my newsletter at http://www.marcuswynne.com and you’ll be the first notified.  Later this summer I will be merging my author website with this blog and putting neuroscience, gunslinging, fiction, tactics and Old One Eyed Fat Man meanderings into one online portal.  Stay tuned for that.

Enjoy the read.

SALT:   BOOK ONE OF THE REVENGERS SERIES

BY

MARCUS WYNNE

Copyright 2019, Marcus Wynne

Romans 13:4 – For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor (Aeneid, IV 625). “Let someone arise from my bones as an avenger.” Queen Dido of Carthage in the Avenida.

1.1

When the call came to kill the Achy Man, Salt was in his garage, systematically breaking the bones of the last man he’d killed. He ignored the buzzing of his iPhone. He only answered when he expected a call which was not often. Anyone who knew his cell phone number knew he’d call back.

Eventually.

His usual disposal method was to transport the body to one of his designated dump points, remove the head and hands, then open the torso to expose the intestines. He prepped his dump sites for months in advance. They were all out in the country, on the edges of older or abandoned farms, where feral dogs and coyotes competed for dinner.

He trained the canids by dumping pig carcasses in his site, and returned over a period of weeks to gauge progress. After two or three carcasses, the scavengers knew to check the site, and within twenty-four hours the meat was rent and spread wide. What scraps remained melted into the old farm soil beneath the trees and in the brush.

Heads and hands were different.

He hammered the teeth out and scattered those by the handful as he drove along a country road, or the night highway. The head and hands would go into a spring, or a pond, or a river, to be fed upon by fishes, turtles, water birds.

He enjoyed watching the fish snap at the meat, or a turtle or osprey dive for a treat. Salt found it satisfying to participate in the Great Wheel of Nature, returning meat to the Great Cycle, to feed another one of God’s creatures.

Gratifying.

He rarely brought bodies home. Don’t shit where you eat was Marine wisdom. Don’t kill or take bodies home was a logical progression from known wisdom. This kill had become complicated when someone drove through the kill zone and slowed to watch the target struggle against the rear naked choke Salt had laid deep on him. Salt bundled the unconscious man into the stolen car and exfiltrated in a hurry. Per tradecraft the vehicle was compromised, so he finished killing the man in the alley beside his car. With the body stuffed in his trunk, he drove off to beat the sunrise and returned home where he could work in the privacy of his garage.

He liked his garage. He had room for any of his five vehicles. The one that he associated most with this address was a discreet and battered Honda Accord. The USMC globe and anchor flag took up the back wall over a heavy work bench with his gun smithing and reloading equipment set up. Hand tools were mounted on pegboard, each tool outlined on the pegboard in black paint, so that any visitor, and he occasionally had some, would replace any tool they laid hands on to the exact place it came from.

Salt required order in all things.

He didn’t want to deal with blood, fecal matter and urine in the garage, so breaking the big bones would make it easier to stuff the target into the wheeled duffel he’d pulled out of his bin of assorted carriage methods for just these instances. He had a folding tree saw and pliers set aside for the fine work, which he’d do out in the field. The particular one he had in mind had a nice isolated pullout down the dirt road.

He’d already shattered the spine and was dislocating the hips when his phone buzzed.

Again.

He was curious who would call him twice. He paused in his work and checked the phone.

Lydia.

He’d return that call.

Her phone rang in his ear. She answered.

“Salt?”

“Yeah.”

“Baby, I got a problem.”

He waited. She, as usual, became nervous with the prolonged silence.

“You tell me not to talk about this kinda stuff on the phone, baby.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s one of those things.”

“Okay.”

“Can you come by?”

“Busy.”

“Later?”

Salt considered the remaining tasks. Break the body, pack it up, take it to the dump site, cut the head and hands off, drive those to a water location and dump them…estimated another 2-3 hours. He looked at his battered and scratched USMC issue GSAR wristwatch. 1100 now, be done around 1400, get something to eat and a cup of coffee, swing by and listen to Lydia.

“Be there at 1500.”

“Baby…what is that in regular people time?”

He did the calculation. “Three o’clock.”

“Georgie gets home about three thirty or so…”

“Three o’clock.”

She paused. “Okay…thank you.”

He disconnected the call and went back to his task.

Random Gunslinger Neuro-Hack For The Day

2) One of the most important things we learn when we do “snap shot” drills CORRECTLY, is exactly how much precision we need in order to get as fast as we can get, at different ranges. I need a lot less precision to get a head shot in less than one second at 10 meters than I do to get a torso shot in less than one second at 100 meters… This carries over to target-to-target transitions, because our neural pathways between eyes, brain, and trigger finger, are being exercised and trained to recognize how much precision is “enough.”

3) Building the neural pathways to build a solid, stable, durable firing position that will allow you to get a first-round hit at various ranges, as fast as possible, will facilitate all the other shooting skills you need with that particular weapon.

This quote above from the link below:

https://mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/2019/04/15/the-shooting-drill-youre-probably-not-doing-enough/

I like this guy Mosby.  And not just because I’m an Old Paratrooper and fond of paratroopers, and he are one.  He’s literate, speaks his mind and on occasion admits he’s wrong and corrects himself.  Not a common attribute in the ego-driven “tacti-cool industry” in my opinion based on my observations.

I enjoyed reading this particular post, and thought I’d dip into my much battered bag of Old Dude Neuro Hacks for Gunslingers and share something specific about how to build more efficient pathways between visual processing, decision making and pressing the trigger.

