Muscle memory ... A term that bothers me almost as much as clip bothered Hazcat. I first heard the term in high school, and the more I got into shooting and then self-defense it became a worshiped term. Muscle memory, as if our muscles had any capacity to remember and act on their own.
Several years ago I learned about the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and its roll in our lives. The ANS is what controls our smooth muscles and organs. It functions based on signals sent to the brain and within the system by sensors in our body. I compare it to our HVAC systems. We have a furnace, air conditioner, and possibly a humidifier. Connected to all of these is the brain, a thermostat. We set the temperature in the brain. We may also set a humidity level. From this point on the system runs, untouched, to maintain temperature and humidity without us turning knobs, throwing switches, or shoveling coal or wood and without even thinking about it.
When we practice repetitive motion, both gross and fine motor skills, we are programing our brain on the details of performing the multiple tasks to complete a desired response. The steps of a draw under pressure: Off hand to your chest as you grip pistol, grip and lift to clear holster, pivot barrel to parallel with the earth, extend and raise as you bring off hand into support grip position, continue to raise pistol until sights are eye level, extend, safety off, and fire. Many steps, but, in competition, when the buzzer goes it happens without thinking. This is NOT muscle memory! This is an autonomic response. We have taught our nervous system to respond on command without thinking our way through the process. "Tap, Rack, Bang" is another autonomic response in our skill set, I hope.
Some functions of our ANS are natural and exist naturally within our system. We don't need to learn how to circulate and regulate blood or practice breathing. Our food moves from one opening of our body to the other without learning and practicing. However, use of firearms is not a natural process. We must learn what we want to do, practice and refine it, and continue to practice to train our ANS. This reaction will also fade if we do not practice it. It is a skill set that falls into the category of use it or lose it.
A final thought on autonomic response. This response does not consider other conditions you are dealing with. Under stress and the initiation of fight or flight we go through many changes. These include loss of color perception, tunnel vision and loss of fine motor skills. As we practice we must focus on shapes and not colors, even fuzzy shadows, we must make exaggerated head and body turns to replace eye shifts or reliance on peripheral vision, and we need to eliminate manipulation that includes dexterity like pinching slides between our thumb and forefinger or control manipulation that is more like playing a banjo than operating a machine.
Now, practice, develop a set of repeatable skills that are adaptable to multiple situations, and practice them the same on a regular basis. Enjoy all of your guns, but include regular intense practice with the gun you are most concerned with (defensive and/or competition). Develop a program that includes multiple practices per week of dry fire, reload and jam reaction, and regular range time that duplicates the home practice. This is also where the old adage "slow is smooth and smooth is fast" comes into play. Your system will learn better when we start slow and never exceed what we can do smoothly.
Now, forget muscle memory, and develop your autonomic response. We are all capable, but most don't exercise the system.
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