The targets are scored as follows: Hits in the inner bottle count five points. Hits outside the inner bottle, but within the outer bottle count two points.

The dominant approach to skill acquisition has long held that becoming skilled involves developing internal memory structures such as motor programs, muscle memory, or proceduralized knowledge that allow an ideal technique to be repeated with little variation and minimal conscious attention (Fitts & Posner, 1967). In this view, skill is defined by consistency and automaticity. Once the correct technique is learned, it can be executed reliably without conscious control.

This perspective has supported many of the training methods described earlier, including strict repetition of prescribed techniques to eliminate unwanted variation, task decomposition that removes skills from their operational context, and the decoupling of perception and action. These methods create training environments that are orderly, predictable, and easy to standardize, but they differ substantially from the conditions officers face in the field. A target on a range does not move unpredictably, does not shoot back, and is not intermixed with innocent bystanders.

Research on transfer helps explain why this matters. When the practiced task closely resembles the operational task, often referred to as near transfer, training reliably improves performance in that same context (Schmidt & Young, 1987). As discussed earlier, practicing on the range makes officers better range shooters. However, when there is a large separation between practice and operational performance in terms of physical demands, perceptual information, time pressure, and psychological stress, far transfer is weak or absent. Under these conditions, little if any improvement carries over to real encounters.

More recently, an alternative account of skill acquisition, known as ecological dynamics, has been proposed (Davids et al., 2008; Gray, 2021). In this framework, skill is not defined as the ability to retrieve and execute an ideal technique from memory. Instead, skill is understood as the ability to establish functional relationships between the performer and the environment in order to achieve a goal under specific conditions. Rather than repeating the same movement pattern on every attempt, skilled performers adapt their actions to the constraints they are facing. As a result, performance is characterized by functional variability, with small adjustments from one execution to the next that allow outcomes to remain effective.

From this perspective, becoming skilled is best understood as becoming an adaptable movement problem solver. Learning is not about eliminating variation, but about shaping it so that performance remains effective across changing situations. This view has direct implications for how police training should be designed.

Several practical principles for training follow from ecological dynamics (Otte et al., 2021):

1.      Train the way you perform. Training should be representative of the environments in which officers are expected to operate. This includes the perceptual information available, the actions required under realistic time and space constraints, and the decision-making demands of the situation. Reducing the distance between training and operations increases the likelihood that learning will transfer.

2.      Maintain perception–action coupling. Actions such as drawing or firing a firearm should be guided by the same types of perceptual information officers will encounter in the field, such as the movement and behavior of another person, rather than artificial cues like a static bullseye. This principle also applies to situations in which perceptual information indicates that no action is required, reinforcing that decision-making is inseparable from skilled performance.

3.      Promote repetition without repetition. Training should vary conditions of practice so that officers learn to achieve the same outcome goals by adapting their movements to different situations. The objective is not to reproduce identical techniques, but to develop flexible performance that remains effective as conditions change.

 4.      Treat the trainee as the problem solver. Rather than prescribing ideal techniques, instructors design environments that require learners to adapt their movements to meet situational demands. Learning occurs through exploration and adjustment, not by copying a model.

Originally Posted By ajp3jeh:
First, this is a deep, deep subject that isn't being resolved any time soon.  

Second, I think the sides are talking past each other and straw manning the other side.  There are also legit training deficiencies that make it easier to attack the skills acquisition people.

I explain it like this - there is skill building and skill application.  If all you do is refine skills with no context, you quickly hit the end of the benefits.  Using basketball as an analogy - it does limited good to practice your shots from a bunch of different position.  Yes, as your hit percentage goes up, that is useful.  The problem is that those skills are only practical when they take place within the context of a game.  It's not just the ability to make a shot, it's the ability to know when the conditions are right to make that shot.

