Gaming vs. Training

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Recently, I was listening to one of the American Warrior Show podcasts hosted by Mike Seelander. He had Rob Leatham on as a guest. That podcast inspired this post; but first let me wind the clock back on my own training.

I started shooting IDPA around 2000; because I wanted to become better trained for concealed carry and at that time I didn't know any other place to practice those skills. When I would shoot, I would see guys scout out the scenario. They would look at it, practice movement, they'd even do dryfire runs. At the time, I considered this "gaming" and an unrealistic approach to the real purpose behind the sport.

Fast forward to 2008 or so and I have done multiple shooting schools and I am doing simunitions work in force-on-force scenarios. One of the things I realize very quickly in doing this is that your weapon handling skills have to be autonomous - like walking or driving. You have to be able to execute them flawlessly without conscious thought because you already have a whole lot to think about and if you aren't at that level, your OODA loop gets overwhelmed quickly.

Flash forward even further to the podcast, Rob Leatham talks about a guy with multiple combat deployments with special operations telling him competition is more stressful than being in a firefight because in a firefight, things just happen and you respond to it. In a competition, the stress of planning his next move and thinking through the scenario was greater to him. And that is where I had the thought that what I had discarded as "gaming" was actually a skill that was really useful in a fight - being at the level that your weapon manipulations were so autonomous that your brain was freed up to worry about things like foot placement, movement, most efficient use of time, etc.

It occurred to me that while the worries might not be the same, the ability to operate the weapon autonomously while having brain power free to assess the situation was a very critical skill in a fight.

Thoughts?

[g.willikers]

Our brains work on many levels.
Skill (how to do it) comes from the sub conscious and decision making (when and if to do it) comes from the conscious mind.
Having to take time to think about how to do something is way too slow.
But reacting without thought leads to errors.
But it takes a lot of practice and training to get to that point for each part of the brain doing what it does best.

[scbair]

OK, IDPA is a game (as are PPC, USPSA, CAS, etc.). Some folks "play nice" (using their actual carry weapon, holster & ammo carrier) while some are "gamers" (using the biggest allowable handgun, holster that barely meets the requirements, lightest allowable ammo). Big deal.

I shoot IDPA because it's fun and any trigger time that mimics use of my actual carry gun is good familiarization/practice. Since I carry a snub revolver, I have been shooting SSR (revolver) class, albeit with a 4" revolver. Since IDPA now recognizes new classes, including short-barreled revolvers, my next match may well see me using my snubbie.

While I'll never be a national competitor, the practice under stress and competition against my fellow shooters will certainly do me no harm if & when I need to use my weapon defensively. Personally, I believe there is a "stress innoculation" value in competitive shooting, games or no.

[baddarryl]

I agree with SCBair. I shoot somewhat irregular IDPA and this question came up the other day. Though some IDPA rules are contrary to what you would do in a survival situation I figure it still must help one keep a certain amount of cool under pressure to think a way through a course of fire. Or maybe not and I am just full of it. Either way, like others, I participate to get trigger time in an unconventional environment. It sure can't hurt.

[MarkCO]

It occurred to me that while the worries might not be the same, the ability to operate the weapon autonomously while having brain power free to assess the situation was a very critical skill in a fight.

Have been saying that for about 20 years now. I "train" a few SWAT guys, but it is purely on shooting techniques and fundamentals. They "train" me back with some team tactics and such. We both benefit.

I call it the cognitive stack, and most people can handle at most 5 items. If weapons manipulation, movement and safety are ingrained, then you have more to be able to solve the fluid problem. If you have to think about those things, then you have little, if any left to solve problems. Competition presents a static problem, and it is different, but you still see the safety get set aside when people are going balls to the wall. There are not a lot of people who have competed at a high level for a significant amount of time without a DQ, but Greg Jordan, also a cop and very top level competitor has never DQ'd.

You throw a blind stage, an induced malfunction, or a new condition at some competitors, they fall apart. In most cases, the well trained LE/Mil often end up with those types of stages giving them their best scores.

All trigger time is good time, but competition, by itself is not training in actual tactics, regardless of what Joyce thinks. I think the vast majority of people understand that as well.

[Don P]

All trigger time is good time, but competition, by itself is not training in actual tactics, regardless of what Joyce thinks. I think the vast majority of people understand that as well

I concur, and some people understand that. there are more than a few that think IDPA is REAL world tactical training. We are just card board assassins because they do not shoot back and after you have a few matches behind you the stress level drops dramatically waiting on the buzzer. You want stress find a place with a simulator and see what its like to have the potential to loose your life in a simulated world

[Deaf Smith]

There is no ' Gaming vs. Training'.