As always, don’t take anything I say for gospel. Approach it all with doubt and trust only your own experience. Nice thing about these drills is that you can do them on your own.  Once you  have YOUR  experience, you can decide if you don’t believe it or not.  And incorporate it, or discard it, or go argue with yourself (not with me) about why your experience doesn’t line up with your previous experience and reality map.

Some of the old studies I had translated back in the 80s when I started studying how to enhance fighter performance under stress focused on how mental rehearsal alone can dramatically improve and retain performance IF there’s an existing skill set in place.  That’s what lead to this article I wrote back in the 90s that shaped quite a few instructors back in the day.

https://thestreetstandards.wordpress.com/2016/01/14/shooting-with-the-minds-eye/

Here’s some more to learn and do.

PRESUPPOSITION: that you have basic  handgun skills. Defined here as:

A. Carry a loaded firearm concealed in public safely and legally.

B. That you can present that handgun, on a static range, and fire one shot to hit a five inch circle at 7 yards within 2.5 seconds. (Ideally 5 times in a row)

DRILL:

Away from the range, inside your home: walk off 7 yards. Outside your home, like on your porch or backyard, walk off 7 yards. Out in public (discreetly, please) walk off 7 yards.

Then, WITHOUT TAKING YOUR WEAPON OUT, utilize the techniques described in THE MIND’S EYE article to visualize having your pistol in your hand, and seeing your sights aligned:

Inside your home, from 0-7 yards.
Then go outside and do the same.
Then go out in public, sit in a coffee shop or in a shopping mall and do the same.

Mind you, this doesn’t require (past the first few iterations) that you MIME pointing your gun. Just look and visualize perfect sight alignment and recall the feel of the weapon in your hand.

Now…in a public place, like a food court at the mall, or a restaurant, or a coffee shop, visualize the max distance you’ve trained at, for this we’ll say 7 yards. Now look at the people who are in there, moving or static.

Visualize the weapon in your hand, your sights aligned.

Then ask yourself these questions.

Could I hit that person 7 yards away? If so, where on the body?
Could I shoot past that person to someone behind them at 7 yards? If so, how long is my window of opportunity to make that clean shot?
Where would I have to move in order to get a clear shot at someone in the door, at the cash register, across the room?
What if I had to shoot through window glass at someone shooting from outside?
What is critical is KNOWING in visualization. In other words, it’s one thing to make a clean hit at 7 yards on a one-way range at a 90 degree angle. The world doesn’t quite line up that way, especially for a civilian gunslinger. So when you do your visualization, SEE your sights lined up, and FEEL for the gut check you have when you KNOW you’ve made a good hit at the range (somatic markers, anyone?). And when you FEEL the perfect alignment and timing, press with your trigger finger. Not a whole lot, just enough to create and reinforce the chain of visual processing, evaluation as to distance and doability to the kinematic chain of muscles pressing the trigger. 
Rinse and repeat.

What I’ve just described to you is the actual cognitive process EXPERIENCED gunfighters — private sector, law enforcement, military and “tactical” shooters — go through after sufficient experience. It’s deeply automated and engrained below the level of consciousness, which is why so many of them can’t articulate it nor teach it well. And honestly most survivors of violence don’t like to mess with a process that has kept them alive.

I get that.

So when faced with the challenge of transferring expertise from an experienced gunslinger to a novice, modeling then replicating then automating a proven superior performance cognitive and neurological sequence (or neural pathway in plain-speak) is a proven pathway to superior performance.  It’s not just faster, it’s far more robust in ensuring performance when it’s time to Kill The Bad Thing.

Don’t take my word for it.  Try it yourself.  You might like it.  Or not.

PS:  experiment combining this technique with what passes for “traditional” firearms instruction.  Or better yet, combine it with the methods I described in the previous post.  You might be astonished with the results.  Or not.  I’ll leave it up to you to decide.  I’m biased after 30 years of success with those methods, among others.  YMMV.

New Training Paradigms and The Courage To Go Outside The Box (read to the bottom for free e-book till Wednesday)

Just this morning I received an e-mail from a veteran who is a long time reader of my fiction, and a follower of my training research.  After a distinguished military career, he’s now doing other things which include teaching civilian CCW classes.  Out of respect for his privacy, I’m going to excerpt a snippet from his e-mail here:

Marcus,

    Just wanted to drop you a note to say thanks.  I was filling in for a friend on a [state level] CCW class the other day and, for the first time, had two first time shooters in the class.  I thought, “what the hell, let’s give it a go.  I went back and pulled up the post you did on rethinking teaching the novice shooter.  When it came time for the qualification shoot, I put them in the last firing order and, when everyone else was gone, I went through your method.  It worked like a freakin’ charm.  While they weren’t anywhere near prepared for an actual encounter with the Bad Man (no one is on a mere CCW qual course), they were shooting as well as the, ahem, “experienced” shooters in the group.  So thanks.  I’ll be using that again.

Can’t wait for the non-fiction books.

Regards,
xxx

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.)
xxxxxxxxxxxx

 

As I often mention in this blog, my research work in training, especially in firearms and “soft skills” like situational awareness has been adopted at the national level in Sweden, Norway, South Africa, and Israel.  Individual units and regional LE/military organizations in many other countries have adopted some of it.

It’s always refreshing to me to get an e-mail like that (I consider those e-mails to be of more value than all the certificates and contracts I can hang on my wall — to me these e-mails represent lives saved now and down stream) from people out in the field.  And especially so when it’s a (now) civilian instructor teaching newbie civilian shooters as I set out below in my older blog post from three or four years ago.

