Surprise ?

[tombogan03884]

In the thread "What do modern shooting sports lack" JohnCasey 4 summed up that they lack the element of surprise



   
   
Re: What do the modern shooting sports lack?
« Reply #34 on: Yesterday at 16:07:38 »
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The part that it is missing is that in real life you have no idea what is about to happen.  You go from "enjoy your fries sir" to "GET THE F OUT OF THE CAR!."  There is no way that these sports can prepare you for what you will do, mainly because you know what is going to happen.  One of the things so far about this forum that has impressed me is the lack of false bravado and chest puffing.  For someone to say "When they come for my car I will just______" is bs, because you don't know what you are going to do.  A lot of times in training we tend to forego the startle reaction at the point of ambush, we don't build it into our routine.  But discounting something that will happen leaves us behind the power curve.  This is something you are not likely to simulate well to a high degree of stress in a course involving live fire, mainly because it is different when you know the targets can't shoot back.  At Valhalla we (Rob, Jeremiah, Brad to some extent and myself) spent a lot of time doing high level simulation stuff.  It is great to see the Spec Ops guy go from hero to homo when he realizes that no one has his back and that his target is now mounted up and pushing his head through the floor.  The same goes for car jacking scenarios, a pop out target is different from a human being walking up to the window and pulling you out by your neck.  IDPA can't simulate that, at least not with live rounds.
   

Luvmy 45 asked how do you train for that, and suggested a new new thread,

That makes sense, and in the sport that would be impossible to do, as you can't score someone for not shooting because no bg's came at you.

So, how to you train for that? If you go to a training seminar. Wouldn't you also know that if you enter a shoot house, BG's are in there and you have to engage them? Or if you are put in a car, BG are going to come after you? Even using simunitions or airsoft, you still know that something is going to happen to you, don't you?

I have not done any training with them so I don't know. How do you setup that startle factor in training?

BTW, this thread has morphed, it's not about shooting sports now... so maybe it's time to start a new thread on this.

Thanks,

Brian

So how DO you train for that ? I'm guessing that part of it involves going into the shoot house and NOT finding BG's to engage.

[Pathfinder]

That is how I would see it - train where nothing goes wrong mixed in with the rest so you do not know what is going to happen.

Training is a progression, and learning basics first, followed by more advanced topics and techniques is the norm, building on what you learned. One of the reasons I still shoot Remington .22 in spite of the significant failures to fire - it helps train me that when I hear a click instead of a bang, I have to work the action and keep shooting.

On a side note, after umpteen hours of Lamaze training with the (now ex-) wife for the first kid, I knew it all, knew exactly how I would react. When the instructor picked me for a "real-life demo", I was pumped, man! I knew this stuff cold.

So I started to put all of of that training into action, put my hand on her shoulder and started to mouth the reassuring word, just like I was trained to do. She screamed - and I mean screamed - "Don't touch me!" just like women in delivery are want to do. Stopped me cold, deer in the headlights and all. And that was the lesson - real life ain't training, it is real, best to be prepared.

[Rob Pincus]

I'm in the middle of about 20 things today, but this is a great question. I just addressed 40 students at a SPEAR Instructor course this morning on the very topic!

The trick here is to realize that there is a HUGE difference between being "ready for something" and "knowing what is going to happen".

When a cop goes on duty, he is supposed to be "ready", but he really has no idea what to expect. To a lesser degree, a student going into a well run scenario session certainly "knows" that something is going to happen, but a good team of instructors and role-players can still catch them off-guard to help simulate real world conditions.

More on this later......

[shooter32]

Nice to see this is being covered.

I have an uncle who was in the Army at the tail end of V.Nam. He said they would have drills to see how guys responded to  the thought of going to war.

We hear things all the time, if it was me "I would".....  Yeah right.

Can't wait for more.

[2HOW]

Great point tom, I have seen an IDPA course that threw some curves and surprises if you didn't get a chance to review. Like a coal mine car flyin down the track at you with a BG in it, pretty cool. But you are exactly right about what would you do in a crunch. Air soft training and FOF would greatly enhance your ability to think and reduce the pucker factor.

[Sponsor]

[ericire12]

Air soft training

Paintball is a lot of fun too

[tombogan03884]

How about those little friction "Snap Caps" just inside the shoot house room, or shooters box at IDPA. Last thing a student will expect is to step in and hear snap pop pop.

[PegLeg45]

I was talking to a guy the other day who is in the planning stages of a shoot-house. He wants to add pneumatic and spring loaded pop-up and hidden targets of both BG's and innocent bystanders, with recorded messages, bright lights, or simulated gunfire for the interaction effect. They would be instructor controlled with a remote control and hidden behind doors, beds, dressers, etc. Random activation or no activation during runs could be controlled by the RO/instructor. No warm-ups or pre-run walk-through's either.

For example: You pie and clear a room and as you advance into the middle of it, a BG pops out of a closet with a flashlight and weapon.

Nothing can really totally prepare you for what you MAY or MAY NOT encounter in any given situation.
All we can do is prepare as well as we can mentally and physically with the equipment we have.

I'm definitely interested in opinions. Should be a good thread.

[tombogan03884]

Sounds expensive to set up. But I bet it will be effective.

[m25operator]

I posted some of this in the course design thread, but it applies to training or conditioning as well as designing courses of fire. If you have a digital watch or cell phone, cell phones better, that has an alarm or calendar feature with alerts. Enter random times for the alarm or alert to go off, and when it does, look around you ( awareness ) and ask what if it happens now. Not the same as someone coming at you with a lug wrench, from behind a Suburban, but it gets you in the habit of being aware, ( that's probably the only good habit to have )  all the time.

Lesson on awareness.

Many years ago, like 28 yrs ago, I was working on a neighbor kids 65 Mustang GT, as is my normal habit, I get very single minded when I'm working, very focused, I'm bent over the radiator working, when the kid slips up on me and circles his arms around me and yells, ( this kid is 6'2" and 240lbs ), he scared me, which is not a good thing to do, I spun around in his grip, and had a pair of needle nosed pliers in my hand, I thrust them to his face and was going for his eye, when I recognized him, and just managed to poke him in the cheek. 

Lesson: I don't work with my back to access points, if there are more than one, I'll try to block them off or put something for someone to negotiate before they get to me. He does not sneak up on people any more.