Proficiency Is Not Preparedness: Training for the Life You Actually Live

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I find myself chasing this man window to window around the first floor of my home.
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And he's gotten the screen off of one, but he can't get the old antique window up.
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I'm saying all the things that you're supposed to I'm armed.
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You are not welcome.
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Leave, get out, don't come in, I'll shoot.
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Like all of the things you need to verbally articulate.
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Couldn't see anything as far as weapons on his body.
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But this guy isn't giving up.
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There came a point at which I recognized he was going to the back kitchen door where there was a little porch.
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And that screen door was open and unlocked.
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And the sickening feeling when I realized I had a rat's maze to negotiate, and he had a straightaway.
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And he was gonna beat me there.
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And what if all those perfect groups, fast draws, flawless range drills have all prepared you brilliantly, but for an environment that doesn't actually exist?
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My guest today, Tatiana Whitlock, is the National Director of Training for a Girl and a Gun, and probably one of the most thoughtful firearms educators I've ever met.
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But this conversation is going to go far beyond shooting.
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We're gonna talk about why real capability has to survive changing bodies, changing lives, bad decisions, frightened family members, and environments that refuse to follow a script.
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Tatiana is also going to share two deeply personal encounters that fundamentally changed how she thinks about defensive training, including an attempted home invasion with her children just feet away.
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Because the gun may belong to you, but preparedness involves everyone you love.
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And perhaps most importantly, we explore why the best training doesn't simply make you a more confident shooter, but it should also humble you enough to discover all the things you still don't know or need to improve.
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So with that, let's get cracking with the episode.
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Hello, Tatiana, and welcome to the podcast.
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Hello, Terry.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I'm glad you could join me.
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I know you've been gallivanting around the countryside, so I tying you down was tough, but it got you here, and I'm pleased that you were able to carve out the time.
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Likewise.
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So I ask every guest at the very beginning of every episode, kind of a great icebreaker, how old were you when you first started shooting?
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31.
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Oh, really?
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Oh yes.
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Yep.
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I did not grow up with guns.
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I am one of those.
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And actually, I am not unique.
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My story is much like the majority of women my age coming into the shooting sports.
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We all started, generally, when you have these conversations, in our mid-30s to mid-40s, is where most women are walking into the firearm space.
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And I kind of got a little bit of a head start because the the demographics right now are 45 to 65.
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Isn't that fascinating?
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Yeah.
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And I so I I, you know, this was this was a hot minute ago.
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We won't say how old I am now, but it was a minute ago that we started this.
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And so I started at my I how I keep track is I have a 16-year-old son, and he was one year old when I fired my first handgun.
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So that's the only way I can keep track of where life is.
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But I think I was about 31, 32 years old when I started this journey and had really no idea of what I was walking into.
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Interesting.
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So I one of the things that immediately sort of registers for me is your ability to relate to the women who are coming in is probably really, really good.
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Yes, because most of them think that they should have started when they were four years old, like Lena Mitchlik, and that there's no hope for us, and that we'll see as far as far we can go with it.
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When in reality, the firearm really doesn't care how old you are when you pick it up.
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It's what you put into it, is what you will see as a return.
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And most ladies in our perimenopausal years are just full of rage and, you know, motivation, and we got to channel that energy somehow, some way.
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And, you know, the range is a beautiful place for that, because for many women, it's the one place in our lives we may not mentally or physically multitask.
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And it becomes this phenomenally addicting environment where we can truly just focus on something for us, something that requires that level of focus, that intensity of concentration.
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And it's an a remarkably loud means of meditation.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, because it's got to be focused.
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Can't be uh dilly-dallying around with five different things at the same time.
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So I'm curious, pre-perimenopause, what was the what was the addictive part for you if you started at 31?
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Sure.
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Well, I began, uh I've background in fine art and industrial design.
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I grew up in a family plastics injection molding and manufacturing business where we would invent our own products, bring them up through manufacturing here in the United States, design the packaging, design the machinery that made the products, that packaged the products, that put them in a truck to ship them into the world.
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And that was my entire life prior to this.
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Well, it came a point where manufacturing in northern New England and southern Maine became incredibly prohibitive.
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And it was time for a change.
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I needed a change.
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And oddly enough, it coincided with having my first two children 16 months apart, and my now wonderful, and I truly mean this wonderful ex-husband, gave me the prompt one night.
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You know, it's like that sunset time when children just have their utter apocalyptic meltdown.
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You know that it's coming, and you know it's coming every day.
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It just, you're terrified.
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It's kind, and then it happens.
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And so, in one of those moments, he looked at me and he was like, You really need to get a hobby.
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I was like, it's a dangerous thing to tell a woman postpartum, you know, like, let's just talk about hormones.
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So that night I'm uh looking online.
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What am I gonna do for a hobby?
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You know, life just handed me a brilliant opportunity.
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Uh, it was really to give me something for myself.
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You know, you need something for you outside of family, of work, of all of the things you're juggling.
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So I, you know, perused in my puffy blue nursing bathrobe at two in the morning with an infant attached.
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And I'm like, what am I gonna do with this?
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I have a degree in fine art.
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It's not like ceramics sound like a great idea at this point in my life.
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You know, what are you gonna do?
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Well, I had this memory from childhood of going duck hunting with my dad and older brother.
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And in Maine, that means, if you're not familiar, eating frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at 4 a.m.
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in a duck blind, questioning all of your life choices.
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And for some odd reason, that just seemed like an amazing experience I wanted to recreate in adulthood.
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And so I was like, that's it.
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I'm gonna do this.
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I'm gonna take Hunter's safety.
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And I signed up for a class, and I was like, I don't know what I'm doing with the shooty stuff, so maybe I should figure that out.
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But I wanted to do it independent of my family.
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I didn't want, you know, to be a tag-along.
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I wanted to show up on that day in camo, knowing what I was doing.
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Yeah.
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So I went and took a women on target, an NRA women on target clinic.
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And that was the most bizarrely influential experience of my entire shooting.
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And it was that first trip to the range that I ever took by myself.
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And when I say I must have looked like a pale shade of green, the whole drive, I'm not, I wanted to vomit the whole drive.
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Because it we're talking Maine here, right?
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So this is a kind of backwoods up an ungraded gravel road for about three quarters of a mile where nature is enclosing over your vehicle, and you're like, is this even a road?
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You know, have I has Siri led me astray?
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And you pull into a clearing, and there's some log cabin style buildings and some bunker berms and about 24 other women looking just like what have I done as you?
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And we go into the building, and the instructors literally, they're brilliant, amazing, wonderful human beings.
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But if there could have been a the many flavors of Elmer Foot, like that is what it looked like.
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Not not the joke, but the aesthetic, right?
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We had pendulous white beards, you know, car hearts and belt buckles and truckers caps and you know, Timberland boots and khakis and NRA encrusted vests and handlebar must.
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I mean, they were perfect, perfect.
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They were beautiful and perfect, and they made us coffee and they brought us cookies and they fed us, so we were we were all in.
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We're like, that's it.
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Like we're saying we're never gonna look.
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Yes, and while they looked the stereotype, they in absolutely no way embodied it.
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And it was outstanding.
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They memorized every one of our names, they spoke to us like human beings, competent, intelligent human beings.
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They were thrilled beyond words when we had an inquisitive technical question.
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They never spoke down to us.
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It was everything I expected and nothing I could have predicted all at once.
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And so that was my first introduction to the NRA.
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It was phenomenal, outstanding, wonderful introduction to the NRA.
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To a training class, they did an exquisite job, even to my standards today of how I would expect a program to be run.
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They hit it out of the park.
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And we were able to shoot all of the platforms.
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So it was the first handgun I ever shoot, the shot, the first rifle I'd ever shot, and the first 12 gauge I'd ever shot, and blew something up in the sky.
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It was amazing.
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And I was hooked from there.
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I was like, how do I do this more?
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Can I join the range?
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Like, do there, do you can can you compete with this?
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They were like, okay, slow your roll, superhero.
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Like we'll give you the we'll give you the recipe.
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Just chill out.
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So yeah, I joined the range that week and was at Cabela's the next week, making my first and ridiculous purchase, but it was it was a memorable one.
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But that's the power of a positive first experience.
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And I've yeah, it's funny because people seem seem to fall into one of two camps.
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They either had a horrendous first experience and it kind of put them off for years.
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And then maybe they sort of dilly-dallied at it later in life, ultimately to find they did enjoy it, or they may have gone completely the other way as you did with a phenomenal first experience.
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Suddenly they're like, I not only can I do this, I bloody like doing this, and then they're in.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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And that's why I put so much emphasis into a girl and a gun, because we are the first experience for thousands of women across the country.
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And if there's a way to kind of multiply yourself and be a force magnifier, a girl and a gun is that for the women's community.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I had a I had a wonderful experience with a couple I was going to be teaching tactical to.
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Oh, I I thought I was teaching tactical.
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It turned out that the wife had very nicely bought her husband some tactical training and he showed up and she came with him.
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She wasn't anti-gun, just wasn't necessarily enamored with it.
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And although he had done, from what I understand, a wonderful job over the years of trying to coach in her to do some things, she never caught the bug.
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And she showed up, she's with him.
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So I'm running him through some drills.
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We got kind of about 45 minutes into this class with him.
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And I said, Hey, would you like to maybe try one of these?
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And I'd set up the range so they were, he was doing room entry, and I was like, just stack with him.
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And she's like, you know, he's my bodyguard.
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I don't, what am I gonna do?
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And I said, I I completely understand that it can feel as if your superhero husband, because he was, may never go down.
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But what if he does?
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Like, what is your contingency to that possibility?
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She's like, I've never even considered that he would go down.
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And I said, Well, you know, give it some thought, and if you want to join in, that would be fantastic.
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And it took about two minutes.
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She's like, let me have a go.
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So I had him doing basically room entry on this open range with you know things configured accordingly.
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But by the time they left, they were running stacked entry into the room, peeling off reloads.
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We got to the end of this four-hour class, and as they were packing up and leaving, I overheard the conversation between the two of them where she said, Now I know you've been talking about me having that that is it an Eotech on top of my rifle?
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I think I would like that.
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We probably should get those, the quiet things, the silencers.
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And of course, he's like, the suppressors.
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By the time they walked off the range, they're having this very in-depth conversation.
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But he turns around in the parking lot, looks back up kind of the hill from where he's come from and goes, I love you, man.
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Loves your ghost.
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Because she had such a good time, and she realized I can do this.
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And not only could she do it, she did it bloody well, but she really enjoyed it.
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And the two of them came back quite a few times to train together and talk about a phenomenal sort of romantic bonding experience, and they were great together.
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Yeah, that's what we hope.
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We hope we end up uh not as uh couples therapists um as uh No, no, you know what to do therapy when everyone's got guns in their hands, but Yeah, I know.
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So I run a class at TACCO, and it's a part of my defensive handgun class, and it's a module of that program called Take a Seat.
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And it's the principle of you're gonna be sitting at a table next to someone at some point or in a chair or in a seated position.
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It happens, we're doing it now.
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And as a concealed carrier, if you cannot engage from concealment from a seated position, you're gonna do what your body knows by default and you're gonna stand up and you're gonna make a beautiful target for someone else.
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It's gonna cost you potential life-saving time, as we have seen from the Fort Worth White Settlement church shooting experience.
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So that video is one we referenced in that class.
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And what that gentleman was missing in that moment was the skill set to do what that class creates, which is proficiency from a very common and under-trained position, which is seated.
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And then from seated to standing, and then the class progresses from seated to standing to maneuvering.
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And then the final module is where we start adding interactivity, not just with assessing the environment, but with interacting with whoever I may have paired you with at the table in that moment.
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So you're no longer an island, you're no longer alone, you're no longer just learning how to maneuver left or maneuver right.
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Now you're together solving a problem.
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And not only are you doing that, but you're also responsible for each other's general well-being.
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And should one of you go dry, it's called the give a damn drill within this.
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You gotta give a damn about the person you're with.
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So when couples do this, it's always a dangerous moment because I'm like, she goes, she, I know I'm counting in my head, she's gonna run out, right?
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She's going, she doesn't know it yet.
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But in this next iteration, she's gonna have, she's gonna go to slide lock.
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And the husband will literally just stand there and watch her reload with ammo in his gun.
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And I'm like, this is gonna be a rough day for you, but because the the after action's gonna be a little harsh.
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I'm like, do you like her?
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Do you like her at all?
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Do you see what's in front of her right now?
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Could it, you know, maybe you wanna, you know, you know, participate.
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And she's looking at him like, you now you know, you know, you better not do it.
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I was like, Yeah.
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So I'm glad you had that experience.
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I'm glad it went well because it yeah, it can go a little sideways sometimes.
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But what a great time to find out that you weren't planning for that contingency, you know, within that couple, understanding that at some point they're gonna run dry, they're gonna have a stoppage, and you absolutely have to be ready to immediately pick up.
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That's kind of a military thing as well.
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Like, you know, you know that somebody is is in front of you or behind you, whatever.
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If you get into trouble, whoever is with you, they're gonna pick it up, right?
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Well, that's the context.
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Yeah.
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That's you know, and that's thus, you know, that's kind of been my tagline for the last 13, 14 years is training in context.
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Because, you know, I didn't get into all of this thinking I would go to tactical ninja camp for fun.
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I didn't sign up for that stuff because I was like, that looks like a fun amusement park, right?
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I signed up for it.
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I kind of got thrown into it by accident, had no plan.
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This has been my journey.
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I don't know what's coming next because literally there has been no plan.
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Yeah.
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But, you know, the the reason I got into the more uh defensive side instead of the competition side of the training world was because as a at the time newly single mother of two living alone, we had a pedophile follow us through, very aggressively follow me and my two little children through a grocery store in this new town that we had moved into.
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And it it the details of, I've written articles about this, but the details are that he basically followed us through the store, was very willing to approach my four-year-old daughter and have conversations with her, followed us into the parking lot.
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I threw the kids in, threw the groceries in, threw myself in, crawled into the backseat, buckled them up.
00:17:19.920 --> 00:17:22.480
It was a torrential downpour, rain.
00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:44.079
Car doors are locked, got back in the front seat, buckled in, took a breath, and I was like, okay, put the windshield wipers on, so now I can see, and he's parked in front of me, facing me, and he followed us around town for what felt like hours, but was probably only 10 minutes until I realized I'm gonna have to get on the highway because there's no way I'm gonna let him follow us home.