I’m reminded of this YouTube video on leadership.  It starts off like one of my post-training parties when I was younger, and the lessons become self-evident.  This very much applies to the willingness to go outside of the box, to safely experiment with new training concepts, and more to the point — be among the first to do so.

Thanks, LTC!

This post below is from 2016.  The truth is out there:

Here’s a few training hacks derived from our going research (and the research of others) into training for performance under stress.

Scroll down for some recommended fundamental books that should be read by anyone who wants to discuss “cognitive neuroscience” in the context of firearms and combative training before they start slinging “most scientific” in their marketing material (hat tip to Alfred Bester in THE STARS MY DESTINATION — “Very quant! Most Scientific!”)

EXPERIENCE FOR BEGINNERS —

Whether you’re a gun enthusiast or seasoned tactician, you’ve probably run across some of the many new gun owners at ranges. Many experienced people have taken it upon themselves to offer training (familiarization) and experiences on ranges to those new to firearms. These ideas are offered from research into learning that applies to beginning firearms students.

As usual, don’t take anything said here (or by anybody) as gospel unless you verify it through your direct experience. Don’t recycle and remouth what somebody else says until you’ve done it for yourself. Feel free to read the books listed below and come to your own conclusions, or ask questions (please don’t e-mail them to me, just post in the comments, thx).

Here’s a recommended sequence of instruction for a new handgun shooter:

1. Determine status of weapon (loaded, unloaded? External safety or no? Magazine in or out, loaded or unloaded, external safety or not?

2. How to make a weapon safe: If safety,look for F/S, engage safety. Remove magazine. Lock back slide and visually/physical inspect chamber.

3. How to load the weapon.

4. Muzzle awareness — guns are geometric instruments

5. Trigger finger awareness — location of finger trigger at all time.

The only safety briefing necessary for an experienced instructor and a novice is: “Do what I tell you to do. And only that.” At this point.

The above steps are all hands on. No lecture, just show them one time, then let them do it. Don’t do it for them, let them make mistakes and figure it out by themselves. You are standing right there and you are responsible for safety. You can use snap caps/dummy rounds if you want; using real ammo under your close supervision increases stress for the student. Keep it simple, brief sentences, positive reinforcement. Don’t lecture, don’t preach. Maximize hands on by the student and hands off by the instructor. That includes talking them through. Let them figure it out. Doesn’t matter (at this point) if it looks like crap.

Once they’ve gone through this sequence above (should not take more than five to seven minutes max) go hot with the pistol. Let them do it. If somebody is really a stress wreck, load it for them and put it into their hand.

Then let them shoot. No instruction on grip, stance, aim, breathing, blah blah blah. Just make sure their fingers don’t get caught in the slide. Bring the target up close. Let them shoot like 5 rounds, take a break, shoot five more. Doesn’t matter at all what the target looks like and don’t coach. Just let them go bang. No more than ten rounds.

Then have them determine the status of their weapon, unload, make it safe.

And shake it off.

No negative comments, no coaching, no endless mouth noise about trigger control and grip and stance blah blah blah.

Then go through the whole sequence again. No talk, no lecture, just do it and let them work through the whole sequence, hands shaking whatever. It’s your job to ensure safety at this point, do so. Muzzle awareness and trigger awareness, and save the four rules lecture for another time.

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Then pick ONE thing, and one thing only. I suggest starting with grip. Fine tune their grip and spend no more than one minute doing so. Don’t talk about it, just adjust their hand and have them feel whether it works for them or not.

Five shots. Let them notice improvement. If there’s no improvement by fine tuning their grip, then you better work harder as an instructor.

Then trigger. Put a coin on the front sight and have them do no more than five slow presses. if they’re able to keep the coin from falling, that’s good enough for now. No more than a minute.

Five shots.

Then stance. No more than one minute.

Five shots.

No improvement? Shame on you, instructor. There should be.

Eye-sight-target alignment. No more than one minute.

Five shots.

Take a break.

Nothing negative, just chat, let them process. No feedback from you or fine tuning at this point.

After about five minutes or so, have them go through the whole sequence (determine status, load, muzzle awareness, trigger finger, grip, stance, eye-sight-target alignment).

Shoot 10 rounds in this sequence (hat tip to Claude Werner, Tactical Professor) Fire 1 from ready, lower to low ready, fire 2, low ready, fire 3, low ready, fire 4 to slide lock, go through sequence (determine status, etc. etc.).

Take a break and congratulate them on their improvement. No improvement? Shame on you, instructor.

50 rds, about 30 minutes. See targets below.

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Handgun target — 7 yards, last 25 rounds of first 50 rounds from a handgun Evah.

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Student being coached by some old vagrant.

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Works with ARs, too. At CQB range 10 yds — notice group on targets. First time with AR. First 20 rounds.

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100 yard target.

Total AR rounds — 60 rds. Never handled one. Can identify weapon status, make safe, load, engage targets, make weapon safe. Total training time on AR platform — 30 minutes.

9mm handgun — 50 rds. Never handled one. Can identify weapon status, make safe, load, engage targets, make weapon safe. Total training time on pistol platform — 30 minutes.

One hour, 50 handgun rounds, 60 AR rounds.

Can you do this? Why not?

Dudes and dudettes, this is why this works, every single time, if you do it this way (which requires you instructor types to rethink your presuppositions, biases and perceptual framework that defines your definition of firearms instruction)

The student has no first hand experience of firearms. All her presuppositions, imagining, biases come second or third hand delivered through the opinions of others or perceptions from media like TV, movies, and the Errornet.