Even gaming is a form of training as it sharpens the mind at finding a way.

I find benefits with virtually any shooting game. The trick is to keep it in perspective and know the difference between playing a game and playing for keeps.

Deaf

[Glenn E. Meyer]

In IDPA, I've found that beginners think they are training. People into it for awhile are quite aware of the game aspects. However, the practice of basic skills, some stress, etc. are quite useful.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Well, while I've always recognized the usefulness of weapons manipulation skills from IDPA, it was the "walkthroughs" and trying to plan out the stage I saw as "gaming". After all, it isn't like you get a walkthrough of a real life scenario. It wasn't until listening to the podcast I realized those guys were developing an important skill though - teaching their brain to think through other problems while manipulating the weapon autonomously.

[BCGlocker]

I have been competing in IDPA and IPSC for nearly 30 years. I never view competition is training. It is mostly a fun game with some practical skills that can be used in SD. Most of important for me, it is a way to verify my training (dry practice and other non-competition shootings) under stressful conditions. Secondarily, it is a good way to stress test equipments and ammunition.

I agree that walk though and planning the stage is very gaming. However, from an administrative (governing body, match director, range owners…) prospective, it is a necessary task to minimize risks. In real life, you don’t know where the BGs are located, once discovered, you maybe breaking the 180 degree rule to quickly put rounds on target, but this is unthinkable in a competition where the #1 goal is safety, thus the walk though to minimize surprises.

[g.willikers]

There's ways to make things more life like.
Running stages in the dark, or at least very low light, if the proceedings are being held indoors, for example.
Or a night match if outdoors.
Wearing gas welding goggles works in daylight, too.
Another way is not revealing the layout of the course of fire until the shooter enters the area.
No run throughs then, of course.
And blocking off the range into separate areas with vision barriers.
If possible use a 360 degree range, too.
Or use the side berms as a front and back range if possible if a 360 isn't available.
There's plenty of things that can be incorporated in a match, training or practice session to increase some sense of reality a bit more.

[FireForged]

Gun games can certainly foster good gun handling skills and marksmanship but context is very important. Consider how you take shots, how you position yourself and how you navigate a stage while being timed. Consider how many things you do simply because its the "rules" of the game. Consider how you "mimic" the use of cover only to the degree that you are forced to.

After all that, consider how you would actually go against a threat if it were real, if the danger were real and the badguy on the other side of that wall posed a real threat. Gun games do it all different, why not.. its a game. Gun games are more of a timed dance which incorporates marksmanship. Tactical training is practice for the real thing... gun games are practice for more gun games.

Can you draw certain aspects from a gun game and apply those elements to fighting training,.. sure, but why? If you want to participate in a gun game sport.. great. If you want armed self defense training, that's something different in my estimation.

[shep854]

It sounds as if anything that introduces variables and stress into a shooting activity is helpful. Even plinking at jugs and cans thrown downrange provides good training; you are shooting at indistinct targets at varying ranges, that also give instant feedback for hits--as well as being fun. Periodically shooting an unfamiliar gun on occasion provides a cognitive challenge.

[FireForged]

What is really helpful is:

Proper Context
Proper Mindset
Proper Tactics
Proper Strategics

In regards to lawful self defense training its- fight like you train... not- train like you game.

[Tamara]

Action pistol shooting is not "training"* or "practice", but it is going to test some of the skills you learned via training and honed in practice. It is, as the OP noted, a way to pressure test your ability to run your gun with a high degree of automaticity.

Great Brian Searcy quote from a S.W.A.T. article back in '09:

"Having shot almost every type of competetive [sic] sport from skeet to bull's-eye to Service Rifle and IPSC, Searcy believes it is impossible to improve without shooting in competition, as you will inevitably plateau if shooting only on a square range by yourself. The stress of being against the clock, against other shooters and having an audience watch you forces you to develop the mental management necessary to execute the correct subconscious weapons handling skills under pressure."

*No matter how much the fishing vest crowd would like to pretend it is.

[shep854]

RE: Tamara's post #15--
Massad Ayoob has made the same point many times; that's one reason he competes in so many shooting sports as well as trains continually.

[Nanuk]

I have been shooting IDPA since 2003. I use my carry gun, holster and before I retired in 2011 my carry ammo.