00:17:44.240 --> 00:17:44.640
Yeah.
00:17:44.880 --> 00:17:47.519
And it was it was heart stopping.
00:17:47.680 --> 00:17:49.680
It was, you know, rattle your cage.
00:17:49.839 --> 00:17:53.359
You get the a you know, buck fever shakes later.
00:17:53.599 --> 00:17:59.200
But there in our tiny little town, there were no cops of the, you know, tiny little police station.
00:17:59.279 --> 00:18:03.039
There was no cars at the volunteer fire department, right?
00:18:03.119 --> 00:18:05.039
So I was really felt alone.
00:18:05.200 --> 00:18:05.359
Yeah.
00:18:05.519 --> 00:18:11.920
Um, so I was gonna drive to the biggest city next door and park in front of the PD and lay on the horn if he followed me there.
00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:20.160
Cause but that changed my at complete attitude and perspective about what I was doing in my training space completely.
00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:25.440
And I went home that night and felt like I lived in a death trap and didn't know what I would do.
00:18:25.519 --> 00:18:30.559
And now every window felt like a liability and every door felt like it wasn't strong enough.
00:18:30.720 --> 00:18:33.920
And I felt absolutely unprepared.
00:18:34.079 --> 00:18:45.119
I had the tools and I had the will, but what I recognized uh in a in a way that would take your breath away was how much skill I had a deficit in.
00:18:45.519 --> 00:18:50.160
And when you realize what you don't know, you don't know it is humbling and nauseating.
00:18:50.400 --> 00:18:58.160
And so I started being willing to go and show up to these things that no sane person would voluntarily go and do.
00:18:58.240 --> 00:19:04.799
And I just was like, you know what, I want more than being scared of the event is I don't want to feel this way at home with a gun in my hand.
00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:10.079
I don't want to feel like I'm the liability in my home with my babies with this tool.
00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:20.000
And that fundamentally changed the trajectory of everything that I did because everything I pursued had direct context to my space.
00:19:20.240 --> 00:19:20.480
Yeah.
00:19:20.640 --> 00:19:20.880
Right?
00:19:20.960 --> 00:19:25.599
I wanted to know what it felt like to move around hallways and shapes and what did all this mean.
00:19:25.759 --> 00:19:30.799
I wanted to know what it the law was about in the state of Maine for inside outside my house.
00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:34.400
All of it was very much driven by the context of my life.
00:19:34.559 --> 00:19:40.559
How do I work with a shotgun in a household if all of my humans are waist height and down?
00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:41.039
Right?
00:19:41.119 --> 00:19:41.759
What do I do?
00:19:42.240 --> 00:19:48.480
All of these things, the questions I was asking were directly related to my world, the context of my world.
00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:53.119
And if it was an activity that didn't directly translate, then I really wasn't interested in it.
00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:58.000
I didn't feel like I had the time or the finances or the bandwidth to go and and play.
00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:07.039
I felt like I had an immediate immediacy, so I pursued those types of things and was given unbelievable opportunities to pursue them.
00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:08.079
Yeah.
00:20:08.799 --> 00:20:16.000
It's unfortunate that an incident like that is often the catalyst for many people to seek out the training they need.
00:20:16.240 --> 00:20:25.440
But I love what you said about training, like for the context of your life, because I think a lot of people forget that very important facet of their training curriculum.
00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:29.680
They look for perhaps in many cases, look for kind of glamorous training.
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:36.880
They look for you know that kind of element, but then its transferability to their actual life may be minimal.
00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:43.119
So I really want to expand on that because I read that on your website and you brought it up so it's timely.
00:20:43.759 --> 00:20:50.640
How should someone train for either the shooter they are, the the body they have, the life they genuinely lead?
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:51.440
Yes.
00:20:51.680 --> 00:20:55.359
Well, start with the life you lead, because none of us have the body we like in the moment.
00:20:55.440 --> 00:20:56.720
It's very rare, but that's the case.
00:20:56.799 --> 00:20:58.240
So let's just start with the good stuff.
00:20:58.400 --> 00:20:59.839
Like this is my life, right?
00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:07.119
And the the reality is in the shooting world, like we talk about basic skills and advanced skills, there's there's no such thing.
00:21:07.279 --> 00:21:10.319
It's all your mastery of the the principles.
00:21:10.400 --> 00:21:12.960
And the principles of shooting are fairly universal.
00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:17.039
However, the application of those is incredibly personal.
00:21:17.279 --> 00:21:24.559
So if you realize that, right, four years ago, let's go with let's rewind a hot minute more.
00:21:24.720 --> 00:21:41.759
Five years ago, I was a single mom with two, you know, 13, 14-year-old kids who were relatively independent, moving in the world, human beings, and was living with my older Italian parents in a multi-generational household.
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:43.119
So they're doing their thing.
00:21:43.359 --> 00:21:45.440
My kids have an awesome little social life going.
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:46.480
This is pre COVID.
00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:47.599
Let's just go pre COVID.
00:21:47.839 --> 00:21:50.880
And, you know, I could basically just be this autonomous person.
00:21:50.960 --> 00:21:57.119
If I was going to the grocery store with them, we could do our thing, and I knew we could be in the car within like 30 seconds.
00:21:57.200 --> 00:21:58.880
You know, I could communicate with them.
00:21:58.960 --> 00:22:08.160
We've rehearsed and Have plans together of how when mom has a specific command, or when they see my body language change, they just kind of magnet to me and we move.
00:22:08.240 --> 00:22:09.680
You know, you have this rapport.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:15.920
Fast forward to now, I have a one and a half year old and a three and a half year old and two teenagers.
00:22:16.079 --> 00:22:18.799
So, what does that trip to the grocery store look like for me now?
00:22:18.960 --> 00:22:20.559
I am not moving as fast.
00:22:20.799 --> 00:22:27.039
My areas of responsibility, my literal surface area in the world just doubled on me overnight.
00:22:27.279 --> 00:22:32.880
I have people that I cannot physically separate from and people that I can physically separate from.
00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:40.559
How long does it take me to load the car if I've got to unbuckle kids from carts and then five-point harness them in?
00:22:40.799 --> 00:22:42.240
I have two helpers with me.
00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:48.960
Do are those two helpers, can my 16-year-old son buckle a baby into a car seat in like 20 seconds or less?
00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:50.079
He's amazing.
00:22:50.160 --> 00:22:51.839
But we took some training to get there.
00:22:52.160 --> 00:22:59.440
So within a short window of time, the way you move, literally move in the world, can be fundamentally different.
00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:04.880
If you talk about your body again, what about all of the folks getting hip and knee replacements?
00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:11.359
How you moved six months ago is different than how you move in your recovery and how you will move once you are recovered.
00:23:11.599 --> 00:23:14.079
So that's a positive change if everything goes well.
00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:17.039
But what about just general changes in your life?
00:23:17.359 --> 00:23:19.759
What if you change from one vehicle to the other?
00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:22.160
What does it feel like to get in and out of that thing?
00:23:22.400 --> 00:23:24.480
So it doesn't have to be dramatic stuff.
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:26.720
It can be environmental, the four seasons.
00:23:26.799 --> 00:23:30.000
It can be, you know, your world is constantly changing.
00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:42.559
The danger that I just find when we're talking about context with folks is that they think they have this false expectation that their world is the same 365 days out of the year, and that nothing's gonna change.
00:23:42.799 --> 00:23:44.319
Welcome to your 30s, folks.
00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:45.039
It's a lie.
00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:46.240
It's gonna change, right?
00:23:46.319 --> 00:23:49.200
Like you're gonna hit 40, you're gonna be like, nope, that was fun.
00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:51.839
And we're we've learned, we're learning things now, right?
00:23:51.920 --> 00:23:54.319
Like it's all coming, things are changing.
00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:58.960
And then you know, like certain timestamps are are influential for reasons.
00:23:59.200 --> 00:24:03.599
You change cities, you change towns, you you're gonna move around in the world.
00:24:03.680 --> 00:24:05.680
Your context is always changing.
00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:09.839
The things that are personal to you really take some investigation.
00:24:10.079 --> 00:24:16.000
I have a client in Maine, a student who's been a longtime student whom I hadn't seen for a couple of years.
00:24:16.160 --> 00:24:17.440
Again, life happens.
00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:29.359
This person comes back after a local neighboring dog, large rescue mixed breed dog, had landed her in the hospital from attacking her.
00:24:29.599 --> 00:24:34.319
So she got and she was she had a puppy and it went after the puppy, and it was pretty horrific.
00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:42.000
Um, she survived, the puppy survived, the the other dog has been put down uh because it's you know, obvious reasons.
00:24:42.319 --> 00:24:48.720
And the the wake-up call for her was I've lived in this neighborhood X dozens of years, right?
00:24:48.799 --> 00:24:50.079
I've lived in this neighborhood forever.
00:24:50.160 --> 00:25:02.960
She's a fit, otherwise very capable person, and had taken a break from carrying concealed because she had this sense of security in her environment because it was familiar and constant to her, right?
00:25:03.279 --> 00:25:04.640
But then something changed.
00:25:04.720 --> 00:25:06.960
And so therefore the context has changed.
00:25:07.119 --> 00:25:09.279
She can't undo that experience.
00:25:09.440 --> 00:25:19.279
And we have returned to carrying concealed and pepper spray and returning to conversations about awareness and permeability and all of those things.
00:25:19.519 --> 00:25:30.480
So it can be minor or it can be a specific event, life event, physical change, that you need to redefine your context regularly.
00:25:31.839 --> 00:25:37.359
And within that, we talk about, you know, really it's how much how how mobile are you?
00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:46.079
If you have a limited mobility, your sphere of influence changes versus if you are very mobile, your sphere of influence expands.
00:25:46.319 --> 00:26:01.759
And that dictates a lot of the tactics that are suggested out of the strategies that are imposed and the lifestyle strategies that go above and beyond the gun that dictate what can make gun applications successful or fail.
00:26:02.880 --> 00:26:13.519
So the tactical cool kid ninja stuff where you're head-to-toe multi-cam and helmets and armor and all of the mags, and you look just like I look like a mini ninja because I am very petite.
00:26:13.759 --> 00:26:18.079
And so the pictures of like all the multicam dudes and then the short one, that's me.
00:26:18.319 --> 00:26:19.519
Like that's how you know which one.
00:26:19.839 --> 00:26:20.720
It's not hard to find me.
00:26:20.799 --> 00:26:24.400
I'm like a little it'll like package T-Rex arm size one.
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:30.240
Um, those are they're phenomenal if you understand what you're getting out of them and how that directly relates to your life.
00:26:30.480 --> 00:26:30.799
Yeah.
00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:31.279
Right.
00:26:31.519 --> 00:26:37.680
But if you, like you said, you can go and have an amusement park ride experience and have fun because they're so much fun.
00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:40.799
Tactical cool kid ninja camp is amazing, right?
00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:45.279
But you want to make sure you know what you're pulling out of it that directly relates to you.
00:26:45.440 --> 00:26:52.960
Because shoot houses don't have windows, they don't have neighbors, they don't have non-ballistic walls and surfaces.
00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:59.039
And so alone, they alone can create a terrifying false sense of competency and security.
00:26:59.200 --> 00:26:59.359
Yeah.
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:03.839
And you have to be very real about what they are and what they are not.
00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:14.240
And you also then have to be very real about the rules of engagement of the individual who's teaching you, and what discipline, what agency did they come from?
00:27:14.400 --> 00:27:19.519
So, what flavor of tactics, procedures, and tech, you know, are you receiving?
00:27:19.680 --> 00:27:27.759
And how does that really work in your real world as a civilian with the legal side of the conversation coming if you have to do this?
00:27:27.920 --> 00:27:28.079
Yeah.
00:27:28.319 --> 00:27:32.160
So again, context, context, context, phenomenal information out there.
00:27:32.319 --> 00:27:38.480
But if it's not personal, if you cannot make it personal, just file it away in something cool that you did.
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:39.200
Yeah.
00:27:39.440 --> 00:27:41.359
Yeah, because there's a fundamental difference, right?
00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:45.759
Okay, someone has mastered the fundamentals of firearm applications.
00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:51.200
They're usually static for the most part, indoor ranges, and they can hit it all day and they're a gold.
00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:53.519
And then you take them out of that environment.
00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:59.680
I just had a recent interview with Ed Monk, who has a very different philosophy on how we should be training for active shooter events.
00:27:59.839 --> 00:28:07.599
And he's like, okay, take that accuracy and know for sure what the extreme distances are that you can still hit your targets.
00:28:07.680 --> 00:28:13.359
Because obviously, engaging an active shooter may well be very different than the fundamentals of engaging with a mugger, for instance.
00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:17.759
And he said, in that situation, there are there's no such thing as misses.
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:20.240
You have intended hits and you have unintended hits.
00:28:20.400 --> 00:28:33.200
Because in a crowded environment, the context, the situation, the circumstances, the environment is very bloody different than what you were just shooting at the range, you know, with great hits and great skills.
00:28:33.440 --> 00:28:40.559
Like, but now that one errant shot that you had at, let's say, 25 yards now becomes, well, who did you hit?
00:28:40.960 --> 00:28:41.279
Right?
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:56.000
It's training for the reality of what you might face or the environment you might you may be operating in, rather than just sort of blanket approach to there will always be a this is where I shoot, this is where I don't shoot, and you know, this is my environment.
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:58.319
You're like, no, it doesn't work like that in the real world.
00:28:58.799 --> 00:28:59.039
No.
00:28:59.200 --> 00:29:02.720
And there's almost a guarantee something's gonna come between you and your target.
00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:06.480
That's something that we cannot safely simulate, you know.
00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:11.119
We certainly don't on this side of the pond simulate that, or nor should we be.
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:18.319
But what you just described is something, you know, the guy the idea is that you're you're training for the worst day of your life.
00:29:18.480 --> 00:29:19.759
It's going to be horrible.
00:29:19.920 --> 00:29:23.359
It's going to be something you're gonna need a therapist for afterwards.
00:29:23.519 --> 00:29:24.720
Don't think you won't, right?
00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:26.079
You absolutely will.
00:29:26.319 --> 00:29:29.440
It will be life-changing, possibly life-shattering.
