There have been many explanations for why this phenomenon occurs17 and there is a lot of ongoing research to find out the exact neurological mechanism, but, for our purposes, it’s enough to understand that the effect occurs and that it affects both your emotional and physical reactions to what you’re seeing.
Interestingly, some people report that time seems to speed up during an incident. Though research is still in its infancy, some of the most important researchers in the field of time distortions suggest18 that this is a result of training or habituation to a stimulus. Those who have trained certain techniques or maneuvers to the point that they can do them without cognitive thought — without being aware of directing themselves to do those things — usually perceive that they’re moving at a faster rate than they really are. This is a very real benefit of training.
In the chapters that follow, I’ll be referencing these natural reactions to explain why I make certain recommendations.
Why the focus on these reactions? As I said earlier, these reactions affect how and what you train. We go back to our task of efficiency, making the best use of our resources to achieve a specific goal. If the techniques you’ve trained run counter to what your body actually does when threatened, your response is likely to be delayed (or even circumvented).
A more efficient response happens when you train techniques that work with the body’s natural reactions. That’s the basis of intuitive skills: things you learn that work well with the way your body works (as opposed to instinctive skills, which are generally considered to be “hard wired” into our brains and require no prior education or exposure).
You can learn to do a lot of things that aren’t intuitive. Take, for instance, the horn in your car. The horn button is on the face of the steering wheel, usually in the middle or in a place where your open palm can mash it and get sound. In a panic situation your hands are already in proximity because they’re on the wheel; all you have to do is flatten your palm and push forward — in the same direction your braking foot is already moving. It also keeps your hand in contact with the wheel, which is a big psychological advantage. Using the horn is a sympathetic movement that requires little to no training, because it works well with what your body is already doing and prefers to do.
What if that horn button required you to reach to the side of the steering column and turn a little knob counter-clockwise? You could certainly learn to do it, but when that little kid darts out from between cars, oblivious to your presence, it wouldn’t be an easy maneuver to perform. It doesn’t work well with anything else your body is doing, and you might not end up doing it at all. It is non-intuitive.
It stands to reason that intuitive skills, those that work well with how the body already functions, are easier to learn, easier to remember and, more importantly, easier to recall when needed because they are a more natural extension of the physical processes that you already do naturally. They are more efficient, and lead to a more efficient response.
Instinctive reactions cannot be trained away because they’re things that our bodies are hard-wired to do. You can decide to train in ways that work with those reactions or in ways that work against them. In neither case can you replace them.
I’ve run into many people who insist on training in non-intuitive ways — ways that run counter to what science and medicine (and objective visual evidence) say about how humans react. The justification is usually something like, “I’ve done it for so long, it’s natural to me now.”
Things that work against your body’s natural reactions are never ‘natural.’ They may be habitual, familiar from repetition when your instinctive reactions have not been initiated, but that doesn’t make them natural. For instance, adopting a bladed boxer’s stance because it ‘feels natural’ works against the body’s natural desire to square itself to the target and crouch as it lowers its center of gravity. That special learned stance might be comfortable, but it’s not likely to be what happens when your threat responses have been activated.
Habitual? Yes. Familiar? Certainly. Natural? No.
1) The body’s natural reactions are a function of neurology and physiology, and don’t vary all that much from person to person.
2) The natural instinctive reactions cannot be trained away, but they can be controlled or converted through training.
3) The external reactions which are visible are markers of the underlying internal reactions.
4) These reactions happen when suddenly confronted with a lethal threat, not so much when you know something is going to happen. Training based on proactive action does not activate these reactions, no matter how ‘stressful’ it is.
5) Your training needs to take these natural reactions into account if you are to be efficient, because trying to supplant them with non-intuitive techniques is inefficient at best, and more likely impossible in a real incident.
Chapter 5
The Modern Technique
The Modern Technique of the Pistol is a series of concepts originally assembled by Col. Jeff Cooper. After studying various successful pistol manipulation methods for practical shooting, Cooper added his personal perspectives of logic to create a training methodology called the “Modern Technique.” This foundation is still used today as the basis for all small arms training at Gunsite. It is a solid foundation that, when built correctly, will not wash away. The Modern Technique combines proper mental conditioning with gun handling and marksmanship skills to accomplish a balance of speed, power, and accuracy.
Marksmanship, Gun Handling, and Mindset make up Cooper’s Combat Triad. The balancing of these three elements is the key to winning a lethal confrontation. Mindset, which is one side of the Combat Triad, was discussed in Chapter 2. Marksmanship and Gun Handling will be covered here.
Achieving a competent level of practical marksmanship requires, according to Cooper, proficiency in the Weaver Stance, the presentation of your gun, the flash sight picture, and the compressed surprise break, all with the heavy duty pistol. When all these elements are executed with the proper poise and proficiency, they provide an equal balance of accuracy, power, and speed. Or, as Cooper would have said, in Latin, “Diligentia, vis, celeritas (DVC).”
These three terms, loosely translated to the Modern Technique, would mean:
Accuracy — You must hit your attacker in order to injure him.
Power — You must strike with sufficient force to incapacitate.
Speed — You must strike quickly and first.
The Weaver Stance was developed by Jack Weaver, of Lancaster, California, for the purpose of ensuring quick and accurate shot placement with a handgun. It very much resembles a fighting stance that might be used by a boxer or mixed martial arts fighter. This stance allows you to deliver force quickly, while maintaining balance and the ability to move.