The ecological dynamics folks appear to be oblivious to why certain motor skills are performed very specifically.  My favorite example is the draw stroke.  I teach the four-step combative draw stroke as refined by Craig Douglas.  Each of those steps places the hands/gun in very specific places for very specific reasons - mostly not shooting yourself.  If you just tell folks to draw the gun in whatever way they like, you lose all of those benefits.

What I'd say is ideal is to build the relevant skills to the point of automaticity.  Then work on applying those skills in less predictable environments.  For instance, you can practice the closed motor skill of a stationary handgun presentation until you can do it in the mythical 1.0 second.  However, if you don't train when carry out that draw stroke, you're doing yourself a disservice.  Whether it's force-on-force, video simulators, or VR, work on applying the skills.  There is a certain minimal level of raw skills that you need to be able to perform and there's no getting around the work needed to develop them.

There is a third subset which is composure (cool under fire). It is an intangible that cannot be taught and that we can only marginally achieve through FoF. Craig Douglas deserves a great amount of credit for the TTP's he has developed and evolved over the years but how many of his classes ($$$$$) would one have to attend until one's confidence in their "skill application" begins to translate into "composure" on the street

SOF: Maybe 3-5K per year depending on deployment cycles and PMT evolutions. Varies by organization. SEALs will do a pretty good work up prior to Float (deployment) as will SF but everyone is so busy and there are so many tasks to accomplish during work ups that some things might get dropped.

CT forces: Old rule of thumb used to be 30-50K per year but again, deployments take their toll. There still are requirements though that have to be met prior to assuming the role of their primary mission.

CT Support (Ranger): IDK, Maybe 3-5K of pistol depending on internal and farmed out training evolutions. Ranger's bread and butter is a MG anyways. They will fuck some folks up.

Important to remember that the majority of the time a pistol is the secondary. That being said 70-80% of firearms training will be spent on pistol because it's such a perishable skill. It only takes a few range sessions to get back to 95% but takes another couple weeks to get to where you should be if that's your job.

As for LE, it's pretty bad. HRT and some big city SRTs are analgous to .MIL CT forces, especially HRT, in terms of pistol craft. The rest are pretty embarrising. Even full time teams struggle to get ammo allocations that would be required to be imo "proficient" with a pistol.

Certain units do but honestly there is so much shit to do and so little time that pistol training, and rightfully so, takes a back seat to most of it. A lot of the guys are getting some form of advanced firearms training such a specialized unit run or SWTG type stuff but after that it's pretty hard to dedicate significant training time exclusively to pistol work unless you have a hard METL task and a specified mission. If so, then yes. If not....maybe. Some leaders will emphasize pistol craft but just remember that's there's no free lunch. You have to give something up to get something.

Originally Posted By R_S:
It is a long running debate about the time and money involved in proper training.

COL Rex Applegate was well aware of the issue back in WW2 and developed his system according to the limits they had in the day.

One ARFCOM member posted this a few years back regarding modern training round counts:

Another ARFCOM member has a Presidents Hundred tab and indicated that 90% of his training is dryfire.

My firearms training system leverages airsoft and .22LR in addition to dryfire which dramatically cuts the ammo budget and range time required to reach CT levels.  Instead of burning 50K rounds/year you can get that down to a few thousand service caliber rounds per year and easily hit CSAT standards.  I spend more time on fitness than shooting.

Originally Posted By TonyF:


All valid points. But what about people who are getting up there in age? The 60-something with failing eyesight, reflexes not what they were when they were younger, bad knees (flexibility and mobility)? Many people will simply not be physically able to do some of the things in the "do as many as you can list".

Don't get me wrong. The items on Mr. Hearne's list are a solid, broad-based regimen. But some people, the father with three young children who are involved in all manner of time-consuming after-school activities, or the elderly who will find some of the items on the list simply physically impractical to perform, may not be able to avail themselves of the benefits for one reason or another.

The title, "do as many as you can", is self-evident and with that I guess my question is, how do we as instructors "expose - enlighten - contextualize - personalize" such a well-balanced concept without discouraging those who may not be able to fully avail themselves for one reason or another?