00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:32.960
But I'd like you to be around to have that life, period.
00:29:33.440 --> 00:29:34.400
So is it worth it?
00:29:34.559 --> 00:29:35.279
Absolutely.
00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:41.839
So, do we put people in the stressed mental capacity and emotional charge of that day?
00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:43.359
No, that would be horrible.
00:29:43.519 --> 00:29:44.559
No one would come back.
00:29:44.720 --> 00:29:46.400
We need them to like us, okay?
00:29:46.559 --> 00:30:00.319
We need them to come back and continue training because otherwise they have these horrible traumatic training experiences and they happen all the time in force-on-force courses that are in irresponsibly managed and handled.
00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:01.279
And what did we do?
00:30:01.359 --> 00:30:06.319
We just lost a phenomenal potential, capable human being in the world, right?
00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:10.160
That would be willing to do the right thing at the right time every time, right?
00:30:10.319 --> 00:30:10.480
Yeah.
00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:11.680
So I'm not about that.
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:26.960
But what you just described is something I see and I actually I actually create it on purpose in a couple of different programs, where we change very small incremental conditions, and shooters then discover I'm evil.
00:30:27.039 --> 00:30:28.960
Like it's it's an evil psych game.
00:30:29.119 --> 00:30:43.519
Like people are like, You even told us you were gonna do it, and that we believed you, and then you did the thing, and we failed in the exact way you told us to expect that we would fail, because human brains are disturbingly predictable, right?
00:30:43.599 --> 00:30:50.559
Yeah, so by changing the lighting in the room, I actually had one guy say, I can't hear, I can't hear you.
00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:53.519
It's dark in here to a range command.
00:30:53.759 --> 00:30:56.480
Like, okay, so let's talk about that.
00:30:56.720 --> 00:30:58.480
Um exactly.
00:30:58.799 --> 00:31:00.559
Maybe it's time for a break and a snack.
00:31:00.640 --> 00:31:01.519
How's your blood sugar?
00:31:01.680 --> 00:31:03.119
You know, start with that.
00:31:03.279 --> 00:31:04.640
But you know, you just don't know.
00:31:04.720 --> 00:31:07.279
But I'll change the language I'm using on the range.
00:31:07.359 --> 00:31:14.400
I'll change the way I compel people to consider the target in front of them, for example, without giving away the punchline, right?
00:31:14.559 --> 00:31:14.720
Yeah.
00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:16.720
I can change the expectation.
00:31:16.880 --> 00:31:26.960
I can break a pattern which we create on purpose when we're teaching the fundamentals so that we can maintain safety and continuity and skills focused.
00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:39.039
But in doing that for too long, for someone who plans to live in the real world with a gun, we create very siloed skill sets that are not accessible when the conditions have changed.
00:31:39.200 --> 00:31:42.640
So we no longer have an adaptable, permeable shooter.
00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:46.400
We have built someone in a pea tree dish and they're a hot houseflower, right?
00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:51.279
Like they're they can't exist outside of the conditions in which they were grown.
00:31:51.440 --> 00:31:52.400
And so they fail.
00:31:52.480 --> 00:31:55.359
And they fail in very predictable and dangerous ways.
00:31:55.599 --> 00:31:59.279
For example, square range shooters who are phenomenal.
00:31:59.359 --> 00:32:00.799
And I I am that person.
00:32:00.960 --> 00:32:02.640
I was, I was that person.
00:32:03.119 --> 00:32:04.960
You know, I'd never been in a shoot house before.
00:32:05.039 --> 00:32:06.799
How the heck was I supposed to know what we were gonna do?
00:32:06.880 --> 00:32:06.960
Right.
00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:08.799
And I was like, here, just toss her in.
00:32:08.880 --> 00:32:12.880
And I'm like, well, don't puke, don't embarrass yourself, and don't miss.
00:32:13.039 --> 00:32:15.119
That was like all I could I think I lost.
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:16.079
That was the mantra.
00:32:17.279 --> 00:32:19.200
Yes, literally, that was the mantra.
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:20.799
Like, just hold it together.
00:32:21.200 --> 00:32:21.839
That's it.
00:32:22.079 --> 00:32:28.000
And uh, because I I'd gone to this program thinking I was donating targets and I'd have an opportunity to observe.
00:32:28.079 --> 00:32:32.000
And oh no, Pat was like, Who's got short, who's the smallest dude here?
00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:37.440
Throw some multicam pants at her and throw her in the You can't say no.
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:39.920
So just don't embarrass yourself.
00:32:40.160 --> 00:32:49.839
So I'm in there and I did what, you know, I was solid on the square range, but I'd never I'd never been in an environment where the target was not predictable.
00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:57.200
I'd never been in an environment where I was expected to maneuver beyond left, right, forward, back, right?
00:32:57.519 --> 00:33:00.559
And within my little tiny six-foot radius cube.
00:33:00.799 --> 00:33:06.480
I'd never been in an environment where other people were moving in unpredictable ways around.
00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:12.480
All of this was foreign, and it was utterly terrifying, like utterly gut-wrenchingly terrifying.
00:33:12.720 --> 00:33:14.240
Even when the guns were empty.
00:33:14.480 --> 00:33:14.799
Yeah.
00:33:14.960 --> 00:33:15.200
Right?
00:33:15.359 --> 00:33:21.279
Utterly uh tired up like, well, did a lot of breathing, meditating kind of thing.
00:33:21.839 --> 00:33:34.160
But the first time we went live, I did what so many other shooters do, because we all learn it, right, in real time, is I'm looking at the target and I extended the gun almost like a chin level, and I'm firing towards it.
00:33:34.319 --> 00:33:36.880
I didn't even realize I wasn't on my sights.
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:40.160
That was my very first experience in a shoot house.
00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:50.480
Because I was so glued visually and mentally to the anomaly in my mind, which was this target thing that I'd never seen before that was apparently trying to kill me.
00:33:50.640 --> 00:33:54.480
So this box with a t-shirt on it that's red, but not blue.
00:33:54.720 --> 00:33:56.319
Oh my gosh, it's a red shirt.
00:33:56.400 --> 00:33:58.559
And so you're firing at the red shirt.
00:33:58.799 --> 00:34:01.359
You think you are, and it's not changing.
00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:05.359
And the question was, so what's happening?
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:07.279
And I literally was I was honest.
00:34:07.359 --> 00:34:09.840
I was like, I honestly don't know.
00:34:10.320 --> 00:34:12.719
And my instructor was like, that's the right answer.
00:34:12.960 --> 00:34:13.920
That's the right answer.
00:34:14.079 --> 00:34:19.679
So let me tell you where we need to be and what you need to do right now because you need something, you don't have it intuitively.
00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:33.920
And there's this concept that we're all gonna be ninjas on demand, that you're going to intuitively know how to bridge the gap between square range and a 360-degree world that is constantly changing.
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:36.960
There are no rules, it's fight club, right?
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:39.920
And someone's trying to hurt you permanently.
00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:40.960
No pressure.
00:34:41.119 --> 00:34:41.679
No pressure.
00:34:41.840 --> 00:34:42.000
Right.
00:34:42.079 --> 00:34:42.400
It's fine.
00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:53.440
And you're trying to stop them from doing that, but also have the underlying terror of hurting the very people you're supposed to be protecting inadvertently.
00:34:53.679 --> 00:35:02.000
Because cognitively, when you're under that level of stress, even if, as in your case, at the beginning of that experience, it was don't embarrass yourself.
00:35:02.159 --> 00:35:05.599
So humiliation, um, you know, don't shoot the wrong target, right?
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:12.000
You have you still have an exorbitant amount of stress entering a situation that you're completely out of your element on.
00:35:12.159 --> 00:35:15.039
That is exactly how it's gonna feel in your own home.
00:35:15.360 --> 00:35:16.559
It's gonna be disaster.
00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:16.800
Yes.
00:35:17.119 --> 00:35:18.079
Utter disaster.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:25.760
And the idea is that there's you can you can try to prepare, you know, all of the adages of, you know, you know, all of those.
00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:26.960
I won't even bore you with them.
00:35:27.039 --> 00:35:29.519
We all have about a dozen of them are ahead running right now.
00:35:29.679 --> 00:35:34.960
But the reality is, is you're not training for a routine or a procedure.
00:35:35.119 --> 00:35:45.519
You're literally the best training you can get is the one once you have your fundamentals, which you're gonna constantly work on and never abandon, none of us will ever be done cultivating them or mastering them.
00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:46.719
It's never gonna stop.
00:35:47.039 --> 00:35:54.639
But that you can put those to test in the most the widest variety of conditions that we can safely do so, right?
00:35:54.800 --> 00:35:55.440
Lifetime.
00:35:56.159 --> 00:35:58.079
And there are great trainers for that.
00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:01.039
There's, you know, vet your people, vet your experiences.
00:36:01.199 --> 00:36:05.119
Sometimes you you come back learning what probably isn't great.
00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:07.840
And so hopefully that's hopefully you haven't had that one.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:12.559
Um, but the idea is that you are basic, the fancy word is neuroplasticity, right?
00:36:12.639 --> 00:36:30.320
That you are building the most adaptable mind that you can, so that you're conditioning the skill sets to apply in a variety of different environments, in different thinking problems, in different situations, in different lighting temperature.
00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:36.000
And this comes down to concealment, footwear, clothing, multi-season dress, right?
00:36:36.239 --> 00:36:38.639
Am I, am I, do I have a baby on my hip?
00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:39.360
Don't I?
00:36:39.519 --> 00:36:41.199
Do I have a toddler with me?
00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:50.159
You know, when my son was about eight to eight to 13 years old is the most dangerous thing for little boys because they literally think they're Superman and they will defend mom.
00:36:50.639 --> 00:37:03.519
So I remember reaching that point with my son going, I can tell my daughter to go over there and sit and stay, but this little guy, I've literally got to grab him so that he doesn't rush somebody trying to thinking he's gonna save mom, right?
00:37:03.599 --> 00:37:05.599
So your strategies change.
00:37:05.760 --> 00:37:23.360
Or if you're if I'm out in the world with my 85-year-old Sicilian dad, who in his mind is 36 and like, you know, bowl in a china cabinet, you know, he's gonna mentally want to do things, but physically we're not we're not doing that.
00:37:23.679 --> 00:37:31.360
So with him, it's almost slower than a three and a half year old because you know, I'm not leaving.
00:37:31.599 --> 00:37:32.239
Yeah.
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:33.039
Right.
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:36.000
So or if you're out with your spouse, what does that mean?
00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:39.199
So if you consider your world, what am I gonna be wearing for footwear?
00:37:39.360 --> 00:37:40.000
Where am I going?
00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:41.280
What's the environment?
00:37:41.519 --> 00:37:43.039
What are my choices?
00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:49.760
That's the type of thinking person with a gun that to me is the most valuable to create.
00:37:50.000 --> 00:37:56.880
The skills are great, but you need the adaptable brain skills and the awareness skills and really awareness of yourself.
00:37:57.119 --> 00:37:57.440
Yes.
00:37:57.679 --> 00:37:57.920
Right?
00:37:58.159 --> 00:37:59.280
Yeah, understand your limitations.
00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:00.559
Correct.
00:38:00.960 --> 00:38:02.079
Well, and also your skills.
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:02.960
Yes.
00:38:03.440 --> 00:38:05.760
You need to know where the where the line is.
00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:10.079
I'm my performance is great up until, and then what is that measurement?
00:38:10.159 --> 00:38:11.840
Is it a heart rate influence thing?
00:38:11.920 --> 00:38:12.400
Absolutely.
00:38:12.559 --> 00:38:13.760
Is it a stress level?
00:38:13.920 --> 00:38:16.719
Maybe absence of a heart rate does 200 beats per minute.
00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:23.519
Obviously, that might be uh you know unusual, but we can have a very stressful response to a rather mundane situation.
00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:27.760
Heart rate maybe doesn't spike high, but you're cognitively impaired.
00:38:27.840 --> 00:38:33.760
You are not capable of assessing, reviewing, and making sound decisions in that moment.
00:38:34.239 --> 00:38:38.400
And this is not my story, but it's one I want to relay, and I'm gonna try and do it without butchering it.
00:38:38.480 --> 00:38:46.400
And it was uh a guy watching a podcast who had spent many, many years in Delta, but he recounted the first time he went into the shoot house.
00:38:46.559 --> 00:38:49.440
It was really the first time he went in with these guys.
00:38:49.599 --> 00:38:58.000
And they did a shoot drill going into the shoot house, and he did a phenomenal job on that first run through.
00:38:58.079 --> 00:38:59.440
Then it's okay, we're gonna do it again.
00:38:59.519 --> 00:39:04.880
Now we're going live fire because I think they went through either with blanks or just literal dry fire.
00:39:05.119 --> 00:39:10.960
And when he went into the room, he nailed every single one of his targets perfectly, headshots on all of them.
00:39:11.199 --> 00:39:14.880
And the guy, the instructor, said, Tell me about your shooting.
00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:16.320
And he says, I think I got everybody.
00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:17.679
Nailed everyone where I'm supposed to be.
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:18.880
He said, Okay, why?
00:39:19.119 --> 00:39:21.119
And he said he was somewhat taken back.
00:39:21.199 --> 00:39:23.199
He said, Well, I I eliminated the threat.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:24.960
You know, we moved into this environment.
00:39:25.119 --> 00:39:29.360
During the changeover between those two evolutions of training, they changed all the targets.
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:30.719
Nobody had a gun.
00:39:31.039 --> 00:39:33.760
He wasn't looking at them through that lens.
00:39:34.000 --> 00:39:39.119
And again, the instructor said to him by his account, that was your one chance.
00:39:39.199 --> 00:39:40.880
You just you screw that up again, you're out.
00:39:40.960 --> 00:39:42.000
Like that's it, you're done.
00:39:42.079 --> 00:39:43.760
Your journey with Delta is over.
00:39:43.920 --> 00:39:49.760
And these are the most incredible people in general, in terms of their ability to perform under stress.
00:39:49.920 --> 00:39:52.719
And he screwed it up at the very first thing.
00:39:52.800 --> 00:40:07.840
And the power of that story in knowing that a guy at his level, because he was already SF, he was already well trained, didn't see what he should have seen before he engaged his threats, is just a perfect example of how it can all go wrong.