Biases and presuppositions come from our experiences and training. Every word that comes out of an instructors mouth comes from previous experience/learning/knowledge.

In this case, the student is a blank slate with NO EXPERIENCE to build any sort of cognitive framework on which to build a perception or to acquire skill.

So, dudes and dudettes, how about we CREATE an experience for the student, so they have some kind of cognitive framework in which to hang all the learning you expect them to get? In other words, how about building a box for them to put the learning in, and make sure that box from day one will translate to the self defense application?

Give them the experience WITHOUT you interfering, only guiding and doing the minimal necessary to provide safety (you’re responsible during this particular first session). Let them work through errors on their own. Then get on with it.

So here’s an example: devout Muslims and Orthodox Jews. The subject of your lecture? The Joy of Virginia Ham. So you gots your PowerPoint, you gots your training AIDS, you gots your lecture notes all set out. So now…describe the taste of Virginia Ham to an audience that has no experience with eating ham.

C’mon, you’re an instructor. What’s so tough about that?

So now explain (use your words, now, as my fellow FLETC instructor Raylan Givens once said), to an audience with no experience with real firearms or shooting. Use your words only. Now go have them do what you TALKED about. Or maybe skip the lectures till you BUILD a cognitive framework based on EXPERIENCE so the students can then hang your abstractions and lecture onto their experiential framework.

START WITH THESE BOOKS TO RESHAPE YOUR BELIEFS ABOUT WHAT IS POSSIBLE IF YOU MODIFY YOUR APPROACH TO FIREARMS TRAINING. OR DON’T.

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Now I’m sure I’m going to get the usual rash of complaints about not citing my company research or the recent research that supports this. So here’s a challenge to those usual suspects: GO DO THIS. TRY IT OUT IN THE REAL WORLD. MAKE IT WORK. THEN, WHEN YOU HAVE THE EXPERIENCE, ASSUMING YOU’RE WILLING TO RESHAPE YOUR BELIEF ABOUT WHAT IS POSSIBLE, THEN READ THOSE BOOKS FOR AN EXCELLENT SNAPSHOT ABOUT WHAT IS FAIRLY CURRENT IN COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND PERFORMANCE UNDER STRESS, AND THEN FOLLOW THE RESEARCH IN THOSE BIBLIOGRAPHIES.

And then ask yourself this question: What’s more important in a gunfight? Being able to rattle off cognitive neuroscience, or do the skill in real time under real stress? What’s more important to a teacher of gun fighting? The ability to rattle off “Yerkes-Dodson! Hicks Law! Most scientific!” Or the ability to take a chance and reshape the paradigm of firearms training which dates back to the 1700s and incorporate some simple and extremely proven research (which is just now creeping into firearms training) so that you can SAVE SOME LIVES and make sure that new shooters start off right?

Food for thought, dudes and dudettes.

Have a good ‘un.

PS: Shout out to the Achy Man haters! Hope you’re enjoying yourselves in Minnesota! Drop by any time, and bring your catamites — we’re very gay-friendly in Minneapolis. Say hi to Uncle Rico next time!

PPS:  Go here for a free e-book/Kindle copy of my best selling first novel NO OTHER OPTION.  Free till Wednesday! https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004YKUE6M/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1

Swaggering Around, Unseemly As It May Be

I remember, not long ago, doing a training demonstration for the Assistant Chief of the Minneapolis Police Department, her Training Lieutenant, and the very seasoned Sergeant in charge of the MPD Tactical Team (used to be ERU when I kicked a few doors with them, don’t know what they call themselves now…). After going through a brief session (30 minutes) designed to help them recognize their own somatic markers in the presence of danger, the Sergeant made six out of six entries into a room where he was required to state, based on his monitoring of his somatic markers, where the “bad guy” inside the room was — before he entered.

He was right on six for six out of all entries.

What I remember most, with a mix of amusement and resignation, was his complete flabbergastment at his own performance. He didn’t want to believe what he’d just done, because by his (previous) belief system, what he had just done was impossible, and therefore was some kind of arcane trickery on my part.

I gave him a technical explanation, and his immediate pushback was: “Where’s the research?” My rebuttal was, “Did you just do it? Six times in a row? Do you need research to convince you that you just did what you did? And, by the way, we (me and my crew at Accentus) are DOING the latest research we just gifted you in an exercise.”

It took him awhile to sort it out, and when I saw him at a later date in his role as firearms instructor, he’d absorbed that experience, made it part of his reality map, and was passing on his own flavor to his students.

One of the reason’s I’ve always brought research up AFTER I do exercises that are designed to create immediate change in the brain is that most people who are on the cutting edge of doing, rather than blogging/YouTubing/blagging (similar to blogging, but more annoying) are immediately and justifiably skeptical about “research” unless you can show them, right there, right now, how it benefits them operationally.

Dude, I’m down with that approach.

Back in the old timey times, when 3-4 revolvers and a sawed off shotgun were the “operators” tools of choice, I immediately questioned all “research” with my default “Oh, bullshit, show me.” So I get it why some of my colleagues and clients and students don’t want to hear about research UNLESS you can demonstrate why they need to spend some of their very limited time on that.

As my good friend and colleague Ralph Mroz points out in this article (insert Mind’s Eye link) we’ve been about 20-30 years ahead of the “firearms/training industry research” pretty much forever.

So it’s very gratifying when the mainstream science community catches up with our applications. One of my many attorneys pointed out with some amusement, “Marcus, you’re in a unique position. You’ve been proving this stuff works on the street and the battlefield for 30 years…and you had to go back to the lab to prove that street results were real!”

