austinrealtor wrote:Excaliber wrote:
I would attribute 80% of this incident to trying to work at speed with apparently insufficient training in two substantially different gun and holster systems that require substantially different movements to perform the required task.
Various types of failures are often the result when one tries to take task execution beyond a
conscious step by step process and work from "
muscle memory" or whatever one prefers to call a trained stimulus / response sequence under these circumstances.
This holds true with any psychomotor skill, but when guns are involved, the results are often serious and permanent.
Excaliber, thank you for the comment. It may just be that I'm a bit too loose with my choice of words "muscle memory". I'd appreciate some elaboration if you don't mind sharing on the differences - as you understand them - between "muscle memory" and "step-by-step process" .... I've always sort of used the terms "muscle memory" to refer to a learned and applied step-by-step process that just becomes "second nature" after enough repetitions - thus muscle MEMORY. Are you saying that this phenomenon itself is dangerous or are you saying that muscle memory and step-by-step process are distinctly different phenomenon altogether?
"Muscle memory" is an often heard informal term that is usually used as a rough equivalent to the more formal "unconscious competence." The latter term is used to describe the stage of training when one is able to execute a task in response to a stimulus without conscious thought about the steps involved. "Instinctive reaction" is another informal term often used in much the same way.
The stage prior to this level of skill is "conscious competence" wherein the individual knows what he needs to do and is able to successfully do it when he actively thinks through and pays attention to each step as he carries it out. I see this as roughly equivalent to the concept of "step by step process."
A lot of folks tend to rush the transition between these two stages of training. When they can successfully execute a task at the conscious competence level a couple of times, they immediately jump to trying to execute it at the unconscious competence stage. This often goes awry because the steps haven't been "burned in" to the brain's programming thoroughly enough to be reliably executed, and pieces of other prior training or even bad habits (like putting the trigger into the triggerguard at the top of the vertical draw stroke) can creep in. Because they're being executed at speed and without conscious attention to what's happening, they often go unnoticed until they result in something memorable - like the event seen in the video in the OP.
I have a couple of Serpa holsters and while I don't consider the design inherently flawed, I do think they require significantly more training effort to be used well than some other designs. I can see that the inward motion of the finger to release the gun can carry over into an unconscious early entry of the trigger finger into the triggerguard and I have seen that happen on the range when a shooter attempts to move from step by step to a rapid draw / fire sequence. That's a clear indication the shooter needs to back way off on speed of execution and work hard to eliminate the unwanted motion and more deeply embed the safe and proper steps into his mind. This is done by thousands of carefully and properly executed step by step sequences with conscious awareness of each step.
I have been very interested in the reported disparity in ND rates between military users in combat environments and events that occur in training here in the states. I don't have any hard data on this, but I suspect the almost problem free use of the holster in the combat environment is that rapid draw of a pistol is relatively rare in military combat.
In most cases the handgun is carried as a secondary weapon and rarely drawn suddenly in action as long as the primary long gun is working. More often it is drawn purposefully and not in a hurry in preparation for a CQB situation where the long gun isn't a good choice. This usage pattern involves different time frames and consciousness dynamics. It circumstantially virtually eliminates the unintended and unnoticed actions that crop up when the same equipment is used in a rapid draw and quick engagement environment where things other than the draw stroke are going on (e.g. moving targets or a requirement to engage targets in a particular sequence) and further diverting the user's attention as he attempts to execute something the hasn't fully learned at speed.
I am very conscious of the fact that anything that occasionally happens on the range is about 10 times (an arbitrary number) more likely to happen on the street during a violent encounter, and, since I am a nonmilitary user, I am now seriously considering replacing my own Serpa holsters with a different design.
