P&S ModCast 87 - Plateaus - Primary & Secondary Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And we are live. Hey everyone, now land Fair here
with the Primary and Secondary. This is a podcast. This
is the podcast number eighty seven. We haven't done one
of these since Wow, it's been since last year. Yeah,
have a really cool panel. We're going to talk about
some cool stuff. Primarily, we're going to be talking about
plateaus and learning plateaus in training and basically hitting walls

(00:29):
in your personal training and try to try to overcoming
or try to overcome that. It's interesting hearing from people
talking about primary and secondary, specifically the Facebook groups in
the forum and how they feel, you know, what's changed.
It's not as good as it used to be. We're
gonna get into that because there's some cool stuff going on.
I guess we can start with some intros. My background's

(00:51):
in law enforcement, some video games, a lot of video editing.
That's pretty much it. Steve, Steve Fisher.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
How are you, sir?

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Good? I'm gonna I'm gonna crank up your audio just
a little bit. What do you When do you introduce yourself?

Speaker 3 (01:07):
Yeah, Steve Fisher, have been started my shooting a million
years ago, like most everybody else, went to the law
enforcement community, became a full time instructor, and it's just
been downhill ever since.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yeah, and it's cool because you've been around for a while.
You also were a close friend of Pat's. He was
very influential and it's yeah, he's his influences is also
going to be part of our discussion here.

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Rick, Hey, guys, Rick of History currently Stybersection leader, a
lot of riture Battalian Bill Army National Guard here for
about all fifteen years now, a couple of deployments Iraq, Afghanistan,

(02:00):
uh Levin Bravo by trade.

Speaker 5 (02:05):
Coming over here's primary secon there. He just do as
much as I can and see if I can learn
something myself too.

Speaker 6 (02:11):
We'll hanging out, hanging out, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Hanging out.

Speaker 7 (02:16):
Justin Justin Smith. I am a supervisor, narcotics supervisor in
my primary job fifteen years law enforcement. I'm also a
team leader for a thirty man part time team in
the Southeast Major metropolitan area. And I'm an instructor and

(02:40):
you are an instructor.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, that too. And finally Mike, Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:46):
Mike Heser work with Pat for a very long time.
UH consult with some people and generally study and advise
on human performer and how people learn things. Cognitive learning skills,
so hopefully I can contribute a little bit.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
And with that in mind, when I sent out the
link for guys to jump on and you jumped on,
it was like, this is the perfect guy. I'm glad
you were you were available because the many conversations we've had,
you're a perfect panelist for this, and you have good
taste and food.

Speaker 8 (03:25):
So there's that.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
So basically the main theme is plateaus and learning plateaus
in training in law enforcement. Well law enforcement, there are
a lot of plateaus. There's only so much you can
do on your go through the department, and then you
have to do things on your own. But really talking
about the processes, the learning and the absorption. When it

(03:51):
comes to going to classes, it seems a lot of
people go to the exact same instructor time after time
after time, do the same class time after time after time,
and expect to get these these brand new epiphanies, these
new these new concepts, these these explosions of learning. It's
not necessarily going to be the case you You ultimately

(04:14):
may run into some diminishing returns. Steve, what are your
thoughts on that?

Speaker 3 (04:21):
You know, it's an interesting thought, like many of us
who started our training history. You know, we're very limited
in the nineties by who we could go and train
with or what was available to us, you know, and
it wasn't necessarily bad, you know. Hitting that wall is
kind of interesting. Most students that I've seen over the

(04:43):
years that I kind of understand, you know, and Mike's
the same way. They end up in this this virgin
love we'll call it.

Speaker 7 (04:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
They get in with their first instructor, or they feel
comfortable with an instructor, and they want to stay with
that instructor and keep repeating the same programs over and
over and over again. Actually, I've had to tell students
before and still do every class, So literally, do you
need to.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Open up your horizons? Gate open up your windows.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Even though as an instructor, I'm continually learning, continually trying
to educate myself. Like my latest quest has been like
vision processing to help with those things. Working with some
guys that I shoot with here locally that are future
you know, like I care research study dudes. It's really
been kind of a eye over for me. Literally, But

(05:30):
do need to get up more and expand these horizons
will only reach a certain level with the same instructor.
You know, a lot of quote unquote instructors VERUS teachers
have that same program, that same database, that same bullet point.
It's very institutionalized in bread of training. That's just they're
comfortable with the program they're teaching. They're not really evolving

(05:52):
their programs to today's current threat assessments that are going
on and what the needs are the students either be
at you know, the every citizen law enforcement, whatever the cases.
But too many dudes just get stuck or comfortable wanting
to touch the magic so to speak, you know, and
they're hurting themselves. They're not seeking out new information and
vital or critical information.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
I really appreciate the fact that you associated this with
love because I see that I definitely see that you
get this first taste and while this is the best
thing ever and it's I wouldn't say it's like a drug,
but I'd say, yeah, get in that first overwhelming epiphany.
This this the change in your pair, a huge paradigm

(06:38):
shift and to figure out, oh, this is how things
really work. And then it takes so much more information
to get that, and you probably will never get that again,
but it's it's continual it is.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
It really does evolve, and you know, it's interesting for
me to see how the training industry community changed over
the years. But you know, the funny thing is I
can go to almost any class that I go and take,
and I will run into somebody that I know or
have taught or taken classes with, and it's the same
people in the same very small circle. Yeah, and it's

(07:14):
a very interesting kind of like factory like to me.
Like I first met Mike back in like god two
thousands and early two thousands, of past people have missed
out a lot over the years with.

Speaker 7 (07:26):
Mike.

Speaker 3 (07:26):
Honestly, he is one of the most like eye opening
dudes that I had ever learned from and actually had
the ability to actually be on the line with as
an instructor for some classes. I learned an amazing, amazing
amount of knowledge from that man.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's just unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
And it's funny because I've gone to you know, all
the big names, all the big places, but man, the
shit I learned from even Mike, just in like the
early to mid two thousands was just mind blowing to me.
And it was the simplest little things that I had
often overlooked, which also helped me as an instructor to
kind of replay that tape and present information differently to

(08:06):
some students. It's it's the little nuggets that people miss
by staying in the same place all the time.

Speaker 8 (08:17):
Mike, Thanks, Steve. I'll give you five bucks next time
I see it. So the first thing is a student
you need to identify is what are your goals?

Speaker 7 (08:32):
Right?

Speaker 8 (08:33):
Why are you going to class? Some people just want
to acquire some basic, fundamental, some fundamental skills with the
tool that they have in their hand, and they really
don't want to go beyond that. And you see a
lot of students that show up year after year at
the same range, at the same time of year, with
the same instructor because it's like going on a fishing

(08:54):
trip with their butts, or golfing or whatever. It's a
way to get away from the stresses of life, and
that's all they want out of it. There's nothing wrong
with that, you know. I'm glad they're out there. All
the other instructors are glad they're out there because it's
a constant stream of income for them because these are
students that they're familiar with. They know where those students

(09:15):
are in their skill sets, and they know what kind
of problem children they're going to be or not or
they're not going to be. So you have that kind
of a student, and their goals are different than somebody
like Justin or Steve, or you or me or some
of the other people that we deal with who are
constantly trying to evolve their understanding of fundamentals and the

(09:36):
layering of different fundamentals.

Speaker 2 (09:39):
I stress this every time I deal with people.

Speaker 8 (09:42):
There's no such thing as an advanced skill, there's an
accomplished fundamental. So the professional student, the person seeking to
raise their level, has a different goal in mind. And
as instructors, you have to understand the difference between those
two groups of people, those that do it kind of

(10:02):
as recreation or just as acquiring enough to do what
they need they think they need to do, and those
that are serious about their profession who are trying to
really raise their level to a pretty accomplished mindset and

(10:23):
skill qualification. So goal is the first thing, So what
is your goal as a student? What do I want
to do? And the second thing that they have to
consider is the process. And the process is tied to
the goal in some ways, but it's also separate from
the goal in other ways. And so let me give

(10:44):
you an example. You want to make a perfect apple pie.
Let's just make Let's make this outside of shooting, so
we can understand the cognitive concepts. You want to make
a perfect apple pie, and you look at a recipe
from a famous chef, and you follow that recipe and

(11:05):
you make the first time, the first iteration, you make
an apple pie. It's okay because you follow the recipe,
but it's not exceptional.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
The more times you do.

Speaker 8 (11:17):
That, the more times you make that apple pie, the
more times you do good repetitions, you're driving the process
towards the goal.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
So the goal is always important.

Speaker 8 (11:27):
It's the standard that you're reaching, but it's the process
that allows you to reach for the goal. And we've
always you know, a lot of us, or most of us,
have stressed in class.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
You know, it's not it phrases a different way.

Speaker 8 (11:42):
I'll sit in a classroom and I'll ask people what
does practice make?

Speaker 2 (11:45):
And what do most people say? Perfect? Correct?

Speaker 8 (11:48):
Don't we agree with that? You ask people, what does
practice make this a fucking perfect? Right?

Speaker 2 (11:53):
That's wrong?

Speaker 8 (11:54):
Practice makes permanent? Okay, perfect, practice makes perfect. We know
that perfection is not achievable, but working on the process
toward perfection is something that anybody can do. So if
I have somebody that is focusing on the process rather
than the goal, and they focus on good repetitions, they

(12:14):
will go down that pathway towards the goal faster. Their
learning curve shallows out much more quickly than somebody that
just focuses on the end state. The end state is
the metric, but it's the process between where you start
and where you want to reach. The end state is
what makes you a better shooter or a better person.
That makes a pie. So you have to have a

(12:36):
goal as a student, what kind of student do you
want to be? What are you trying to acquire? And
then you have to understand the concepts of process. Unfortunately,
most instructors, not in most instructors, a lot of instructors,
and most students, most students specifically, do not understand that
the process is everything. And you get you're mentioning earlier,
Steven and Matt. You have people that go to the

(12:57):
same instructor all the time. They don't get outside their
comfort zone. They're people that don't empty their tea cup. Right,
if I go to Steve Fisher all the time, or
I go to you know, if I go to Mike Panone,
or I go to Pat McNamara or any of the
other well known instructors, and that's those are the only

(13:18):
people I study under. I'm going to miss other things
because my tea cup is full of their training doctrine
and their ideology and philosophy, and you miss things like
like Fisher was saying earlier, there are subtleties that you
can't pick up on if you go to the same
person because you know what the POI is going to be.
You know, on training day two, right before lunch, this

(13:38):
is the drill you're going to do, and you kind
of tune out because you're not getting a stressor the
stressors are what make you think and grow. So if
people don't empty their tea cup, or you could look
at it another way, all they drink is tea, and
they ever pour their tea cup out and drink coffee. Right,
So Fisher is tea and I'm coffee. You go to

(13:59):
Fisher of time, all you know is tea. There's an
advantage of drinking coffee. Also, there's a there's a delight
in drinking coffee. So you want to come to me
for something where you want to go to Shaky or
Pat or Pat McNamara or Mike Panona or any of
these other people. So it's it's goal first and process second.
And if you understand how the process works, which we'll

(14:21):
get into later that has to do with cognitive development,
then you can flatten your learning curve out pretty considerably
and kind of compress your skill acquisition. So I hope
that kind of clarify some points or illustrates some points.
If not, you know, speak up.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, that's good stuff, as per the norm, justin what
has your experience been with us? I know where you're,
where you're located, you have a lot of training opportunities.

Speaker 7 (14:52):
All right, So I'm going to piggyback off of Frank there. Okay,
So with him talking about like the past. So we're
sitting here looking So I get a recipe from a
world class chef and I cook it and say, I'm
sitting there cooking this pie and I'm like, man, this
is freaking delicious. I cook a world class pie, but

(15:13):
I haven't gotten to eat that world class chef's pie.
And that's I think that's part of it is you
need to meet. If language is okay, Matt, you got
to meet that motherfucker, the one that shows you that
you think your pie is good man, but this is
where it's at. And then let them sit and show

(15:34):
you and break it down. Okay, So I wrote it
down on a piece of paper for you, and that's
how you do it. But let me show you the
nuances of this and how this actually comes together and
how this works. And once you get to that point,
you just have to meet that motherfucker, the one that
can show you that you you really don't have it
down as much as you think you do. So in

(15:57):
my region, like we talked about earlier, Matt, you know,
we've got a couple of again the Echo Frank, a
couple of different tea cups that we're drinking out of.
But it's it's a regional thing, and I think from
a whole entire team, we're all really searching for that
other cup to drink out of. It's you know, we

(16:18):
spent years with these guys and we've kind of achieved
the levels that we that we can achieve with these folks,
and each one of them, I think everybody we trained
with Rich everybody on here knows Rich Mason. He'll sit
down with you, and he's a very humble man. He's
not He'll tell you first off, I'm not the end

(16:39):
all be all, you know. I think the guy has
the market cornered on dynamics c QB, and I think
everybody will agree with me on that. But there's places
where he's lacking. And he'll tell you that he's not
a cop. You know, he doesn't do the things we
do every day on a daily basis, but he can
prepare you for the super Bowl and he's definitely a

(17:03):
crutch for us on the dynamic side of things. But
we're we're in this big search for information from outside
sources and we're just keep waiting to run into that guy. Unfortunately,
we have to reach for it personally, like you were
talking about earlier, we have to reach for it personally
because agency wise, it's just not going to happen with
the resources we have here.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Speaking of which, Rick, with the environment, you're in military,
very specialized. How does all this work for you?

Speaker 8 (17:36):
Guys?

Speaker 7 (17:39):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (17:39):
Well, Uh, the Plateau thing I think is something that
just well from my background in the army, in the infantry, guys,
tend to think that, hey, we're infantrymen, We're the ultimate
badasses and all that is gunfighting, you know, because this
is something that you you know, you don't go to
some you know, uh a two day class to learn

(18:02):
how to uh, you know, small unit tactics and stuff
like this that everybody thinks that you know, they have
down pat because they went to you know, Fort Benning
graduated basic training and now they're qualified infratrymen. And the
fact of the matter is is that this stuff is
you know, it is very basic stuff and and the
individual soldier is not, unfortunately, the focus of so much

(18:28):
of this training potential. You look at how units are graded,
how they're evaluated in their training. There they're collective tasks basically,
so you're you're looking at a unit that you know
can can accomplish a certain battle. We'll say battle drill
went out for a squad attack, so, uh, the the

(18:50):
squad receives a contact, they get down, they react contact,
they send one team to maneuver to close with and
you know, destroy the enemy, et cetera, et cetera, and
all these other different steps. But the individual soldier is
not necessarily the guy that that goes to these advanced classes,

(19:10):
and they don't run him through drills, they don't put
him on a timer, they don't push his individual skills.
They don't look at these things as an institution to
teach him how he can push his individual skills to
the next level. If you find guys that are that
are doing that, they either usually got it from the
outside there through competition, or maybe they would have a

(19:32):
law enforcement background or on their their own special operations
side of the house, which is uh, you know, not
not exempt from some of the stuff, but they're they're
much further along than the.

Speaker 6 (19:42):
Regular side of the house. So I mean, so.

Speaker 5 (19:45):
For me personally, I didn't really start really pushing myself
and learning until I started getting into the competition stuff
in the military side of the house, and then that
opened up a whole new ballgame. It's like, whoa, you know,
we're running some of these some of these drills that
are pretty common, but in the military they're really not,

(20:07):
you know, running running my times against the timer. I'm like, shit,
I had never done that before in the military, and
we don't do that stuff. It's you put two rounds
in a twenty inch by forty inch full size E
type target, the thing goes down. Cool, you know, that's
that's considered success. Well, yeah, that's great, but you know,
for the individual, it doesn't really set him up to

(20:29):
be able to understand that his limitations or the limitations
that he has are something that he could push and
you really need to seek outside training for it. And
so that's in the Joe Schmuctelli line company, you know.
And how does that translate into my specialty task, which

(20:49):
is in a sniper section. It's kind of the same thing.
We have a basic course in the Army. Everybody that
passes the Army Sniper school that you know, a lot
of people think that's to be all end all sniping,
but really that's a basic course. I mean, you're you're
just opening the door to a whole new world. So
seeking further training outside of that it applies just the

(21:10):
same as as in anything else.

Speaker 6 (21:12):
You know, you need you.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Need to diversify, you need to look at other instructors.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
Different you know, backgrounds of stuff.

Speaker 5 (21:20):
Like I went to a law enforcement sniper course and
it was just it was great because it was just
a different perspective on some of the things that we
that we could reinforce and knew how to do and
other things that we just you know, I had never
learned to do in that context. So I'm totally you know,

(21:41):
I agree with what everything is said about, you know,
diversifying your training. And and even if it's something I
would tell guys that, like, you know, even if it's
something that doesn't necessarily apply to what they do right now,
doesn't mean it won't always. And just because hey, this
might be a you know, a two D a carving

(22:01):
course and you're a you know, seasoned soldier, you might
you might have been carrying an M four for you know.

Speaker 6 (22:08):
The last decade or whatever. That doesn't mean you're not
going to learn something. I mean, and even.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
If it's not a you know, mind blowing epiphany type thing, dude,
eat the meat and spit out the bones, you know,
take take what you can and apply it to your job.
And then not only that, but you're also bringing that
knowledge to whatever organization you belong to. So now you're
spreading that knowledge. Now you're encouraging guys to you know,

(22:35):
push their limits. And that's that's kind of what I
try to do with.

Speaker 6 (22:40):
With my guys.

Speaker 5 (22:41):
And and just you know, even if I'm not the
one that's teaching it, at least be a conduit. Hey,
this is where you can you know, get better at
Here's here's some things that I picked up. I mean,
you know, I'm damn sure not the best at any
of it. But here's here's some ways that you can
take your training to the next level. So, platau is
something that we are constantly fighting in the military. It's just,

(23:06):
you know, stagnation of skills. Because you know, as much
as everybody likes to think that we are putting rounds
down range every day and doing all kinds of cool stuff,
the fact of the matter is we're not. And you know,
plateauing stagnation. That's a very real thing, you.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Know, I really I also like what you said about
going to somewhere just for a different perspective, because that
additional perspective provides so much. After working for a few
police departments and getting used to the rhythm of their
firearms training and then go to somewhere else or go
to a different police department for a joint training event

(23:46):
and seeing how they do it, it's like, wow, this
is this is really cool. This is good stuff. Same
for going with a going to a new instructor. I
remember attending let's see here, I went through a PATS
class a bunch of times. I went through a pat
Mac and then I went to Darcy and each each
of the different instructors provided a different aspect, different perspective

(24:07):
that really it widened my overall view of everything and
it helped my overall growth. So Steve yees sleep, oh
there you are.

Speaker 8 (24:23):
I'm here.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
So going to go into a law enforcement aspect real fast.
What are things that we can do as instructors to
help encourage officers to pursue additional instruction, pursue a different
additional points of view.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Perspectives, you know as well as I do, and a
lot of the rest of the guys here. The problem
is you deal with the fact that one cops are cheap.
It's hard to push dudes outside of their yearly or
you know, buy yearly. They feel that those calls are enough.

Speaker 8 (25:07):
I think the.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Problem with that is a lot is changing administrative views.
And that's what it's the hard part, dealing with the
politicians or the administration and the budgets.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
The other thing is.

Speaker 3 (25:18):
Myself, having of late been able to pull in some
of the Firearms Training Unit guys are going to a
couple of agencies this past year in this upcoming year
to actually do train the trainer programs.

Speaker 7 (25:32):
Has been.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
What I would call beneficial and honestly, I think the
easiest way to really do it is to get in
touch those guys either through you know, the the national conferences,
get with their Firearms Training Unit dudes that are there
and get into a train the trainer program for them
to give them those different perspectives, of different views to
pass it along. The other thing is to get that

(25:54):
we have found recently is to get some of the
SWAT guys, get the SRT dudes, the guys that are
getting the additional training, and feed that down to the
patrol people. I recently this past year took then a
seven day block, five day block for a local SWAT
team whose last outside training influence was five years previous.

(26:16):
Because of their budget. I literally ate that class for
free for five days with those guys because they needed it,
they wanted it, they wanted to be there. Those are
the kind of dudes I liked working with and I
told them, I said, here's the condition, so you have
to bring at least two senior patrol guys with you
to this class. They kind of thought I was strange

(26:38):
for me, and they're like, well, why this is team training.
I said, here's the problem. I said, you need to
get this information that you guys are getting passed down
to patrol level. Patrol level guys are most likely the
first guys that will be there. And they thought about it,
they went, oh, yeah, they grabbed, you know too, their
senior patrol guys that were kind of you know, squared away,
good shooters, proficient dudes, and who are also guys responsible

(27:01):
for taking care of some in service training for their guys.
It's such a hard dynamic to fight because you're fighting
the administration. You're fighting the dudes with twenty years as
the firearms training unit, dudes who are still teaching someb
over revolver crush grip shit and qualification courses. I don't

(27:23):
know if there's an absolute way to get it to happen.
I just I have not found the answer to it
yet or the solution of how to do that.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
And with that in mind, well you and I both
know we've been doing this long enough. Justin as well,
there are those officers that have absolutely no desire.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
To and so absolutely and those are those are legitimately.
I had that this past year.

Speaker 3 (27:52):
Well, I was working at a PD range doing some
open enrollment classes and I have you know, slots set
aside for officers from that agency. It was very tough
to get dudes to come and take the class for free.
Am It was paid, time.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Was free, everything was free to them. All they had
to do is show up and shoot the class.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
And the guys that did show up were just they
were just there to shoot and bullshit and do whatever,
and they weren't really taking it as serious.

Speaker 8 (28:15):
As they should.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
And when they got their asses handed to them and
some of the qualls and some of the drills and
exercises that I do by just some you know, gun
carrying average citizen, they're like, well wait a minute. You know, well, hey, dude,
guess what you could have actually paid attention, listened and
did things, and you know, got involved in the conversations
instead of being that attitude of yeah, I know this,

(28:37):
I've been got for fifteen years.

Speaker 7 (28:40):
That's what I was talking about, meeting that motherfucker state.
It's that finding somebody out there who shows you that
they're better than you. Yeah, and then it's on you
at that point to figure it out. Hey, how are
you better than me? And how do we fix this? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (28:56):
Oh yeah, it's not just limited the comps.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
Yeah, same, yeah.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
And the funny thing was literally like when we were
turning in, you know, some score sheets and stuff like that,
because the agency wanted proof that those guys were there,
and they're like, hey, wait a minute. I was like, hey,
wait a minute. You know what, your guys didn't want
to perform. They didn't want to do what was being
asked of them. And that's not my problem. I said,
you know, like Mike knows, it's the rule of one hundred.
We can tell them a hundred times, we can show

(29:22):
them one hundred times one hundred and first won't make
a difference. And yeah, yeah, And these guys literally are
the dudes that I have no desire to teach. I
do not want them there. They're detrimental to the rest
of the learning curve for the group in the class,
and they're wasting my oxygen.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
And to be brutally, brutally.