00:40:08.079 --> 00:40:09.360
Oh, and it doesn't take much.
00:40:09.599 --> 00:40:14.719
Like I said, I can change the lighting in a room, I can change the temperature in a room.
00:40:15.519 --> 00:40:16.000
Right.
00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:19.920
I can change the cadence of my voice delivering the commands.
00:40:20.079 --> 00:40:20.239
Yeah.
00:40:20.480 --> 00:40:31.920
There's a variety of very small influential factors, and that's all it takes to break someone's, to actually set someone up to experience what that Delta guy experienced.
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:47.199
But the value in that story and the value of mine is that as somebody who's moving in the world as a civilian with a firearm, you have to be willing to go and take the classes that are going to humble you in a way that you are able to become that self-aware.
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:50.320
So the the win is the self-awareness.
00:40:50.480 --> 00:40:52.320
I don't care if you aren't the top shooter.
00:40:52.480 --> 00:40:58.400
I care that you walked out of that with all of the headlights on and you're like, I see, okay.
00:40:58.639 --> 00:40:58.800
Right.
00:40:58.960 --> 00:40:59.119
Yeah.
00:40:59.280 --> 00:41:03.920
And that if it hits you in a way that it makes your stomach churn, you did some learning.
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:04.559
And guess what?
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:05.840
You will never do again.
00:41:06.000 --> 00:41:06.239
Yeah.
00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:06.719
Right?
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:09.920
You will never not connect your sights with your target zone.
00:41:10.159 --> 00:41:10.960
Ever again.
00:41:11.199 --> 00:41:14.239
You will always validate what's beyond your sights.
00:41:14.480 --> 00:41:19.679
You will always doubt that the world around you was is is guaranteed to change.
00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:20.320
Yeah.
00:41:20.480 --> 00:41:24.320
And so those and those conditions are so uncomfortable.
00:41:24.480 --> 00:41:27.519
And as civilians, we didn't sign up to enlist, right?
00:41:27.679 --> 00:41:34.159
So we actually have to go and pay someone to make us physically ill so that we learn.
00:41:35.679 --> 00:41:50.000
And this is large probably why the anti-2A community thinks we're insane, because we spend an inordinate amount of money and time and resources to perfect a skill set that we simultaneously hope and pray we never have to use.
00:41:50.960 --> 00:41:51.119
Right.
00:41:51.199 --> 00:41:53.679
And in any other discipline, that's irrational.
00:41:54.079 --> 00:41:54.719
Yeah.
00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:56.079
I agree.
00:41:56.320 --> 00:42:02.000
But I I love what you said with be willing to be humble enough to learn, right?
00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:14.079
To go to put yourself in a situation where you're probably going to screw up 70% at least of of what you're trying to learn before you even get to even close to mastery of that skill set.
00:42:14.239 --> 00:42:20.400
Because if you don't screw it up and if you don't make mistakes, you're not pushing yourself and you're not learning anything.
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:21.039
No.
00:42:21.199 --> 00:42:23.519
And you're not growing and you're not adaptable.
00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:24.000
Yes.
00:42:24.239 --> 00:42:36.000
And we're gonna, and this is a dangerous topic, but you'll have folks who will come to a class and they'll have a a professional resume that is 10 plus years old.
00:42:36.880 --> 00:42:37.280
Right?
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:43.599
And in their mind, they are the the warfighter, the shooter, the who they were 10 plus years ago.
00:42:43.679 --> 00:42:47.840
And we are, I mean, I've been in this for more than that, so I'm referencing myself too.
00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:53.440
You know, it's like if you've been in this for a decade or more, you aren't the person you began as.
00:42:54.000 --> 00:42:57.519
And decades after a certain point start stacking something fierce.
00:42:57.679 --> 00:43:12.719
So you meet yourself, you have to be willing to go through that machine, have to be willing to run that gauntlet again incrementally throughout your capable life cycle with a firearm.
00:43:12.880 --> 00:43:16.159
And so you I don't care if you were a ninja 10 years ago.
00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:18.960
Are you willing to be humbled in the moment right now?
00:43:19.119 --> 00:43:20.960
That impresses me to no end.
00:43:21.039 --> 00:43:21.280
Yeah.
00:43:21.440 --> 00:43:24.639
Because if I'm not a little nauseous, I probably shouldn't be here.
00:43:24.800 --> 00:43:27.280
You know, it's really weird.
00:43:27.360 --> 00:43:30.159
But you know, I haven't tossed my cookies, so we're we're doing good.
00:43:30.239 --> 00:43:33.519
But you know, it's a little bit like, oh, I'm pushing, pushing these edges before.
00:43:33.599 --> 00:43:34.960
The concepts are familiar.
00:43:35.119 --> 00:43:40.159
I understand it logically, but I'm not in the same physical body I was seven years ago.
00:43:40.239 --> 00:43:42.480
I'm in a very different machine right now.
00:43:42.639 --> 00:43:44.559
I'm running in a very different animal.
00:43:44.800 --> 00:43:54.639
And what I can maintain for cognitive powers, I need to find a way for my body and my current capabilities to match what my brain wants to believe it can do.
00:43:55.039 --> 00:44:01.920
And so that is a kind of a renewal process that is vital and Under talked about in this.
00:44:02.079 --> 00:44:02.320
Right.
00:44:02.480 --> 00:44:02.719
Yeah.
00:44:02.960 --> 00:44:05.519
So stand and shoot, even stand and shoot.
00:44:05.599 --> 00:44:14.880
There's a point at which your vision is going to change, and you're going to discover that you wake up one morning and you can't see the front sight like you did yesterday and where'd it go?
00:44:15.119 --> 00:44:16.639
Like it was just there.
00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:18.880
You know, like come on, buddy.
00:44:19.039 --> 00:44:20.000
Like, what happened?
00:44:20.719 --> 00:44:23.599
And you find yourself at the optician, and you're like, hey, doc.
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:27.039
So I need to see, I don't care if I'm near see the tip of my finger.
00:44:27.199 --> 00:44:29.360
That right there needs to be HD, right?
00:44:29.440 --> 00:44:30.480
High def right there.
00:44:30.559 --> 00:44:31.119
And they're like, why?
00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:32.639
You're like, don't ask questions.
00:44:32.719 --> 00:44:33.679
I'm a customer.
00:44:33.920 --> 00:44:34.639
I'm right.
00:44:34.880 --> 00:44:36.000
Right here, buddy.
00:44:36.320 --> 00:44:39.440
Um, or you're buying red dots, you know, and that's fine.
00:44:39.679 --> 00:44:43.440
But welcome to a new platform, a new paradigm, a new discipline.
00:44:43.599 --> 00:44:45.840
And you aren't the shooter you were a week ago.
00:44:46.000 --> 00:44:58.159
So you have to be willing to be humbled in the big ways, but you also have to be willing to be humbled in the microwaves that support the fundamentals to let you thrive in those bigger training environments.
00:44:58.559 --> 00:45:06.000
You already train very hard to make the shot, but do you also train to make the decision to shoot or not shoot?
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:08.559
At the range, you usually know when the drill's going to start.
00:45:08.719 --> 00:45:09.760
You know what the target is.
00:45:09.920 --> 00:45:11.920
You probably even know when the drill's going to be over.
00:45:12.079 --> 00:45:14.400
The real world gives you none of that.
00:45:14.639 --> 00:45:21.440
It gives you uncertainty, movement, innocent people, changing threats, and sometimes a reason not to shoot at all.
00:45:21.599 --> 00:45:25.360
That's where the smokeless range VST Pro comes into its own.
00:45:25.599 --> 00:45:41.199
Whether you're training at home individually or teaching students, working with armed security, preparing law enforcement officers for the real world, VST Pro lets you train through the realistic scenarios that challenge judgment, awareness, and decision making, not just marksmanship.
00:45:41.360 --> 00:45:44.639
Because hitting the target is only part of being prepared.
00:45:44.880 --> 00:45:51.119
The harder question is knowing when to act, when to not act, and when the situation has changed completely.
00:45:51.280 --> 00:45:54.639
Don't wait for the real world to give you your first scenario.
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:57.599
Train for it now with a smokeless range VST Pro.
00:45:57.840 --> 00:46:03.679
Visit laserammo.com, select simulators and targets, and then smokeless range to find out more.
00:46:03.840 --> 00:46:05.760
And now back to the episode.
00:46:06.239 --> 00:46:14.559
And it's very hard sometimes for a lot of people to take their ego out of the equation long enough to understand that it is the humility that will help you grow more than anything.
00:46:14.800 --> 00:46:22.239
The minute you feel like I'm still who whoever that person was 10 years ago is the moment you're going to screw something up, and probably monumentally.
00:46:22.400 --> 00:46:24.079
And you know, we're talking about firearms.
00:46:24.159 --> 00:46:30.400
We're talking about, you know, in most cases, defensive use of a firearm, away from the range with loved ones, you know, in your care.
00:46:30.480 --> 00:46:34.000
And where is that round going after it leaves your firearm?
00:46:34.079 --> 00:46:41.519
And there's all these decisions that you're having to make in the moment that you're actually not capable of making anymore.
00:46:41.679 --> 00:46:47.679
Not without revisiting a class that kind of highlights that for you, that things have changed.
00:46:48.000 --> 00:46:48.480
Yep.
00:46:48.719 --> 00:46:50.480
And you're not starting from scratch.
00:46:50.559 --> 00:46:55.199
You are starting with experience when you get to a place where you need to reevaluate.
00:46:55.360 --> 00:46:56.639
So it's not a step back.
00:46:56.800 --> 00:47:00.719
Consider it like a plateau, and it's your opportunity to level up from where you are now.
00:47:00.880 --> 00:47:03.039
Really, that's the way I like to talk about it with folks.
00:47:03.199 --> 00:47:12.000
Because, you know, again, if you realize that the majority of shooters in the United States right now are between 45 and 65 years old, welcome to frozen shoulder.
00:47:12.159 --> 00:47:13.840
Welcome to joint replacements.
00:47:14.000 --> 00:47:23.039
Welcome to that fractured disc in your back from that skiing accident you had in your 20s is now impacting your life in a significant way it never did before.
00:47:23.280 --> 00:47:24.639
Just welcome to vision changes.
00:47:24.719 --> 00:47:27.360
This is this is a universal human conversation.
00:47:27.760 --> 00:47:30.159
And so it can be demoralizing.
00:47:30.239 --> 00:47:30.800
That's the problem.
00:47:30.960 --> 00:47:43.599
Like I hate losing shooters because they feel like they're deteriorating and they don't they don't like seeing those targets not be where the refrigerator are that they demand them to be from themselves.
00:47:43.760 --> 00:47:44.159
Right.
00:47:44.400 --> 00:47:49.280
So we kind of have to recast the mold, reassess, and rebuild from there.
00:47:49.440 --> 00:47:53.519
So the the analogy I prefer is like, okay, so you've just reached a plateau.
00:47:53.760 --> 00:48:00.639
We can live there, you're not gonna like it, or we can start building upon the experience you bring to the table right now.
00:48:00.800 --> 00:48:01.280
Yeah.
00:48:01.519 --> 00:48:03.760
Throw out all your old expectations.
00:48:03.920 --> 00:48:07.199
You're literally in a different animal every seven years.
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:11.280
You have a completely different set of everything every seven years, complete cellular change.
00:48:11.679 --> 00:48:12.480
Cellular change.
00:48:13.039 --> 00:48:14.960
Just toss out the old you.
00:48:15.039 --> 00:48:15.760
You're a new you.
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:16.159
It's great.
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:17.119
Like, welcome.
00:48:17.280 --> 00:48:18.320
Nice to meet you.
00:48:18.480 --> 00:48:24.079
But that's a really valuable and vital thing because this is why we have so many shooters here.
00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:26.079
There's the life that shows up too.
00:48:26.239 --> 00:48:32.880
You know, there's there's people like me in their, let's just say mid to late 40s, who are like, oh, guess we're having kids now.
00:48:33.119 --> 00:48:36.000
It was kind of like an oops and an awesome all at the same time.
00:48:36.159 --> 00:48:37.440
And then, hey, there's another one.
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:40.000
So I mean, you just don't know.
00:48:40.079 --> 00:48:45.679
Don't dare tell the universe you're done with something because it'll have other plants.
00:48:45.760 --> 00:48:47.199
Like guaranteed, guaranteed.
00:48:47.440 --> 00:48:49.599
Dangerous thing to say things out loud sometimes.
00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:58.960
But, you know, or many women or many people in general discover they went from uh a married to a single couple or they're widowed, right?
00:48:59.280 --> 00:49:01.280
Or, you know, that's or a widower.
00:49:01.440 --> 00:49:02.719
This is where it's happening.
00:49:02.880 --> 00:49:07.280
This is where kids are leaving and going to college and they're empty nesters.
00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:12.000
This is retirement for some people, and they've got a discretionary and extra funds.
00:49:12.079 --> 00:49:13.199
They're doing something for them.
00:49:13.360 --> 00:49:19.119
There's so many reasons why your world is probably going to fundamentally change at certain intervals.
00:49:19.199 --> 00:49:25.280
And if we don't talk about that real, these are the weird conversations I have with shooters when I'm, they'll come in for a lesson.
00:49:25.519 --> 00:49:26.400
I'll be like, okay, cool.
00:49:26.480 --> 00:49:27.840
It's nice to meet you.
00:49:28.159 --> 00:49:30.559
Tell me about you and the shooty shooty things.
00:49:30.960 --> 00:49:32.559
And they're like, okay.
00:49:33.039 --> 00:49:35.760
And I get, I don't get a story about guns.
00:49:35.840 --> 00:49:37.519
I get a story about their lives.
00:49:37.679 --> 00:49:38.719
That's what I get.
00:49:38.880 --> 00:49:39.119
Right.
00:49:39.440 --> 00:49:48.480
So if that's who, if that's what's motivating people to come to the range, then we are remiss as instructors not to have a very human lifestyle conversation.
00:49:48.719 --> 00:49:56.159
Otherwise, we are not giving people the valuable information in the context that matters to them, the whole reason they're here with us.
00:49:56.559 --> 00:50:04.639
But if someone says, I'm looking for a new hobby, I'm like, so let me tell you a story about how that can dangerously potentially change the whole trajectory of your adult life.
