sighting in on: Emotionally Integrated Training
Discipline must be a habit so ingrained that it is stronger than the excitement of battle or the fear of death.
—George S. Patton, General, US Army T
he late Louis Awerbuck taught that surviving a gunfight is 95 percent luck. You just can’t control the suspect’s skills, cunning, or the stray bullet that has your name on it. You may react perfectly, tactically moving as you empty a magazine into the suspect’s vital areas, inflicting mortal wounds with each round. But in his dying reflex, he may fire and fatally wound you—and, unfortunately, all ties in a gunfight go to the suspect. Control in a gunfi ght is limited. Within your purview of control are only the preparation of the skills and knowledge you bring to the fi ght, your decision-making within the law to re- spond early enough to make a diff erence, and your ability to control your emotional reaction to the attempt to murder you. T e mechanics of hitting a target are impor- tant. Skill development involves a moderately reliable level of accuracy on a square range rather than focusing only on tight groups. Teaching offi cers deadly force policy and the laws of de- fense of self and others should be a mandatory component of every training session—not just reading the policy or law but actually digging into what it means. Ease in the application of the law and policy, combined with the early recognition of the deadly force threshold, can be gained through force-on-force drills and sce- nario training. However, this preparation alone is apparently insuffi cient given the low rates of hits on suspects in many close-range shootings. Fundamentally, the ability to reliably put bullets through a suspect who is attempt- ing to murder the offi cer is as much about controlling emotions and overcoming fear as it is about skill alone… perhaps more. All deadly force training and, indeed, all force and tactical training must address the emo- tional component of responding with force to prepare the offi cer to meet the combative needs of the job.
Freeze, Flight, Fight T e survival strategy of ‘Freeze, fl ight, or fi ght’ is inherent in all mammals. Prey ani- mals freeze because many predators key on movement. Like our mammalian counter- parts we, too, demonstrate the same survival strategies. Everyone freezes to some degree when the unexpected happens—think meer- kats at the fi rst hint of alarm. It takes time to orient to the new situation. We tend to stop moving, hold perfectly still, and look in the direction of the alarm. T e next natural response is fl ight, or fl ee- ing from danger. Fighting tends to be the last response of prey animals and is also the natural last response of untrained non-so- ciopaths. Training can change this, but only if the training is relevant to its application in the real world of threat. Eff ective police training creates the ability to quickly transi- tion through the freeze state into the fi ght. T is rapid reaction is necessary for many of the threats offi cers face in the street that are in proximity and unexpected. Highly experienced military operators say surviving a gunfi ght is more about controlling emotions than it is about raw shooting abil- ity. How we train offi cers through the entire range of skill responses, both on the range, in scenarios, and in the mat room creates the possibility of rapidly transitioning through the freeze and fl ight responses and into the fi ght stage where it becomes possible to pre- vent injury and death. And it is not simply more reps or more rounds fi red downrange that constitutes a trained individual.
Transitioning Through the Fear Having suffi cient experience to automati- cally respond to an imminent threat means you have had the good fortune to have lived through enough threatening situations that your dominant survival response is to fi ght. For the rest of us mere mortals or the in- experienced, training must assist us in tran- sitioning through that fear response to a functional level of skill competency. First, recognize that freezing in the face of sudden danger is not a character issue. It is an emotional issue that must be over-written
by a more positive or, put better, a more ef- fective emotional response. A tiny portion of the brain, the amygdala, acts as the fi rst fi lter of external stimulus entering the brain. Even before we consciously recognize something, say, a thin, long, coiled shape on the ground as we turn a corner, the fi lter of our amyg- dala causes us to jump back and away well before our rational brain recognizes it to be a coiled hose rather than a dangerous snake. T e amygdala is the fi rst fi lter we have to quickly alert us to danger. It is not reasonable nor is it rational. It simply interprets a pos- sible danger and sends an alarm to which the body reacts. It creates emotional integration and learning through association (associative learning)—it is a key part of how our memo- ries embed and are retrieved from long-term memory. It is able to learn through reward (pleasure or not being injured) and punish- ment (injury or unpleasant consequences). In the training environment, the training of our offi cers’ amygdala responses prepares them to transition through the fear and better apply their skills when responding to sudden threat.
Mimicking: Training the Transition From Freezing to Fighting
In the training environment, it would be im- moral to place offi cers into a situation where they might actually die to retrain the amyg- dala. All training, including the best scenario experience, has some degree of falsity—ev- eryone knows they are not actually going to be shot or stabbed by the suspect/role-player. How can we override the emotionally based fear response that degrades actual perfor- mance if we are unable to duplicate the fear they must face in real life? Pushups and run- ning sprints don’t do it. Being yelled at by up-range instructors won’t either. We do this by mimicking the body’s fear response. Emotional responses (via the amyg- dala) create changes to the body’s systems. Fear causes physical alterations to cortisol levels in the blood, heart and breathing rates, blood distribution, vision and hearing, muscle tone, and ability to digest food. It can result in the bladder and/or bowels involuntarily voiding. It
39 The Police Marksman Mar-Apr 2015
www.policemarksman.com
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