Speaker 3 (29:41):
Fucking honest about it, they don't want to be there,
then I don't give a shit. Unfortunately, that's the attitude
that I that I have to take because I may
have eighteen other dudes that want to be there, that
want to learn, that want to absorb that information. But
getting back to it, you know, I just outside influences
coming into non progressive agencies has always been a problem.

(30:04):
They don't want to look at they don't want to
seek it out, and you know that's on them until
it becomes a reactive instead of proactive.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
So yeah, and yeah, ultimately it's a waste of time,
it's a waste of effort, it's a waste of AMMO.
Especially if we can cut a line from eighteen to twelve,
that's that much better. The instructions is going to get
that much better because we don't have to deal with
that other six that don't want to be there.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Oh absolutely one percent.

Speaker 3 (30:39):
I mean even this year I have I've decided personally
that you know what, I've knocked down my class sizes
considerably based on the classes that are going on, and
I'm just going to start driving more and more to
the people that really want to truly be there. You know,
this is the days of the I mean, you take
my time at Magpole, the time frame I was there

(31:03):
for four odd years, you know, working at it was
not uncommon to have thirty dudes in a class. You
useduld drive me nuts, you know, with two instructors, maybe
three depending on who was on you know, with us
at time, and I was like, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 7 (31:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Then you'd had one instructor on the line actually shooting
the course with the students. I'm like, oh, I get this.
This is not good.

Speaker 7 (31:24):
And when.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
I changed that program and then my partner had came
on with me, my other guy, it was good because
we were actually knocking it down doing certain things.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
But man's it's literally to a.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
Point where, like you said, you know, I'd rather have
those twelve dudes that want to be there and learn
than thirty dudes that are there for an experience and
just to shoot the shit and have fun, to be
petted on the back and make them feel good about themselves.
Guys that have been through the program with me, No,
I don't care if you feel good about yourself. I
don't give two shits. I'm here to make you better,
and if that means you feel bad, that's good. I

(32:02):
want to exposure weaknesses and give you obtainable goals that
can be.

Speaker 1 (32:06):
Reached and overall the classes are so much better when
we eliminate those that don't want to be there to learn. Yeah, absolutely,
like Shocky, like SHOCKI, who's his system isn't working, so
that's why he's not officially joys.

Speaker 8 (32:26):
All right, So kind of to piggyback off what Steve saying,
you get people that again, I'll go back to goal
and process. Why are these cops or civilian showing up
to a class. Let's deal with law enforcement because that's
the topic at hand. Why are people in law enforcement

(32:47):
going to these classes outside their agency? They read something
in a magazine, word of mouth, they saw something in
a former group, and they're like, this might be interesting.
The people that have that attitude are kind of self starters.
They're the ones that you know, don't they give up
when a one can of school a day and don't

(33:08):
go to Starbucks and you know, square away their pennies
to save money to go to a class. Because they
are self starters. They're they're they're seeking a better level
of education. They want to do it on their own.
Their goal and their process is different than somebody that's
told by an agency or a department. You're going with

(33:28):
this class you're going to go take you know, sentinel concepts,
you know, basic car being class because you need to
work on your car being skills. And these guys, not
not all of them, but a lot of them, they
go to the class and like Steve was saying, they
fart around, you know, they checked the box, they showed up,
they shoot, They shoot the drills, they shoot the walls,
they get their certificate, they showed to their boss. Hey

(33:50):
I did that. But their their goal is different and
the process is different, and a lot of that comes
down to Steve was saying, uh it administration, ignorance, and
institutional inertia.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
I'll give you an example.

Speaker 8 (34:07):
I was asked to help a SWAT team and I
think I told the story before, but I'm going to
retell it. They were so used to the POI and
the rhythm of how the class worked that they were
gaming the class. They were gaming the entire process. The
goal was to finish the class. The process was completely

(34:29):
ignored because they knew what the process was going to be.
So I was asked to come out and do something different,
So give me your POI so I can see what
the fuck you're doing. And I'm like, okay, you guys.
I know where these guys are going to gain this.
So I wrote a completely different PI that covered the
same topics and fundamentals, and I threw a curveball and

(34:52):
they a lot of them struggled with it. Now again,
let's talk. We're going we're going back to the two
different types of students for law enforcement. So I said, hey,
here's the deal. I'll do it on this date. Just
cover my expenses. I'll do it for free. But I
don't want to have to do with any administrative bullshit.
You tell them when to be there, what their load
out is, what kit they need, what ammimal allotment, all

(35:14):
that kind of crap. You know, I'll just show up
and run the class. And I got the train the
training officers. I gokay, cool. So I started getting these
fucking messages a couple of months out, Hey I can't
make it. I got you know, my kid's got a
soccer game, or you know, I can't do this, or
I'm not sure about this. I'm like, don't fucking bother
you with this shit. Talk to your training officer. And

(35:35):
I contact the training officer. I said, hey, no more
of that bullshit. You know I'm just going to run
the fucking the class. I don't want to handle the
administrative bullshit. So I kept getting these things and I
just rigor and Arle kept going back and forth, and
it kind of disappeared after a while. And about two
weeks out, I got a different set of questions. Hey, man,

(35:57):
I know you're doing this thing, and we're all on
board with it. If we get there early, can we
shoot early? Now that's a different group of students. The
first group didn't want to be there, but they had
to go because they were told to and it was required.
The second set of cats were like, hey, if we
get there early, can we shoot early? Different mentality and
your mentality as a student helps drive the process towards

(36:21):
your goal. So I'm like, yeah, if you guys want
to get there early, you can shoot early. Okay, Well,
how really will you get there? I'm like, how early
can you shoot? Like Susan sun comes up? I'm like,
all right, I'll be there, you know, at the gate,
Bring me fucking coffee and donuts and we'll go to work.
These dudes got out there, set up the entire range.

(36:41):
I got my coffee and donuts. I ran through the
first two training evolutions in the POI before anybody else
showed up. The second group, the lollygaggers. We're like, it's
cold and rieny, can we sit in the patrol car
the classroom when we're not.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
On the line.

Speaker 8 (36:58):
Fuck, no, you can't. These guys have been out here
since dark and they've been shooting. I have to be
on the line the entire time. You can't sit in
the fucking patrol car in the classroom. Get your ass
out here and learn some shit. So you have two
different mentalities going on in the same class You have
the people that want to be there, they're striving for excellence.
You have the people they're there because it's required. And

(37:20):
that flows directly from the two problems that Steve was
talking about, administrative ignorance and what I was and partly
what I was talking about, institutional inertia. Was always done
it this way. Those guys them, they that's how we've
always done it. I fucking hate that day them. Those
guys bullshit. You know, expand your horizons. So the guys

(37:44):
that were out there early, if they'd wanted to shoot,
and they jumped on the line when other guys weren't
on the line, they jump on a slot, They're like, hey,
can I shoot? Yeah, you got free, Amo fucking get
to work. Who do you think walked away with the
most instruction from the class? The guys that wanted to
be there, the ones that had to be there and
they didn't really want to be there, walked away with
something different than what they had from their original poli.

(38:06):
But they didn't walk away with as much as the
guys that wanted to be there.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
So a lot of this when law in law enforcement,
and Rick.

Speaker 8 (38:12):
Was saying, in the military, it's required, I'm show up,
do the bare minimum.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
It's part of my job requirement.

Speaker 8 (38:19):
But I'm not going to make any outstanding efforts to
become a better person for my job. So that's part
of what we face as instructors and what students face,
and that's on their own. That's on their own, that's
their problem. They can choose to save pennies and find
a better level by going outside, or if it's an
in service thing, working harder, or you can be the

(38:41):
other type of student who just hey, I got to
show up today. You know these two days, Saturday and Sunday.
I got eight hours a day. When I'm done, I
can go out and drink beers in my buds. I'm
not going to be reflective and contemplate what I've learned
or apply any of that to when I get back
on the street. I did what I was asked to do.
The first group of guys, I was talking about the
ones that showed up early and set up all the

(39:02):
steel and the target try and fucking set up the
range and shit. And the cool thing about the guys
that do it early and show up and do an
effort is that, as Steve was saying, that trickles down
to everybody else because they paid attention, they worked hard,
and that was the process. They weren't looking at the
goal I got to finish the class. The process for
the first group of guys was I want to learn

(39:22):
something to be a better shooter, want to be a
better cop. So part of it is institutional, and part
of it.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Is on the students themselves.

Speaker 9 (39:29):
Anyway, Yeah, and it's so much and again, it's so
much better when you're around that first group.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
So much more is accomplished. They all enforce each reinforce
each other. Everything's better. So with that in mind, all
you people listening put forth some effort a bunch of slackers, right, justin.

Speaker 7 (39:59):
Yeah says something. Man, when somebody's out there ready to work,
it really does. He's nailing it.

Speaker 8 (40:10):
Well, well, let's not forget it's not just the student,
it's the instructor, right, The instructor has to put effort in.
I mean, Pat had a rule of one hundred and
Steve mentioned it earlier. If you're not going to listen
to me, you know, after the hundredth explanation or correction,
you're never going to fucking put the effort in in
the process to realize your goal, You're not going to

(40:30):
do the work.

Speaker 7 (40:31):
Yeah, it's a training triodge. That's that Rich actually coined that.
But it's the train in triodge is what it's called. Man.
It's just at some point you have to not necessarily
write them off. You're going to give them the same
shit that everybody else is getting, but they're not, so
why that you're going to focus on. They're not going
to be a focal point in your course while they're

(40:51):
failing because they haven't listened or they haven't paid attention.
They haven't put forth any effort into your course exactly.

Speaker 8 (40:58):
So that Steve knows me pretty well. And so does Matt.
But you know, sometimes it's it's the students willing to learn,
but sometimes the teaching style of the instructor clashes with
how that student learns. Yes, so where multiple instructors comes
in exactly So, when Pat and I were tag teaming classes,

(41:20):
sometimes Pat would someone throw over to me, and, you know,
whistling through his teeth, would say, hey, brother, on fucked
number six, you know, because he couldn't get he couldn't
reach that guy. And I'd go over there because I
have a different teaching approach and say, hey, bro, what's
going on. Well, I'm still shooting low left. Well let
me watch your shoot and watch you, you know, watch
how you're shooting. You know. Well, Pat said, this is
we'll look at it from this perspective instead. So sometimes

(41:42):
it's not necessarily that the student doesn't want to learn
or can't learn, it's the approach from the instructor. So
as instructors, it behooves us to understand that students sometimes.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Learn differently than other students.

Speaker 8 (41:54):
On the line. It's not that the guy is an
idiot or that he's not willing to put the effort in.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
It's just that whoever happens to.

Speaker 8 (42:00):
Be talking to that student at the time on the line,
isn't capable of reaching him. And that's not that's not
a failure of the instructor. It's just that it's a clashing.
It's a clash of teaching styles or modalities. So good
instructors recognize the fact that they can't reach everybody and
they reach out to that student in other ways to
get that information of the student.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah, I'd agree one hundred percent with that.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
It's you know, sometimes it's difficult, especially doing the Lone
Traveling Show. And there's a reason why I've kind of
set forth a certain method of how how I've progressed
of doing things to where.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
I'll have to you know, obviously you want to explain demos.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
Very efficiently, or the drill of the course of fire
or whatever it is, and all the reasons why, and
then you'll have to demo it, and then I'll hot
wash it after the demo with everybody.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Hey, is there questions? Do you understand what I'm asking?

Speaker 3 (42:53):
You know, all these things to try to reach everyone
on some level, be it visual learners, be it you know,
the auditory explanation guys, whatever the case is, and then
hot wash it after the exercise and try to answer
all those questions and figure out who's having that issue
which the paper doesn't lie. And then you kin know
right out of the gate who you're really going to

(43:14):
have to keep that extra eye on. You're going to
have to not switch coddle a little bit more, but
just give them a little bit more attention on certain
things they don't frustrate themselves and shut down on you.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
In vapor lock.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
It's a very hard approach, and Mike nailed it, you know,
and so justin if you don't have three or four
dudes or two or three guys or two or whatever,
it's very difficult sometimes to reach every student individually.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
It is.

Speaker 6 (43:46):
I like that.

Speaker 5 (43:46):
I like that, you know, talking about how your training
style reaching certain students, you know what I mean. On
the military side, house, especially for on my side. You know,
as as n c os no commissioned officers are are,
our charge is to train the soldiers that we lead,

(44:08):
you know, And so if you have, you know, an
n c O that's that's that's set in his way,
is not looking to push those limits, not looking to
better himself. He's really perpetuating that level of mediocrity. You know,
he's teaching it to the next generation, who's good in
turning it in teaching to their next generation. And so
it just keeps keeps, you know, perpetuating itself. And I mean,

(44:32):
and it's so hard because there's just not a lot
of knowledge within the army that there is better out there,
that there is you know, ways to train to better yourself.
And I mean it's I think if more guys were

(44:53):
aware of it, that they would probably participate more in it.

Speaker 8 (44:58):
You know.

Speaker 5 (44:59):
It's yeah, you're gonna get just just like uh, you
guys were talking about those guys that just show up.
They want to you know, punch the ticket, do their
do their time.

Speaker 6 (45:09):
And and and be out.

Speaker 5 (45:11):
But at the same time, I think that the vast majority,
maybe not the vast majority, but certainly a lot of
guys would love to uh, you know, further develop their skills.
It's just I don't I don't think there's there's there's
a lot of you know, awareness of these types of
courses within the military because nobody stops to think, hey,

(45:36):
you know, how can I better myself be outside of
the military, Because I think, well, where would you learn
to be a better infantryment nowhere, right, I mean, who
else does this stuff besides us? So they kind of
they kind of shut down that whole openness to seeking
outside of training before they even look for it, just
simply from the fact that they're looking at this this

(45:58):
broad uh generalization of what their job is and they're
not looking at, Hey, you can build on those individual
skills and you know, better your unit by bringing those
skills to it. And I don't think they really see that.
And so especially as NCOs man, we really got to
look at ways to improve our training. You know, that

(46:22):
is our charge. That's our job is to leave that unit,
leave those those soldiers better trained, more prepared, you know,
better than we would have found it. So you know,
I'm really digging what we're hearing there. And you know,
I'm sure the panel here is nothing new to them,
but I mean for guys listening to that stuff.

Speaker 6 (46:41):
Man, you really really got to broaden your horizons.

Speaker 8 (46:49):
So Rick, one of the ways you can approach it,
and I know you're talking big green and all that,
is that you explain to the kids under your charge
and the people that develop the training pipelines that it's
an organic process and What I mean by that is

(47:11):
a set, right, and within that set there are subsets
of skills. So you know infantrymen, right, but what's one
of the things that infantryman needs to be really good
at marksmanship? And what the general person gets the general
shooter gets in the infantry or minimal skills, there are
other resources to advance your skills for better marksmanship, weapons,

(47:36):
malfunction clearance is and whatnot. You know, the basics that
we talk about, and you know the combat triad mindset.
And then when you add TTPs. Instead of a stool,
you have a chair. You have four legs on that.
So you have to break it down from the major
set being an infantryman, what are the smaller sets, subsets

(47:56):
within that set, the components that make you good infantrymen,
and then find a way to get those guys as
an NCO, get those guys at a better level, a
higher level. And Prime knows this, you know, I talk
about this in classes are I used to talk about
some classes a lot. You know, it's not necessarily the

(48:18):
best fighter that wins, it's the fighter that has the
fewest mistakes. So I'm going to delve into something just tangentially,
but it applies the person that has the fewest variables
in an engagement tends to win.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
So as an NCO, or as an.

Speaker 8 (48:36):
Instructor, or as somebody that's running the FTU or the
training office sort of department or an agency, you want
your guys to eliminate as many variables as possible and
translate those into constants. Life is not arithmetic. Life is
is algebra. So you want to eliminate the or translate

(48:57):
those letters in that equation into numbers. And you do
that by driving that process. I keep hammering on, you know,
it's not the goal, it's how do you get how
do you drive towards that goal? So as an NCO,
you look at your guys and say, hey, you know,
we can do this, you know, because it's an institutional
and it's a group effort. But as individuals, what does

(49:18):
that individual need to work on. He's great in the
field doing this, this and this, but his marketing ship sucks, so.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
He needs to go into a shooting pipeline, you know.

Speaker 8 (49:27):
And as NCO is you need to find those classes,
either within the army or outside of the army to
get the guys that are a little weak in that area.
That's a variable for them. They need to translate into
a constant. I'm not talking about elite level, you know,
grand master kind of shit. I'm just talking about becoming
better than competent. So that's one way to approach it.

(49:53):
That makes sense.

Speaker 5 (49:56):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely, And yeah, I mean that process is
you know, is valid no matter what what area you
apply it to. So, I mean a lot of guys
I like to to explain to two guys in an
analogy of like, you know, PT the physical fitness. A

(50:18):
lot of guys have a lot of information. You know,
there's a lot of knowledge knowledge out there about becoming
physically fit, pushing those level you know, getting better and
getting better. And if they could take that mindset and
apply to other things, then the light bulbs started to
come on at all. You know, I never thought of
things like that. I always thought like, hey, if I

(50:38):
scored expert on my my army standard call, you know,
it was good to go, like, oh man, that's just
mediocre as fuck, So how can we get better than that?

Speaker 8 (50:53):
And don't get me wrong that, you know, we're talking
about you know, experience and acquiring better skills. Right, it
doesn't necessarily have to be marksmanship. It can be your
comms guys, you know, are they adequate or are they exceptional?
You know, yeah, the standard says this, but you know,

(51:13):
with the changing environment that we all live in, do
you want your guys to be adequate or do you
want them to be slick? Do you want them to
know some asymmetrical, weird, funky kind of Jedi magic shit. Well,
they have to go outside the normal training pipelines in
order to acquire that, you know. And it may be
an NCO or you know, a slick XO or something

(51:34):
saying hey, you know, we got some money in the
training budget to handle you know, lodging and travel, but
the rest of it's on your dime.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Will cut you some time. Go to this guy, he's
the guru.

Speaker 8 (51:44):
You know, take copious notes and come back and fucking
relay this, you know, pass along you know, the beta
the information to everybody else in the unit. Get to work,
you know, but people are hasn't to pull that trigger
because it doesn't fit the paradigm. And Matt Prime was
talking about this earlier here. You know, I got to
change the paradigm. You have to have a sea change,
and that requires a revolution. And you have to be

(52:06):
careful about how you foam in a revolution. You can
be you know, a moltile, you know, cocktail throw motherfuckers,
which is kind of productive, or it can be subtle,
sneaky fucks.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
The guy that taught me to be a.

Speaker 8 (52:18):
Firearms instructor here, old dude from the Navy Honolulu Pedia
guy right, He gave me a.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Pretty sage bit of advice.

Speaker 8 (52:29):
He said that general pressure, relentlessly applied solves all problems.
So I can go in there and scream and yell
and jump up and down the desk and you know,
get my ass handed to me. Or I can be
sneaky about it and just put drop these subtle hints
and be very selective in how I communicate. But that
it's it's like Chinese water torture. Drill, drop drop, drop drop. Eventually,

(52:50):
somebody's going to succumb, you know. But if I just
go in there and just scream and yell and say
or this isn't working, or we need to do it,
or sir, you know, or hey sergeant or staffs ergent,
you know this.

Speaker 2 (53:02):
This has to change. That's not going to work.

Speaker 8 (53:04):
The conversation works, and again it goes back to what
you know Steve and I were talking about earlier. Part
of this is institutional and sometimes no matter what you do,
you can't change the institution. So you have to be
sneaking a different way and select individuals and send them
out in the world on their own with support and
have them come back with with you know that magic

(53:25):
and you know, have a debriefing and take the takeaways
from it, you know, you know, lessons learned. Hey, what
did you learn in this you know, police sniper class
like you were talking about.

Speaker 2 (53:35):
That's different from what we do. Oh, we'd never fucking
heard of that.

Speaker 8 (53:39):
Let's put that into our POI next time we go
out on the range and do you know KD stuff
And and that's that's one of the ways to approach,
you know, altering the paradigm. But it's very, very difficult.
You have to be very patient. Sometimes you're never going
to see results. It's just not going to happen.

Speaker 6 (53:56):
Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
You got to be like the like the training Illuminati
or something. You know, you're behind the scenes, pulling strings
and you know, just waiting for it, waiting for your
you know, your stuff to actually take hold.

Speaker 6 (54:11):
I totally agree.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Man, you know this it's it's an interesting segue going
into Actually there are two segues here. One is our
new our new friend who's the eighty second Airborne Small
Arms Master gunner who is now working with us, and

(54:33):
we're working with him. And what we're trying to do
is put together ways of getting some of these learning
concepts out to people through social media. So basically sneaking
in some of this stuff so people can learn when
they're they don't need to be in a formal classroom,
they don't need to sign up for things. They can
just be on Facebook and then look up and go, oh, well,

(54:55):
here's here's some additional facts about how to load my
rifle or whatever. That's sneaky and it's effective and it's cool,
and the best part is it helps everyone. It's helping cops,
it's helping it's helping the paratroopers, it's helping all the soldiers. Yeah,
I love it. I love the strategy absolutely.

Speaker 6 (55:15):
Oh absolutely, man.

Speaker 5 (55:16):
And I mean a lot of the stuff that a
lot of these changes that I think a lot of
people are not really realize how much has been influenced
by social media. I mean, so this doesn't have really
anything to do with like training. In fact, it's more
addressing institutional inertia. So as retarded as it sounds, rolling

(55:39):
sleeves in the army was a thing, okay, And the
pressure maybe that pressure is the right word, but like
the feedback that you know, the measure of the army
was getting generally through social media, instituted a change in

(56:00):
how they allowed the uniform to be worn. Now to civilians,
that might sound like something like very trivial and stupid,
and I know it just it sounds ridiculous, but the
fact of the matter is, before social media, these kind
of changes did not happen with any type of swiftness,
nor did it happen with the input of the rank

(56:22):
and file soldier. This is some stuff that happened up
at like Pentagon levels, and maybe it bled down to
a couple of echelons blow for their input, but it
certainly wasn't you know, private stuff. He's saying, Hey, I
prefer to roll my sleeves this way. I prefer to
roll my sleeves that way. I want this PT uniform.

(56:42):
I want to wear black socks with my PT uniform.
All these little things and it sounds insignificant, but it
just goes to show the influence that social media has
had over such a large organization like the army. And
I mean, if we can do that, we can make
those kind of changes. Then the kind of changes that
we're talking about with like eighty second Semitary, who's making
awesome stuff and putting out products that can help revolutionize

(57:05):
the way we train within the army, It's not just possible,
it's happening.