Word, bro. Word. Good thing I’m scary patient by nature.

There’s been a slew of recent research studies that have come out recently that lend support to the controversial exercises I’ve developed, taught, and validated in very hard arenas all over the world.

Specifically we’ve developed a number of exercises designed to help operators more rapidly recognize (and act) upon their individual somatic markers (insert Wikipedia link Somatic Marker Hypothesis) in the presence of danger. Primarily this is focused on refining the sense of imminent danger from humans nearby (though we have validated it in the field at over 300 meters) and the response it elicits in humans who, these days, are more unaware than not of everything, especially subtle feelings in the body traditionally associated with emotions (hair standing up on the neck, sinking feeling in the stomach, etc. are examples).

This plays off our fundamental emphasis on the importance of preconscious processing as a foundational element in survival in the face of extreme stress and extreme danger.

In other words, we train the brain’s pattern recognition program to recognize its own signals faster and sooner so as to speed up the decision making process in fast breaking human on human conflict. To recognize danger early. To recognize the shift in another human from OBSERVATION to ATTENTION and then ATTENTION to INTENTION.

Kind of a useful skill, wouldn’t you agree?

We reliably, and repeatedly, train brains to recognize the precursors before the precursors that are normally taught as fight precursors, to recognize the subtle muscle pre-firing that occurs before conscious thought as long as 2-7 seconds before action. As one of the studies cited below indicates, they’ve demonstrated in the lab the ability to predict 14 seconds before conscious thought and action. We have some anecdotes of that time frame from the field, problem is that our guys either left the area or decisively killed their opponents before they got well into their action sequence.

So if you’re interested in the hard science behind the stuff we do, which has been for 30 years often dismissed as hoo-doo (though embraced by some of the very best in the world and utilized operationally right now in some of the hardest counter-terror environments in the world) skim through these recent science articles.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/people-can-sense-earth-magnetic-field-brain-waves-suggest

How does the ability to respond and sense magnetic fields matter to the brain of a gunfighter?

BLUF*: The human organism generates an electromagnetic field from the heart and brain (see research at HeartMath, a DOD contractor and JSOC provider). At the preconscious level all humans feel variations in that field in other humans especially under stress or intention focused at another.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-39813-y

How does the ability to decode imagery before “volitional engagement” matter to a brain of a gunfighter?

BLUF*: Human brains visualize in the visual cortex before taking action, working off pattern recognition fragments or whole patterns. This causes measurable change in the brain which in turn is reflected in EM activity which is detected by nearby human brains.

https://qz.com/1569158/neuroscientists-read-unconscious-brain-activity-to-predict-decisions/

How does the ability to read brain activity to predict decisions 11 seconds before people act matter to the brain of a gunfighter?

BLUF*: Uh, if a gunfighter can predict you 11 seconds in advance, even an ancient one eyed fat man like me could shoot you lots of times before you shoot me. Sorry — this is a more accessible and popular science explanation of the study above.

If you go back to the PDF of our peer reviewed research study published in THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL AND POLICE PSYCHOLOGY https://marcuswynne.wordpress.com/2018/08/29/a-major-milestone-for-accentus-ludus/ you’ll see reference to our somatic marker training. Still plenty of room to improve what we’re doing out in the field. And my brilliant research staff, when they’re not tutoring the Dalai Lama or treating PTSD with wolf therapy, will drive on with that mission.

Try it. You might save some lives, including your own.

*BLUF = Bottom Line Up Front

And while I rarely swagger around, thinking it unseemly in someone of my age, I’m going to post this video, because it captures how I’m feeling today. Thanks to my researchers, and the many hundreds of thousands of men and women out there who took this stuff on board to save their lives and many others, and thanks to God for gifting me with the ability to take this out into the world and save lives.

If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, please go here www.marcuswynne.com and sign up for my newsletter.  While it’s right now focused on selling books, I’m in the process of creating a consolidated website and newsletter that covers all this stuff.  Free, no spam.

From The One-Eyed Fat Man —

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Everything Old Is New Again

A friend recently sent me this video of the very talented Pat MacNamara and mentioned how the “proprioceptive” drills Pat Mac is doing here looked familiar.  I don’t take credit for his excellent drills, and I have done similar exercises when I was a firearms instructor back in the days of Barney and Fred in THE FLINTSTONES.

I remember the pushback from some students (and most instructors) back in the day who wanted to know “What’s the benefit to my shooting to balance on one foot?  How does that pertain to a gunfight?”

Okay, legit questions then, legit question now.

As PM says here in a much more entertaining fashion, the purpose of his drill, and similar drills, is to develop and to exercise the ability to shoot decisively, i.e. quickly and accurately, while moving.  His point is that flat range training, especially amongst those who don’t have access to private ranges where you can easily run drills like this, doesn’t promote the use of the pistol while moving — and that every fight, gunfight or fist fight, involves movement.

In the older video below, Super Dave Harrington demonstrates a moving while shooting exercise that many Error-Net types ridiculed — because they didn’t understand what they were seeing, and not just because they couldn’t spell proprioceptive to save their lives, guns or not.  SD is also demonstrating utilizing the pistol shooting skillset while moving.  SD, I believe, first came up with the analogy that a pistol gunfighter has to be like a football quarterback:  you have to access your weapon, get out, align it with a target that is also moving, and snap the shot at the exact second necessary for it to hit what you aim with.  All the time while ducking and bobbing and weaving to avoid getting clobbered by big sweaty dudes who crush humans for a living.