00:50:04.800 --> 00:50:07.760
Just somebody told me that once, and here we are.
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:19.679
You know, so hobbies are equally as dangerous as, hey, I have a personal protection order out and I'm terrified, and I now live alone, and I live in a remote wood area at the end of a dead end road.
00:50:19.840 --> 00:50:21.199
Like, okay.
00:50:21.599 --> 00:50:24.960
And I I have a, you know, emotional support chihuahua.
00:50:25.119 --> 00:50:25.440
Great.
00:50:25.599 --> 00:50:27.679
You know, like that, you know, okay.
00:50:27.920 --> 00:50:42.800
So regardless of someone's motivation, the human being is the indicator for how where I'm gonna, as an instructor, put a certain emphasis, how I'm probably going to build them up in the their idea of what they're doing and why they're doing it.
00:50:42.960 --> 00:50:43.360
Yeah.
00:50:43.599 --> 00:50:48.960
And, you know, most women want to know why we're doing something before you tell us how we're doing it.
00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:52.000
Most guys want to know how we're doing it before you tell us why we're doing it.
00:50:52.079 --> 00:50:53.280
And that's fine, right?
00:50:53.599 --> 00:50:54.800
We can work with that, right?
00:50:54.880 --> 00:50:58.480
We're the same thing, different opposite ends of the story.
00:50:58.639 --> 00:50:58.880
Yeah.
00:50:59.039 --> 00:51:22.639
But, you know, if somebody has a really scary reason, I need to have that one hour I have with that student, if it's a private lesson, where they walk out not feeling like they could take on the world, but walk out feeling like they have a greater appreciation for what they can do to cultivate a space in their minds, their hearts, and their worlds where they can be in control of their safety and their bodies.
00:51:22.800 --> 00:51:25.119
That's what I can accomplish in one hour.
00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:27.840
And the firearm is often a conduit to that.
00:51:28.159 --> 00:51:39.519
So, for those who are interested in trying to find an instructor that takes a much more holistic approach to firearms and training, how does somebody find an instructor that's good?
00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:51.599
Someone that has great shooting abilities, but more importantly, can transfer that knowledge to them, their lifestyle, the way they shoot, the physiological perhaps uh shortcomings.
00:51:51.760 --> 00:51:54.079
Like, how do they find that instructor?
00:51:54.400 --> 00:51:56.000
This is gonna sound weird.
00:51:56.239 --> 00:51:58.559
Find someone that literally looks like you.
00:51:58.800 --> 00:52:02.880
So if, and then, or or totally not like you, but that's not the point.
00:52:03.039 --> 00:52:09.840
The point is like most women come to hang out with me because I'm a woman and I have a family.
00:52:10.079 --> 00:52:14.719
I have my stepdaughter's 22, and I have from 22 to one and a half.
00:52:14.800 --> 00:52:19.360
So I can speak to the whole conversation of pretty much parenthood right now.
00:52:19.519 --> 00:52:21.199
So I'm relevant in that way.
00:52:21.360 --> 00:52:27.360
Um, I've been a single mom, I've lived in multi-generational households, I'm a petite female, like I'm 5'2, dude.
00:52:27.440 --> 00:52:32.800
Like I'm not 6'5, 300-pound, like right-it-out jack guy, like shit telling you to grip the gun harder.
00:52:32.960 --> 00:52:52.719
You know, like, no, like that's so I also recognize the difference between some like me teaching someone how to put physicality into the grip versus someone who's six foot five, 300 pounds, and they're just general pounds of pressure per square inch, right?
00:52:52.880 --> 00:52:57.360
They're relaxed is my 150 best effort to crush the gun I have, right?
00:52:57.440 --> 00:52:59.280
Like it's not equitable.
00:52:59.440 --> 00:53:12.320
So if that individual's techniques and strategies are applicable to their body types and the life they live, that's not gonna have synergy with me as someone who's looking for, if I'm new, right?
00:53:12.400 --> 00:53:20.960
If I'm in the first third of my experience, that might be cool and fun, but I'm gonna go and I'm gonna try and force myself into a mold that doesn't literally fit me.
00:53:21.119 --> 00:53:24.079
So try to find someone that fits you.
00:53:24.559 --> 00:53:38.639
If the person mirrors you in their life, in their material, in the person that they are physically, then you're no you're going to go and show up and find a strategy that is probably most adaptable to you.
00:53:38.880 --> 00:53:46.000
Because where I've personally struggled is learning from some one of my biggest mentors and influences was Super Dave Harrington.
00:53:46.079 --> 00:53:46.400
Okay.
00:53:46.639 --> 00:53:51.119
That man was a mammoth of a like a giant human.
00:53:51.280 --> 00:53:52.000
He's huge.
00:53:52.079 --> 00:53:55.199
He was just this massive person and even bigger personality.
00:53:55.440 --> 00:54:00.000
So when he was like, relax your grip, I'm like, Dave, let's just have a talk about that for a second, can we?
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:02.800
Okay, because like, guess what's not happening?
00:54:02.880 --> 00:54:08.400
All right, me relaxing anything is not gonna isn't happening, right?
00:54:08.639 --> 00:54:10.719
Um, that's just one example.
00:54:10.880 --> 00:54:13.840
And, you know, there's many other examples of that.
00:54:14.000 --> 00:54:21.440
You know, shoot from retention, okay, where you're indexing the gun against your peck isn't gonna work because I am not a dude.
00:54:21.679 --> 00:54:23.360
And he was like, I'll be right back.
00:54:23.440 --> 00:54:24.239
And I'm like, Yeah, I know.
00:54:24.320 --> 00:54:28.480
Give me a sec, you know, like sorry, but let's talk about how that's just not gonna work over here.
00:54:28.719 --> 00:54:28.880
Okay.
00:54:29.679 --> 00:54:33.440
Or, you know, people that have, you know, you're doing non-standard firing positions.
00:54:33.599 --> 00:54:35.679
Well, they've got three broken discs.
00:54:35.760 --> 00:54:39.440
How are you gonna get them into certain, you know, prone positions with a pistol?
00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:44.159
You know, you've got to, you know, work with people who who live a similar life than you.
00:54:44.320 --> 00:54:48.480
You obviously have to do your vetting, you have to do a variety of different things.
00:54:48.719 --> 00:54:58.000
But I've been in classes as a student where this instructor is demanding things or instructing in such a way that my body literally cannot match what theirs is.
00:54:58.159 --> 00:55:00.239
And they're looking at me like, what's wrong with you?
00:55:00.400 --> 00:55:01.679
Just do what I tell you to do.
00:55:01.840 --> 00:55:06.079
And I'm like, I don't have the meat you have here.
00:55:06.239 --> 00:55:11.920
So when I go high thumb, I actually get physical separation on the side of the grip and my grip falls apart.
00:55:12.079 --> 00:55:17.039
I can't do what you're doing on the gun because my body doesn't match your body.
00:55:17.280 --> 00:55:25.440
So that's where I start talking to people about like, all right, you're a you're a tiny mid-40s, somebody come find somebody that's tiny in mid-40s.
00:55:25.519 --> 00:55:29.920
And if they're vetted, if they're credible, if they make sense, rock on.
00:55:30.079 --> 00:55:31.440
That's a great place to start.
00:55:31.679 --> 00:55:37.119
The next place to go is is this instructor answering the questions that I'm asking?
00:55:37.360 --> 00:55:50.239
I don't care about your resume because I will go and do wild and crazy things with professionals who do this on behalf of the United States because they're answering the specific questions that I'm asking right now.
00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:52.159
But it goes back to context.
00:55:52.239 --> 00:55:55.679
I need to know my context and I need to know what my specific questions are.
00:55:55.840 --> 00:56:03.920
And if that individual has the credibility and the information, then I will go and I will learn and garner that information from that specific person.
00:56:04.159 --> 00:56:07.920
So I'm very target focused when I'm selecting who I want to learn from.
00:56:08.079 --> 00:56:11.920
You either look a lot like me or you look nothing like me, right?
00:56:12.880 --> 00:56:19.920
But up here, you got you've got the specific piece that I'm missing, and I want to go and I want to grab that piece.
00:56:20.239 --> 00:56:22.559
But Instagram likes don't mean anything to me.
00:56:22.639 --> 00:56:23.760
You know, like I don't care.
00:56:24.079 --> 00:56:24.239
No.
00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:25.679
No.
00:56:26.000 --> 00:56:35.360
So I also read that concealed carry for you, obviously for most people it's taught as an individual skill, but you qualify it, classify it as a family skill.
00:56:35.519 --> 00:56:37.039
So expand on that.
00:56:37.519 --> 00:56:40.960
So it's very rare, unless I'm traveling to teach, that I am alone.
00:56:41.119 --> 00:56:45.599
I have a lot of children and they're they're I really like them.
00:56:45.679 --> 00:56:46.320
They're awesome.
00:56:46.400 --> 00:56:48.159
So I really like spending time with them.
00:56:48.320 --> 00:56:53.280
In addition to that, you know, I have a husband, I have parents, I have I've I'm Italian.
00:56:53.360 --> 00:56:56.239
There's a lot of us, you know, and we like hanging out with each other.
00:56:56.400 --> 00:57:01.199
So concealed carry, I'm the only concealed carrier in my immediate family.
00:57:01.440 --> 00:57:04.239
What that means is the responsibility is mine.
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:16.159
And if it is mine and mine alone, it cannot belong only to me, because there isn't literally enough of me to take care of all of them.
00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:30.800
So concealed carry has to involve more than the gun, more than just less lethal pepper spray, more than safe words, more than all of that, you know, all of that, I call that superficial surface stuff.
00:57:31.039 --> 00:57:33.280
It is a team experience.
00:57:33.440 --> 00:57:41.519
In the event that mom has to do the thing that mom has to do, everybody needs to have a role to play on the field.
00:57:41.760 --> 00:57:45.360
Otherwise, mom may not be able to do what she needs to do.
00:57:45.679 --> 00:57:47.679
So the gun may be the only one.
00:57:47.840 --> 00:57:50.239
It may be the only one, and it may be on me.
00:57:50.559 --> 00:58:03.039
But concealed carry is only successful if every other person in my team is a participant in the moment I may need to use it, because I am not physically big enough to shield them from the world.
00:58:03.199 --> 00:58:07.039
And that one little bullet isn't have a diameter big enough to stop it.
00:58:07.360 --> 00:58:12.079
So it is a team activity, and that can mean a variety of different things.
00:58:12.239 --> 00:58:17.280
But my uh attitude about this fundamentally changed three years ago.
00:58:17.599 --> 00:58:37.199
My daughter, youngest daughter, was about six months old, and my kids were home from school on this particular day, roughly, and like a Tuesday morning, 10 o'clock in the morning, I was working from home, new baby, put her to bed in the first floor master bedroom of a house we were renting, which is like a New England salt box.
00:58:37.280 --> 00:58:38.079
It's a cube, okay?
00:58:38.159 --> 00:58:44.320
It's like a cube, and it's like basically build a Lego cube, and that's that's New England saltbox.
00:58:44.400 --> 00:58:49.920
And you get like two windows in the front, maybe four windows, and a central door in the very front of the house, a stairway.
00:58:50.000 --> 00:58:55.199
You know, it's like it is the storybook New England cube salt box house.
00:58:55.440 --> 00:58:58.079
We're in the middle of the woods, we don't have any neighbors.
00:58:58.239 --> 00:59:02.639
There's a neighbor way across the road, and it was uh the property was like 80 acres.
00:59:02.800 --> 00:59:04.400
There's just nobody around.
00:59:04.719 --> 00:59:08.480
Have a num I have a aggressively affectionate labradoodle.
00:59:08.559 --> 00:59:08.800
All right.
00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:14.000
This little, he's he's got more energy than I I've never met anyone with more energy.
00:59:14.079 --> 00:59:18.960
And he is loves everyone and would love everyone to know how much he loves them.
00:59:19.119 --> 00:59:25.280
Well, this little guy needed to go out, so it's a temporary house we were staying, and I go to bring the dog outside.
00:59:25.599 --> 00:59:27.519
For some reason, I brought him out the front door.
00:59:27.760 --> 00:59:28.719
Beautiful day.
00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:33.840
I'm still in my like maternity men's triple XL bathrobe, right?
00:59:33.920 --> 00:59:35.599
I've got hedgehog morning hair.
00:59:35.760 --> 00:59:39.039
I'm like, you know, take the dog, bring the dog back in.
00:59:39.440 --> 00:59:43.119
And my husband thought I was kind of silly for locking the door, right?
00:59:43.199 --> 00:59:44.239
Who's it's just us.
00:59:44.320 --> 00:59:53.039
You're gonna hear anybody coming up, but I'm I didn't grow up, you know, my adult life was in cities, and so I'm locking doors, just locking doors.
00:59:53.280 --> 01:00:00.000
Well, I get the dog in and I go to tell my son, who is sitting on the living room couch, to bring his laundry down.
01:00:00.559 --> 01:00:09.679
And there are certain experiences you're gonna have in life that you're going to recall as though it was like Cinemax, you know, clarity.
01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:15.920
So in my mind, I'm like that little bugger, and you know, he's 13, better bring your laundry down.
01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:16.559
Okay.
01:00:17.360 --> 01:00:20.559
I go to turn the corner to tell him to bring his laundry down.
01:00:20.800 --> 01:00:26.960
And who do I see but a man with his face pressed up against the screen to the front of the house window?
01:00:27.519 --> 01:00:28.400
He wasn't there.
01:00:28.559 --> 01:00:29.519
Where did you come from?
01:00:29.920 --> 01:00:31.280
The dog never barked.
01:00:31.599 --> 01:00:34.800
Now, in your mind, you're playing a million scripts.
01:00:35.039 --> 01:00:35.280
Yes.
01:00:35.519 --> 01:00:39.840
And the one that I was hoping, well, number one, that's not right, right?
01:00:40.079 --> 01:00:41.840
That's this you don't belong here.
01:00:42.079 --> 01:00:43.519
Where did you come from?
01:00:43.840 --> 01:00:56.719
The only viable story I was hoping would be true was the landlords had proposed that they wanted to repaint the house and had told me it's possible people may be coming to view the property to give it a give them a quote.
