Unconscious competence in stress

[Jim243]

Gun handling can be learned to the point of unconscious competence.

No such animal. No such thing as muscle memory either. All actions start and stop with the brain and the nervous system. Training the brain starts when you first learn to crawl then walk then talk then words then reading.

These are learned skills that you pratice on a daily basis, proper gun handling is the same as is skill with the use of the firearm. These are skills that you do not lose as time goes by, but you need to reinforce them to keep them at a level that will insure your safety. What level that is, is up to each individual and how often they practice. Me, once every two months is enough for the value I put on it. For some, daily practice is necessary.

The amount of "Brain Power" you exert is up to you.

Jim

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Here's what folks think about what we are discussing.

There is no muscle memory. Muscles are meat.

There is procedural memory for skilled tasks.

Motor tasks can be controlled by conscious and direct processes from the motor cortical areas through relays in subcortical systems.

With sufficient practice, the cognitively directed and practiced motor patterns can be stored for a skilled action such that when the action is needed you do not have to consciously activate each component of the motor skill. Thus, the motor commands are below the level of consciousness. The exact location of the command structure is complex.

The cortical activation of the motor pattern can be conscious - as you decide to draw. The flow of my draw is below the level of consciousness and is automatic - hence - automaticity.

The draw can also be activated cortically but by a action decision that is fast and not needing a conscious command - as in the built in fear circuits we have. Being cortical in activation does not mean you have to be conscious of the activation.

Now, these practiced movements have to be retrieved and implemented. Thus standard memory processes can interfere with them or block their retrieval.

Under enough stress, you may not launch the correct motor pattern. I recall Olympic athletes who failed in an easy pole vault. They might have tried to cognitively control their vault and that interfered with their automatic pattern.

If you shoot extensively with a 1911 and a Glock - what happens on the draw? You might not activate the safety on the 1911 if you recently shot the Glock. The Glock automatic draw pattern was more easy to retrieve. A few reps and you are back in the groove as the retrieval 1911 path is now one of higher activation.

Under extreme stress, the entire pattern can blocked and highly trained folk can just stand there and freeze. The OP asked if you can reach a level that such doesn't happen. Perhaps, but I doubt it.

[Jammer Six]

One thing has absolutely nothing to do with the other.


If you say so.

You can learn to handle a weapon safely. You can learn to shoot well.

You can train proper gun handling to the point you will retain it, but you won't retain the ability to shoot well without constant training.

The original poster wanted to know about unconscious trigger control and recoil management. Both are shooting skills, not gun handling.

[kraigwy]

Muscle Memory is an Un-conscience Reaction. Yes a bad term as mentioned, muscles are meat and have no memory. But it has to be called something so someone picked that term. I don't know who, I've heard it all my shooting life and when said, most everyone in the shooting community knows what it means.

Whether we want to accept it, un-conscience reaction, or muscle memory (which I'll continue to use) does exist.

Its an reaction, same as if someone slaps toward your face. You flinch. You don't consciously flinch but you flinch just the same.

Like the guy who had a rattler in a fish tank, you paid your quarter and if you could keep your hand on the glass while the snake struck, you won ten bucks. No one could, even though they knew the snake couldn't strike through the class, you moved because you are conditioned to dodge danger, even though you may have never been bitten by a snake.

We could say its a habit, which it is. Like slapping the trigger vs. squeezing the trigger. If you practice slapping the trigger you're going to slap the trigger without thinking about it when you shoot. Whereas if you practice squeezing the trigger, you're going to squeeze the trigger without thinking.

That would be habits, or as many call it muscle memory. If you go to a steel match where time is involved, you're not going to concentrate on squeezing the trigger every shot, if you did, you'd run out of time and end up the at the bottom of the score board.

That's why we dry fire, concentrating on squeezing the trigger to develop a habit or muscle memory or un-conscience action, what ever you decide to call it.

This occurs in all fundamentals of marksmanship. Lets take breathing. We don't concentrate on our breathing, we just do it as we trained or practiced.

I was shooting the Setting Rapid Fire stage at the Wilson Matches, (National Guard Championships) one year. You have 60 seconds to get into position, shoot two rounds, reload and shoot 8 more at 200 yards. I normally shoot the stage in about 45 seconds.

My scorer watched me shoot then asked about my breathing, "how can you breath and shoot that fast". I didn't know, I knew I breathed but I didn't know how. So the next string I tried to concentrate on breathing to see for my self, it was the worse 200 yard RF sting I shot in my life.

Another example, some people regardless of anything else, never look over a rifle without looking over the sights. That is something my father drilled into me since I could remember. Fast forward to my Senior Trip to SE Asia, many times I'd empty a magazine and noticed I was still looking through the sights while reloading. It was a habit I obtained a long time ago, and I still do it to day while hunting or in competition. I always look at the front sight. Never knew any different.

Some times you have to think, I have that problem when coaching. I often neglect the front sight lesson, WHY, be cause I cant imagine looking over the barrel of a gun (handgun or rifle) without looking at the front sight.