Speaker 8 (57:15):
I want to before match, I'm saying I want to
tangentially touch that for just a second. So when you
look at systems analysis and design, and I'm not talking
about computer bullshit, which that's important, but just the organic
concept of systems analysis and design, the first person you
fucking talk to in a paradigm shift.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
For a system is the end user.

Speaker 8 (57:40):
Right, So if I'm going to change a departmental policy regarding,
you know, how we do our range qualifications, the first
person I'm going to talk to is the guy that
just finished FTL. Hey, what do you think about this?
You know, you got kids in a family, and you
know you're covering all the shitty shifts and you got
to say second job and all that, you know what

(58:01):
works for you. Unfortunately, in the real world. In most instances,
it's a top down approach instead of a bottom up approach. So,
just like Rick was saying, you can apply pressure to
change to have a paradigm change or a c change
or a paradigm shift by going bottom up in your
system's analysis of design. So a lot of people are

(58:24):
that's anathema to them. It's a boring to them. They
don't want to delve into talking to the lowly blue
collar kid in the in the in the program, or
in the unit, or the agency or the business, because
what do they know, They're just cogs in the wheel.
I'm the CEO, or I'm the boss, or I'm the chief.
You know, I've been to flet C and I've been
to NTOA, and you know this is what they say.

(58:46):
These are the standards. Well, those may be the standards
for those people, but for your department that may not
be the standard.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
It might apply.

Speaker 8 (58:53):
So talking to the worker bees first, you tend to
have less conflict and you get better results. It's all
I wanna say about that. Sorry, Matt, you had another point.
You're gonna make prime.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
It's just basically the next level beyond this. So if
you guys, still want to discuss this. We can, we
can wait for the next step.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Just drive on, dude.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Cool.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (59:16):
Basically the next step is.

Speaker 8 (59:21):
You go.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
You go to these classes. You go to the same class,
the same instructor, over and over and over, and it
doesn't have that magic anymore. It's it's not the same,
but it is the same. Nothing's changed, you've changed. I
get reports from people saying, well, you know, primary and secondary,
it's not the same as it used to be. It's

(59:42):
it was so much better. Then, well, you know, primary
and secondary hasn't changed. It's you. You've improved, You've learned,
You've gotten awesome. To reach those new, to get beyond
this plateau takes a lot more effort, and.

Speaker 7 (59:56):
It takes a lot Try teaching it. Yeah, that's where
you learn this shit, man. Yeah, you can only do
so much. Achieve it and saying Okay, I'm good at this,
and then you have to figure out how do I
teach this? You have to reverse engineer how you learn this,
how this took place, and then say, okay, I'm going
to put that together and show it to other people

(01:00:18):
and be able to articulately explain to somebody how you
do this, then demonstrate it, and then have them demonstrate
it to you. That's where you're going to get that
next level of knowledge is just teaching it and learning
to teach it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
And you know, I'm going a disadvantage because I'm in
a position like that, I get to teach that. However,
we have a lot of people that aren't in that position.
How do they overcome it? If they can't teach.

Speaker 7 (01:00:50):
Anyone, what's going to prevent them from teaching?

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
It's interesting talking to people they self assess and determine
they're not ready yet.

Speaker 7 (01:01:05):
Keep learning, buddy, you're not there yet then. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
The problem with that is too like egos will get
in the way, their own ego especially totally.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
It's like a massive, no shit factual data point that
the egos will crush dudes, or they'll just they'll drive
them to a point where like, yeah, I've done this,
I've done that. I can start teaching now. It's it's
a whole other world. And most of them, unfortunately, just
become comparators of things that they've previously learned right or wrong.

Speaker 7 (01:01:34):
Instead of understanding the bsis behind it. Actual yes, yeah, okay,
I got you.

Speaker 6 (01:01:40):
Yeah, that's deal. We're we're kind of dealing with that
stuff right now, and you know, on a team level,
because you get you get guys that are that want
to be in that teaching circle, that want to be
that authority, and then they'll teach something slightly different and
it just it starts to mess with the continuity of everything.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
It really does, especially in institutions like that. You know,
even in Rick's world. You know, we find a lot
of times the easiest way to do this is when
we're either developing programs for agencies like CaAl courses stuff
like that. You know, the teach backs are important to
have the instructors teaching the other instructors.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
Yes, and each backs are huge. They have to be there.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
They have to be proficient in the material, They have
to be proficient in the shooting. I mean, I mean, honestly,
if they don't have a good understanding of why things
are occurring or why those things are happening, either via
their trigger press or just you know, inconsistencies and grip
any of those little things. If they don't understand those dynamics,
they really can't be as effective. And that's the problem

(01:02:45):
is really getting the guys on the line, giving them
a full blown, no bullshit, one day diagnostics course of
why the problems are occurring, and then getting them to
teach that back either to themselves, to peer, or to
you know, others.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
Man, it's such a hard thing, it really is.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
And dude just don't get it because they don't understand it.
But they all want to be that gap that everybody
looks at, and it's like, dude, I can't use you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
This is a lot of years to shift.

Speaker 7 (01:03:14):
Yeah. So that's what I'm saying, Steve, is I think
what Matt's getting at is after you've achieved that, after
you've gotten to that point where you can self diagnose.
You know, you're you're taking slow motion videos of yourself
and breaking down every movement of everything that you're doing,
and you're actually self diagnosed and saying, Okay, this is
where I'm screwing up here, this is where I'm screwing
up here, and you're fixing those problems and you achieve

(01:03:37):
it and say, I'm going to Sentinel Concepts course over
and over and over and I get to a point
where I have arrived, you know, I have this ship
down pat At what point where where do I start
to try to teach myself further is you know, try

(01:03:58):
to show somebody else, try to take that information and
actually do something with it. Because, like we talked about earlier,
budget wise, it's impossible for me to send a thirty
man team to you, it's impossible for me to send
a two hundred man department to you. Somebody has to
bring that information back and actually do something with it.
As intended as I'm sure as you intend for your

(01:04:19):
courses to go, it's not all inclusive to just a
guy that attends the course. If it's somebody that's been
through your course ten times, you're fully expecting him to
take that information and do some good and save some
lives in a gunfight. And at his agency, you're absolutely
right on that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
One of the best piece of information that I was
ever given by the guy Dave Harrington as goofy as
Dave is love him to death, Dave. Something Dave told
me back in like two thousand and five or six
just hit home hard, and it was dude, teach what
you learned, not what you were taught.

Speaker 7 (01:04:58):
YEP.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
I was like, oh my god, I just shifted the
whole world right there. I was like, damnamn. I hate
it when he does that. But you know, and that's
the hard thing again, is really getting guys to understand
what they are learning.

Speaker 8 (01:05:12):
Yeah, so let's go back to that apple pie for
a second, right, I like apple pie. Yeah. Okay, so
you're talking about you know, you think you've acquired a
bunch of skills. And Steve was talking about parroting, you know,
instructors go out there and pair it or copy or
template other instructors, you know, intellectual property and work product.

(01:05:38):
And then and uh, Justin was talking about, you know,
go out and teach it. Okay, So here's the thing.
I'm making an apple pie and following. You know, let's
see Brave Tart as a side.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
I follow. She is a world class chef.

Speaker 8 (01:05:58):
She's in Lexington, Kentucky, and she posts a bunch of
fucking knowledge on the internet and she spent years and
years honing her craft.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
You could follow her recipe.

Speaker 8 (01:06:10):
For an apple pie and get pretty accomplished at it
and turn out a pretty good apple pie. But do
you know why the apple pie turned out? Well, let
me give you a couple examples.

Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
We're making an.

Speaker 8 (01:06:20):
Apple pie, right, do you use cold apples? Or room
temperature apples. You know, how do you how do you
measure your sugar? Do you grind your own cinnamon or
do you use powdered cinnamon? How fresh is the cinnamon?
Do you understand how the dough works? You have flour
in the dough, How old is the dough, what kind
of what?

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
What kind of.

Speaker 8 (01:06:41):
Flour is it? Is it late winter wheat from Montana?
It has a different gluten gluten percentage in it than
something from you know, Iowa or Nebraska. So there's a
science that's not understood by the average consumer and making
the apple pie that the master understands. They understand all
the subtle intricacies that go into making that apple pie

(01:07:03):
perfect every single time. So while somebody's out there and
they think, you know, Matt's talking about well I've learned
everything on primary and secondary, it's it's stale.

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
Well you're stale.

Speaker 8 (01:07:14):
Did you go out and find out why the gluten
you know, percentage in this type of wheat will affect
the crust on that apple pie?

Speaker 7 (01:07:21):
Yeah? That's what I was getting at Frank earlier when
ye followed you up earlier, was have you tasted their
apple pie? Exactly? Been there and seeing it and then
shown how much of an ass you are.

Speaker 8 (01:07:35):
Right, Well, it's not just tasting their apple pie. I
mean you made the same apple pie that they put
on the recipe. And you want to okay, talk about fish.
Air repair is the best fish chef in the country, right,
And you can follow his recipes. You can do his
seared scalop recipe. You can go to La Bernaden in
New York and eat his seared scalop recipe. But the

(01:07:55):
trick to the thing is to sit in the kitchen
with him for six months and learn how to rep it,
how to dry it, what kind of pin you use,
how much oil you use, do you crowd the scalops
if you do the steam instead of seer. Right, That's
where the magic is. And most, not most, A lot
of people that go out there that want to hang
out their shingle and be an instructor, or that want

(01:08:15):
to self diagnose. And I'll talk about that in a second,
they don't understand that that's the level of work that
goes into acquiring that knowledge. It's the subtle, like like
Steve was talking about crush grip versus non crush grip.
You know, thumb overwrist all that kind you can. You
can watch stuff on YouTube and go to a bunch
of classes and think you're all that in a bag
of chips, But do you understand the science behind it? Yep,

(01:08:36):
most people don't. So let's talk about self diagnosis for
a second. You can do a bit of self diagnosis
by doing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Slow motion video.

Speaker 8 (01:08:45):
The problem is if you go to the same instructors
all the time, and they give you a certain philosophy
in training and a certain philosophy on how to run
your gear, that's all you know, and so when you
do self diagnosis, what you may be seeing may not
be what the problem actually is. It's better to have
somebody that's knowledgeable, that's outside of that paradigm put eyes

(01:09:08):
on you or that video and say, hey, this is
what you're doing wrong. Let me give you an example.
So the Bianchi Cup happens in Colombia every year in May,
and I was out there doing some stuff with the academy.
We were done for the day, and I'm rolling back
and all my fucking you know, Safari land shit. And

(01:09:28):
when nineteen eleven, we're all my jocked up and all
my shit, there's somebody on the mover range, very famous
person and my brother and I were walking by and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
This shooter who's very.

Speaker 8 (01:09:41):
Accomplished, said hey, can you come take a look at this?
And I'm like, yeah, I'll look at it, but I
don't do what you do. My world's different than yours,
but I'll i'll look at you. And the shooter goes, well,
I'm having a hard time because I'm not getting the
consistent hits that I normally get. And this shooter had
somebody that was tuning pistols and mag magazines, loading magazines,

(01:10:02):
taking care of their ghost rig, putting up targets, working
on the mover, had a still photographer and a videographer
and probably somebody making fucking sandwiches for a line out.
I'm just watching this person shoot moving targets. And I
noticed that this person was flaring an elbow on the drawstroke,
which was inconsistent from time to time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
And I pointed that out and.

Speaker 8 (01:10:23):
They swore up and down and all their menuons said no,
that shooter doesn't do that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
I'm like, bullshit, look at the video.

Speaker 8 (01:10:30):
And they rolled the video back and said, you're right,
flaring an elbow. So they slowed back down to get
better repetitions. Remember we talked about process and eliminated that
variable and translated back into the constant that they once had.
So sometimes self diagnosis doesn't work because you don't see
what's right before you. You don't have the right set
of eyes to make the diagnosis. So it does work,

(01:10:53):
but it doesn't work all the time. It's my point.

Speaker 7 (01:10:58):
You just had to be objective. You have to look
at yourself critically.

Speaker 8 (01:11:02):
Yeah, but sometimes your mindset and your understanding of what
you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
You know, you have.

Speaker 8 (01:11:08):
Cognitive bias, yes, so what you're what you're looking for
may not actually be the problem.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
You see a problem, but it's not the actual problem.

Speaker 8 (01:11:17):
You know. I'm not saying that that doesn't help. But
sometimes you know, it's like when people are looking for keys,
lost keys in a house. The people that live in
the house, you know, they're oblivious because they walk right
by the keys because they're so tuned into their house
and so it would be as to their own surroundings that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
They miss them.

Speaker 8 (01:11:32):
Somebody else walks now, so they're right here on the table, yeah,
Or your sunglasses are on your head, right, that kind
of crap. So sometimes you have to go outside of
your own perceptions or your own agencies perceptions, or your
own units perceptions, and have a different set of eyes
to spot the issue that variable and that equation and
fix that variable and make it a constant.

Speaker 6 (01:11:55):
You can also get overly focused, depending upon personality, on
the thing things you were doing wrong, and not reinforcing
the things you were doing right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
Just like what Rick was saying, gaining that additional perspective,
go to different instructors.

Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
Yeah, you know, we talk about like reaching those plateaus
like you're kind of talking about. And for me, it's
really difficult because most of my practice sessions anymore are
when I'm teaching, especially my travel scheduling. I'm looking at

(01:12:35):
sixty some events insure it's ridiculous and for me to
get you know, you get done, you come off the road,
you deal with all the house shit, whatever it is.
The last thing you want to do is go practice.
The last thing I want to do is go to
the range, get my timer, get my shit on, and
literally go to the range and shoot two.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Hundred rounds or whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
And for me anymore, I found myself in the past
year year and a half kind of lacking that more
being on the sustainment level versus going to a better
performance level to a certain degree. In some things, while
my shooting has been better, much better in the accuracy world,
my times have slowed down. And it's usually at the presentation.

(01:13:17):
So for me, I know, hey, factual, I need you
sit here, set the timer and you know, get in
the basement, throw holester on and do you know twenty
five reps of whatever, set the time and a part
time with two seconds you know from consualment at one
point five or whatever it is that I'm working on
that particular timeframe.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
You know, I think.

Speaker 3 (01:13:36):
Guys often overlook setting kind of their personal goals, like
a lot of dudes do either and lifting, running, whatever
the case may be, something that kind of you know,
mirror image, you know, another process with their shooting program
or whatever the case is. You know, for me, it's
literally at times forcing myself to say, you know what,
you need to go do this. You need to put

(01:13:56):
that shit on for ten to fifteen minutes, grab the.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Timer and do it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:02):
But it's getting guys again to do it, even us
on you know, some of our levels. And it's not
an ego thing, it's a factual thing that you know,
there's some of us at are a certain performance level
where we're just not going to progress past that without
outside influence. You know, for me, the big one is
like this year is going to go see Ernie langdon
you know, I've got to get to class with Ernie.

Speaker 2 (01:14:21):
I've got to be pushed. I've got to do that.
Or Rob Lathem this year.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
You know, that's that's my next you know, my next
sources again and I have to seek it out. And
again it's coming back to that lazy or that ego
thing where guys just don't want to seek out a
way to get past that plateau or where they're at
because they're comfortable and they want to live in that
comfortable little bubble.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
How do we get guys to get beyond that?

Speaker 7 (01:14:48):
Chaum Are asked Steve that that's it. If if you've
got a guy who's confident and wants to drive on
and wants to be the best, wants to be good,
it's got to be somebody that gets shown as asked
from top the time I agree and get his ego
handed to him. That's why people love Darcy Man. It's
everybody thinks they're the king of c QB and you

(01:15:08):
go in there and you get your ass handed to
you and you're like, Okay, I'm listening up, and you know,
you get one hundred percent attention span for the rest
of the week after night one.

Speaker 6 (01:15:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:15:19):
Uh. And it goes the same way with shooting man.
You know, we show up out at Shawl's and you
get your ass handed to you by you know, one
of the guys, and it's like, okay, I'm listening up.
You got me. Uh. And it's that's what does it
for me and most of the guys in my circle.
You know, there's different personalities. It just depends on who
you are. But for the guy that thinks he's there,

(01:15:41):
he has to be shown that he ain't it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
And that's sometimes that's a hard thing to I won't
say do as an instructor, because there's times you don't
want to necessarily show off. Let's call it not fucking
I'll call it what it is. Yeah, there's times you
want to show offrom burning dude down. I mean, I
mean it's yes, there is. I'm going to call it
what it is. I had that recently.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
I teach.

Speaker 3 (01:16:05):
A block of the instruction here locally. It's a four
hour you might shoot a hundred rounds hang gun Diagnostics class.
It's all about instead of an old program that I
had developed years ago at another place.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
I was at teaching people how to be better shooters.

Speaker 3 (01:16:20):
I realized that I wasn't going to be able to
fix five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, whatever it is. A
bad habits in eight hour day, yeah, or sixteen hours
or twenty hours, whatever it is. And instead, when I
really started breaking it down, I was like, holy shit,
I know how to fix this. I'll show them everything
that they're doing wrong. And I literally reverse psychology that

(01:16:41):
showed them everything they're doing wrong, and the performance has
now been there and it gives them the things to
practice when they're a way. I've literally shown them what
they're doing wrong, how to not do that wrong anymore,
and just kind of give them the reasons the practice.
But it's I had a guy come into the class.
He was two hours late to the class, which is amazing.
He was in the parking lot in emergency work calls,

(01:17:01):
which I get, you know, life happens, local IDPA shooter.

Speaker 7 (01:17:05):
Good guy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
He just had that that smug kind of quiet. Yeah,
I don't even know why I'm here, but I'm gonna
do it anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
And the end of the class, you know, we're doing
a simple one hundred point hagger get B eight hit
at twenty five yards. That's all we're doing, just to
end on a good, solid note. Like guys just kind
of get back into groove of things after all the
meltdown of their minds and do this. And he gets
up there and you know, he fires off ten rounds
probably in fifteen seconds. Cool story. I'm like, awesome, So

(01:17:37):
you know the lines are done. I'm like, hey, I'm
not done yet. I get my shot, you know, I
get my turn at this and pulled out the gun,
did the same thing, probably fired him in less ten
than he did. Granted I was running an arm mar
gun and you know, shot of ninety three in like
ten and a half seconds, and I was just like hmm,

(01:17:58):
and he just kind of looked at me, and he
realized at that point, Yeah, I probably should have paid
more attention to what the hell was going on and
been here a little bit earlier. But you hate to
do that, but sometimes you need to show dudes their
own ass and not saying that I haven't had my
ass handed me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
I knows I haven't many times. I am not the
end all of this.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
That's absolutely not the case what I'm saying, But you
need to have your ass handed to you. And you're
absolutely right, you definitely need that.

Speaker 7 (01:18:24):
Yeah. And it's Steve. Do you do live demos in
your courses? Oh?

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Absolutely, a metric fun.

Speaker 7 (01:18:30):
Ton Yeah, And that's you know, that's something I like
to see when I go somewhere, is I want to
I want to see what you got, you know, if
if we're if we're shelling out good money to be there,
I want to see what we're there paying for. Uh.
And that that's part of it. Man. It's you know,
somebody steps out in front of me and does a
live demo and I'm looking at a at a drill.

(01:18:54):
It's Rickle of Grease on the pianistrial that fucking crazy
hates Dre did back in June of last year.

Speaker 2 (01:19:02):
Something stupid.

Speaker 7 (01:19:03):
Oh Jesus Christ. You know I watch that drill, I
step out, I'm like, no, I'm trying this next training.
You know, my whole team's out there, We're out there
fucking with it and working the mechanics through and just
it was something different for us to do and everybody
gets their ass handed to them off of a YouTube
video and we're breaking down the mechanics of it, and
it's That's something I can definitely appreciate is when I

(01:19:26):
walk out on the range and somebody shooting and they
do a drill and I'm looking at like, holy fuck,
how did that just happen? And I think it's necessary
and in that in that live demo, you're handing somebody
their ass and you've got their attention at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
Yeah, there's a lot of that.

Speaker 8 (01:19:46):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:19:46):
It's funny because like in my pistol classes, I do
a cold hit first shot of the day. It kind
of gives me an idea of what everybody's doing, how
they're working their guns.

Speaker 8 (01:19:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
It's basically the shakedown, so you know, and I'll use
it as an example. I'll do a standard you know,
ten round, twenty five yard B eight hit or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
Target we're you doing at that point.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
Yea, and okay, this is just a simple exercise to
let me see gun handling. You know, where the little
tweaks are going to start to come into play. Here's
my problem, children, you all that good stuff, I'll shoot
it cold before the students do. I will do it
cold in the morning before they do it, and hey,
I will fuck up like everybody else at some point.
But the differences between like us or them or some

(01:20:28):
of those other people is that, you know, I'll use
it as a teaching point of Hey, you know, yeah,
I shanked round three and I knew it. I'll call
it as I do it, like round number three that's
out high right or whatever.

Speaker 7 (01:20:40):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
I like, well, wait a minute, I said, this is
the consistency. You know, this is how I know because
I've done this practice so much, or done this you know,
whatever it is, and to be able to shoot it,
call it, see it and show it to dudes is important.
I believe one here percent. If you're not demoing it,
you're not doing it in front of your students, you're wrong.

Speaker 7 (01:20:58):
Yep.

Speaker 6 (01:21:00):
There's a couple of personalities like that that IDP a
guy you'll never reach unless you you know, given that
slap up side the head. M you know, when there's
there's a water personality said that won't like you know,
a lot of the military guys, you go teach a
splat class or a military class or whatnot, like you said,
or like justin said, they want to see what they're

(01:21:22):
paying for, or at least see why they're there, and
they want to have a guy who can stand up
and not just dictate to them.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
Yeah. I saw that at a conference last year.

Speaker 3 (01:21:32):
Matter of fact, while I was teaching UH for pat
Indiana and that that week in May, and it was interesting.
You know, twenty some different swat optional personalities and he
goes and we've all got him, and that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
You know, you have to have it. Everybody wants to
be a type.

Speaker 3 (01:21:47):
And you know, there were certain guys certain demos, you
know we're talking about specifically some shooting in the move
stuff and you know, got him to do the demo
and dude was like, oh yeah, he's kind of serious
about what he wants us to do. I'm like, yeah,
I'm dead serious about this and there's reasons behind it,
and these are the reasons why. But I have to
give it to them visually. They have to see it.
They have to know that I understand it. I can

(01:22:07):
perform it because I expect them to do it. And
it's nothing that's unobtainable. It's it's absolutely well within reach.
They just have to be willing to do it after
they've seen it, well.