01:00:56.880 --> 01:01:04.880
So in my mind, I was hoping, of course, this is like thousandths of a second clicking off in your brain, that this guy was gonna say, Oh, sorry to startle you, ma'am.
01:01:04.960 --> 01:01:07.519
I'm here on behalf of to, you know.
01:01:07.840 --> 01:01:09.119
Didn't happen.
01:01:09.440 --> 01:01:15.920
So in the 0.5 seconds where it didn't happen, I felt myself yell, hey.
01:01:16.800 --> 01:01:23.920
You find yourself doing weird things, but I yelled, hey, like if I could reach out and punch him with the word hey, it was that aggressive.
01:01:24.079 --> 01:01:26.320
My poor kid about levitated right off the seat.
01:01:26.400 --> 01:01:27.440
He was like, Oh my gosh, right?
01:01:27.519 --> 01:01:29.360
What's my I don't know how I made or mad.
01:01:29.599 --> 01:01:34.320
Like this man was not dissuaded or impacted at all by my alert.
01:01:34.719 --> 01:01:37.840
In fact, he tried to pull the screen off the window.
01:01:38.159 --> 01:01:40.800
So now we've just taken things up a notch.
01:01:41.039 --> 01:01:47.679
Long story short, I find myself chasing this man window to window around the first floor of my home.
01:01:47.840 --> 01:01:53.039
And he's gotten the screen off of one, but he can't get the old antique window up.
01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:55.440
I'm saying all the things that you're supposed to.
01:01:55.679 --> 01:02:00.320
I'm armed, you are not welcome, leave, get out, don't come in, I'll shoot.
01:02:00.400 --> 01:02:03.679
Like all of the things you need to verbally articulate.
01:02:04.320 --> 01:02:06.960
Couldn't see anything as far as weapons on his body.
01:02:07.519 --> 01:02:09.199
But this guy isn't giving up.
01:02:09.440 --> 01:02:23.199
There came a point at which I recognized he was going to the back kitchen door where there was a little porch, and that screen door was open and unlocked.
01:02:23.599 --> 01:02:32.000
And the sickening feeling when I realized I had a rat's maze to negotiate and he had a straightaway and he was gonna beat me there.
01:02:32.320 --> 01:02:43.280
And so if the if I was lucky, the first thing that I would see as soon as I got into back into the living room would have been him turning to face me from that kitchen door.
01:02:43.440 --> 01:02:49.599
And in that time, I had already uh put my sights where they needed to be.
01:02:49.840 --> 01:02:53.360
I had already done the things you would have needed to do.
01:02:53.599 --> 01:02:56.320
I would have already made the 911 call.
01:02:56.559 --> 01:02:59.599
I would have already been booked, right, into jail.
01:02:59.760 --> 01:03:07.280
I would have already been talking with my lawyer, and I'd already gone through all of that in my mind, and I was okay with it.
01:03:07.519 --> 01:03:24.239
But what I wasn't okay with was the fact that my son was going to have to witness his mother be a certain specific kind of violent in real time and experience the consequences of that because he was still sitting on that couch, not eight feet away from where it would have happened.
01:03:24.400 --> 01:03:28.880
And in that moment, and I did have bathrobe gun on because it's me.
01:03:28.960 --> 01:03:32.239
And so bathrope gun is there, you know.
01:03:32.400 --> 01:03:36.800
So that would have, you know, it wasn't a theoretical, it was a real thing.
01:03:37.039 --> 01:03:46.000
Ultimately, none of that had to happen because he ran into this, you know, like snow fencing, that rugged construction plastic fencing.
01:03:46.320 --> 01:03:53.360
We cordoned off of an area that we were still working on for the dogs off the back of the house, and it was black material.
01:03:53.440 --> 01:03:59.679
Well, he ran right into that and it freaked him out on his way to the back door, and he took off through the woods.
01:03:59.920 --> 01:04:17.920
But in that short period of time, I lived an entire lifetime, assumed the consequences of having to do the thing that we hope we never have to do, and had the emotional strike to my soul of what that impact was going to mean for the people I loved most.
01:04:18.159 --> 01:04:27.840
So in that moment, and reflecting on it in the years that came, have come after that, like attempted home invasion with three of my children at home.
01:04:28.079 --> 01:04:28.239
Yeah.
01:04:28.480 --> 01:04:34.079
So all the all the mom parental instincts of, you've made poor choices, sir, right?
01:04:34.320 --> 01:04:35.760
Uh were in play.
01:04:36.079 --> 01:04:42.079
The greatest takeaway for me was they're not ready for what's going to have to happen.
01:04:42.320 --> 01:04:46.559
So concealed carry is it's more than me being prepared.
01:04:46.719 --> 01:04:48.960
They have to have specific skill sets.
01:04:49.199 --> 01:04:51.840
Could they, you know, and we talk about the logistical side.
01:04:52.000 --> 01:04:53.760
Could they come between you and your problem?
01:04:53.920 --> 01:04:54.239
Yes.
01:04:54.320 --> 01:04:54.559
Yes.
01:04:54.800 --> 01:04:56.719
Could they escalate a situation?
01:04:56.960 --> 01:04:57.199
Yes.
01:04:57.679 --> 01:04:59.360
Could they interfere, interrupt?
01:04:59.679 --> 01:05:00.639
Absolutely.
01:05:00.960 --> 01:05:02.239
Could they try to help?
01:05:02.400 --> 01:05:03.280
Please don't.
01:05:03.440 --> 01:05:05.360
But if you're gonna help, what are you gonna do?
01:05:05.440 --> 01:05:08.320
You know, like who's responsible for who?
01:05:08.960 --> 01:05:09.280
Yeah.
01:05:09.440 --> 01:05:10.880
You know, who's gonna grab dad?
01:05:11.039 --> 01:05:12.480
Who's gonna grab the baby?
01:05:12.719 --> 01:05:13.039
Right?
01:05:13.760 --> 01:05:17.119
Who what are your jobs right now specifically?
01:05:17.360 --> 01:05:23.920
And so the for me, that one moment, that one morning, weirdest police report I've ever filed, right?
01:05:24.079 --> 01:05:25.760
Like, it's what do you do?
01:05:25.920 --> 01:05:31.199
You file a police report because there's a person who's in the community and everybody has kids around here.
01:05:31.280 --> 01:05:32.079
And how about no?
01:05:32.639 --> 01:05:32.880
Yeah.
01:05:33.119 --> 01:05:36.960
Um it really changed how I perceived concealed carry.
01:05:37.039 --> 01:05:39.119
And it's not just my burden.
01:05:39.360 --> 01:05:45.920
It's every person that I plan or think that I could I could work with, that is, or fire on behalf of.
01:05:46.079 --> 01:05:46.960
And it's a short list.
01:05:47.039 --> 01:05:48.719
We should all have a very short list.
01:05:48.880 --> 01:05:54.079
If but if that person is on your list, they better absolutely be part of the conversation.
01:05:54.320 --> 01:05:54.960
Yeah.
01:05:55.360 --> 01:05:59.760
Yeah, I'm so happy to hear you say that because once upon a time, I remember.
01:06:00.079 --> 01:06:05.039
Teaching a class, a group of guys, kind of high speed, low drag that were uh you know, ready to go.
01:06:05.280 --> 01:06:07.199
And they said, How many of you got a plan for this?
01:06:07.360 --> 01:06:08.079
Hands all go up.
01:06:08.239 --> 01:06:09.360
How many got a plan for this?
01:06:09.519 --> 01:06:10.079
Hands will go up.
01:06:10.239 --> 01:06:13.599
So it's fantastic, you're all prepared, you're all good shots, you're all this, you're all that.
01:06:13.760 --> 01:06:18.480
How many of you have had a conversation with your entire family about what their role is going to be?
01:06:18.719 --> 01:06:20.639
And you just had them looking at one another.
01:06:20.800 --> 01:06:25.920
Like, well, I I think I'm now I mentioned to them that I'm like, that's not good enough.
01:06:26.079 --> 01:06:29.679
They are going to do the exact opposite, whatever the hell you expect them to do.
01:06:29.760 --> 01:06:32.239
And they're not going to do it because they want to.
01:06:32.320 --> 01:06:40.000
They're going to do it because in the moment their thinking is not going to be nearly as clear as you think it's going to be, or they do, and they're going to make the wrong decision.
01:06:40.159 --> 01:06:47.039
And if you haven't had that conversation, you are setting them up to fail and probably fail you at the worst moment possible.
01:06:47.199 --> 01:06:49.039
And you're not ready for that failure.
01:06:49.280 --> 01:07:05.280
And it was a very sobering moment for an entire group of guys that could have really handled themselves because they hadn't done the one, probably the most important thing, which is have a freaking conversation about what you want to happen, and then take it a step further, practice it.
01:07:05.599 --> 01:07:12.800
In addition to that, if you think you're a ninja on your own, or the individuals who've trained as teams, right?
01:07:13.119 --> 01:07:21.440
Who have been raised with another group of people to be above comparable level of proficiency, especially folks who've only worked as teams.
01:07:21.679 --> 01:07:26.400
There's this false sense of, well, my family just somehow knows.
01:07:26.639 --> 01:07:30.639
And it's very disturbing when you realize that they don't.
01:07:30.880 --> 01:07:32.400
And then guess what you have to do?
01:07:32.559 --> 01:07:34.880
You then have to divide your mental cognition.
01:07:35.039 --> 01:07:36.960
You have to divide your own attention.
01:07:37.199 --> 01:07:39.840
You don't have the bandwidth to do it.
01:07:40.000 --> 01:07:40.800
Literally.
01:07:41.039 --> 01:07:42.960
Literally, you don't have the bandwidth.
01:07:43.199 --> 01:07:48.320
So while I'm running around in my house, I've got a baby napping in one room, I've got a teenage daughter on the other.
01:07:48.400 --> 01:07:51.920
I've got a son on a couch, and all I'm praying is he doesn't get off that couch.
01:07:52.320 --> 01:07:52.559
Right?
01:07:52.719 --> 01:07:53.920
She has no idea.
01:07:54.079 --> 01:07:55.519
Little baby's got nothing.
01:07:55.599 --> 01:07:59.119
But this little dude right here, please don't make this worse.
01:07:59.280 --> 01:08:00.239
Please don't get involved.
01:08:00.400 --> 01:08:01.280
Please don't, right?
01:08:01.440 --> 01:08:02.320
I can't manage.
01:08:02.480 --> 01:08:04.480
You cannot physically manage.
01:08:04.719 --> 01:08:07.039
And if it's a spouse and it's only one, great.
01:08:07.199 --> 01:08:09.599
But what if you've got a spouse and two kids?
01:08:10.159 --> 01:08:14.159
Now you're gonna have to divide by four, you and them.
01:08:14.639 --> 01:08:17.119
It's not, it's not logistically possible.
01:08:17.279 --> 01:08:17.520
Yeah.
01:08:17.680 --> 01:08:19.039
It's just not a thing.
01:08:19.359 --> 01:08:24.479
So there's games to play, there's fun games that you can play that are are not terrifying, right?
01:08:24.560 --> 01:08:33.520
And I I prefer to make things fun because if you're laughing, you're learning, and the brain is absorbing faster, and our bodies remember faster and better.
01:08:33.760 --> 01:08:41.840
So when I had Esme, the youngest daughter, we started playing the whole like, because people love to approach a baby in a basket.
01:08:42.079 --> 01:08:45.199
And that is the wrong thing to do these days.
01:08:45.359 --> 01:08:52.399
Like, do not come near me with cute, beautiful little I make cute babies, cute babies, right?
01:08:52.560 --> 01:08:53.520
And be like, look at that.
01:08:53.680 --> 01:08:56.159
I'm like, no, you know, like back away slowly.
01:08:56.399 --> 01:08:57.359
Like, please don't.
01:08:57.600 --> 01:09:12.159
But you think you, you know, alone people don't violate certain social barriers, but with babies, they're very willing to violate certain proximal social barriers and get right up in uh and we don't like that.
01:09:12.880 --> 01:09:14.800
So I was very uncomfortable.
01:09:14.960 --> 01:09:21.039
It had been 13 years since I'd had a baby, and all of those instincts were on like hyperdrive.
01:09:21.199 --> 01:09:25.199
So I would go, we'd have to go get diapers because you do these things and all the stuff.
01:09:25.279 --> 01:09:31.760
So we'd go to Walmart, we'd get the things, and people would be approaching us while we were unpacking to see the baby.
01:09:32.079 --> 01:09:42.720
And if the baby wasn't there and someone approached you in that way in the parking lot, every self-defense-minded person is like, game on, like we are having a different kind of rapport right now and things change.
01:09:42.960 --> 01:09:50.640
But with the baby, it's like this gentle buffer to let them get access to you and you're distracted and you've got you're juggling too many things.
01:09:50.880 --> 01:09:53.199
So I started getting my cell phone out.
01:09:53.439 --> 01:09:59.760
And when we left the when we pushed the card out the door, I'd be like, okay, everybody, number one, where did we park?
01:10:00.319 --> 01:10:01.600
Do you remember where we parked?
01:10:01.680 --> 01:10:02.880
They'd have to remember where we parked.
01:10:02.960 --> 01:10:03.760
I'm like, okay, cool.
01:10:03.920 --> 01:10:05.920
Do we park nose in or do we back in?
01:10:06.159 --> 01:10:06.800
Okay, cool.
01:10:06.960 --> 01:10:08.079
All right, this is important.
01:10:08.159 --> 01:10:11.119
It was like recall, like I spy with my kids.
01:10:11.279 --> 01:10:12.800
And I was like, all right, let's see.
01:10:13.199 --> 01:10:20.800
Timer starts now, how long it takes before we're unloaded in the car, buckled in, and the doors are locked.
01:10:20.960 --> 01:10:22.800
Let's see how long it takes, right?
01:10:22.960 --> 01:10:24.079
And we made a game of it.
01:10:24.159 --> 01:10:31.760
And what started out as like disastrous five and a half minutes, you know, it was like, oh my gosh, we suck at this.
01:10:31.840 --> 01:10:33.600
Like, we're so bad we're all gonna die.
01:10:33.680 --> 01:10:34.720
You know, let's just try it again.
01:10:34.880 --> 01:10:37.600
So the next time we got, they started making a game of it.
01:10:37.680 --> 01:10:43.279
They were like, a kid, the teenager's like, all right, so you're gonna get the baby in because you're better at clicking her in than me.