You often see the term "driving a rifle". I always thought that was stupid. You drive trucks, not rifles. That is until Jason of Rifles Only explained it. Shooting is like driving. When you're driving down the road you don't think but your hand is constantly moving the steering wheel. You're guiding the truck or car down the road un-consciously, you don't tell your hand to move the wheel this way or that, you just do it. Without thinking.

It is no different than shooting, or should I say it should be no different in shooting. You train, you practice, and eventually you're driving the gun.

This is critical in self defense. If you had to think and deliberately tell your hand to move, draw, point, look at the sights, put your finger in the on the trigger, squeeze, etc. etc. You're going to be in trouble.

It takes hours upon hours, days upon days, on and on, of practice to drive the gun without thinking. Because when something happens, you can't think, you're scarred poop-less. You freeze.

As to switching guns. I've done it, I get on the wrong safety a time or two, sure you can catch your self and realize your carrying a 1911 instead of a 92FS, but you loose a second or two, which could move you several places down on the crying board in a steel match.

But what happens in a threat situation. You're in trouble if you cant get your first shot off in under a second. You don't have time to fumble with the safety because you have the wrong gun. In this case you more then likely will freeze. I've seen it in police work and I've seen it in combat.

You can believe this or not. Before you make up your mind go to a shooting class or match and watch people fumble, and watch others react without thinking.

Muscle memory is real, even if misnamed. You can train your self or you can hope. The choice is yours.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Jammer Six

...You can learn to handle a weapon safely. You can learn to shoot well.

You can train proper gun handling to the point you will retain it, but you won't retain the ability to shoot well without constant training....

Again, you are wrong. See Dr. Meyer's posts 48 and 52.

As I read his posts (and Dr. Meyer can correct any errors I make), any motor skill can be trained to a level of unconscious competence, which Glenn prefers to call "automaticity" or which is sometime referred to as a skill being reflexive (post 52):

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

...With sufficient practice, the cognitively directed and practiced motor patterns can be stored for a skilled action such that when the action is needed you do not have to consciously activate each component of the motor skill. Thus, the motor commands are below the level of consciousness. The exact location of the command structure is complex....

However, any motor skill trained to the level of automaticity (or unconscious competence or reflexivity) can degrade if not periodically reinforced (post 48):

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

The automatically invoked skills can fade over time. They are just a subset of memory processes and subject to interference and retrieval difficulties as are other memories....

[Jammer Six]

The world's champions will be relieved to know that.

It will save them millions in training expenses.

They train because without training, accurate, fast shooting skills go away.

And they go away quickly.

[Frank Ettin]

Originally Posted by Jammer Six

...They train because without training, accurate, fast shooting skills go away.

And they go away quickly.

Yes, those are perishable skills. But the point is that all physical, motor skills are perishable. Any skill, including gun handling skills will degrade if not reinforced periodically.

Different skills might degrade at different rates, but they still degrade.

[Jammer Six]

Riding bicycles?

I suspect we're discussing a bumblebee, which, according to the scientists, can't fly.

[Brit]

I have read, and been told, you can not see your front sight in a gun fight, by more than one Police Firearms Instructor.

Three of my Students were in Gunfights (actually two, the third just drew and extended the revolver, but did not fire) this young lady told me she could see all the little lines on the front sight.

The punch draw I teach, and use, has the front sight hit the target, as it stops moving forward, gun fires at the same time.
As people say "presenting" the pistol? However you draw, and we all have most likely done that self same motion thousands of times, it becomes automatic.

However, if you want to get dead, use a different holster, in a different body location, and compound that error, by using different pistols!

Me, same Glock holster, cut down, same place on belt, same Glock 19, with same trigger, same TruGlo fiber optic sights. ALWAYS!

[zombietactics]

Riding bicycles?

Vestibular skills are actually among the easiest to learn, and suffer far less from under-use than more complicated neuro-muscular tasks.

I suspect we're discussing a bumblebee, which, according to the scientists, can't fly.

Urban legend without any real basis in fact: http://www.snopes.com/science/bumblebees.asp

[Glenn E. Meyer]

About seeing your front sights. Jim Cirillo, IIRC, said that he saw his front sights in crystal clarity. He might have been the one that said the serrations on the front blade stood out.

This has a basis on in neurophysiology as focused attention on a target enhances the contrast of the target and specifically enhances the higher spatial frequencies (details for those who aren't vision cognoscenti).

Of course if you don't get the front sight to fall on the fovea - this won't happen.

I might suggest that posts that aren't really attuned with modern performance science and are just wisecracks - aren't useful. That's a hint.

[FireForged]

Muscle memory is simply short-hand for a complex process and the practice is not alone within a universe of terms, analogies, mantras, anecdotes and cultural jargon which are not all intended to be taken literally. The term muscle memory is a commonly accepted term and I am confident that 99.9% of people know what people are saying when referring to it. I do not think that anyone has suggested that muscles have independent thought processes.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

That point has been made before. It's a mnemonic.

I think we are coming to an end here.

[Frank Ettin]

The matter has been covered.