I like that analogy.

It’s like the difference between punching air, to punching a heavy bag, to punching a human who’s moving and punching you back.

So what these drills do is isolate the elements of knowing where you are in three-dimensional space (like a street) and how you are moving (direction, speed, stability), as well as training your TRANSITIONAL movements neurologically and physiologically (in your muscles, etc).

You may not be able to bust moves like PM on your indoor range, but I’m going to give you some exercises below that you CAN do on an indoor regulated range as a Joe Citizen.

But first watch two Grand Masters of the Fighting Pistol below.

Okay.  Now that you’ve seen that, here’s some ideas for drills you can do to exercise your proprioception and general kinesthetics to enhance your ability to move and fight with a pistol.  The intention here is to give you simple exercises you can do on an indoor regulated range where you may not be able to draw from the holster, and are limited to  movement within the box defined by your indoor range shooting stall.  Ideally you’d train this, and then go somewhere you could move and shoot to graph your improvement from baseline — if you can’t live fire, Blue Gun or Air Soft it and see how it works.

Start with your weapon loaded and laid on the shooting booth shelf.

From your hands in a ready position, or by your side, and standing center in the square defined by the walls of your booth

Step to your far right, shoulder to the booth wall, pick up your pistol, and fire one shot at a 3×5 card at 5 or 7 yds.
After that shot, take a long step to your left, shoulder to the booth wall, and fire one shot at the card.
Scan over your shoulders behind you and step back one step (remaining within the defined box of the shooter’s booth) on the left, fire one shot
Scan around you and step to your right to the far right of the booth and fire one shot.
Four shots, simple movement right, left, back and sideways, incorporating a real awareness scan,

THEN

Same sequence but start with your weight on your right foot when you step right, stay on one foot if you can, or use your tiptoe like PM does on your left to balance you — take your time and place your shot
Step to the left, weight on the left, tiptoe right to balance — place your shot
Scan behind and around you, step back with your left, weight on your left, place your shot
Scan behind and around you, step to the right, weight on your right, use your tiptoe left to balance, place your shot.
Four shots, exercising proprioception, balance, and maintaining your “wobble zone” in your sight picture, movement, scanning.

THEN

Same sequence as above, but with strong hand only.

THEN

Same sequence as above, with other strong hand only

RINSE AND REPEAT.

It’s harder — and more useful — than it seems, Pilgrims.

Take care, enjoy.

The One Eyed Fat Man

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I’m consolidating much of my writing into a new, in-progress, website.  To keep current on my fiction, non-fiction, tactical writing, cognitive neuroscience, and strange adventures please go to www.marcuswynne.com and sign up at the bottom of the page for my newly revamped e-mail newsletter.

A New Novel, And Upcoming Training Books (Update with Free Book)

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For my writing fans who just want to cut to the chase, here’s links to the new book WYLDE:  BOOKS 1-3 on Amazon and Smashwords.  By the time you read this it should be live on Amazon and Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks and Kobo.

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/WYLDE-BOOKS-1-3-Marcus-Wynne-ebook/dp/B07LDZ3JWV/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1545332990&sr=8-2&keywords=wylde+books+1-3

Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/912989

EDIT 30 JAN 2019:  SMASHWORDS  BOOK PROMOTION —

On Smashwords you can download these books as .mobi files to read with the Kindle app or on any Kindle device, as well as in PDF and all other e-book formats.  Sign up is free and they don’t spam you.

One new book:  WYLDE BOOKS 1-3 https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/912989

One free book:  NO OTHER OPTION https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/56252

One book on sale:  WARRIOR IN THE SHADOWS https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/538353

New Book synopsis:

This compilation of the two previous WYLDE books JOHNNY WYLDE and TWO’S WYLDE with 60,000 additional words of new story brings the WYLDE story to a dramatic finale.  The two previous books have been revised, corrected and combined to flow with the new content.

WYLDE is a manic gunfighter-noir-crime story that blows up in high drama when you mix a bar bouncer with a shadowy military past, a gleefully criminal South African gun dealer, a sado-masochistic Russian couple who traffic in weapons and women, a Buddhist exotic dancer, a man-killing woman detective, assorted highly skilled dark side shooters and the sunniest down-home female assassin in the business.

Lyrical sex. Poetic violence. And poetry.

For adults only. Rated R for graphic sex, violence, language and mordant humor.

———————————-

For those who are curious about what’s up with the business, stick around.

I’ve been working on integrating the best research in sports psychology, cognitive neuroscience, stress inoculation, accelerated expertise and adult learning into military, law enforcement and private sector training since the late 1980s.  I’ve taught at hundreds of military and law enforcement academies, including the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at the Marana AZ satellite campus.  My work was adopted at the national level by the Norwegian National Police, the Swedish National Police, and the South African Police Force.  It’s also been adopted been adopted by specialty military and police units within those nations as well as the Israeli and UK training communities.  I continue to consult with a number of elite military and law enforcement units domestically and abroad.

So what?

In 2014, I started Accentus-Ludus LLC, a Department of Defense Research and Development Company focusing on integrating all the work we’ve done with innovative training design.

www.accentusludus.com.

We do good work.  Some has already been published after peer review in THE JOURNAL OF POLICE AND CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGY and some of which is yet forthcoming elsewhere.  We have patents pending on specific training protocols and processes that create specific cognitive, neurological and behavioral changes that result in dramatic improvements in ability.  We’ve been invited to present at Google’s “X” facility, one of the most advanced research and development labs in the world, and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research and Projects Administration) the US Department of Defense’s military Research and Development organization.  And we continue to consult with cutting edge researchers all over the world to refine what we do.