01:10:43.439 --> 01:10:45.840
We're gonna pull the card up to the side like this.
01:10:46.079 --> 01:10:47.279
So now they're involved.
01:10:47.439 --> 01:10:49.039
Now they now it's a game, right?
01:10:49.119 --> 01:10:50.479
Now they're strategizing.
01:10:50.560 --> 01:10:52.640
They're not just doing what I'm telling them to do.
01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:56.000
They have they have ownership of a piece of it.
01:10:56.479 --> 01:11:05.840
And we've got to give our family members a little more credit because as the defender, we often want to know better than everyone and tell them what to do.
01:11:06.079 --> 01:11:14.399
If you rehearse these things in such a way that you can gamify it to a degree, we got it down to like two and a half minutes, right?
01:11:14.479 --> 01:11:14.880
At most.
01:11:14.960 --> 01:11:16.960
And that was booking it across there.
01:11:17.119 --> 01:11:27.199
I'd already popped the trunk, groceries were in, people were the priority, you know, like I was the last one in, slam the door, lock, two and a half, you know, it was awesome.
01:11:27.359 --> 01:11:30.640
But to be able to do that took some practice.
01:11:30.800 --> 01:11:30.960
Yeah.
01:11:31.119 --> 01:11:34.319
And it was like a well-oiled machine by the time we were done.
01:11:34.479 --> 01:11:39.680
And you and I both know, and many of our listeners and watchers will know, the value of a second.
01:11:39.920 --> 01:11:40.560
Huge.
01:11:41.039 --> 01:11:41.680
Huge.
01:11:41.920 --> 01:11:51.279
So to go from to having literally 50% reduction in the time from execution to completion of task.
01:11:51.359 --> 01:11:51.680
Yep.
01:11:51.920 --> 01:11:54.720
And I didn't have to tell my kids what to do.
01:11:54.880 --> 01:11:55.119
Yeah.
01:11:55.359 --> 01:12:04.640
They were playing their positions on the field so that I was allowed with confidence to keep my awareness and attention where it belonged, allowed me to do my job.
01:12:04.800 --> 01:12:15.920
So that's why after that attempted home invasion and the, you know, postpartum hormones, which are terrifying things, uh, put all that together in a concealed carry defense of minded mom.
01:12:16.079 --> 01:12:19.199
I was like, this is concealed carry is a family experience.
01:12:19.359 --> 01:12:22.720
And it absolutely involves more than just me.
01:12:22.880 --> 01:12:27.680
And I'm remiss to think that I'm ninja enough to do it all in the moment.
01:12:27.840 --> 01:12:32.159
Therefore, if I even think that for a hot second, I'm a liability to them.
01:12:32.319 --> 01:12:33.600
Then I don't get to be that.
01:12:34.000 --> 01:12:40.800
It's amazing how powerful a lesson that can be for the entire family, because I have three.
01:12:40.960 --> 01:12:42.479
They're all adults now.
01:12:42.640 --> 01:12:44.399
Uh my youngest is 20.
01:12:44.479 --> 01:12:46.560
He's in his uh junior year of college.
01:12:46.800 --> 01:12:53.439
But back a few years, I turned situational awareness, scanning, assessing, and really looking at people.
01:12:53.680 --> 01:12:55.279
Um, I made it a game for us.
01:12:55.439 --> 01:12:57.279
We'd go into a restaurant, I'd ask them some questions.
01:12:57.439 --> 01:12:59.760
We'd we'd go through a parking lot, who's sitting in vehicles?
01:12:59.920 --> 01:13:01.439
What are you give me a description, right?
01:13:01.600 --> 01:13:03.520
Just little things along the way.
01:13:03.840 --> 01:13:08.319
And I could always tell they knew a lesson was coming when I'd say, okay, everybody.
01:13:08.560 --> 01:13:13.199
And you and the kids would all roll their eyes and go, oh, here we go with another test.
01:13:13.439 --> 01:13:18.159
But it got to the point where they started to test me, which was the goal.
01:13:18.399 --> 01:13:20.079
It was not something to be avoided.
01:13:20.239 --> 01:13:23.680
It was the very thing I wanted them to do.
01:13:23.840 --> 01:13:30.079
Because if everybody's looking and everybody's scanning, it frees me up for other things, right?
01:13:30.159 --> 01:13:35.279
I'm not as cognitively just enmeshed in this one thing.
01:13:35.359 --> 01:13:36.640
I've got lots of eyes looking.
01:13:36.720 --> 01:13:38.000
I can't see everything.
01:13:38.239 --> 01:13:43.039
And I went into this was a Bass Pro shops to look for ammo with my son.
01:13:43.199 --> 01:13:56.880
And I was looking at the price of nine mil ammo on a box, and I was doing my best impression of an old guy, cussing about the expense of this nine mil ammunition because it had gone up very rapidly at this time.
01:13:57.039 --> 01:14:01.920
And I was basically cussing up a storm with this is too bloody expensive, this is ridiculous.
01:14:02.079 --> 01:14:04.960
And Aidan at this point was probably about seven or eight.
01:14:05.119 --> 01:14:07.840
And he said, Dad, close your eyes.
01:14:08.079 --> 01:14:11.279
And I thought, oh shit, he's testing me.
01:14:11.520 --> 01:14:13.840
And I did because that's what I've been doing to them.
01:14:14.000 --> 01:14:15.119
So I closed my eyes.
01:14:15.279 --> 01:14:20.079
He said, A man just walked past the aisle, and I want you to describe him.
01:14:20.239 --> 01:14:25.199
And I'm thinking in that moment of panic, well shit, was it on the left or the right?
01:14:25.359 --> 01:14:27.279
Because if it was on the left, I'm done.
01:14:27.439 --> 01:14:28.880
I didn't see a damn thing.
01:14:29.039 --> 01:14:31.600
But if it was on the right, I might have this.
01:14:31.840 --> 01:14:53.359
And so doing my best to maintain calm, I said, if you're talking about the gentleman who walked past the aisle on my right with the long, look like a raincoat and a walking stick he wasn't using, also had military-style shoes on, potentially boots, thinning hair, I estimate in his 60s, then that's who I saw.
01:14:53.600 --> 01:14:56.319
And I said, Is that who you mean?
01:14:56.560 --> 01:14:58.319
And he's like, Dad, you suck.
01:14:58.479 --> 01:14:58.720
Right?
01:14:58.880 --> 01:15:03.840
Because he but the point of this is he tested me.
01:15:04.079 --> 01:15:06.399
And I was, I have never been proud of.
01:15:06.560 --> 01:15:13.039
But right after that, I gave him a little head rub, you know, fussed his hair and said, Nice try, Junior, you know, give him a little kick on the hiny.
01:15:13.199 --> 01:15:14.479
I'm like, let's get out of here.
01:15:14.640 --> 01:15:17.039
But as he walked off, I'm like, oh thank God.
01:15:17.279 --> 01:15:21.920
Because the relief that he yes, that he hadn't caught me out.
01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:32.319
And at the same time, the moment I was so proud that he had felt confident enough and observant enough in his environment to test me was beautiful.
01:15:32.479 --> 01:15:45.039
And it's, I think it's something that is often not utilized enough in that you turn safety and awareness and just being in tune with your environment into a family endeavor.
01:15:45.279 --> 01:15:55.920
If it's approached the right way, as you said, it's a game and it's fun, they will join you and probably exceed every single one of your expectations, as this was the case with him.
01:15:56.239 --> 01:16:02.000
And it's really important when you're doing that, that you're building, you're building awareness without building fear.
01:16:02.319 --> 01:16:02.960
Yes.
01:16:03.279 --> 01:16:09.119
Because where I see this go awry is well-intentioned parents are like, so how many exits are there?
01:16:09.279 --> 01:16:09.760
Where are they?
01:16:09.920 --> 01:16:10.720
How far away are we?
01:16:10.960 --> 01:16:12.960
And the these kids are freaking out.
01:16:13.039 --> 01:16:15.039
They're like, is the world gonna catch fire?
01:16:15.279 --> 01:16:22.720
Like, I don't know, you know, and so you're you're dissuading them from participation if there's a fear factor to it.
01:16:22.960 --> 01:16:25.039
So there's other games you can play, right?
01:16:25.119 --> 01:16:37.680
And again, these level up as children's cognitive abilities expand, but there's the I spy version, and you can do the people places things conversation, but it shouldn't always be the obvious where are the exits.
01:16:37.840 --> 01:16:44.479
It should be different types of things because yes, those are important, but we're really preparing for people.
01:16:45.359 --> 01:16:47.760
We're preparing for humans, right?
01:16:48.079 --> 01:16:54.079
So the way a game that I'll play uh with my guys is who's the happiest person here?
01:16:54.960 --> 01:16:56.960
So you're looking for a demeanor.
01:16:57.600 --> 01:17:06.159
And what that requires is they understand they have to get the baseline of the room, and then they're looking for the anomaly above or below the baseline.
01:17:06.319 --> 01:17:08.479
So who's the happiest person here?
01:17:08.640 --> 01:17:10.159
Who's the saddest person here?
01:17:10.319 --> 01:17:14.880
These are basic emotions, you know, who looks angry, right?
01:17:14.960 --> 01:17:22.960
And of course we they have to whisper, but they also can't point, so they have to describe, so they have to use defining characteristics and features.
01:17:23.199 --> 01:17:25.760
So they're wearing jeans and a blue plaid shirt.
01:17:25.840 --> 01:17:32.079
See how we're just not a man over there, but you know, proximity, relationship to other things.
01:17:32.239 --> 01:17:39.119
They have to describe without saying that guy over there doesn't work, or that lady at the table doesn't work.
01:17:39.199 --> 01:17:42.159
We need to be able, I spy with purpose.
01:17:42.319 --> 01:17:44.800
And so you know it's whole body demeanor hands.
01:17:45.039 --> 01:17:49.600
So you can start backing out who here has oh, who here is wearing a watch.
01:17:49.840 --> 01:17:57.920
So, you know, you start teaching them to, without telling them what you're doing, yeah, you know, defining baseline, finding demeanor, assessing anomalies.
01:17:58.000 --> 01:18:06.479
You're not look, you're not telling them, you're gamifying it in a way that trains them to intuitively start recognizing these things.
01:18:06.720 --> 01:18:12.000
And as they get older, then it's like, well, that couple's having a fight, you know, that's a first date.
01:18:12.159 --> 01:18:22.319
And so you can start leveling things up and start reading dynamics and you know that down to the point where uh and then you have to trust them.
01:18:22.560 --> 01:18:35.359
So I've always had a deal with my kids that if we're ever anywhere and they're getting a they're they're feeling this is wrong, that they need to tell me, and we will literally abandon ship and leave.
01:18:35.520 --> 01:18:35.840
Yeah.
01:18:36.000 --> 01:18:36.479
Right?
01:18:36.720 --> 01:18:40.960
Um no, and it's gonna happen.
01:18:41.039 --> 01:18:43.600
If you teach them this and train them this, it's gonna happen.
01:18:43.680 --> 01:18:46.800
So I went to a grocery store to run a few quick errands with my kid.
01:18:46.960 --> 01:18:50.880
We were supposed to get things and go wherever the heck we were going, doesn't even matter.
01:18:51.039 --> 01:18:58.960
But I needed to get these things, and I noticed this guy in a white t-shirt and a blue plaid, short sleeve shirt and saggy jeans, right?
01:18:59.439 --> 01:19:04.560
Didn't look like really anything's different, but there was it was off, right?
01:19:04.640 --> 01:19:05.279
You know what I mean?
01:19:05.439 --> 01:19:17.920
You just see that and something in you, and intuition is dangerous, gut feelings are dangerous, but the brain went, you know, there's a twitch, there's a glitch in the matrix here.
01:19:18.079 --> 01:19:18.479
Uh-huh.
01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:28.000
Well, what I didn't, and I'm cueing on this person and I'm letting him walk in ahead because I don't want to go in ahead of him and him behind me, and I want to keep eyes, right?
01:19:28.159 --> 01:19:33.920
Well, I didn't recognize that my 12-year-old daughter at the time cued in just as hard as I did.
01:19:34.239 --> 01:19:42.640
And we're going through the produce section, and he's there too, and he glances back a few times, and she's like, Mommy, I don't, I really we need to go.
01:19:42.880 --> 01:19:44.319
And I was like, bathroom?
01:19:44.479 --> 01:19:46.479
Like, you know, because you're a mom, you're a parent, you know.
01:19:46.560 --> 01:19:51.439
So she's like, No, I just have this bad feeling about the man in the blue shirt, and I really, I really want to leave.
01:19:51.520 --> 01:19:56.000
And she was tearing up, and I was like, We left the cart, we literally left.
01:19:56.159 --> 01:19:56.399
Yeah.
01:19:56.560 --> 01:20:00.640
And I was like, Okay, we queued in on the exact same person.
01:20:00.800 --> 01:20:02.159
I didn't tell her anything.
01:20:02.560 --> 01:20:03.039
Anything.
01:20:03.439 --> 01:20:10.079
I didn't give her any information where by which I could have biased her perception of the world.
01:20:10.399 --> 01:20:18.159
So apparently those I spy games, plus having the trust that I would not diminish her perception.
01:20:18.479 --> 01:20:18.960
Right.
01:20:19.520 --> 01:20:20.399
Was huge.
01:20:20.560 --> 01:20:23.520
It was that was a huge moment for us.
01:20:23.760 --> 01:20:30.159
Again, you're building rapport with your team, and your team isn't armed, so they've got to be assets to you.
01:20:30.399 --> 01:20:30.800
Correct.
01:20:30.960 --> 01:20:33.439
And they have to trust you as much as you trust them.
01:20:33.760 --> 01:20:34.000
Yes.
01:20:34.319 --> 01:20:38.000
So there's that's a that's a a way to gamify it.
01:20:38.239 --> 01:20:43.680
Uh in my defensive handgun class, and I weave this into take a seat and to everywhere that I can.
01:20:44.079 --> 01:20:48.239
There's the after action scan and assess pet peeve, right?
01:20:48.319 --> 01:20:50.560
You know, do you have pet peeves in the training space?
01:20:50.640 --> 01:20:53.199
This is, you know, I can't do the hair flip.