I love the trigger time and the scenarios though I know its not "training".

[FireForged]

I think Nanuk has the right attitude about it.

[agtman]

Not all "move-n-shoot" practice is equal.

If you're only gaming it (e.g., IDPA IPSC), you ain't training. Sure, you'll get some level of benefit from the gaming, but only for that static application.

For a comprehensive skill-set, you need to incorporate into your regimen Force-on-Force/2-way simunition-type training (with multiple peeps/actors, no stationary paper, everybody scooting & moving), along with current handgun and/or carbine defensive training.

That will add the most effective cumulative benefit to your armed defensive skill-set.

[cougar gt-e]

I recall an article a couple years back... an idpa competitor was carjacked and forced at gunpoint to a money machine. Somehow, he got the gun away from the assailants and according to witnesses, "shot the h-ll out of them".

Yeah, gun sports aren't force training...but I'd put my $ on a uspsa GM vs a street thug any day!

[fastbolt]

Firearms handling, manipulation and shooting skills ...

... applied to known sporting/competition scenarios or fighting situations.

If someone gains mastery of their shooting skillset doing something, and they enjoy doing it, what's the problem?

This reminds me of when 60's/70's martial artists were hesitant to go out and try their skills against practitioners from other styles & methods. It's naturally easier to only practice against known and familiar opponents and methods in familiar conditions and circumstances. Practicing yours skills in new and different situations can help you identify any "lack" in your training & practice, as well as help you learn where your training may need to be broadened and improved.

I've known firearms instructors who were hesitant to demonstrate their skills in front of either the people they were teaching or other instructors. Frustrating. Yes, being watched and "evaluated" is uncomfortable for most people. Once that reluctance (fear?) was overcome, though, many of them quickly realized that they could really benefit from having the experience of demonstrating their skillset "on the clock", in front of a number of knowledgeable and skilled observers.

Human nature has to be understood and addressed in order for continued skills improvement to occur.

Now, learning and applying a working knowledge of tactics, so it can be applied in conjunction with firearms skillsets in different situations?

Guess it depends whether your "tactics" are going to be useful for gaming and making points according to known rules ... or preventing someone from putting holes or blades in you when rules aren't observed by your "opponent".

[1-DAB]

seems to me that a decent instructor would tell his/her students up front what they will learn at that class, if it involves a shooting drill, he would show it up front (say the el Presidente drill in a certain time limit), and then....then he would have each student run that drill without instruction and training as a baseline, the class would happen, and to close things out, they would run that drill again to see if they improved and learned what was being taught.

[FireForged]

If someone gains mastery of their shooting skillset doing something, and they enjoy doing it, what's the problem?

I once knew a really big Korean kid who was masterful in his exhibition of martial art forms. I have never seen anyone better than this kid and he always drew a crowd who were equally impressed. The odd thing is that this same kid could not spar and would lose every match. One day there were these soldier guys hanging around and they were watching this kid. One soldier could simply not believe how poorly he sparred after watching his forms a few days earlier.

One of the other soldiers who was there stated that the reason the kid would lose his matches was because he was dancing and his opponent was fighting. He stated that [yes] the kid was brilliant at forms but it was just a dance to him. He did not have the practical skill or knowledge to understand how to apply those techniques in physical combat or in the face of real resistance.


Gun games are what they are and there is nothing wrong with them. I do find it difficult to draw an equivalence between gun games and SD training.

[fastbolt]

One of the other soldiers who was there stated that the reason the kid would lose his matches was because he was dancing and his opponent was fighting.

Reminds me of when I was teaching some self defense classes in the 70's in a Shotokan dojo. I had a dismaying (to me, at the time) number of students in the 5 classes I taught each afternoon & night who were paying good money to take the classes, but who were clearly unwilling to think about actually using the training in a real situation.

One day the mother of a 16 year old boy was watching him perform (very well), and asked if she should continue to pay for more advanced classes for him. In a moment of frankness I told her that her son was very good, but she might be better off enrolling him in dance classes, as he didn't have the inner drive and ability to do more than dance. Oddly enough, she wasn't happy hearing that suggestion.

[James K]

I often wonder about that. God forbid I should ever find myself in a gunfight, but I guarantee that if such should occur, I will be doing my very best to kill my opponent, not display my "cool" marksmanship, demonstrate my fancy footwork, or stand around considering whether to use system A or technique B.

Jim