Speaker 6 (01:22:17):
If they're not. If it's especially if you're introducing a
new concept or a change on a concept like the
something simple like putting your gun on safe during mag changes. Yeah,
that could be a hard sell to a lot of
guys for years.

Speaker 7 (01:22:33):
Sell already position to somebody Matt, oh.

Speaker 10 (01:22:36):
Yeah, demonstrating that all of their their their their objections,
because they'll come up with a million of them, like
on the fucking spot are basically bullshit.

Speaker 6 (01:22:50):
And you can see it, it's not not the case.

Speaker 7 (01:22:52):
Is a good way to at least.

Speaker 6 (01:22:54):
Uh maybe minimize those guys, those couple of naysayers to
the group, you know, like the ones who have influence,
who are the self proclaimed fonts of knowledge.

Speaker 5 (01:23:04):
Yes, that's the way we've always done it.

Speaker 8 (01:23:08):
Yeah, so when we jump in on that for just
a second, So teaching a class, you're going to run
into knuckleheads that just are not set to receive right.
They're just they're not willing to empty their tea cup,
so to speak.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
And you might have valid reasons and good.

Speaker 8 (01:23:23):
Science behind what you're explaining and demonstrating, and you can
have you know, all sorts of documentation, but some people
are so used to doing things a certain way or
their department will not deviate from that. SOP and those
pois you can never you can never reach those people,
you know. And so as an instructor, how do you

(01:23:44):
deal with that? Well, the people that are set to
receive and that get what you're saying, you work with them.
And I tell the other guys when people come in
a class, first thing I say, is anything I'm teaching you,
if it's contrary or your POI or SOP or department,
you know when it's going to screw you up.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
I don't want to try to reprogram you.

Speaker 8 (01:24:00):
In a three day class.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
Yep.

Speaker 8 (01:24:02):
So as long as you're safe and getting good terminal
hits on that paper, I'm cool with that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:08):
I want to see consistency.

Speaker 8 (01:24:09):
That's my first thing is I want to see consistency
and safety safety primary obviously, But you're going to get
guys that are just not going to fucking set to receive.

Speaker 2 (01:24:17):
They're just not going to do it.

Speaker 8 (01:24:19):
So those instructors you have to say, Okay, well, these
three dudes from this department on the end at this
class I'm teaching in Indiana, you know, in Boone County,
they have a different mentality and perspective and ideology based
on the department that they work at.

Speaker 2 (01:24:34):
I don't want to fuck them up.

Speaker 8 (01:24:36):
If they're accomplished shooters, they're safe, you know. I'm going
to focus on some other things with those three shooters
on the end of the line on a relay too,
to make them better in other areas. I can't reach
them on this one concept, so I'm going to avoid
that with them because they're still getting great hits on
the target. You know, it's within that you know, eight inch,

(01:24:57):
it's within that eight inch circle center of mass consistently
in that two inch box in the brain box. I'm
not going to fuck with that because that's what they
were taught and they're accomplished shooters. But here's some other
areas that can work on and there's nothing you can
do about that. There's absolutely zero you can do about that.
You have to as a good instructor or good instructors,
you know, if it's multiple instructors in a class, you

(01:25:18):
have to realize that that's going to be an obstacle.
You have to find ways to work around it. Yeah,
I absolutely agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:25:26):
It's like, you know, teaching a department to go and
start working with high ready with a carby versus ten
years of them teaching nothing but low ready, you know,
or vices. So whatever the case may be, you know,
I don't care what it is. It's hard to reach them.
It trufly is and the ones you can't reach are

(01:25:47):
the ones you can't change those SOPs. You just have
to really rely on focusing on something else to make
them just that little bit much more better.

Speaker 2 (01:25:56):
You know. We'll tell the guys all the time.

Speaker 3 (01:25:57):
Hey, this goes against your departments, you know, sop of
whatever the case is, great, take a look at it,
re examine it a later date and time during your
own grade of workups.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
Figure it out. I'll give you the wise behind it.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
If it's not for you, great, go back to what
you've been doing, you know, but I want you to
perform this task. Blah blah blah blah blah, just omit this.
You know, this ready position, whatever case is. You know,
it's like well you know as well too. It's like
when you're teaching PD guys, trying to get them to

(01:26:32):
understand that, hey, you need to be working your radio
as well right after shots. Yeah, it's just those little things.
It's like they're like, oh, yeah, we don't think about that. Yeah, dude,
you know you still need to cover down to that. Dude,
you still need to be working, you know, working your mics.
Everything you need to do. Just fake it, do whatever
it is you normally need to do. But key up
your ship, you know, and do what you would do

(01:26:52):
for real. Give them that one extra little thing that
can take that they can take back or take away
that they normally don't do during qualls or anything else.

Speaker 8 (01:27:02):
Right, And that's so and Fisher and everybody else. That's
a layering of fundamentals. So there are no advanced skills.
That's bullshit. I don't subscribe to that fucking concept at all.
Anybody says that's fucking wrong in my book. So, you know,
you got a drill, a shooting drill. When you're done
with the shooting drill, what do you do after that?
You just shout a suspect on a fellony car. Stop.

(01:27:25):
What's the next thing you do? Get on the fucking
radio and call it in cool? Right, So I want
guys to simulate that because those are good free repetitions.
They're fucking free. Nobody's shooting back at you. Nobody's punching
you in the fucking grill. Fucking do it. If that
means I slow the class down just to hair to
allow those guys on the line to do that iteration,

(01:27:46):
I'm gonna slow the class down on the line just
a little bit on that drill set, just so they
can get those repetitions in there.

Speaker 2 (01:27:52):
Yeah, a lot of instructors won't do that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:55):
But those extra five to ten seconds is not to
slow the class down.

Speaker 8 (01:27:58):
It's well I mean, and the perception of the non PD,
non l E, non mill guys, it does. So you
have to explain to them, Hey, this is how I'm
going to run the line, and this is why I'm
doing this, so that the civilian shooter, you know, the
guy that goes because it's his golfing trip or whatever,
he understands that these guys need to learn this and
practice this, you know. And I explained to them it's

(01:28:20):
just like you have somebody come in your house. You
have to drop them there, you know, you make sure
they're no longer a threat. Got to call the cops.
It's comms right, It's no different. It's it's just a
different it's just a different area of involvement. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:28:37):
Absolutely, And what I did a lot of times with
that is when it's a mixed class like that, I'll
throw in the next layer of it is while they're
doing their radio call whatever the case may be at
this point, is that I'll make sure dude are still
checking themselves for self aid. You know, in that world,
it's like, hey, we're going to radio even on the
citizens that are in new class, civilians that are in

(01:28:58):
the class eight. Now you need to be checking yourself
and I'll is your self aid, buddy aid, whatever the
case may be.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
If your family's with you, you exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
Quick sweeping your body and that way they don't fill
lost reps or any loss of time. You just adding
another progressive layer that is a beneficial layer that they
should still be looking at in practicing.

Speaker 7 (01:29:17):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:29:17):
So, hey, Matt, I got a question for your prime.

Speaker 7 (01:29:21):
You there.

Speaker 8 (01:29:23):
I am don't mean to get into how building n
grams and cognition works or no. Yeah, okay, So anybody
that wants to jump in, jump in.

Speaker 2 (01:29:38):
You know, I'm pretty cool with this stuff.

Speaker 8 (01:29:42):
If you want to learn how you learn, do some
research into how kids acquire language. That was one of
the seminal research projects and science on how cognition works. Basic,
but it applies across the board and what we do,

(01:30:02):
be it making an apple pie or you know, doing
a failure drill and dropping a dude with terminal hits
and then self assessing, getting on the radio and all
that stuff. There are layers of this stuff and each
one of those layers is a fundamental. In order to
build the fundamental we talked about going process earlier. In
order to build a fundamental, you have to understand how

(01:30:27):
information acquisition and reinforcement works. So the brain works in
a very pretty much straightforward way. You're introduced to a
subject and Fisher mentioned this earlier and a couple of
other people did too. Different people learn different ways. You
have people that are visual, so if you write something

(01:30:49):
on a whiteboard or a blackboard, that's how they learn.

Speaker 2 (01:30:52):
You have people that are aural. They learn by listening.

Speaker 8 (01:30:56):
So if you're writing on the blackboard and you're also
discussing some thing, you're discussing what you're doing, the visual
learners and the oral learners will.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
Pick up on what you're saying. Some people are spatial learners.

Speaker 8 (01:31:09):
Those are the people that make good engineers and car
mechanics and whatnot. They do things with their hands and
they see things spatially. So that goes to what Steve
was saying. You explain something initially, you might write on
the whiteboard or the blackboard, and you get on the
line and you demonstrate it, so you've covered all the
major bases on cognitive acquisition, so you don't lose anybody

(01:31:31):
in your class. So I'm going to talk about controlled pairs,
and we're gonna shue controlled pairs with the car being
at fifteen meters right, excuse me or twenty five meters,
doesn't really matter, and I'm going to explain it and
why it's important. I'm gonna explain it diference between the

(01:31:53):
control pair and a hammer pair and why their difference
is important and when you would use them. I might
write it on the board, might demonstrate it with you know,
dummy rounds in a magazine.

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
In front of a class.

Speaker 8 (01:32:05):
Safely, I'll go out there and demonstrate it.

Speaker 7 (01:32:08):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:32:09):
So now I've captured all the different types of learners'
attention and they're starting to process that information.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Excuse me.

Speaker 8 (01:32:17):
They're taking it from initial introduction of a concept or
philosophy or fundamental and they're dropping it into very short
term memory. It has to be reinforced. How do you
reinforce that? You get them on the line and have
them shoot the drill, right, And it's the type of
repetitions and the number of repetitions that solidify that acquisition

(01:32:43):
of information from short term memory cash into a kind
of medium term memory cash and then eventually, with good repetitions,
into long term memory. Let me ask, let me ask
the the guys on the panel of question, why is
it easy to remember a phone number?

Speaker 2 (01:33:04):
Anybody want to get hazard?

Speaker 1 (01:33:05):
I guess it's not.

Speaker 2 (01:33:08):
It is shut out.

Speaker 8 (01:33:09):
Why is it easy to remember a phone numbers? No,
it's the amount of bits of information that you can
store in temporary memory. And who who determined or who
did the research on figuring out how much the human
brain can store in that very short term memory. Anybody
want to know? Anybody? Anybody guess? Anyone want to know?

(01:33:32):
Bell Labs a long time ago, when they were trying
to figure out how to develop phone numbers, figured out
that you can store in very short term memory seven
to ten digits. That's why phone numbers are seven to
ten digits. If you go beyond that, it's hard to
take it into very short term memory and process into
kind of a medium medium term memory. So when you

(01:33:53):
go out and you get digits from your date, you know,
and she gives you your phone number or he gives your
phone number, you know, and you repeat it enough times correctly,
it goes from that that short term to mid term
to long term memory.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
The more you use it, the harder it is to forget.

Speaker 8 (01:34:10):
I'll never forget my fucking parents phone number because I
used it a million times, right, And that's called that's
a heuristic algorithm or those are n gram mapping or
cognitive mapping. So getting back to the line, we're shooting
control pairs. I've demonstrated, discust written it down. It's in
their minds somewhat. Now, there's two approaches to reinforcing that information, right. Uh,

(01:34:40):
A lot of instructors tend to open up a three
inch fucking fire hose on students and want them to
acquire everything immediately, and the expert that doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (01:34:49):
Okay, that's called stacking.

Speaker 8 (01:34:51):
Okay, there's there's two types of cons There's two concepts
in acquisition called stacking and grouping and Mech can jump
in when he wants to on this because he kind.

Speaker 2 (01:34:59):
Of that is what I'm talking about.

Speaker 8 (01:35:03):
So if I do, if I'm on the line, I'm
doing control pairs at fifteen meters with the car being
and I have to watch ten people on a relay.
I've got two instructors, me and Fisher watching ten dudes.

Speaker 2 (01:35:16):
On a relay, and I have them to do fifty.

Speaker 8 (01:35:18):
Fucking repetitions of control pairs at fifteen meters right without
any corrected measures.

Speaker 2 (01:35:25):
Where were the heirs? I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:35:27):
And you as a student, right, And not only that,
if it's if they're wearing all their kit and it's
one hundred and five degrees and Yuma, and you know
April right, Rick, At some point, there's a lot of
diminishing returns. I just want to get through the repetitions.
They're not focusing on good repetitions, man, I got ten

(01:35:48):
more of these motherfuckers to do, as opposed to I'm
still slapping the trigger, or I'm not focusing on my
front site, or I'm too worried about my wobble area,
or I'm not.

Speaker 2 (01:35:59):
Doing a good re set on my trigger.

Speaker 8 (01:36:01):
You're not focusing on those subtle things. They're focusing on
getting it done. They're looking at the goal amount the process.
So that's stacking. It's a shit ton of repetitions without
any corrective measures. But the problem with that is that
you're introducing bad repetitions into the equation and you have
to deprogram those at some point.

Speaker 2 (01:36:21):
Now, let's talk about grouping.

Speaker 8 (01:36:23):
You work about if you look at grouping, I'm showing
control pairs at fifteen meters with the car being center
of mass.

Speaker 2 (01:36:30):
I want good terminal hits.

Speaker 8 (01:36:32):
Then in that eight inch six inch circle depending on
the metric, and Steve and I Fisher and I are
watching the line. I'm going to do ten repetitions. Then
we're going to stop download the rifles. We're going to
go take the targets. And as instructors, Steve and I
have five students apiece. We've been watching the students. We're
gonna say, hey, you're still a little low left as

(01:36:52):
right hand and shooter, you're probably fucking doing something wrong
with your trigger. Next time you're on the line, I
want you to think about that, and I'll watch you
just remind me, and then I will kick those guys
off to go jamags hydrate and urinate, and I'll bring
the second relay up and we'll do the same ten repetitions.
What's going on with the first relay. They're back there

(01:37:13):
jamming mags, hydrating and urinating and talking amongst themselves. When
they're talking or they're being introspective and contemplative, they're processing
the information that Steve and I gave them on the line.
That's one small ten repetition set. Second relay does the
same thing. I kick them loose, I bring the first
relay back and I have them do it again. Now,

(01:37:36):
Steve was talking about layering things, right, fundamentals, layered fundamentals.
So the second time they come up, I'm going to
have them do the same drill, but I'm gonna add
one more variable. When you're done, work on your scanning
and assessing and get on your comms.

Speaker 2 (01:37:51):
That's all I want you to add.

Speaker 9 (01:37:53):
That's it.

Speaker 8 (01:37:54):
So now they're doing the same thing they did the
first time, which is reinforcing what I told them. It's
taking them out of excuse me, very short term memory
and putting into that kind of medium cash, that medium memory.
Because they've gotten ten repetitions, are getting another ten repetitions
for a total of twenty and the entire time Steve and.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
I are watching shooters.

Speaker 8 (01:38:14):
We're looking at the target, we're watching their fingers, we're
looking at their body position, how they're mounting the rifle
or the car being whatever. So we're giving correct to
measures the entire time. So second really comes up does
the same thing we send the first relay back. They're
jamming megs, urinating and hydrating, maybe eating a Snickers or
some shit, and they're doing the same thing. They're reflecting

(01:38:36):
on what they learned, but they have one more layer
of fundamental that they have to build into that equation.
It helps reinforce the first drill we did initially, so
you continue with those grouping exercises within that set. So
it's having instead of having one big set of fifty repetitions,
we have fifty repetitions of ten and five, So that

(01:39:01):
helps that reinforcement. It's a trickle off of the hose
versus a three inch fire hose, full on, full on,
full blast, and they can't get a sip off of that.
So that's how cognitive acquisition works, and that's how you
deprogram shitty shooters and give them corrective advice and build
new skill sets and new fundamentals into what they're doing. Steve,

(01:39:25):
you want to jump in here.

Speaker 2 (01:39:28):
Yeah, you know, you hit it on the money.

Speaker 3 (01:39:32):
You can only give them so much at a certain time,
over a certain you know point, And the best way
to do it, honestly is the stacking. It's just keep
layering on the layers where it's almost the point they
don't even realize they're getting the same reps with another
skill set involved that they just keep building on and
building out and building on because, let's face facts, we'll

(01:39:52):
lose guys, they'll get bored, they'll just fall apart on us.

Speaker 2 (01:39:55):
And you're one hundred percent correct on it.

Speaker 8 (01:40:00):
Meckley, you want to say anything, Nope, pretty much.

Speaker 6 (01:40:07):
Uh just made me realize what you and Pat were doing.

Speaker 8 (01:40:11):
Yeah, I mean, you know, some instructors are big on
a ship ton of repetitions, and I have a problem
with that for the reason that where do you find
the error and where do you make the corrective measure?
When you do smaller subsets within the greater set, you
can find those errors and work on. You know, if
I'm doing fifty repetitions of control pairs, where's the diminishing return? Point.

Speaker 6 (01:40:35):
You know, Yeah, I have a tendency when I'm talking
to guys about like I want them to have all
the because it's like the articles in stages that Matt's
been doing with UH, with UH, with Master and Miller,
the you know, introducing that information, especially something as fucking

(01:40:58):
dogmatic as shooting that to the military, doing it in
baby steps and letting them assimilate and then wrap that
up into the next step, et cetera, et cetera, instead
of just here's all the information. Now half the shit
you're doing is wrong or fucky, you know, is it

(01:41:19):
probably a better way to go?

Speaker 3 (01:41:21):
And honestly, I think this is one of the reasons
why we lose guys so much during walls. It's become
so you know, the dogmatic thing. It's the same reps
over and over. It's the same known skill set over
and over. It's the same process that they're going through
without anything challenging, without any of the layers, none of it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
And this is why we lose guys. This is honestly
part of it is why we have that.

Speaker 3 (01:41:49):
You know, oh got call again, I gotta go to
the range, I gotta go do in service because it's
the same repetitive bullshit over and over and over.

Speaker 8 (01:41:57):
Yeah, and so it doesn't take a lot to change that,
just a little bit to make it enticing and kind
of spicy.

Speaker 7 (01:42:04):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:42:05):
Look, look, malfunction clearing is drills suck. Everybody hates to
fucking do them. As an instructor. They're a pain, and
they asked to set up. As a student, they're a pain,
and they asked to solve. We'll talking about car being
as an example, right, because it's a little bit more
complicated than a pistol because they're more variables involved. But
you know, so if I'm teaching malfunction clearance drills with
the car being, you know, I explain the differences in

(01:42:27):
the malfunctions, I demonstrate how you clear them, and I'll
have the guys, do you know a couple of repetitions
on the line. I'll kick them loose because it takes
a long time to set it up and do all
that rep so it's more time, more time, consumptions, more
time resources, more time intensive, excuse me, and then I'll
bring the second relay ap and do it. That's we're
doing grouping here. We're going to layer fundamentals and I'll

(01:42:49):
have them come back the second time, do it again,
and maybe have them do with their eyes closed, because
that simulates.

Speaker 2 (01:42:56):
No light, you know, or diminished light.

Speaker 8 (01:42:57):
You know. That's why I hate fucking worts, you know,
observe what the fuck can you see in the dark? Seriously,
So most of us that do this for a living
know the difference between what we teach and why sports
is fucking wrong. You have to explain to the student.
But so the second iteration in that in that group
is eyes closed, and I'll kick them loose. Second relay

(01:43:20):
comes up, does it? And then the third third time
they come up that small set that group, I'll have
them shoot. I'll have them do a malfunction clearance drill,
and I'll have them really focus on their marksmanship. So
I might say do a failure drill as opposed to
a hammer pair or control pair. So now it's two
fundamental sets that I'm reinforcing, the malfunction clearance drill and

(01:43:43):
getting good terminal hits on the target down range.

Speaker 2 (01:43:46):
So you have to.

Speaker 8 (01:43:46):
Slow down after you clear your malfunction, make sure you're
all spun up, and take those good shots, you know,
and I'll explain why, you know, it's like uh Navy
modified Navy qual shoot when you're shooting, reload when you're reloading.
Don't don't overlap or confuse the two. There's two separate entities, right.
So that's how you build these skills, and people get

(01:44:07):
wrapped around the axle because they're trying to outdo the
dude on the line to the right of them, that's
a fucking stud instead of shooting their own target, which
is another big headache in classes. As all instructors know,
you have to go up to your students and say, hey,
see that guy to your right left their studs don't
do what they do.

Speaker 7 (01:44:25):
You're not there yet.

Speaker 2 (01:44:26):
Do what you do.

Speaker 8 (01:44:27):
Focus on your target and your skill acquisition. You know,
I'll watch you to the ignore the sound and the
fury to your right in your left. It's not you.
You have to do your thing. You know, as the
good instructors, you know that, and you're up there and
you're encouraging them and correcting them. But it's it's there's
a huge difference between difference between doing a ship ton

(01:44:48):
of repetitions with no corrective measures and not understanding how
cognitive acquisition works, or cognitive mapping or n gram building
or establishing heuristic algorithms. If you don't standing as an instructor,
you're wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:45:02):
That's why.

Speaker 8 (01:45:02):
That's why parenting doesn't work. You can't template somebody else's
intellectual property and work product and be a successful instructor.
You can get guys through a class, but they're never
going to learn anything. So justin how's it worked down
your way?

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
What do you think.

Speaker 7 (01:45:27):
You're putting me on a spot here, Dade?

Speaker 8 (01:45:29):
That's okay? I mean how when you when you take
guys to the range and you run them through a
package of drills, right, do you do a lot of repetitions?

Speaker 7 (01:45:38):
No? No, So we're a complete building block approach. If
I'm teaching somebody brand new, it is step one fundamentals
the whole way through. Uh there's I'm not big on
just fucking blowing rounds down range and not knowing what's
going on. So I'm gonna show a guy, obviously, teach
the drill, barb, demonstrate the drill, and then have him

(01:46:02):
demonstrate it for me, and then go from there build
it up and show him fundamentally how to do this
correctly and why if that's going on. So we're big
on the why. If you know, at any time, anybody
who's teaching on our range or in our shoethouse, if
they can't answer the why, they're not going to be teaching.

(01:46:24):
And with that, you know, we're going to be telling
them to why before they ever have to ask. So
I want a solid understanding cognitively and physically of what's
going on around them. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:46:40):
Yeah, Meckley, what do you think?

Speaker 6 (01:46:46):
Yeah? So trying to kind of assimilate all that No,
And yeah, I've seen that more from personal experience in
the last couple of years then that I was really
aware of prior. I see the value and I'm much

(01:47:08):
more focused in what I'm doing in smaller chunks than
I am trying to spread a ship ton of knowledge everywhere,
because eventually people are just going to turn you off.
They don't want to hear all of that, or they
just can't assimilate. They're not going to be able to assimilate.
I didn't get all of that with, you know, a day,

(01:47:31):
So how can I expect somebody to take the cumulative
shit that I've learned over the past ten years and
assimilate that down into a day. It's just not going
to happen.