So what?

During the last five years I focused all my energy on getting the company up and running.  Now that we’ve taken it as far as we can, we’re selling the company along with some of the patents and intellectual property.  That whole burdensome process is being handled by Fredrickson & Byron www.fredlaw.com one of the largest law firms in the country, which specializes in IP sale, IPOs, financial packaging, etc. for companies like Medtronics and Cray, to use two local examples.

So what?

It means I can let someone truly competent run with that and I can get back to my *second* (after using research to save lives) true love which is writing.  The first order of business was to finish up the WYLDE series.  I just published that two days ago as a Christmas present for my very patient fans.  My roster of upcoming fiction includes a novella which wraps up the story of Dale and Charley from BROTHERS IN ARMS, and another long book like WYLDE titled THE ACHY MAN.  I’m already in discussion with major online streaming services about creating original series out of WYLDE and THE ACHY MAN.  I’ll keep you in the loop on when we move past talking and into doing.

My peers, colleagues, and students have long urged me to write a book about our training methods.  I’ve resisted for a long time because our approach is focused on fast effective immediate change to the human brain in the context of a carefully crafted training environment.  Setting down the complexity of that, especially while the process was in dynamic evolution, didn’t seem like an appropriate course of action at the time.

I’ve changed my thinking.  I think it’s time to do that.  I’ve become motivated since there’s been a concentrated effort on the behalf of unscrupulous individuals and organizations to steal some of our intellectual property, and attempts to take credit (to the point of plagiarism) for content we’ve written and research that we did.

I’m not, nor have I ever been, concerned with the “Hey look at me!  Look at what I did!”  factor. I am concerned with, and will always remain concerned with, saving as many lives as we can through our training innovations.  It’s irritating to see unscrupulous and unskilled wannabes attempting to take credit for their bastardized version of our work.  More to the point, they compromise student safety and downstream training effectiveness because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.  The individuals who’ve actually trained directly with me have gone on to train hundreds of thousands of students:  the entire South African and Swedish National Police, much of the Norwegian National Police, and multiple elite military units all over the world.

Those vetted instructors know what they’re doing because they were trained properly and went out and applied and evolved their processes with my follow up coaching.

These unscrupulous individuals and organizations do not know what they’re doing.

So why not sue them?  I have the biggest, best and most expensive attorney roster in the upper Midwest.  Suing them would be trivial.  But I’d rather not spend the energy.  Let their own unscrupulous actions expose them.  The best revenge is living well.  In this instance, the best revenge is training others well — and let these LOSERS fall by the wayside.

So in the interest of setting the record straight, I have two training books lined up for release next year.

The first book is a compilation from my blog. Edited, curated, annotated, and cross referenced.

The second book is a detailed “working book” which is combination illustrated journal with hard science references and detailed case studies, most of which have never been publicized.

After that, it’s back to consultation, working with the new owners of Accentus for a period of time, and back to my fiction writing career.

That’s the long winded answer.

Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

 

A Major Milestone for Accentus Ludus (edited 28 Sep 2018, to add direct link for approved PDF of the research paper)

I’m very humbled to announce that THE JOURNAL OF POLICING AND CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGYhas completed its rigorous independent peer review of a research study measuring the efficacy of the neural-based training methods we’ve developed over the last 31 years of research and experimentation. (click here for the PDF: Approved Pre-Print Release

The paper establishes a brand new field of academic and scientific inquiry:  the fusion of accelerated expertise concurrent with stress inoculation.  It establishes us as pioneers in this new field and validates our training protocols in the laboratory.  We’ve already validated our results on the street and on the battlefield for over 31 years.

Our patented process and training protocols change the brain through the mechanism of neural plasticity to create accelerated expertise concurrent with stress inoculation.

It’s this process that enables us to take two novices with the MP-5 and train them to perform and qualify, both on paper and in sim fights against non-compliant opponents. as experts who outperformed master instructors.

In four hours.  Case study here: INSERT LINK

With an early version of that process, we worked with a group of rape survivors so traumatized that they were triggered into severe PTSD symptoms at the mere sight of a handgun. After training, women who were previously unable to look at a handgun were fighting with that same handgun against two large aggressive and highly skilled male fighters armed with real machetes and baseball bats.

The women won their fights. 100% lethal hits in dynamic full contact force on force.  They outperformed the local SWAT shooters who were, at best, around 40% hits in the exact same scenarios.

From start to finish, four hours.

Ed Lovette, who was in charge of paramilitary training for an Other Government Agency, was an expert witness to the training that day.  He turned to me and said, “Chico, you broke the code.”

We’ve since then been quietly invited to many of the most elite military and law enforcement units in the world to provide training for their instructor cadres:  CASE STUDY HERE

We’re now taking our refined process and automating it with cutting edge technology.  We’re going to do just what Neo experienced in the Matrix:

This is my amazing research team.  One of them is a tenured professor who, when she’s not tutoring the Dalai Lama and his monks in cognitive neuroscience, is busy defining the cognitive neuroscience of mindfulness and how to apply that to keeping good guys and gals alive.  The other works with wolves in a therapeutic setting to help veterans cope with PTSD, when she’s not saving lives at her clinical practice or running her roller derby team.

They are both amazing and brilliant woman who I am very honored to work with.