01:20:53.279 --> 01:20:54.079
I don't have hair.
01:20:54.159 --> 01:20:56.640
But you know, if I did, that ponytail would be going crazy.
01:20:56.800 --> 01:20:59.840
Like it's just it's gotten a little better with time.
01:21:00.000 --> 01:21:03.119
But when I first got into this space, I was like, Are you guys okay?
01:21:03.279 --> 01:21:04.239
Like, what are you doing?
01:21:04.399 --> 01:21:09.279
You know, like it's quite the dance routine you got there, you know, like I don't know what's happening.
01:21:09.439 --> 01:21:16.239
But this very choreographed activity and no information is being processed.
01:21:16.399 --> 01:21:16.720
Period.
01:21:16.800 --> 01:21:21.119
You're literally going through a cool kid little jig on the range.
01:21:21.199 --> 01:21:23.760
And uh that that was weird.
01:21:23.920 --> 01:21:28.000
So I was introduced to that after I was introduced to the shoot house.
01:21:28.399 --> 01:21:33.760
So I saw the shoot house world because I a very unconventional upbringing in guns.
01:21:33.920 --> 01:21:41.520
So I did not go through this in the way most people normal, normal peop when you're weird, you just get to do weird things, right?
01:21:41.600 --> 01:21:42.880
It's just how it works out.
01:21:43.119 --> 01:21:48.560
So I saw this stuff after the shoot house, and I'm like, that is you didn't assess a darn thing.
01:21:48.720 --> 01:21:49.920
How's your neck, right?
01:21:50.000 --> 01:22:10.399
Like there's so when I was asked to teach the before, the during, and a moment of the after, because again, I know where I want to cap put bookends on the information that I'm providing people so I don't misrepresent the moment and time that I'm defining for them and cultivating the work we're doing within it.
01:22:10.560 --> 01:22:13.920
Yeah, there is you can't just stop after the drill is done.
01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:23.600
There is processing that needs to continue, or the human brain shuts off and big bad things enter stage left for human patterns of behavior.
01:22:23.840 --> 01:22:28.079
So you do have to integrate owning the world around you.
01:22:28.319 --> 01:22:34.000
And then where I stop action is what you would do with the information you just garnered, right?
01:22:34.079 --> 01:22:37.199
That's where I will press pause on the storyline.
01:22:37.439 --> 01:22:39.600
Because it could be a my myriad of things.
01:22:39.760 --> 01:22:46.880
And I do not like pretending a 911 call or gamifying, you know, with a nonchalant attitude, what would come next.
01:22:47.039 --> 01:22:51.359
So cut cut script to write about, process your information.
01:22:51.760 --> 01:22:57.600
So the way I've broken it down for the adults in the room is what are you looking for?
01:22:57.760 --> 01:23:02.880
And it's always it's who can help me, who can hurt me, where am I going, and where are my people?
01:23:03.039 --> 01:23:09.279
That's that's the four framework that my civilian brain chews on when I'm looking at this concept.
01:23:09.520 --> 01:23:12.640
So you're looking the scan for additional threats thing.
01:23:12.800 --> 01:23:13.920
I mean, come on.
01:23:14.159 --> 01:23:17.760
Like really, like that doesn't really apply to the grocery store.
01:23:18.560 --> 01:23:29.600
Scan for additional threats, you know, because everybody that moves is gonna and makes you feel a little scared is likely to be misinterpreted as something else to point your gun at.
01:23:30.079 --> 01:23:32.399
And you don't get to do that, right?
01:23:33.039 --> 01:23:41.760
And most people don't have never been asked or called upon to speak in an unscripted, unrehearsed way with a gun in their hand.
01:23:42.159 --> 01:23:43.600
It's a wild moment.
01:23:43.920 --> 01:23:56.159
So we play this game where at the end of the activity, you follow the target to the ground, because if you did your job, 9.8 meters per second is real, you know, and poop, they should change shape and you know, be somewhere else.
01:23:56.239 --> 01:23:57.840
So you gotta figure out where that is.
01:23:58.000 --> 01:23:59.680
And then it's pick your chin up.
01:23:59.840 --> 01:24:05.680
Do you know how amazing it is just to have shooters lift their chin to do the scan and assess?
01:24:05.920 --> 01:24:09.760
Most people do like the secret ninja squirrel thing, and I'm like, you can't see anything there.
01:24:09.920 --> 01:24:17.680
Just pick your chin up, open up your airway, breathe a little, like oxygen is your friend, get your full field of view, just pick your chin up.
01:24:17.920 --> 01:24:19.920
And then they have to do something for me.
01:24:20.079 --> 01:24:26.079
And again, we're gamifying a skill to cultivate the underlying process that they would apply for real, right?
01:24:26.159 --> 01:24:26.479
Yeah.
01:24:26.720 --> 01:24:38.159
There are gonna be things in the environment as you take in the world in a systematic way that get your attention, and they're gonna be the things that stick out, they're gonna be the anomalies in the space.
01:24:38.399 --> 01:24:42.399
And the anomalies in the space, you have to say it out loud.
01:24:42.560 --> 01:24:48.079
But the rules of the game are you cannot say barrel, fire extinguisher, right?
01:24:48.159 --> 01:24:49.680
You can't say those things.
01:24:49.840 --> 01:24:51.680
You have to describe them to me.
01:24:51.840 --> 01:24:52.720
What color are they?
01:24:52.880 --> 01:24:53.520
What shape are they?
01:24:53.600 --> 01:24:55.439
Where are their approximate dimensions?
01:24:55.600 --> 01:24:59.439
What are they, where are they in space in relation to other things?
01:24:59.600 --> 01:25:03.279
But if I hear you call it out by name, you're out, right?
01:25:03.600 --> 01:25:07.439
Defining characteristics, features, locations of the object.
01:25:07.760 --> 01:25:15.439
It is like every sh and you owe me three things in front of you, and one thing back there, and one thing back there.
01:25:15.520 --> 01:25:29.920
You've got to take in five vital pieces of information and describe them out loud, like you are barking commands at me like I'm a toddler running into traffic, like I've got to hear you over the gunfire.
01:25:30.800 --> 01:25:32.960
It's like people don't speak English anymore.
01:25:33.279 --> 01:25:34.399
Words are hard.
01:25:34.640 --> 01:25:36.880
It's like words are really hard.
01:25:37.279 --> 01:25:40.640
Yeah, because cognitively they're not functioning like that.
01:25:41.119 --> 01:25:45.119
No, because they're so locked into did I get my hits?
01:25:45.520 --> 01:25:46.159
Yeah.
01:25:46.560 --> 01:25:48.640
And they're so locked into the wrong things.
01:25:48.800 --> 01:25:50.960
So we pay lip service to a task.
01:25:51.039 --> 01:25:55.359
We're not adequately teaching people the skill sets to perform them and lock it in.
01:25:55.520 --> 01:25:58.079
And I'm like, yeah, you're like, yeah, that there was this guy.
01:25:58.159 --> 01:26:00.960
Okay, that's 50% of the global population.
01:26:01.119 --> 01:26:03.119
How about you give me a little more than that, right?
01:26:03.279 --> 01:26:08.079
How about you start looking for things about that person that are memorable, right?
01:26:08.239 --> 01:26:11.439
Defining characteristics and features that you could describe.
01:26:11.600 --> 01:26:16.000
So this very benign range game of recall, right?
01:26:16.800 --> 01:26:19.439
Articulation, memorization, and recall.
01:26:19.920 --> 01:26:25.920
And I'll play it for them, and they're only allowed to look at me while I'm describing the world behind them.
01:26:26.159 --> 01:26:35.279
And they turn around and they can instantly pick out the exact objects that I described because I gave them information with which to know exactly what it was.
01:26:35.600 --> 01:26:37.840
So I'm like, what's more important?
01:26:38.239 --> 01:26:44.399
A guy or a guy with a torn left earlobe, a tattoo on his wrist, and a red t-shirt, right?
01:26:44.640 --> 01:26:46.479
How about a guy with short hair?
01:26:46.640 --> 01:26:47.439
No, that doesn't work.
01:26:47.520 --> 01:26:48.479
How about a guy with a beard?
01:26:48.560 --> 01:26:49.680
Yeah, you can shave it off.
01:26:49.760 --> 01:26:52.479
How about defining characteristics?
01:26:52.880 --> 01:26:53.199
Okay.
01:26:53.439 --> 01:27:03.680
And there's a bunch of other ways you can play that with like human recognition, like what movies, what movie character or television actor does that person instantly remind you of?
01:27:03.920 --> 01:27:06.000
That's a really great one, right?
01:27:06.239 --> 01:27:13.760
Because that's a very easy way to superimpose height build, aesthetic, facial features onto somebody else, right?
01:27:13.840 --> 01:27:14.720
That's a very easy one.
01:27:15.039 --> 01:27:16.640
There's a bunch of games like that.
01:27:16.800 --> 01:27:28.640
But from a little kid version all the way up to an adult version, there are ways to start training that have nothing to do with the gun, though the gun will be an integral part of the experience.
01:27:29.039 --> 01:27:39.279
What I love about this entire conversation is you've taken firearms training beyond simply just the fundamentals of shooting well and moved it into the reality of life, right?
01:27:39.359 --> 01:27:51.279
The person, the family, the life, the surroundings, the environment, and encapsulating a more holistic approach to everything that's actually going to be important in a use of force encounter.
01:27:51.439 --> 01:27:56.960
And even by utilizing the people that are with you to hopefully avoid you ever having to do that.
01:27:57.119 --> 01:28:12.319
Because if your team is playing an active role in addition to your fundamental understanding of the world and how you read it, and they're helping guide you away from a situation that you you don't need to be in if you can see it coming early enough, that's the win.
01:28:12.560 --> 01:28:21.039
And I think too often with people who carry a firearm, they're like, well, every problem I come into contact with, I have a hammer and that's a nail, I'll just shoot it.
01:28:21.199 --> 01:28:28.960
You're like, how does about the 98% of soft skills that you and your family and your team could utilize to never get in that situation?
01:28:29.039 --> 01:28:29.279
Yeah.
01:28:29.439 --> 01:28:30.720
I love that approach.
01:28:30.960 --> 01:28:31.920
I really do.
01:28:32.239 --> 01:28:38.239
So where would somebody um reach out, contact, follow, join, or get a class with you, including me?
01:28:38.560 --> 01:28:38.720
Sure.
01:28:38.960 --> 01:28:40.640
Come a nerd out with me anytime.
01:28:41.039 --> 01:28:42.000
That would be great.
01:28:42.720 --> 01:28:43.439
I love it.
01:28:43.600 --> 01:28:45.279
Um, I'm very easy to find.
01:28:45.439 --> 01:28:46.880
I just made my name my brand.
01:28:46.960 --> 01:28:49.840
So TatianaWitlock.com is my website.
01:28:50.000 --> 01:28:54.000
I have a training schedule that traverses the country year-round.
01:28:54.239 --> 01:28:58.960
I also am honored to be invited to train at TACCON next year, so I'll be there as well.
01:28:59.039 --> 01:29:02.880
If you're gonna we'll go roll around on the ground and throw chairs like champions.
01:29:02.960 --> 01:29:04.479
Like I do those.
01:29:06.159 --> 01:29:08.000
Yeah, it's a it's a good one.
01:29:08.159 --> 01:29:15.199
The gravel at the Dallas Pistol Club was a little rough for the the you know, SH exclamation point tea happens class.
01:29:15.439 --> 01:29:23.119
So we we might get yoga mats out really this time around, because it was a little, we all got roll bruised up rolling around in the ground for that one.
01:29:23.199 --> 01:29:25.680
Uh and we always break a couple of rental chairs.
01:29:25.760 --> 01:29:28.800
It's just it's already part of the insurance policy.
01:29:28.880 --> 01:29:32.640
But so you can find me at TACON, you can find me teaching my own programs.
01:29:32.800 --> 01:29:37.680
I am the director of training nationally for a girl and a gun, uh, women's shooting organization.
01:29:37.840 --> 01:29:58.479
And so you can find me kind of by default through chapters across the United States because I work very closely with our leadership and our instructor group to certify instructors and ensure that the content information that's reaching our 35,000 plus members and counting nationwide is congruent with our set of standards and uh techniques and procedures.
01:29:58.640 --> 01:30:00.239
So that's another resource.
01:30:00.479 --> 01:30:04.640
And then, you know, uh conversations like this are a great way to do it as well.
01:30:04.800 --> 01:30:06.479
My social media is my name.
01:30:06.640 --> 01:30:08.000
Again, I didn't try to make it hard.
01:30:08.079 --> 01:30:09.680
It's I'm a Google search away.
01:30:09.760 --> 01:30:14.479
You'll see a lot of like, I'm one of the lucky ones who had a life before the internet.
01:30:14.960 --> 01:30:17.359
So it's really, if you Google me, it's not weird.
01:30:17.439 --> 01:30:17.840
It's okay.
01:30:17.920 --> 01:30:18.640
It's totally fine.
01:30:18.800 --> 01:30:21.359
It's all gun stuff and the occasional cute baby picture.
01:30:21.520 --> 01:30:21.760
That's it.
01:30:21.840 --> 01:30:23.520
You know, that's what you're gonna find.
01:30:24.880 --> 01:30:25.600
That's perfect.
01:30:25.760 --> 01:30:26.319
Well, thank you.
01:30:26.399 --> 01:30:36.960
It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today, and I really appreciate the framework of stuff you've delivered here to help people not just become better shooters, but more prepared people in general.
01:30:37.119 --> 01:30:37.840
It's been awesome.
01:30:37.920 --> 01:30:38.560
Thank you.
01:30:38.880 --> 01:30:39.760
Thank you so much.
01:30:40.000 --> 01:30:42.560
All right, thanks to everyone who tuned into this episode.
01:30:42.640 --> 01:30:46.000
And depending on what platform you're on, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe.
01:30:46.159 --> 01:30:52.560
Your support means the world to us, and it helps us keep bringing guests onto the platform that you want to hear from.
01:30:52.640 --> 01:30:54.000
But for now, that's the end of the episode.
01:30:54.079 --> 01:30:54.800
Thanks for tuning in.
01:30:54.880 --> 01:30:56.159
We'll see you on the next one.
01:30:56.319 --> 01:30:57.520
Cheers so much.