Speaker 7 (01:47:42):
You'd be amazed at what you can get somebody up
to in a day.

Speaker 6 (01:47:45):
Though, Oh yeah, yeah you can. You can make massive improvements,
especially with little shit like just just tweaking efficiency can
produce massive improvements stopping them doing the herky jerky. But
to uh, just the knowledge side of things, especially if

(01:48:07):
it runs counter to what they might already think that
that can be sometimes you got to know, like, Okay,
I'm gonna I'm gonna eventually win you over. However, I
need to wear down those that that castle a little
bit before I can make my point.

Speaker 7 (01:48:23):
You do that with the way I do that is
the same thing I was talking about with Steve earlier,
is demonstrate to them that this is one hundred percent achievable.
It's it's not even really hard if you just apply
the fundamentals properly. Uh, it's you know, if you're high ready.
I got this dead set against the high ready, and

(01:48:45):
he's you know, we're doing a one shot to the head,
which is a four inch circle whatever, uh you know,
in less than one point one, which is the Shaw standard,
Midsouse standard, Uh you know, and they're doing low readies
in point eight to one and you can demonstrate how
ready you know, mount it, get one shot to the
head and point six you know you got their attention

(01:49:08):
at that point.

Speaker 8 (01:49:10):
Yeah, so Rick, what do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:49:14):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:49:15):
Well, applying to our set, I really like the what
was said about the why I try to do that
same exact approach and teaching any of my guys what's
going on, because coming from the background that they do

(01:49:35):
lots of times, the why is it is not explained
for not just for brevity, but because I don't want
to say it's just a mindless indoctrination, but in order
for certain things to work, they need to be able
to follow instructions without question and do it.

Speaker 7 (01:49:58):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:49:58):
The problem with that is is when all when that
that type of thinking becomes applied to everything that they
do or everything that they're ever instructed. Shoot this this
call this way because we tell you to move this way,
because we tell you to carry your weapon this way,
because we tell you to set up your ge gear
this way, because we tell you to that when it

(01:50:20):
starts getting ingrained in them, that these this type of
thinking is what needs to happen in order to be successful.

Speaker 6 (01:50:27):
It kind of.

Speaker 5 (01:50:28):
Stimmis the learning process and so you got you know,
I find that I got to go back and say, hey,
the reason we do this with our radios is this.
The reason it doesn't work is because of this, the reason.

Speaker 7 (01:50:41):
That's exactly how institutional in our show happens. Exactly, that's
how it happens. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (01:50:49):
Kind of going back to what I said before about
like there being egos, and I make this point then
bounce for meeting egos that can kind of become their
institutional inertia gatekeeper, where that's the you know, it's the
one as well, it's it's their comfort zone. But additionally,

(01:51:10):
going back to the too much information or even unnecessary information,
So I liken this to Sniper's teaching a fucking carving course.
Unless the guy obviously understands, you know, that he what
he is teaching, and he's demonstrated that he's not an idiot,
it's a I had a practical example of this. It
was a medic and I understood his intentions. However, when

(01:51:32):
he actually went about teaching the class, it was like,
look at this guy, you know, and basically showing Brandow
pictures making all of our stomach's fucking turn of various
traumatic injuries and then basically kind of questioning us and
walking us through what you see, you know, based on
you know, the picture, and how you would go about

(01:51:54):
treating that based on the injury. The problem is is
that it started to get into like cellular degradation and
all this other stuff. And for practical you know, teachable, see, guys,
I don't get anything from that. It'd be like me
teaching a bunch of guys, you know, externa ballistics, even

(01:52:15):
though they're they're all armed with carbines, like they they
can use some of that information if I cherry pickets.
So it's selective, so they understand where where it fits
into their practical world. But when it it's outside of that,
you know, like why do I need to know this?
Like you're you're just feeling my head full of information

(01:52:36):
that I really haven't, Like it doesn't matter to me.
I mean, I'm going to turn you know, and then
maybe do some other minor things based on the external stimuli.
But beyond that, like that's beyond my training to understand
and or act upon.

Speaker 8 (01:52:53):
Right, So as instructors, you know, you have to read
your class and Stee will verify this, and I'm sure
everybody else. Well, you have to look at your class.
What's the end user want. We talked about systems ANALYSISMS
design earlier. You know, I've got a bunch of studs
on the line who work at you know, wherever agency

(01:53:13):
group unit, and I've got a bunch of civilians and
some cops that were told to go there.

Speaker 2 (01:53:18):
They really don't want to go there.

Speaker 8 (01:53:20):
I have to be able to tailor what I'm teaching
to the class, and sometimes, unfortunately, that means that you
have to slow things down a lot for the lowest
common denominator, the beginner shooter that's in your class, even
though you have studs in the class, and you have
to go to the studs and say, hey, look, bear

(01:53:41):
with me. We're going to go over stuff you already know,
but it's for the benefit of these other paying students.
And while they're doing that, I'm going to cut you
loose to do this because I know you can handle it.
So a good instructor knows how to read the student
population and adjust their POI or their training rhythm to
accommodate everybody. But a lot of instructors have a hard

(01:54:03):
time accomplishing that because they're so set in their ways.
It's eleven o'clock, you know, it's it's it's zero nine thirty,
and we should be at this point, you know, this
time hack on our POI and if these you know,
Low's common honor, common denominators aren't up to speed the
tough shit, you know, I need to get done by
lunchtime with this fucking you know iteration, that's bullshit.

Speaker 2 (01:54:27):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:54:27):
I've had classes where I had a low light no
light class with pistol, and I had people in the
class that shouldn't have been in the class. Wasn't my choice,
and I had to adjust the class to accommodate those shooters.
And I went to every other accomplished shooter and said, hey,
look sorry, you know, outside of my purview and my control,

(01:54:49):
but I have these guys in this class, and I'm
going to need some understanding from you. We're gonna just
slow things down a little bit, and at some time
in the night, I'll you guys go to work, so
just you know, be and they're all there, they all understand.
As long as you explain it as an instructor, you're
never gonna have any pushback, or hopefully you don't have

(01:55:09):
any pushback and they're on board with that. But it's
imperative as an instructor to read the fucking class population.
And just accordingly, most people have a difficult time doing that,
either the ego or you know, they don't know any
better because they're they're not understanding of what they're doing
and they don't understand what they're trying to accomplish as

(01:55:31):
an instructor. You know, you know, it depends on the
instructor in the class, but that's important for instructors to
understand it, and it.

Speaker 7 (01:55:42):
Goes to.

Speaker 8 (01:55:44):
All beginning shooters acquire knowledge without fear of.

Speaker 2 (01:55:50):
Being outpaced by the better shooters.

Speaker 3 (01:55:54):
Yeah, I'll agree with that wholeheartedly. You know, the problem
is you get into the puppy mill training where it's
exactly what you're saying, you know, the POI at exact
times dates, everything is identical.

Speaker 2 (01:56:07):
I know factually that I may have a set.

Speaker 3 (01:56:10):
Of bullet points of instructions or things that we're going
to touch on this day, whatever the case may be.
And then by the time we hit lunch, even before
lunch on day one, I realized that that whole thing
is out the window. And then I'm going to have
to completely restructure based on everybody's skill sets. That's there
that I've seen of eighty to ninety percent of the
class versus ten percent, and there are still ways to

(01:56:32):
push that other ten percent.

Speaker 8 (01:56:33):
Of the better shooters.

Speaker 3 (01:56:35):
But no two class are ever the same. Even though
most of the instruction points are the same. The program
has significantly changed. You either have to let's just say
it's a fundamental pistol class of whatever whoever. And you've
got fifteen dudes in the line, and thirteen of them
are hot SHEHD studs.

Speaker 2 (01:56:52):
You're like, Okay, I've got to.

Speaker 3 (01:56:53):
Push these guys a little bit harder and faster. But
I have to get these guys up to a certain level.
And a lot of times that may even be Hey,
look if you get stuff here for lunch, which you should,
let's just eat. We'll do some working lunch, get you
guys ramped up a little bit further on and bring
you up to par or close two pars. We can
get you with these other guys, you know, so they're
not falling behind or whatever the case is. It's a

(01:57:15):
difficult balance and you know it as well as I do.
Mike and the other guys that you know, you get
those classes where you get people that want to just
because they've had three handgun one classes and they're ready
to go, or they've taken one handgun one and like, oh,
I've been shooting all my life, so you know, hey,
I'm ready for Advancing Ninjahando roll flip twelve.

Speaker 2 (01:57:36):
And they show up and they can barely get.

Speaker 3 (01:57:38):
A gun out of the holes or without muzzle sweeping
their own hands.

Speaker 2 (01:57:40):
Yeah, it's like wow.

Speaker 8 (01:57:43):
Well, I mean you and I were at the same
class in you remember when it rained like it was
a hurricane and I had to I had to completely
change the POI because we couldn't shoot outside. We had
to go inside. Yeah, you know you can't. You have
to be you have to be a good enough instructor
to be flexible. Absolutely, that was a horrible class. I

(01:58:05):
mean it was a good class, but it was just
like holy shit, Oh, what are we gonna do?

Speaker 7 (01:58:08):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:58:08):
So much shit there. It's like, what are we gonna
do now?

Speaker 8 (01:58:11):
Inside? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:58:12):
Inside, right, We're gonna go inside.

Speaker 3 (01:58:14):
And you know the funny thing was I had that
two years ago an Alliance. It was just raining cats
and dogs for carbing class.

Speaker 2 (01:58:22):
You know, we're ramping up on this three day package.

Speaker 3 (01:58:25):
I mean misible trenchial downpours and to the point where
you know, most of the guys had good enough gear,
you know, clothing wise to deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:58:33):
And I'm like, all right, but you know, now you're gonna.

Speaker 3 (01:58:35):
Run to the problem of targetry and you're not gonna
be shooting steel because you're going to destroy the range
of steel with five five six at fifteen twenty yards
or whatever the safety concerns is. You know, I sat
there during a break between the night portion on day two, going.

Speaker 2 (01:58:48):
What the hell am I going to do now?

Speaker 8 (01:58:50):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:58:50):
And I went, oh, I know.

Speaker 3 (01:58:53):
I took backers, traced out a target silhouette, cut out
my scoring zones into negatives with core class target backers.

Speaker 8 (01:59:00):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:59:01):
It wasn't ideal, but it was enough, sure or you.

Speaker 8 (01:59:04):
Can I mean, you know, I was talking a prime
about this before we came online. You know, sometimes it's finding,
you know, the ability to do other things, not to
fill time, but just to get points in. So you know,
if it's fucking raining cats and dogs, you know, inside
the shoot house, and we'll take Alliance as an example.
You know, you can work on footwork and just working

(01:59:25):
the door, and how you go down a hallway, and
how you cover each other. There are other things you
can delve into. The flexible, knowledgeable instructor can look at
the situation and the student population and go, hey, I
can't do this now because.

Speaker 2 (01:59:39):
All the targets are going to melt.

Speaker 7 (01:59:40):
In the rain.

Speaker 8 (01:59:42):
And I can't do this because people don't have you know, uh,
you know, the Licky's and the Chewies and the fucking
comfort gear. But I can do this instead, so that
reinforces other concepts I currently you know, previously introduced you,
and I know that most a lot of a lot
of instruction can't deviate from their game plan.

Speaker 2 (02:00:03):
Yeah, and so they're selling their students short. No exactly.

Speaker 3 (02:00:06):
I mean it's like I've got a specific package of
you know, dry fire stuff we can do or you know,
dry reload drills or lectures. You know as well as
I do that we can dive into a really in
depth low light lecture that eats up two hours of
time or three hours, whatever the case is. You know,
we know that we can pull other tricks out of
the hat, so to speak, are the rabbits out of

(02:00:27):
the hat to at least give them more or at
least more information, whatever the case is, and a lot
of guys can't do that. You're absolutely right, they've puppy
milled it for so long. There's one instructure out there
that I've trained with a couple of times who has
a set POI to the minute. It's like we're going
to be shooting x y z drill at x y

(02:00:47):
z time and blah blah blah. I'm like, wow, you know,
And when I actually looked at his paper, his program,
I was like, this is straight up military doctrine. You know,
we will be doing this at this time, this time,
this time, and I'm going you can definitely see where
the influences came from. And having an instructor who has
enough flexibility, either from a military along with law enforcement

(02:01:09):
side or military civilian shooting, whatever the case is, they've
got to be flexible enough to know when to deviate.

Speaker 8 (02:01:15):
They have to right, which brings me up to another
point that just has to do with the liability. If
it's something for in service, or it's doctrine, or you know,
it's established POI, just from a liability standpoint, if you
ever deviate from it for whatever reason, whether you know

(02:01:37):
tornado came in or high winds, or you just can't
do certain things.

Speaker 2 (02:01:42):
You have to document it in.

Speaker 8 (02:01:43):
Your paperwork to protect your ass and to protect the
department or units ass.

Speaker 2 (02:01:49):
You can always come back to something skipped.

Speaker 8 (02:01:50):
Or missed earlier, or you can find way other ways
to work in what you couldn't do, but you still
have to document it because it needs it needs.

Speaker 2 (02:01:59):
To be established that this is why this happened.

Speaker 8 (02:02:02):
And I see instructors all the time, you know, skipping
ship that's necessary, and I'm like, hey, dude, are you
going to fucking write this down in your fucking workbook.
Or you can explain to the you know, the cadre
why we can't do this and the students why we
can't do this, and then you have to go to
hire and say, we had to skip this thing because
we had fucking lightning, you know, and everybody's carrying a

(02:02:23):
fucking lightning rod, and a lot of a lot of
people skip that that process and it ends up biting
them in the ass later. So that's part of being
flexible is understanding that you know, you can drop certain things,
but you have to document it and articulate it, you know,
for legal reasons.

Speaker 3 (02:02:43):
Yeah, One, there's no way around it, especially when you're
dealing with you know, obviously agencies stuff like that. You know,
in some open enrollment classes, yeah, you can get around
things a little bit better because most of the guys
are like, oh, I'm wet, I'm cold, I'm miserable. We
had a class one year, me and Chris in the
Pacific Northwest where we were both you know, coming off

(02:03:04):
of a huge road trip. We both had pneumonia. We
had students coming in from all over, including Hawaii. Typical
Pacific Northwest weather. It was wet for you know, two
hundred percent of the time. The temperatures dropped, it was
getting cold, it was getting shitty, it was getting dangerous.
And I literally, you know, I pulled Chris aside. I'm like,
look this, this has got to go right now. We
can't now, we can do this as now. And I

(02:03:26):
called it. I mean I called the class at like
two o'clock because guys' hands are literally blue.

Speaker 2 (02:03:30):
You could see where it was.

Speaker 3 (02:03:31):
Getting dangerous, The guns were wet, things were going to happen,
and it was the right call. But being able to
tell the students, hey, okay, listen, you know, We've checked
the forecast. The weather tomorrow is going to be x
y Z. You guys might showing up an hour earlier
start time tomorrow. We'll get out at an hour earlier
and we'll get back into it, will stay an hour
or so later, whatever the case is. You know, nobody's

(02:03:52):
going to argue that when they've already paid money in that.
But when you're dealing with you know, when you're dealing
with departments and agencies, man, that it will bite you
in the ass.

Speaker 2 (02:04:03):
Yeah, it was good.

Speaker 8 (02:04:04):
That brings me to another point. As as an instructor,
it sucks to have to do it. And I know
you're full of kit and stuff and you loan stuff out,
but as a good instructor, you have to have the
comfort stuff, the Laky's and the chewies and the extra
fucking woobye and the hand warmers and extra coffee. And

(02:04:25):
just because some people don't know what they're delving into,
they don't know how much of a suffer facet it
can actually be. And if you don't have that shit
in the back of your fucking s you need to
support your class.

Speaker 2 (02:04:35):
You're wrong.

Speaker 8 (02:04:36):
You know, I got to be accountable for your own shit. However,
some people just don't know what they don't know, and
oh fuck, I didn't realize I was gonna need this,
you know, for like, we'll just take something simple. Shootout classes.
Chem whites are light markers. Yeah, you know, you know,
some guys don't get it, and they got the list

(02:04:56):
of equipment to bring and they brought the wrong shit
because didn't understand. It's their first iteration through a shoot house.
And so you have to have a box full of
fucking chem whites and zip ties handy to sort these
fuckers out so they can continue doing what they're doing,
you know. And you and I know that, but a
lot of people are on board with that. They're like,

(02:05:17):
well they're responsible. I'm like, yeah, but they didn't know
what the fuck they didn't know.

Speaker 2 (02:05:21):
So go ahead.

Speaker 8 (02:05:23):
Yeah, batteries yea right, yeah, w D forty pens to
fucking clean lenses on their lights and ship you know,
you know, uh, stuff to clean their glasses, an extra
fucking set of gloves, hand warmers. You know, Hey, I
got a thing of fuck I got a bag of
Snickers in the car. You look fucking famished, you're angry,
Go fucking eat a Snickers knucklehead, you know, or or

(02:05:46):
simple stuff like we're talking about instructors ship here, but
you know, working on in cossa ground right in the summer,
hot as fuck, you know, greet yeah, on the concrete,
reflective fucking heat, radio heat, guys and all their kid
trying to do too much. And I had to pull

(02:06:07):
fuckers off the line, I mean the entire line and
say strip down to your fucking you know, basics and
fucking hydrate. And I had I had a fucking pulse
ox and I'd fucking check everybody, I'd check the temperature,
and I'd fucking make them hydrate. I take a safety
pause and say, look, you fuckers are dragging. You're becoming

(02:06:27):
fucking coggnfully deficient because you're dehydrated. We're going to spend
thirty minutes talking while you're hydrating, you know, and get
to it. And anybody that doesn't meet my fucking standards
isn't going back on the line.

Speaker 2 (02:06:40):
So if you want to continue shooting.

Speaker 8 (02:06:42):
Step up and fucking consume some fucking liquids, you know, eat,
eat a couple of fucking peanuts or something. I don't care,
but you have to be ready to go back out
there and work. Most people go that guy needs to
suck it up and do a shit. Fuck that bullshit. Man,
I don't want a dangerous guy in the line.

Speaker 2 (02:06:58):
You know, you and I know that.

Speaker 8 (02:06:59):
But a lot of instructors don't quite fucking cot into
that crap or that concept.

Speaker 2 (02:07:05):
Yeah they don't.

Speaker 3 (02:07:06):
I mean, you know, I keep an extra set of
rein gear packed in a backpack in the truck. You know,
there's that of you know, whatever gear, there's you know.
I mean I can't all you know as well as
I do. How many tubs of fight a light I've
gone through over the years. You know, you're always taking
a h to the class because dude, shovel the bottle
of Gatorade and a couple of bottles of water. It's like, dude,
that's not going to cut it, you know, right, or

(02:07:26):
they got twelve Mountain dews with them in six cups.
I had a guy this year in a class who
you know. After lunch, I'm watching him and he's getting
real shaky. I'm like, dude, what did you have tea
toa well? Nothing, I had some more coffee. I'm like, yeah, okay,
guess what going to the cooler you know, back in
my truck, there's a bunch of fruit and snacks and

(02:07:47):
some sandwiches in there. You're off the line. Go eat
one of these, drink some of this, put that coffee
shit away. I want you to pound down two bottles
of water, mix it with this and go and then
I'll put you back in the line.

Speaker 7 (02:07:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:07:59):
But until then, doude, no, I'm not going to have it.

Speaker 8 (02:08:03):
Yeah, and you and I both know that you can.
So he's number seven on relay one, he needs to
sit out. I can take the you know, number seven
from second relay and swap them out. You know, that's
the flexibility we're talking about, and that gets people up
to speed and keeps them interested and gets some of
the repetitions that they want.

Speaker 2 (02:08:23):
So prime we're.

Speaker 8 (02:08:28):
People go to the same instructors or they feel that
primary and secondary is, you know, not doing anything different. Well,
it's incumbent upon them to try to raise their own level.
And as Justin was saying earlier and some other people,
Mechley and some other guys, you have to go out
there and do something different. When you're programming for lifting weights,

(02:08:49):
you do a depending on what the program is six
to eight weeks on a program doing certain exercises, then
you dload and do something different. So you know, you
go through Fisher's you know protocols for a while or
my protocols or pat Max protocols or something. You do
those for a while and then you downshift, you deload,

(02:09:13):
which means you.

Speaker 2 (02:09:14):
Kind of back off a little bit.

Speaker 8 (02:09:15):
You continue to do it. That's reinforcement training, right, it's
not pushing the envelope. And then you find some other
instructor to go to. Right, So primary and secondary, you know,
these people are saying, hey, it's it's not getting any
better or you know, it's not what it once was. No,
they haven't deloaded and founded the second program. They haven't
gone to a different level in their mind. They haven't

(02:09:39):
found a different resource, or they're not reading the resources properly.

Speaker 7 (02:09:43):
We'll take.

Speaker 8 (02:09:45):
We're going to get off instruction here for a second,
but we'll take sit REP, which I kind of control
or manage or whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:09:52):
It constantly push.

Speaker 8 (02:09:53):
Guys to go find different primary resources for information. You know,
somebody's looking at our or info Wars for their fucking
information on global events. You know, that's all they see.
That's the mindset they're going to have, like, well, go
look at this instead. You know, this is what's going
on in Turkey with the coup. You know this is

(02:10:15):
what you're reading. Let me tell you why it's wrong.
Why don't you go read this instead? You know, it's
the same thing with when it comes to you know,
Craig Douglas's stuff or Steve Fisher's stuff or anybody's stuff.
You can do. You can hang out with one instructor
or follow their philosophy for a while, but you need

(02:10:37):
to go someplace else to your horizons and have that
stressor it's not the successes that grow us, it's the failures.
As Steve was saying earlier, it's doing wrong or feeling
that you're outside your comfort zone. So if all you
do is Steve Fisher Sentinel Concepts classes, oh, you know,

(02:10:59):
Steve's a great instructor and he teaches great stuff, but
he doesn't teach everything, and his perspective or his philosophy
may not work for you as an individual, So you
have to go to somebody else to learn. You have
to come outside your comfort zone. You have to empty
your tea cup or you have to not drink tea
and drink coffee instead. And that's how you don't plateau.

(02:11:23):
That's that nonsense of well primary and secondary is getting stale,
or it's you know, it's not what it once was
now you're not looking for something else that's on the
end user. That goes back to systems analysis and design
and how you acquire information and develop your cognitive skills.
You have to do the work, you have to raise

(02:11:44):
your level. So go to Steve for a while, and
then go to Dave Harrington for a while, and Mike
Panoan for a while, and Pat mcnamair for a while.
You go to Craig Douglas for a while, and then
you can circle back, you know, after a year, a
couple of years, and go back to Steve.