Dr. Aminda O’Hare, Research Director, Cognitive Neuroscience Advisor

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Dr. O’Hare is a tenured assistant professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She is the Principal Investigator of the Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology and Experimental Science (CAPES) laboratory, which uses event-related potentials (ERP) techniques to investigate cognition and emotion interactions.  She has been awarded a Multidisciplinary Seed Funding Grant from the UMass system to study the relationships among perceived stress, biomarkers of stress and performance in college students.  She has been honored with a grant from the Mind and Life Foundation to study the effects of mindfulness practice on college relationships in first semester college students.  This grant takes her to India where she tutors the Dalai Lama and others at His Holiness’s educational institution in Dharamsala, India. Previously she completed a two year fellowship on the Cognitive Psychophysiology National Institutes of Health Training Grant at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she specialized in the neuroscience of anxiety, depression, and executive functioning.

Dr. Amanda Beer, Clinician, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Applications Advisor

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Dr. Beer is a licensed clinical psychologist (licensed in NC, WA, CA) who specializes in integrating awareness and strength-based approaches to help clients transform fear, stress and trauma.  She works with individuals and groups from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and has specific expertise collaborating with clients facing gender or racial oppression.  Her approach is collaborative in nature and grounded in feminist and Buddhist psychology frameworks.  As a scientist-practitioner, Dr. Beer is committed to utilizing evidence based and cutting-edge strategies while simultaneously honoring her clients innate power to change. Her clinical background involves specialized training in multi-cultural counseling competence, group psychotherapy and intervention, and mindfulness- based approaches to wellness.  She has engaged in intensive training on psychological trauma and healing.  Currently Dr. Beer facilitates educational and therapeutic programs that empower individuals, specifically at-risk youth, to identify with their inner wisdom and innate healing potential via connections with animals and nature in a setting working with wolves and wolf dogs in a unique educational context.

I want to thank all my friends and colleagues who have supported me in this crazy uphill struggle for 31 years.  And I want to also thank the many doubters and haters – our enemies can be great teachers. Mine certainly have been.

See you around the campus. Or out on the street.

Six Years Of Random Thoughts (as of today)

Wow.  Who’d of thunk it?  Six years.

Stand by for a brief video about the mental training open enrollment, pro and con.  Sometime this week in between other things.

cheers, m

Brain Hacks For Better Shooting

Below is a description of a stripped down version of one of our military programs.  It focuses on the mental attributes to support the act of shooting, not the emotional hardening and management of aggressive fighting physiology involved in gunfighting.  Obviously there’s some overlap but this is aimed at the general shooting community like competitive shooters, firearms instructors, firearms enthusiasts and not just the professional gun-fighter.

After discussion with our legal counsel, we’re going to experiment with a few open enrollment classes along this line.

We won’t be taking this on the road right away as we want to run a few to refine and test curriculum.

If interested, please leave comments or questions in the reply below or if you prefer an email to marcus@accentusludus.com

Thanks!

Cheers, m

 Brain Hacks for Better shooting

 The performance of your BRAIN drives your BODY to excellence.  This course builds the mental platform talked about, but rarely trained, in traditional shooting courses.  The methods taught are proven in both competition and in combat.  The instructor is the leading authority in applying these methods to shooting.  After professionally training federal law enforcement and military special operations worldwide for the last 20 years, he is now opening up instruction to civilian shooters.

 Course Overview

 You will leave with a better ability to shoot under stress and a personalized practice program to reinforce your mental skills at home.
This is a one-day course.  We’ll do live fire, dry fire, experiential exercises, and a minimum of lecture.
This is NOT another shooting skills course like you are used to – it is a mental skills course that will ENABLE you to shoot better.
We put the latest in cognitive neuroscience research into easy to apply practical exercises proven to dramatically improve shooting skills.

 

Subjects Covered:

How your brain works when you shoot.
Brain hacks to make your brain work better.
How to manage stress before, during and after shooting.
Every high-level shooter talks about how valuable visualization is:  have you ever been taught how to manipulate your visual processing and improve it?  We do that.
How to refine your physical movement using your brain.
How to manipulate your brain’s processing so that “you have all the time you need…fast.”
Putting it all together with “Deliberate Practice,” a method of self-training used by master performers in every field and profession. NOTE:  one of my colleagues, a naval special warfare instructor, pointed out that what we do is combine Deliberate Practice AND Deliberate Play (ala Cote) so for all the training-neuroscience nerds out there, that’s a better description of what we do and how we are different. (Edited 17 Apr 2018)

Sample Day:

Safety briefing
Live fire baseline drills
Introduction to concepts and overview of the brain
Visualization skills
 Stress management skills to mitigate stress before, during and after shooting.
Kinesthetic skills to improve how your body uses real time information
Temporal processing or how to manage how fast you perceive time
Deliberate Practice techniques to build a practice program that will build on your progress after this one-day training.
Baseline check to measure shooting progress after one day’s training.
Techniques for retaining and integrating your new mental skills

o Sleep cycle
o Hydration
o Refresher/checks
o Deliberate Practice

 

Taught by Marcus Wynne:  Marcus is the CEO of Accentus Ludus LLC, a DOD research company focused on enhancing mental performance.  He has been a pioneer in the field of enhancing mental performance in combative applications for 30 years.  He’s taught at national law enforcement academies in over ten countries, including the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and consults regularly with elite military counter-terror units in the US and abroad.  He served in the 82d Airborne and the United Nations Command Joint Security Force on active military duty during the 70s and 80s, and served again as a Federal Air Marshal, Air Marshal Team Leader, and Lead Firearms/Tactics Instructor during the First Gulf War in the early 90s.