Speaker 7 (02:11:59):
Fa.

Speaker 8 (02:12:00):
Sure, people are inherently lazy. They want the instant answer
because we grow up on we're in a society where
people want instant gratification. They don't want to put the
work in. So when people say that, Matt, they're just
not doing the work on their own time and their
own time to find something different to grow than. They're

(02:12:21):
not finding an additional stress or to grow there, you know,
shooting muscle, or they're their knife muscle or their cognitive muscles.
We're talking about sit rep their situational awareness from when
it comes to world events or whatever. They have to
do the work. It's not on you, it's on them.
That makes sense, Matt Oh Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:12:43):
Another aspect though, is we have all these different resources. Sure,
you are going to plateau at some point. It's if
you're going to expect to get the same amount of
information that you did in the past, you have to
work a lot harder.

Speaker 3 (02:12:58):
I think part of this is too as well, plateau
to a certain point, Like Mike was saying about the
instant gratification, they're looking for an immediate answer to something
and they're only looking at it from one perspective.

Speaker 8 (02:13:07):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:13:07):
It's what I kind of refer to in class with
a lot of things as well as you know people are,
you know, their patterns and predictability.

Speaker 2 (02:13:15):
You know, it's very easy to.

Speaker 3 (02:13:16):
Get caught in a pattern or be very predictable, and
you know, because oh it's an echo chamber. Yeah, there
is times as a echo chamber because people are lazy.
You know, the electronic age has made people lazy with information. Truthfully,
they look forward to like, oh, well, I don't need
to search it out.

Speaker 2 (02:13:33):
I'll just ask the damn question. You know what, It's
probably been answered twelve.

Speaker 3 (02:13:35):
Hundred and fifty three times if you simply did a
search for.

Speaker 2 (02:13:45):
And it's part of that.

Speaker 3 (02:13:48):
It's also the fact that people are looking again to
expand they keep looking for, Well, what's the latest, greatest
gear that's going to do the best for me, that's
gonna make me a better shooter.

Speaker 2 (02:13:57):
You know, it's gonna make a better shooter.

Speaker 3 (02:13:58):
Dude spending and you know, three hundred bucks on two
cases of nine ball and going to the range and
doing some drills that are in the you know, tips,
hints and drill sections of primary and secondary, and then
you can report back and say, hey, you know, I've
reached this point of this.

Speaker 2 (02:14:14):
What is my problem? You know?

Speaker 3 (02:14:15):
Why am I not achieving these goals or whatever the
case is. It's just stop being lazy about it. Look
for the information, put it to application, put it to use,
then come back and ask the questions. Yeah, the answers
are there, but are your answers there? And it's kind
of hard, I guess for guys to deal with that.

(02:14:36):
They don't look at things. They stay within a certain dimension,
like like Mike is saying, they just have to open up.
I mean it's like for me, I'm right now, I
seek out more information on current medical stuff, more current
information on visual processing, more information on you know, performance.
I mean, I start looking at other things now, Like

(02:14:58):
shooting is shooting. There's bumping things on the gun, and
there's a lever that you pull back. And that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:15:04):
That's easy, it truthfully is.

Speaker 3 (02:15:06):
But when you start to dive into it even deeper
to say, God, now, why are my split times this
or why am I not picking up this correctly on
shooting multiples or whatever the case is, you know, you
need to start looking for that information, seeking that shit out.
And even as Micro's referring to, you know, the sit
rep stuff is amazing. If people cannot realize what they're

(02:15:27):
seeing offshore from the United States that is currently happening,
they're wrong because these are precursors. They are indicators of
what is here and what is to come. People need
to open up their horizons a little bit more and
expand on the information and it's available to them outside

(02:15:48):
of the shooting. Shooting is a tense part of the
ten percent of the solution honestly, you know, eighty percent
of that is the pre attach indicators, the awareness, the
situational stuff, you know, the other factor into the being medical,
and then the combatives. You know, all those things come
into that realm. But too many people are just lazy
about it. They think the gun is always the answer,

(02:16:08):
so they're always looking for the gun answers.

Speaker 2 (02:16:12):
I don't know, I just it's the whole the horse
to water thing, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:16:18):
There's that, and then there's also a lot of people
that are just absorbing this information and they don't have
personal reference.

Speaker 8 (02:16:26):
Well they don't have they don't have a context or
a frame of context, right, So I mean, you know,
Fisher kind of hit on the head and I'm sure
Rick has some you know, thoughts on this. But you know,
if if you look at anything, you have to put
it within a frame of reference. You have to understand
the context. Let's talk about the goal. I want to

(02:16:48):
be good at protecting my house. There's a process to
make you good at that. But what is the context?
You know, is it are you worried about the fucking
zombie horde you know, which is where? Or are you
worried about you know, your wife and kids are at home,
your overseas. Do you want to get your wife and
your kids spun up on protecting themselves in the house?

Speaker 2 (02:17:09):
You know, what's what?

Speaker 8 (02:17:10):
What? Why are you doing? Why are you looking at
a process to go towards a goal?

Speaker 2 (02:17:16):
What is the context?

Speaker 8 (02:17:17):
What is the the situational paradigm that you're working in.
So the average you know, civilian shater does not need
to know how to you know, set up an l ambush.

Speaker 2 (02:17:31):
That's bullshit. And and there's no they're they're they're looking
at it.

Speaker 8 (02:17:36):
Go I want to do an l ambush in my
in my property so I can you know, save myself
from the zombie hoard.

Speaker 2 (02:17:42):
And that's not that's not necessary.

Speaker 8 (02:17:44):
What's necessary is to protect your property and your family
from somebody breaking in, you know and doing something untoward.
So what Rick has to deal with, that's a different
frame of reference in different context though, what you know,
my neighbor has to deal with. And that's partially what
drives the the search for information.

Speaker 2 (02:18:08):
That context.

Speaker 5 (02:18:10):
Absolutely, and you know, I mean I was just just
talking about this stuff last week, and you know the context.
We're talking about certain tactics that you know, small unit
tax that we're using and the context in it that
certain assumptions are made when we are employing these tactics.
That gets glossed over a lot because that is at

(02:18:34):
a higher decision level or this is another echelon that
you're not actually worried about. So guys learned these tactics
like in the military, and they'll try to apply them
to everything, and you got to stop and say, hey,
you know, look at the tactics that are being used
in the totality of the of the situation. There are
there's an assumption made. So if you're a six VN

(02:18:58):
reconsistance element going forward and you're trying to employ your
team and you're setting them up as a leader, you're
setting them up in a security posture when you should
be having them closer together to where you can relay
information and you can relay back to the rear as
per your job as a reconnaissance element. But you're not
doing that because you're setting guys up for security. Why

(02:19:20):
are you doing that? You learn that on the line
because you are accustomed to using this tactic with the
assumption that you have a larger follow on force just
to your rear well as a reconstance element. You don't
have that, so now you've got to adjust your tactics.
And when you explain things that way to some people,
this sight ball comes on, hopefully. But the assumption was

(02:19:45):
already made and established, but it wasn't necessarily explained to
you because you were at that point point of it
to where your function in this machine, your cog is
spinning at this speed, and the other call, I'm just
spending at a speeding You're not necessarily worried about what's
been there at as long as you do your function correctly. However,

(02:20:07):
you take that as gospel truth and try to apply
to everything, and it doesn't work.

Speaker 8 (02:20:15):
And that's the and that's the pitfall of not understanding context.
And that's in some ways driven by a cognitive bias.
I don't need to worry about sales. I don't need
to worry about that. Well, no, that's not necessarily true,
because what you're worrying about now may evolve into that
thing you don't think you need to worry about. You know,

(02:20:36):
I'm protecting my castle here and I'm only going to
prepare for this because this is my context. This is
my cognitive bias. When in actuality, something else may happen.
So you know, when you're doing your learning, when you're
acquiring knowledge process, you have to look at the entire picture.

(02:20:56):
You know, they can be subsets with a set a
greater set, but you still have to deal.

Speaker 2 (02:21:00):
With all of them.

Speaker 8 (02:21:01):
It's kind of what we talked about earlier, you know
with Rick. You know, infantrymen have this skill set. It's
this big set, but they're lacking in this one area,
so go deal with that, but it still supports all
the other subsets within that set. And you know that
that comes to the context that you were talking about.
You know, the constant element does this, We were taught

(02:21:23):
to do that. If you're doing this, you know, as
a reconstant element based on basic infantry skills, you're wrong
because of this, you know, it's the why, it's why
do we do this? That's the context, exactly exactly. So
what else prime?

Speaker 1 (02:21:46):
I think that pretty much covers it.

Speaker 6 (02:21:50):
Yeah, I think I'm tapping out pretty close to midnight.

Speaker 8 (02:21:52):
And when it was yeah you gotta take the kids
out tomorrow two am.

Speaker 2 (02:21:57):
Here where I'm at, I don't even want to hear
it at most. Sorry, I'm up all my anyway, because
of better.

Speaker 7 (02:22:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (02:22:04):
Just hopefully the arroyos are all washed out tomorrow. You can,
guys can get out.

Speaker 1 (02:22:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:22:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:22:11):
Sleep is a rare occurrence around here these days. So
I'm got to get it when I can't.

Speaker 8 (02:22:16):
Well, you have your own squad, dude.

Speaker 2 (02:22:17):
I mean, you know it's true.

Speaker 5 (02:22:19):
Yeah, they're putting the mileage on me, and I'm gonna
tell you.

Speaker 2 (02:22:25):
Yeah, but you know it's worth it.

Speaker 8 (02:22:26):
Man, You're a good dad, you know, So keep doing
what you're doing.

Speaker 6 (02:22:30):
Absolutely, we're not.

Speaker 8 (02:22:32):
So yeah, we're not, so, Matt, there's nothing else we
need to cover. I mean, do we miss anything?

Speaker 1 (02:22:38):
No, I have notes here. Everything appears to have been
covered for.

Speaker 8 (02:22:44):
Nobody for the show, So nobody, nobody messaged you and
said we need to cover this or that or whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:22:50):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:22:50):
Actually, there was a question that came up and I
threw it at Steve right away and he fielded it.

Speaker 8 (02:22:56):
Okay. Yeah, Well, so I'm just going to throw a
couple more things in here, just really quickly. So as
a student, right, You're going to a class and you
know what your goal is, and you understand the process
of what you need to do. You understand how cognition works.

(02:23:18):
You need to take copious notes. All right, you need
to have a workbook and a log book, and let
me explain those for a second. And if Jedi were
on here, he could really delve into this. It's more
his thing than mine. But if I go to if
I went to a Steve Fisher Centinel Concepts class and
I took copious notes and I was on board with

(02:23:38):
the program, and I made some.

Speaker 2 (02:23:40):
Strides, you know, you have to go back home.

Speaker 8 (02:23:45):
And pretty soon after you get back home, you have
to reinforce what Steve taught you based on your copious
notes and the drills he gave you, and the target
tree that you shot on, you need to duplicate that.

Speaker 2 (02:23:59):
That goes back.

Speaker 8 (02:24:00):
To what we were talking about earlier, in short term memory,
to kind of a temporary mid term memory, to get
into long term memory where you have this heuristic algorithm.
Some people call it muscle memory, which is incorrect. In
order to develop that mastery, you have to reinforce it.
You have to have reinforcement repetitions of good skills fundamentals.

(02:24:21):
So one of my big pet peeves with students or
I'm out at the range or at the indoor range,
and I just see people ballistically masturbating.

Speaker 2 (02:24:30):
They take a can of.

Speaker 8 (02:24:32):
Ammo out there and they just blast away. They don't
have a plan of attack. What are they working on.
They don't know. They just want to go out there
and shoot ammo. They want to shoot their gun and
look cool and all that crap. That's kind of productive.
You need to have a plan of attack before you
go to the range. So Steve has standards. We'll take

(02:24:53):
Steve as an example. Steve has standards for his pistol.
And you were in Steve's class and you took good
copious note and you know what the drills are, and
you know where you were kind of weak and where
you were strong. You're going to go out to the
range indoor, outdoor, and you're going to re reinforce what
Steve taught you by duplicating those drills. The first time

(02:25:17):
you do the drills on your own, that's a baseline, right,
So i'll use it an even easier example, DA dot
torture drill. Right, the first time you shoot it, that's
your baseline. Keep the target. Make notations I did this wrong,
this sucked. I had a problem with this. The second

(02:25:38):
time you go out to the range, do the same drill.
That's a data point. The more good repetitions or the
more times you do the da dot torture drill, you
have more data data points from which you can make
determinations on where.

Speaker 2 (02:25:56):
You're lacking or where you're strong.

Speaker 8 (02:25:58):
Where you're strong, you don't have to reinforce quite as much.
Where you're lacking or weak. You need to work on that.
So you go to Steve's classes as a certain set
of standards and drills, take copious notes. You go home
pretty soon after you get back, go to the range
and do what Steve taught. You go back and duplicate
what Steve instructed you on, but make documentation of it.

Speaker 2 (02:26:22):
So what I tell people to.

Speaker 8 (02:26:23):
Do is get a range book, blog book, whatever dat
a book.

Speaker 2 (02:26:28):
Determine the drills you're going to do for the.

Speaker 8 (02:26:30):
Day at the range, Calculate the amount of AMMO you
need add ten percent just because malfunctions or whatever. Take
that amount of AMMO. Do those drills, then fucking leave
because anything after that is ballistic masturbation and you're at
the point of diminishing returns.

Speaker 2 (02:26:50):
You need to know what you're going to do.

Speaker 8 (02:26:53):
What's your goal is going to the range, what's the
process towards going towards the goal. Anybody that just takes
a can of out there and loads their magazines up
and fucking blasts away, they're not learning anything. They're cross
purposes to what they're trying to learn. So if you're
a student, you should understand that. As an instructor, you

(02:27:15):
should advise that that makes sense matter and ricked or no.

Speaker 1 (02:27:20):
Absolutely, So that's a huge pet.

Speaker 2 (02:27:24):
That's a huge pet peeve of mine.

Speaker 5 (02:27:25):
Yeah, same here I And for me personally, it's gotten
to a point where if I can't even go out
there and just blast away like that, I might as
well just take money and just.

Speaker 2 (02:27:39):
Light it on fire.

Speaker 8 (02:27:41):
You know.

Speaker 6 (02:27:41):
In my mind, you know, I just can't do it.
I have the zero enjoyment out of it.

Speaker 5 (02:27:47):
If I'm not like doing something that has a purpose
when I'm progressing somehow or you know, trying something new,
something to better myself somehow. With my shooting, I can't
do it.

Speaker 6 (02:28:00):
It just sucks. It's gay.

Speaker 2 (02:28:07):
So that that that was.

Speaker 8 (02:28:08):
My last kind of comments that cover everything, Matt. I
just want to make.

Speaker 2 (02:28:11):
Sure we're here.

Speaker 1 (02:28:12):
One aspect I'm surprised you didn't talk about, was how
you know, it's it's fun to do the easy stuff,
but to really advance and get better, you need to
do the crappy stuff as well.

Speaker 2 (02:28:25):
Well, like malfunction clearing drills or what.

Speaker 8 (02:28:29):
Well, I kind of I kind of touched on touched
on that.

Speaker 2 (02:28:31):
A little bit.

Speaker 8 (02:28:32):
I mean, people that go to the range want to
do the easy stuff because it's a level of self gratification,
you know, and you know it makes you feel like
you're king of the world, and all that crap you
have to work on. We talked about variables and constants.
You know, you have to work on the hard stuff.
It's hard for a reason. You know, it may take

(02:28:53):
more time to set up, it's more complicated to do.
It requires more work. You have to slow down and
really focus on your repetitions. But you may be able
to shoot like a house on fire, But what if
you're shooting like a house on fire and you have
a malfunction on your pistol and you don't know how
to clear it, or you know how to clear it,
but then you're overrevved and you get back and get

(02:29:16):
the pistol back to working, and you make crappy hits
after you clear the malfunction. So it's you have to
We talked about stacking and grouping. You have to work
those groups right. You have to introduce difficulty into what
you're doing in order to.

Speaker 2 (02:29:32):
Overcome the difficulty.

Speaker 8 (02:29:34):
You know this Kumbai, everybody gets a fucking you know,
first place trophy crap doesn't work. You know, like I
said earlier.

Speaker 2 (02:29:42):
You grow from the stressors. You grow from your failures.

Speaker 8 (02:29:46):
When you overcome your failures and you learn how to
overcome them, become better. If everything is easy, when you're
introduced to a problem you don't know how to solve,
you're going to fucking fail. So people that are out
there that are just going out there to shoot, you know,
hammer pairs at three meters, what happens? You have to

(02:30:06):
take a shot at fifteen meters with your pistol, Buy
a patrol car.

Speaker 2 (02:30:11):
You practice that.

Speaker 8 (02:30:12):
It sucks to set up, but have you practiced it?

Speaker 2 (02:30:15):
You know, have you worked?

Speaker 8 (02:30:17):
Have you worked you know, solo on a county road
doing a felony traffic stop? You know, doing those repetitions
in service. They're hard to set up, they're boring, they're
paying the ass, but you need to know how to
do them because when you're you know, on Highway eighty
in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, and you're the
only deputy in the county working that part of the county.

(02:30:40):
If you do it wrong because you didn't practice the
hard stuff, you're going to get shot in the fucking face.
So you have to do the hard stuff. I'm not
saying don't do the fun stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:30:50):
That's fun. Great that ten.

Speaker 8 (02:30:52):
Percent of am I told you about. No malfunctions.

Speaker 2 (02:30:54):
You know what, do a magdump whatever makes you feel good.

Speaker 8 (02:30:57):
But that's when you're done doing your you're process. That's
that's when you're done doing your personal POI for the day.
On the range. So you know Rick, you know, he's
got a group of dudes out there and they're working
you know, Katie range and they're working fifty meters and
then with their car beings, and they have an allotment
of AMMO and they need to consume it before they

(02:31:20):
are done with their stuff and turn all the crap
in and account for it at the armory and you know,
pick up do you know, pick up all their fucking
brass and turn it in all that shit. You know,
he's got a little bit of time leftover. Some ammal leftover.
He's you let the guys loose because that's Hey, guess what,
guy who did hard work. Congratulations, here's some fun shit.

(02:31:40):
Let me set up a fucking drill for you guys
so you can just have fun.

Speaker 2 (02:31:44):
You deserve it, right, You.

Speaker 8 (02:31:46):
Have to be able to do that too. But that's
only after the hard work, right. That's it's earning your
calories if you're doing it smart when you're working out.
I want to eat fucking coconut cake at this wedding
next weekend. That means that I'm going to have to
work my ass off this week before the weekend so
I earn those coconut cake calories at the wedding, or

(02:32:08):
I'm going to go to this wedding. I've been really
hard this week. It's this next weekend. After that wedding,
I'm going to have a good time because it's life.
But the following week I'm going to have to crack
down and really work hard because I fucking did something
that wasn't so good.

Speaker 2 (02:32:22):
For my body.

Speaker 8 (02:32:23):
The same thing when it comes to shooting or defensive
tactics or combatives or knife skills or you know, working
on unit tactics or anything you have to do the
hard stuff, but sometimes you have to reward it with
the fun stuff. Does that kind of cover what you're driving?
That matter what exactly, Rick, you want to jump in?

Speaker 5 (02:32:46):
No, I agree, Just like it's a scenario he talks
about when we have a little bit of AMMO left over.
I love doing things like Okay, now we're just kind
of like a little friendly team competition and make it fun.

Speaker 1 (02:33:00):
You shoot each other.

Speaker 5 (02:33:01):
Yeah, the loser cans sit here in the range.

Speaker 6 (02:33:05):
Winner goes home.

Speaker 7 (02:33:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (02:33:08):
Well yeah, things like that.

Speaker 8 (02:33:10):
Well, and sometimes it's a good thing. I mean, Rick,
you know you got you can have a competition, you know,
when the team that wins doesn't have to fucking clean
the range, right, I mean sometimes those sometimes those stressors
push guys in the envelope. I mean, when you're instructing,
you have to push the envelope to some extent, but
you don't want to push too hard because you're gonna

(02:33:31):
lose guys. They're not going to focus and learn the
skill or the fundamental Oh.

Speaker 5 (02:33:35):
Absolutely, And yeah, it's a little bit different.

Speaker 8 (02:33:37):
Crowd.

Speaker 5 (02:33:37):
I mean, just like we talked about before, knowing your crowd,
you know, knowing the group of guys like, I have
an advantage.

Speaker 6 (02:33:45):
Because they're all uh, you know.

Speaker 5 (02:33:49):
Selectees, they're they're multiple uh volunteers, and for the most part,
you know, they're they're all to getters and type pay personalities,
so they want to do stuff like that. But yeah,
that goes back to absolutely knowing knowing your crew and
knowing who you're working with and.

Speaker 6 (02:34:08):
The condition that they're in.

Speaker 5 (02:34:09):
I wouldn't if it was you know, super long ass
weapon weekend or you know, period of instruction or whatever
whatever it is we got going on and they're just
pooped and they're.

Speaker 6 (02:34:20):
Not going to get anything out of it.

Speaker 5 (02:34:22):
Then yeah, like like we talked about earlier, you just
got to make that call and be like, all right,
this this is pointless.

Speaker 8 (02:34:28):
Yeah, I mean, so you got you got dudes, you know,
stalking and shitty weather for a week and they've got
to get their hits and not get you know, you know,
dinged and whatnot. And they've done well and they busted
their ass and they learned their skills and they reinforced
their skills. Sometimes as an instructor, it doesn't matter making

(02:34:49):
an apple pie sniper stuff right, or Steve's basic pistol class.
Sometimes you just have to say, hey, we're done. You're
not going to absorb any more information. You know, you
plateaued out for this class, this iteration, this FTX, and
so let's just fucking clean up and get the fuck
out of here, right because you're not going to absorb

(02:35:10):
anything else where a cross purposes here, that law of
diminishing returns you have to set. You have to know
as an instructor or as a student. Sometimes you know, hey,
I just this isn't we can't do this anymore. We're done,
you know, and and and and a good student will
know their limit. You know. I want to be pushed
as a student, but you know, if I've got a

(02:35:31):
jacked up hip or something. I'll give you an example
doing a FIREMS instructor class, and we had a student
in the class who had a neurological condition and he
had this horrible wobble because it was a neurological condition,
and I didn't try to fix it because he was

(02:35:52):
getting good terminal hits. I worked on his learning process
so he could go back to his agency and teach,
and he ended up being a good instructor. But at
some point, as a student or as an instructor, you
have to know, these are the limitations of what we
have in place, and we have to work around it
and make exceptions. Good instructors do that. A lot of

(02:36:15):
instructors don't. So it kind of goes back to what
you were saying, Rick. You know, at some point, you know, hey,
look we're done, you know, let's get out of here.
Let's do let's do you know, uh, let's do an
after action report and do loose rounds and you know,
have commentary.

Speaker 2 (02:36:32):
What did you learn? What did you not learn?

Speaker 8 (02:36:34):
What did you want to learn that we didn't teach you?
And let's make notation of that for the next time,
and let's get the fuck out of here, because at
some point you just can't do anything else.

Speaker 6 (02:36:44):
Yep, A great one hundred percent.

Speaker 7 (02:36:51):
Is that it? Matt?

Speaker 2 (02:36:52):
Did I miss anything?

Speaker 1 (02:36:54):
I do think the first time I was introduced to
the idea the concept of fatigue shoe isn't going to
learn anything? Is from you? Well, they're well, they're not, no,
they're not. But yeah, having just gone through smaller, little,
tiny courses law enforcement stuff that's never anything discussed, well,

(02:37:14):
really talking about performance and truly trying to learn it
just makes sense.

Speaker 8 (02:37:19):
I mean, we could we could do another modcast sometimes
we'd get deeper into that. But you know, there's a
whole science to how people I mean I kind of
covered it, but there's a whole science to how people
learn shit. And as an instructor and as an agency
or a unit or whatever. You know, this kind of
applies to Rick too. You know, you have to know,
I mean, Rick was kind of talking about it earlier

(02:37:40):
with n c os. You know, an n c O
is stuck in his ways, you know, you want to
have better. N c os introduced them to cognitive sciences,
you know, I want to make And here's the thing.
I mean, I'm not going to get too deep into it,
but you can flat and learning curves out greatly just
by understanding how people acquire information.

Speaker 2 (02:38:01):
Let me ask you a question, you guys, the.

Speaker 8 (02:38:03):
Two people that are left, you know, what's the average
attention of span of a human adult?

Speaker 2 (02:38:10):
All things being good.

Speaker 8 (02:38:11):
You got enough sleep, you ate well, you had enough coffee,
you got laid whatever. What's the average attention span of
a human adult?

Speaker 1 (02:38:18):
Seven minutes?

Speaker 8 (02:38:20):
No, I mean when you're actually focusing on I mean,
when you're actually focusing on something, it's about a half
an hour give or take.

Speaker 1 (02:38:25):
Okay, wait, wait, what were you saying?

Speaker 8 (02:38:29):
Well, I mean, yeah, I mean but if you're interested
in the topic. Yeah, so Rick Rick is teaching you know,
basic ballistics, and these guys are alpha males, and they're
all on board with the program and they're focusing, and
they're taking notes, and they've got their dip in, they
have their coffee or their rip it or their fucking monster.
They're they're there, right, they're they're they're there intellectually about

(02:38:51):
half an hour. So if you're in a college class, Matt,
you're in college, watch the students at the half an
hour mark and see if they're looking at their watch
or they're looking at the walk clock. That's about when
they tend to drift off.

Speaker 2 (02:39:03):
That's when they lose their focus.

Speaker 8 (02:39:05):
So, as an instructor, if you're smart, you don't do
any block of instruction more than thirty minutes because that's
just general when people lose their attention span. Right, you
build all of what you do around thirty minute blocks,
and you give them a small five to ten minute break,
you know, and it could be an instructive break. You
can say, hey, we're working on this while you're taking
your piss break and your coffee break. Anybody wants to

(02:39:27):
stick around, we can talk about stuff or hey, you know,
make notes or whatever, but you have to give them
that mental pause in order for them to process the information.
Just through at them, right, So you know Rick going,
we're talking about Rick and his guys. You know, as
a good NCO. If you want to flatten a learning curve,

(02:39:48):
if you understand how cognitive acquisition actually works when you're
building your POI right, you will be able to get
guys more on board with things and they'll they'll absorb
more information work quickly as opposed to doing a death
by power point for two and a half hours on ballistics,

(02:40:10):
if you break into thirty minute blocks and give them
coffee and pee breaks, let them come back, and then
go over and review what you previously introduced in the
thirty minute block a little bit.

Speaker 2 (02:40:21):
This is the grouping thing, and then go on to
the next topic.

Speaker 8 (02:40:25):
Hey, remember when we talked about it in the first
thing before your feed break, we're talking about you know
these how ballistics work. You know, this is what happens
when you shoot mate five five through M four. You know,
here's basic ballistics. Now, let's talk about what happens when
you shoot at a further distance inmate five five that
you're m and four. You know this is we're still
covering the same ballistic concepts, but we're going to introduce distance, right,

(02:40:46):
so you're reinforcing the first block with the second thing.
We've kind of talked about this previously. But you know,
if as an instructor, if you get in there and
do your own work just like a student, as an instructor,
you have to be a student. You know, you can
flatten that learning curve out.

Speaker 2 (02:41:05):
You know you does that make sense?

Speaker 8 (02:41:06):
Rick?

Speaker 6 (02:41:07):
No, absolutely, I do try to do that.

Speaker 5 (02:41:11):
And I didn't even really think about the thirty minute time.

Speaker 6 (02:41:17):
But it just tends to be about how it is.

Speaker 5 (02:41:21):
And you know, when you start seeing guys that you
know different a little bit, and you know, just being
able to read them and saying they all right, you know.

Speaker 6 (02:41:27):
We need to get up, let's take a take a
piss break.

Speaker 5 (02:41:30):
And then later on when we're you know, applying it
on like the practical exercise, whether it's you know, being
on the rain shooting or something like that, and you
see the light bulbs that go on and they're like, oh,
all right, all right, cool, So we're starting to learn
this and then and now we can start building on
the next lesson and you know further a.

Speaker 8 (02:41:49):
Man, well, I mean, and then let me say something
in addition to that. So you're on the line, you've
got your your kids doing sniper stuff, and you see
that they're not fatigued and they're still focused. You don't
have you don't have to stop at thirty minutes. There's
still there's still a captive audience, you know, there's still
their gears are still working, so you can push a

(02:42:11):
little bit longer. That's a good instructor can fucking look
at a class and say, hell fuck, I can do
another you know in my group, and I can do
another repetition of malfunction clearence drills because these guys aren't
fucking drifting right. But that's hard, and let me tell
you that takes a lot of time as an instructor.
You know, there are guys that hang the shingle at
oh I was you know an oif and I did

(02:42:34):
this at you know wherever, and I know what the
fuck I'm doing. That's great, Merry Christmas, you know, but
you don't know how to fucking teach, yet you haven't
mentored under somebody. I had two phenomenal mentors, Bill and Pat.

Speaker 2 (02:42:49):
You know. Bill taught me the l east side and.

Speaker 8 (02:42:52):
How to be a good instructor, how to develop a
lesson plan, how to test people, how to develop metrics,
how to communicate, and then Pat, Pat taught me all
the other stuff. I mean, Pat didn't let me run
a line for a long time, and then he finally
was like, I'm gonna take a break or I'm gonna
shoot the line or whatever. Fucking run this thing because
he trusted me. But I fucked up when I started.

(02:43:14):
I was nervous, I stammered. I didn't have a vocal presence.
I had no command voice, I had no individuality, you know.
I parroted Pad a lot. And then I deviated from
that because I got confidence. That takes time under good instructors.

Speaker 1 (02:43:32):
And then from then on mister Grumpy was born.

Speaker 8 (02:43:36):
Well, I was only grumpy when I'd go to a
fucking range and it wasn't prepared like that was supposed
to be, which is place in Ohio one time, freezing
our balls off, you know, shitty weather, and they'd had
a competition the day before, and they had all this
fucking steel on our fucking range, and the guy that
was supposed to move it with the fucking.

Speaker 2 (02:43:54):
Forklift tractor fucking implement.

Speaker 8 (02:43:57):
Wasn't around, you know. And they didn't have and they
didn't have the fucking targetry stands, they didn't have the
fucking you know, fucking last, they didn't have the fucking backers,
and so I had to fucking construct a range out
of nothing, out of the back of my truck. It
took me five fucking hours. Pat was done with lunch

(02:44:19):
and still doing fucking lectures, and I still didn't have
the range up on TD one, you know.

Speaker 2 (02:44:25):
And that's why I got crumpy.

Speaker 8 (02:44:26):
Or you know, we're supposed to shoot on this range
and we get we get set up on a range
that's fucking like shooting.

Speaker 2 (02:44:33):
On the moon.

Speaker 8 (02:44:33):
It was like a lunar surface uphill, you know, fifteen
percent incline. Can't fucking shoot on that range. You have
to work around that shit, you know. Anyway, that's why
I was grumpy, not because of the students, just because
of fucking rain shit.

Speaker 1 (02:44:51):
No, it was cool when we figured out, Hey, that
Mike guy, he's he's actually really cool. I just need
to talk to him. Don't don't be scared.

Speaker 8 (02:44:59):
Well, I'm I'm a I'm a pussy cat dude.

Speaker 1 (02:45:02):
Oh no, I know that.

Speaker 9 (02:45:03):
I know that.

Speaker 8 (02:45:05):
So I'm actually so laid back on the range it's
not even funny, you know.

Speaker 7 (02:45:11):
Anyway.

Speaker 8 (02:45:13):
Yeah, so Rick, I mean, you know, thirty minute blocks work.
You know, read read, read the atmosphere of the class
or the focus of the class, and just kind of
adjust a little bit one way or the other, and
you know, you'll be fine. I mean, I know you
know this, but a lot a lot of guys that
work in your area, you know, Big Green, not necessarily

(02:45:34):
individualized things like sniper. You know, they just want to
get through the guys through the package so they can
get guys safe and they don't shoot each other. And
that's all they want to teach. They don't want to
fine tune things, you know.

Speaker 6 (02:45:47):
Yeah, No, I hate that. I hate that.

Speaker 8 (02:45:51):
Yeah, But I mean look, I mean I did a
package with Pat at Pendleton and we had mister Grumpy right,
So they didn't have enough fucking target stands. So a
fucking out of two by fours and screws and shit,
I built a fucking mock up and I said, this

(02:46:13):
is how you do it. Dimensions, number of screws, how
much want I mean, I gave them all the ship
right they needed, right, and Freddy, Freddy Bush can fucking
you know, verify this ship. So we get out there
in the first day and there are no fucking build
target stands, right, and so how the fuck are we
going to teach a class without target stands. You can't

(02:46:36):
do it.

Speaker 2 (02:46:36):
It's just not gonna fucking happen. So we worked it out.

Speaker 8 (02:46:40):
I mean we had to, fucking you know, as this
as the people from New Zealand the key, we say
we souvenired some fucking target stands from nearby ranges. We
had a working party fucking go steal some ship. But
you know, it turned out to be a big pain
in the ass. And the working with the Marine Corps,

(02:47:03):
it could be, the Army could be.

Speaker 2 (02:47:04):
It doesn't matter.

Speaker 8 (02:47:07):
You know, you get out there and you have this
huge fucking group of students, you have a cadre of instructors,
and you have to be able to figure out how
to do what you need to do within a certain timeframe,
regardless of the obstacles. Some people can't fucking do that.
So you know, rick Al, KUDOSU. I mean, you get it.

(02:47:28):
But a lot of people in the larger institution that
you're working in, they don't fucking grasp the concept of
what they need to do to get their guys spun up.

Speaker 2 (02:47:37):
They just don't get it.

Speaker 8 (02:47:41):
Yeah, it's true, Meckley, you want to say anything, No,
I mean, I'm in that.

Speaker 6 (02:47:50):
I think I did like and I can do a
better one that's a little bit more free when I'm home.

Speaker 7 (02:47:57):
But that one of the videos for.

Speaker 6 (02:48:01):
H Miller with the you know, just going over basics
of tech reload and speed reload loading him for that
kind of thing. Yeah, I did like six cuts in
the video, and I wasn't even happy with it, just
because I'm still at that that kind of stage where
it's a difference of standing up in front of your

(02:48:22):
peers and teaching them something is a little easier because
you can you can read that crowd, you understand that
crowd's little tells, But then doing it to an unknown audience,
worse people you do not know at all, is kind
of a daunting at first, especially when you're really trying
to not sound like an idiot.

Speaker 8 (02:48:44):
Yeah, but I mean, you know, I use myself as
an example. I mean, you're going to suck when you
first start, and hopefully you have a mentor.

Speaker 2 (02:48:52):
I mean, so Rick Scott.

Speaker 8 (02:48:54):
You know, he's a good instructor for what he does,
and he's got some young stud underneath them who's going
to be good instructor, and you have to you have
to lead him down the path. You have to be
a mentor or a guru to him and say, hey,
look this is what I do. Watch me, okay, And
then you see that he's paying attention, you understand what
you understands what you're talking about. And then you know,

(02:49:16):
six months later, you're like, hey, I want you to
teach this block of instruction. You know, you hover it
on his shoulder a little bit like an angel, and
you're like, hey, that was pretty good, but next time,
try it this way. Or you're too quiet, or hey
you missed this point. Let's cover that on the lunch break.

Speaker 7 (02:49:32):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:49:32):
That's a good that's a good mentor. That's a good.

Speaker 8 (02:49:35):
Instructor, instructor, instructor of instructors.

Speaker 2 (02:49:38):
You know, and it's hard.

Speaker 8 (02:49:39):
You know, when you're with your peers, you know when
you're when you're out there with your snipers. That's great, Rick,
but teach something to non snipers that sniper you know applicable.
You know, you're not used to that crowd, and you
might be tenuous and uncomfortable. That's how you grow. That's
that stress that we're talking about. That's getting outside your
comfort zone. That's how you grow. You know, you're in

(02:50:01):
primary and secondary and this is you think it's stale, Well,
go look someplace else, acquire a different skill set. Hey,
you're great running a pistol, very Christmas, How are you
putting on a tournique?

Speaker 2 (02:50:14):
Have you done that yet?

Speaker 8 (02:50:15):
That might apply you know, Or how about your great
at running your car being but you suck at transition
from carbing to pistol. Maybe you should work on that.
There's no reason anybody that's acquiring knowledge should ever be stale.
It's inexcusable, it's not acceptable.

Speaker 6 (02:50:36):
Well then, kind of a parody what Mike was saying.
The one thing I noticed, at least as a personal
development aspect of myself that was a big shift when
I was in the military was so, you know, for
a while, I had some good ncs and I had
some bad ones, but for the most part, a lot

(02:50:57):
of them were that micromanaging type where you know, I'm like,
you know that I'm a peacock, gotta let me fly
kind of guy. Like if you don't give me that
confidence in that trust, I just kind of shut down.
I'm like, okay, you know, fuck you, then I'm not
gonna I'm not going to work to that next level
because my work's going to fall on deaf ears. But

(02:51:22):
the big shift was when who's a friend of mine
now and he's out came from group and then took
over our section. He he was the guy coming to
me because he had been to Sodaic like many moons ago,
and a lot of that was kind of fuzzy. He
was the guy coming to me for advice and for
you know, technical knowledge because I was up to date

(02:51:43):
on all that stuff. Having somebody, especially for your subordinates,
having somebody place a little bit of trust and confidence
and somebody can can have a huge ned benefit, especially
if they're you know, like myself, where I'm more of
a naturally inter a kind of guy shocker. But if

(02:52:03):
you see that kind of a guy kind of with
drawing into his shell, give him something to do and
it show that you've got that kind of trust in
his ability and sometimes you'd be surprised. Man like that
that can have it just as much of a positive
effect as you know, correcting the type a guy and
making you know, making him kind of use his personality
against him to get him.

Speaker 8 (02:52:23):
To do what you want.

Speaker 2 (02:52:28):
So Rick, how do you deal with that?

Speaker 9 (02:52:32):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (02:52:32):
I mean ship just by nature, I have to delegate
a lot because of a couple of different hats that
I got to wear, and just currently because we don't
have any sniper employment NCO sniper for employment officers, So
I'm kind of kind of wearing three hats right now

(02:52:54):
and I'm possibly getting ready to wear a fourth. So uh,
you know, uh having my team leaders running training and
you know, giving them that that long leash to uh
do things that you know they should be able to do.
But it's I see the confidence inspired in them when

(02:53:18):
I do that and say, hey, you know, you guys
know how to run this. Uh, just this is what
I need. My two end goals for this is this,
and I need the guys to do this by such
and such a time. Man, you know, I know you
guys got it if you run a Jennie snags. Let
me know if it's something that needs to get pushed up.
Let me know, I got to be over here doing
this or putting.

Speaker 2 (02:53:38):
This fire out.

Speaker 6 (02:53:39):
And and that's how how guys learned.

Speaker 5 (02:53:42):
I've seen just over the time that I've been the
section leader growth and my my three team leaders, and
I do feel that, like I I wish I had
more more time. I always wish I had more time,
but developing my team leaders are getting them ready to
be sectional leaders themselves.

Speaker 6 (02:54:02):
It's something that like lately I've really.

Speaker 5 (02:54:04):
Tried to buckle down on and stuff because when I
first got to this section, we were we were really
low on qualified personnel and uh so, uh the emphasis
that that I had decided I wanted to go with
it with a section was all right, getting our are
our Joe's ore e four below guys, uh qualified up
and then uh, you know, once we get that that baseline.

Speaker 6 (02:54:28):
Of knowledge, going uh, trying to trying.

Speaker 5 (02:54:31):
To develop the team leaders at the same time, but
but then really focusing on the team leaders, you know, And.

Speaker 6 (02:54:36):
It's a cyclical thing.

Speaker 5 (02:54:37):
You know, there's there's never a time where we're all right,
we're good enough, we can stop training now or stop
you know, pushing. But I'm starting to try to transition
to that point where I can I can kind of
start focusing a lot more on.

Speaker 6 (02:54:53):
The team leaders and the team leaders train their guys
because we're.

Speaker 5 (02:54:56):
Getting we're starting to get ahead to the point of
of the curve in terms of being having snapper school
qualified personnel, which is really good. I'm proud of as
fucking the guys, and you know, they just they're been
doing great things. And but yeah, it subordinate development, you know,
professional development is is an ongoing thing always so and

(02:55:20):
again it goes back to what we're talking about, plateaus
that we're trying to trying to break through. You know,
just I want these guys to be a better section
leader than I ever was, and I'm just trying to
give them the tools that they can they can take
and just you know, expand on and run with and
you know, hopefully if everything works out, that that'll be

(02:55:42):
the end state. Once I'm done with my time in
the section, which I'm a they're gonna call me pull
me away kicking, screaming and clawing from the job. But
you know, at the same time, uh, you know, I
look at I look at my subordinate team leader, and
I'm like, these guys are going to do good things.

Speaker 6 (02:56:02):
So yeah, when I become old and irrelevant, I need
to get my ass out of the way.

Speaker 8 (02:56:07):
Yeah, you're not gonna be irrelevant.

Speaker 2 (02:56:09):
Let me ask you another question.

Speaker 8 (02:56:11):
So from a leadership standpoint, as an instructor standpoint, you
have guys in your cadre, right, and one guy's really
good at ballistics, and one guy's really good at stalking,
and one guy is really good at instructing camouflage. Do

(02:56:31):
you let those guys just handle that or do you
try to cross train them and try to build up
their weaknesses into strengths. So when you're when you send
your subordinates out and you're teaching a package in the pipeline,
do you have you know, Joe do with ballistics because
he's a master at it. I mean, you obviously want

(02:56:53):
to master teaching something important, But at the same time,
do you want to as you know, the guru, as
the team.

Speaker 2 (02:57:00):
Leader, as the head instructor, do you also.

Speaker 8 (02:57:03):
Want to build his other skills and bring his level up?
I mean, how do you how do you deal with
that problem? Because it happens everywhere.

Speaker 5 (02:57:13):
No, absolutely I do. And in fact, so if if
if time allows those guys that are weak on something
because you know, you always learn something better when you
teach something. You know, you always walk away from if
you're teaching the class, you know, they guys, guys will

(02:57:36):
want to dig up, you know, some of that knowledge
maybe they had at some point and they've got to
go back and check their notes, hit their books, whatever,
and so, you know, teaching something that they're they're weaken,
I find can bring their skill set or or at
least reinforce that skill uh more every time they teach it.

Speaker 6 (02:57:57):
Do I capitalize on their strengthssolutely? Of course, but uh,
just like you.

Speaker 5 (02:58:04):
Said, I bringing their bringing them up to the level
of you know, being proficient and working with those weaknesses
to tournament and strengths.

Speaker 6 (02:58:12):
That is something that I do.

Speaker 5 (02:58:13):
I try to have guys that like, you know, hey,
he's not too experienced in this. You know, Hey man,
I'm gonna ask you with teaching this this you know,
this subject for uh for this long and dig into it,
you know, get spun up on it. And uh if
you got any questions, you know, obviously let me know.

(02:58:34):
If I don't have those answers.

Speaker 6 (02:58:35):
I get m to you.

Speaker 5 (02:58:36):
But once those guys do that, and like I said,
after teaching it, they tend to they tend to hold
on to it longer, and so it does elevate their
their understanding of it and their their their skills overall.

Speaker 6 (02:58:50):
I think.

Speaker 8 (02:58:52):
So let's let's talk about problem solving.

Speaker 2 (02:58:55):
So you have guys that are weak in a area.

Speaker 7 (02:58:57):
Let's talk about just a guy that's.

Speaker 8 (02:58:58):
Weak on ballistics, and you have a that's amazing on ballistics,
and you have the flexibility, the resources. Let's just take
your guys as an example, your you're training kydri and
you would you know, as a good instructor, head instructor,
would you take over a training block, impair the weak
guy with a strong guy and have the strong guy

(02:59:20):
and mentor the week guy. Or would you mentor the
weak guy and take over that training block You get
where I'm driving at.

Speaker 7 (02:59:28):
Yes, No, I would.

Speaker 6 (02:59:30):
I would. I would supervise from a distance.

Speaker 5 (02:59:33):
But let's a strong guy train the train the weak
guy on it, you know, Okay, okay, I.

Speaker 6 (02:59:39):
Would like.

Speaker 5 (02:59:42):
If there's something in particular that like, I don't know,
maybe he's being glossed over, or maybe maybe the guy
is really strong at it, he's he knows it really well,
but he's struggling to to articulate what he knows. I
know that he knows it. He might be starting to
articulate it two weeks. You know, I'm I jump in
and try to help him out a little bit. But

(03:00:03):
I I would prefer that the guy that's strong and
it teach the week guy and I kind of stay
a little bit in the back. I don't want to
micromanage too much unless it's something that like, like I said,
you know, he's he's struggling a little bit. I'll just
give him a little point or you know, maybe explain
something a little bit better that he's he's struggling with.

Speaker 6 (03:00:25):
But I try to work it that way if.

Speaker 8 (03:00:28):
I can't, Okay, I was just curious because that's that's
good leadership, and that's that's a good way to do,
you know, cognitive acquisition is, Hey, look, bro, you know
you're a little slow in this, and maybe you should
work with you know, Bob here because he's the expert.
You know, he's really good at this or whatever. And uh,

(03:00:48):
you know, I'll jump in where I have to, but
I'm not going to get in your way. It's like
what I was talking about working with Pat. You know,
I struggled initially, and Pat would say something to me,
and I fucked up a couple of times, and he chewed
my ass.

Speaker 2 (03:01:00):
You know, He's like, hey, that fuck, that sucked, you know,
do it this way.

Speaker 8 (03:01:04):
Next time, okay, you know, and then he immediately make
me go out there and do it again, you know.
So he was he was a good mentor in that,
in that application of learning how to teach a class.
You know.

Speaker 2 (03:01:18):
So again, you know, good on you, because you know
you kind of get it.

Speaker 8 (03:01:21):
But a lot of people just don't fucking grasp that
concept that, hey, look this guy struggling, we'll let him
fucking drown. That's bullshit, you know, he's he's Look. The
other thing I'm a big proponent of is that what
we teach as a legacy, you know, and if you're
not striving to pass along a legacy to the people
under you that are not quite as qualified as you,

(03:01:44):
you know, you have to bring him up to your
level at some point, because you're going to disappear at
some point, you get shifted to another command or another agency,
or you're going to retire. The guy that replaces you
has to be just as qualified as you. So if
you're not training that person to replace you, what good
are you? You know, you're not passing along that legacy.
What we do is a legacy. So primary and secondary

(03:02:06):
is secondary. Primary and secondary is trying to pass along
legacy concepts.

Speaker 2 (03:02:12):
Hey, we're gonna you know, have Bill Blauer show you
how to do this. This is why he does it.

Speaker 8 (03:02:17):
This is applicable to you at your unit or your
agency because of this.

Speaker 2 (03:02:22):
You know, take this.

Speaker 8 (03:02:22):
Information to where you work and pass it along, and
it's like dropping Like if you're shitty at it, it's
like dropping a grain of sand into a big fucking ocean.
There's no effect, right, If you're really good at it,
it's like dropping a boulder into a small duck pond.

Speaker 2 (03:02:41):
Everybody feels the ramifications.

Speaker 8 (03:02:43):
You know, the second and third order effects of what
you teach is significant. If what you teach is minimal,
it's like that grain of sand in the ocean. If
what you teach is applicable and important and you do
it well, it's like dropping.

Speaker 2 (03:02:58):
That boulder in the duck pond.

Speaker 8 (03:03:00):
So, you know, a lot of people don't grasp that concept.
It is a legacy. You know, when I when I
do the farm's instructor blocks like, what I'm teaching you
is not for me.

Speaker 2 (03:03:10):
It's for you to take to where you work. And
how I.

Speaker 8 (03:03:14):
Teach you is so that you can teach those guys
and when you retire, if you do it right and
you teach it properly, what you teach them will trickle
down or ripple out to the people that you teach.
So it's a continuing education experiences, a cycle of excellence
that they can acquire and pass on. And that's what

(03:03:35):
primary and secondary is striving to achieve. So when people
say it's stale again, you know, I've covered this before,
they're not looking. They're not trying to be the big
boulder in the duck pond, right, They're not seeing how
can I be more effective in my learning acquisition or
my instruction.

Speaker 2 (03:03:54):
They just want to fulfill.

Speaker 8 (03:03:55):
Their own little you know ego, need I learned this,
I can go do my thing now.

Speaker 2 (03:04:00):
No, you can't.

Speaker 8 (03:04:02):
You know you haven't done this for ten years. You
haven't worked under this guy. You haven't put your time in,
you haven't failed, you haven't sucked. You haven't you haven't
improved from why you sucked? Why did you suck because
of this, this and this, Well, how do you fix that?
That's a process anyway, Meg, Yeah, And you know, my goal.

Speaker 5 (03:04:25):
When I got to the section, I mean, I knew
I wasn't gonna be there forever, you know, or I
should say I got to the section as the section leader.
I want my number one goal is to leave those
guys you know that are going to be funny at
one day. I want them to be better than me.
I don't I don't just want them to be qualified.

Speaker 6 (03:04:46):
I don't want mediocrity for them.

Speaker 5 (03:04:48):
And I mean I want all my guys to like
surpass anything I've ever taught them. That is something that like,
if if I can see that, that would just you know,
I would be thrilled that that That is my number
one goal. I want these guys not just to be
on my level, qualified or whatever. I want them to

(03:05:11):
be better on better for them because they deserve it,
you know. And that's just that's what I think when
I when I think of like training these guys, you know.

Speaker 8 (03:05:22):
And that's why you're that's why you're exceptional what you
do because you have that attitude, right, I.

Speaker 6 (03:05:28):
Mean, there's there's a big difference between training guys. And
you see this a lot in the military, at least
I did. Where it's you have a couple of the
guys that are training it not for or training not
for their their their net benefit, you know, to basically
go look at look at what I can do, or
to to show off their guys to better their image.

(03:05:53):
You know, it is more of a self centered goal.
There's a difference between. I think when somebody somebody coined
it to me a while back. I think it was
on Light Fighter. It was like one of the best
NCOs you can have are the guys that are the
guys have got experience and a healthy dose of survivors guild,

(03:06:13):
meaning their primary motivation is not doing it specifically because
they want to make themselves look good, you know, on
the surface, make their guys look like their studs. They
want to do it because they recognize where things fell
fell apart for them in their experience and they want

(03:06:33):
to correct that and make sure it never happens again.
Like just the articles that the eighty Seconds putting out
for their Master Serve and stuff. That stuff took me
hours and hours out of my life and thousands of
dollars over the years going to courses, talking to people,
you know, shooting all that stuff, trying stuff out so

(03:06:56):
I can actually kind of articulate my points, but they
they don't realize like that kind of stuff. There's a
reason why we want to preserve it because it's so easily.
It's so easy to go away once, you know, for example,
g why winds down. How much have you seen an
attitude shift in a lot of guys, especially newer NCOs

(03:07:16):
maybe that hadn't deployed yet now that g Watt's no
longer looming on the horizon, and that needs to be
resisted at all costs. I kind of started from one
place and ended up in a completely different spot.

Speaker 7 (03:07:31):
But hello, no, I don't.

Speaker 6 (03:07:42):
Well, yeah, it's I find it irritating when guys are
more about either demonstrating how smart they are, you know,
up in front of a class to feed their own
internal ego, or you know, just trying to do as
much of the bare minimum, but on the outward it
looks awesome.

Speaker 8 (03:07:58):
You know.

Speaker 6 (03:07:58):
There's a difference between those guys and the guys that
are out there working with their guys and genuinely concerned
other skill levels, not just checking the box to make
themselves look good in front.

Speaker 8 (03:08:08):
Of the commander of the leader. Yeah. So I did
a thing one time with some National Guard guys, right,
and the CEO and the EXO were fucking amazing. We
were at a shitty place, the weather sucked. We had
fucking long rifle being a pan in the ass. As
far as range safety and just sucking rules and the

(03:08:33):
XH No, not not Pendleton, the X and the Seal.
We're all about, you know, private conversation off to the side,
away from their troops. We're like, hey, do what you
need to do. We want our guys to go over
there and come home. We want our guys to go
do their job and get back to their families and
their kids. You know, So do what you do. Ignore

(03:08:57):
our bullshit. If you need any support, here's our fucking self.
Don't go through the fucking switchboard. Don't fucking talk to
our adjutant. Here's our fucking cell phone numbers. Fucking call us,
which was fucking refreshing, you know. I mean, you got
to You got to brig It or general who's like, hey, bro,
basically you got any problems, I'll sort the ship out

(03:09:17):
because I want my guys to come home. I want
them to go with the skills that allow them to
do their job, and I want them to be spun
up in such a way that they can do their
job and come home successfully, you know. And that's that's completely,
not completely, It is unusual to see that. It's not, hey,

(03:09:38):
you know, we're gonna do what we do because that's
what we we're checking the box. You know, here's the
shooting pipeline. Our guys did it. Now they're going to
go spin off ocannas and do their ship and then
come home and then you know, hopefully to come home.

Speaker 2 (03:09:52):
That's not the attitude they have.

Speaker 8 (03:09:53):
They're like, hey, give them the survival skills they need
to do work and get back here and ignore all
this fucking extraneous bullshit that we normally have to do
because what you're teaching them is relevant, you know. I
mean I had a problem with fucking weapons, right, They
fucking had shitty fucking training in fours and shitty m

(03:10:14):
nines and they were going down all the time. And
so I got on the I developed the phone and said, hey,
can I see you at lunch, you know, if you
have a time, and you'd rolled up in his car
and He's like, what's up, And I said, hey, look,
you need to call the armorer and have extra fucking
weapons here. Why because he suck. He's like, what do

(03:10:35):
you mean. I'm like, well, they're training. I mean, I
got key holes on the targets. You know, the barrels
are shot out, so I can't get good training blocks
with these shitty weapons. Some are fine, but I can't
fucking download the line and do a third relay because
you can't supply good weaponry. So I can either loan stuff, right,

(03:10:56):
or I can I can work on stuff, but i'm
you know, technically not allowed to do that. Or you
can have the armor or drop off some extra shit
from you know, the armory, and I'll log everything and
then logger. I'll be accountable and responsible, I explained to
the guy, because well, you know, he's the fucking CEO.
He's like, okay, I get that, and he fucking got
on the phone and fucking called somebody, and sure enough,

(03:11:19):
here comes a fucking dude and got some extra shit,
just spares.

Speaker 2 (03:11:23):
That's fucking unusual, but he was.

Speaker 8 (03:11:25):
He was concerned not about likes Meckley saying, hey, ego, driven,
I got these guys through the pipeline. Now they can
go do their ship. He was like, I want these
guys to come home and survive. Blew me away, you
know anyway, good ship. No, I mean it was it

(03:11:47):
was refreshing, you know, It's just I mean, Pendleton was
kind of the same way. These guys are like, what
do you need?

Speaker 2 (03:11:52):
How can we fix this?

Speaker 8 (03:11:53):
How can we help you? You know there's a problem,
what do we do to fix it? It wasn't this
is the way we do it. Fucking do it our way.
It's like, hey, we hired you for a reason. Do
your job, and hopefully these guys will be better at
what they do. I kind of like that. You know,
I've been other places and it's like, you're gonna do it.
You're gonna do it our way. You're gonna teach our POI. Okayay,
Merry Christmas.

Speaker 2 (03:12:14):
But you know, when you're when you're.

Speaker 8 (03:12:16):
Fucking eating donuts and drinking coffee, I'm gonna sneak some
ship in here, because you know, survivability.

Speaker 6 (03:12:25):
Yeah, bringing it outside of the instructor and you're going
to teach to r POI beyond and beyond basic basically like, hey,
these are regulations and we have to follow for specific
safety stuff from this particular range. You know, you can't
get anywhere way around that, and you make adjustments to
your POI got it. Like expecting them to basically say, hear,
teach this is like holy balls.

Speaker 8 (03:12:47):
I mean, I got lateral limits and fucking you know,
Ammo that you can shoot on certain targets and here
are the no shoot areas on the shoot house, and
you know, here's the ppe you have.

Speaker 2 (03:12:56):
To I got all that shit.

Speaker 8 (03:12:58):
But you hired somebody for a reason, you know, their
SMEs to some extent, hopefully fucking let them do their job.
So when I did you know, Pendleton, and when I
did this other place, you know, I was kind of
you know, it was refreshing to see these you know,
leaders in their leadership positions, concerned about their kids down
to the privates. You know, hey, look these guys have

(03:13:21):
been through our package. Let's happen to your package. What
do you need in you know, in regard to support
what what? What is what is difficult for you? You
know what what is an obstacle for you teaching this
thing that you're teaching, Well, you know you're fucking long range.
Motherfucker over here your range safety. Fucking Nazi. Weon't let
us do this, and fuck that, I'll call them and

(03:13:42):
tell them to fuck off.

Speaker 2 (03:13:44):
Okay, thanks, appreciate it.

Speaker 7 (03:13:45):
Bye.

Speaker 2 (03:13:46):
You know, I know that's unusual, but it was nice
to see it.

Speaker 7 (03:13:58):
Yeah, man, I.

Speaker 6 (03:14:02):
Like that. Now going back to what you well, going
back to what you said about asking the you know,
I got an example of what not to do relative
to like systems analysis what you were talking about earlier, Mike,
asking the subordinates what you know, what that needs to

(03:14:25):
be improved, or maybe asking them for constructive criticism, or
just asking them for feedback first before you go higher
with it.

Speaker 7 (03:14:33):
I wish there was more of.

Speaker 6 (03:14:34):
That instruction and mindset for a lot of the you know,
the the staff level in a lot of battalions and brigades,
because an example, we don't I don't even want to
contemplate how much of our battalion funds that we could
have spent on you know, gear that we actually needed

(03:14:55):
and maybe some extra training or extra AMMO or however
they could have allocated those funds, but we ended up
buying and I didn't find out until like the last
month of my last deployment. These bullshit shirts that had
that you know, that cool mesh that kind of like
that has air in it so it allows air to
circulate underneath, you know, two layers kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (03:15:18):
Yeah, kind of a stiff.

Speaker 6 (03:15:20):
Well, they ended up buying like combat shirts enough for
the entire battalion with this cool mesh stuff, and we
had IOTV, So it was even worse because the actual
bulk of the system and then the bulk of the
IOTV would have made if we liked the kid from
you know, the kid dressed up front by his mom
and Christmas story like I can't put my arms down.

(03:15:41):
But they bought all of those for the whole battalion.
I never I never could find out where they bought
him from. But they sat in a connex and never
got issued to anybody. And I'm and I'm amazed that
they're not thinking about like, well, maybe we could have
done better, instead of kind of or asking the people
below them, what do you need?

Speaker 2 (03:16:02):
Not here?

Speaker 6 (03:16:03):
You know, here's a bunch of shit you do not
or you didn't even ask for. And it was all
a knee jerk after they got back from JRTC because
I'd gone to Snipers school instead of going to j RTC,
which thank god, but I didn't even know they'd been
ordered until like that last month. I opened up a
connex because you're doing that, you know, getting ready to
go back, and you look in You're like, what are

(03:16:25):
all these boxes? You know, I don't even want to
know how much thousands of dollars we threw down the
toilet and there was no perceptible game for it. That's
not even gear too. You could have brought in a
shooting package. You could have gotten in touch with the
AWG and you know, brought them in to do shooting
packages for your entire battalion. Like there's there's resources within

(03:16:46):
the military they could have harnessed, and it just never happened.

Speaker 8 (03:16:50):
Well, And that's I mean, you know, when you have
large institutions like Big Green or you know, Big Blue
or something, I mean, everything's driven by policy decisions that
are dictated to some extent by the civilian side because
of you know, resource allocation through budgetary you know considerations.

Speaker 2 (03:17:10):
So you know, hey, we want to.

Speaker 8 (03:17:12):
Have everybody wearing this armor, and we have you know,
these five districts that produce armor.

Speaker 7 (03:17:20):
So let's you know, go through the requisition.

Speaker 8 (03:17:24):
Process and the development process to build better armor packages
for guys to wear. And you know, it's a top
down approach, so we want to make sure that everybody's
got the newest, best thing. Well that's not what everybody needs.
Being a certain district or a certain area, a certain
senator or representative has a company in his district that

(03:17:47):
makes fucking body armor. He pushes a certain fucking agenda
and end up with shitty crap. And it had nothing
to do with talking to you know, if you're talking
about Rick, you right as an example, you know, you
guys have to run DMR and you want better glass? Right,

(03:18:11):
do they talk to you guys? Now it comes from
higher you know, Hey, we can get so many thousands
of you know, these units of glass from this company
from fucking Germany for this price point and it has
this radical and it's a good deal for the DoD

(03:18:33):
based on what the civilian government will give us for funds,
as opposed to talking to you and Rick and saying, hey,
what are your guys like as far as a radical
and why you know, let's see who makes that optic
with that radical, Because that's what.

Speaker 2 (03:18:48):
We're trained on.

Speaker 8 (03:18:49):
That's what we're very very very good at shooting fuckers
in the face with this radical they do it backwards.
It drives me fucking crazy, and I'm sure drives you
guys crazy.

Speaker 6 (03:19:01):
It's like the Army plate carriers. Solicitation is an act
I like to grind. But they had thousands and thousands
of pages of feedback on the four down selected systems,
and inevitably it went to the one that was rated
worst by all the people at the bottom level that
tested these systems, you know, in.

Speaker 2 (03:19:19):
Training, I know all about that whole thing.

Speaker 8 (03:19:22):
Man.

Speaker 2 (03:19:22):
It pissed me off.

Speaker 6 (03:19:24):
Yeah, it was like, why are you even bothering spending
all this additional money?

Speaker 2 (03:19:28):
Is it just because you have to?

Speaker 6 (03:19:30):
If you've already decided what this outcome is going to be,
then you're because you're bound by law to specifically go
through all this testing because you have to just to
basically you know, feed a you know, or check a box.
Then you know, what's the point.

Speaker 2 (03:19:47):
Well, and that also comes down to leadership.

Speaker 8 (03:19:48):
I mean, you got guys you know pretty much higher
who have achieved their level of you know, rank, and
it's more about you know, dealing with big projects and programs.
You know, they have a hard time going down to
the guy that does the job and saying, hey, look,

(03:20:09):
you know we're thinking about changing this, you know, armor package.

Speaker 2 (03:20:13):
What are your thoughts on this?

Speaker 6 (03:20:14):
Well, you know there's also to fix that though. It's
you know, make the some of the testers, you know,
the people even at the mid level of that whole system,
make them participate in those grueling exercises and stuff like
that in the same systems they're asking the lower enlisted
guys to participate in, because they're going to see just
as quickly that that this doesn't work, you know, or

(03:20:36):
this this sucks because of you know this, right, I mean,
but you.

Speaker 8 (03:20:42):
Know, I'm not going to get into all the details here,
but I mean I know a company, I know a
couple of companies actually that are like, hey, we'll get
our fucking you know, gear engineers and builders in the
gear and take them out to the range and have
them shoot so they can see how this doesn't work

(03:21:03):
or why this does work, you know, so that when
they do their solicitor, when the solicitation is called for
and they you know, submit their product to evaluation. You know,
it's gone through a couple of different mindsets and philosophies. Hey,
you know, this doesn't work because it binds up here,

(03:21:24):
or this buckle fails if we go prone, or as
a sniper, this doesn't work because of this, or you know,
we're a dead group, and you know this carrier doesn't
work because we're swimming. You know, it's not just the
fucking guys that use it, it's the fucking engineers. The
engineers go hollifuck. I didn't realize that was a pain

(03:21:44):
in the ass. I had to fucking swim in that
thing for fucking eight.

Speaker 2 (03:21:46):
Hours last week. How can I make this better?

Speaker 5 (03:21:49):
Right?

Speaker 8 (03:21:50):
I mean, I know how that shit works. You know,
I'm pretty pretty conversion with that. But you know, you
got guys it's just like nt O A or TTPO
A or you know, fletsy And I'm not slamming necessarily,
but you get guys that make decisions based on budget
and available information. They look at what they think are

(03:22:13):
best practices, you know, they're higher and they look at
best practices or best you know, reports based on whatever
and make command decisions like hey, Rick and Matt Meckley
are going to wear this because this is what everybody
says they should wear as opposed as opposed to talking
to Rick and his guys and you and your guys
and saying what works best for you? You know, you're

(03:22:36):
fucking you know, you're sitting on a fucking rooftop in
fucking Fallujah and you're posted up on a corner of
a fucking rooftop. What do you need? How can we
make it better for you to be more lethal and
more effective as opposed to this is what you get?

Speaker 2 (03:22:52):
Fucking work around it. That's bullshit. It's a failure of leadership,
not anything else.

Speaker 1 (03:23:10):
It's not it from me.

Speaker 8 (03:23:12):
I know you're getting tired, man, I'm good.

Speaker 6 (03:23:16):
I've actually got stuff to do in the next forty
minutes or so.

Speaker 1 (03:23:19):
So you just woke up.

Speaker 6 (03:23:22):
Yes, he's got work to do, man. Yeah, my day
is starting years is probably well past ending.

Speaker 8 (03:23:30):
No, got I've got another five hours while I'm up.

Speaker 7 (03:23:33):
Oh joy, man, I.

Speaker 8 (03:23:35):
Told you I go to bed at fucking five and
get up at noon.

Speaker 6 (03:23:41):
Yesh, I remember those I remember that sleep schedule that
that kind of sucks balls.

Speaker 2 (03:23:47):
Yeah, I'm used to it now.

Speaker 8 (03:23:52):
So Prime, did we cover everything you wanted to cover?
I know we kind of got teniential here, but yes,
so basically, basically, audience if you reach a plateau, find
something else to do, find work to do, find an
alternative source of information or training. Yeah, and if you're

(03:24:16):
not sure, you can always go to Primary and Secondary.
There are plenty of options in the groups and on
the form. We have a form, right, Matt, we have
a form you You can always go there, and there's
plenty of information out there, lots of SMEs that you
can avail yourself of to expand your horizons and empty
your tea cup.

Speaker 1 (03:24:38):
It's true, I've been there. So with that in mind,
thanks for joining us. You can find us at Primary
and Secondary dot com. We have that forum at Primary
and Secondary dot com slash forum. We are on YouTube

(03:24:59):
subscrib I like, give us feedback, comment. We're also on iTunes.
We have daily ten to twenty minutes of information that
we provide. Clips from these shows are released daily. There's
a new new clip every day. It takes a little

(03:25:21):
bit of time to get it done, but it's worth
it and there's always good information in them, except when
Mechley's on, especially as gunsmithing.

Speaker 6 (03:25:31):
Yeah right, Hey, I do my own stuff with my
own guns. I don't touch other people's.

Speaker 1 (03:25:38):
Oh we've seen we have it on yeah, recorded. Yeah.
One really cool thing about all this too is I
went through all of our videos yesterday and just was
reminded of how cool of a group of people.

Speaker 7 (03:25:52):
We have.

Speaker 1 (03:25:55):
Professionals from military, law enforcement, gun industry, private citizen competition.
We have top notch individuals. These guys are cream of
the crop, trendsetters. These are the people to watch. What
they do now are making waves for the future, and

(03:26:15):
it's it's it's neat to be part of this. So
I don't, I don't. I think that's pretty much it.
Hopefully we'll do another one of these fairly soon. It
was too long between the last one and this one,
so we will talk to you soon.

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P&S ModCast 87 - Plateaus

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