I need to practice so I won’t look bad when I get there. That’s the mindset of most every adult man when preparing for their first professional firearms training course. I will fully admit that I fell into that category forty years ago when I was anxiously awaiting the date for my first training class to arrive on the calendar. Being only nineteen years old at the time, I had to borrow a handgun to take out behind the barn and practice shooting.
Of course, having had no formal training up to the point, it’s fair to wonder what exactly I was practicing. I suppose I was practicing putting ammunition in the gun and then pressing the trigger until the gun made a loud noise.
A veteran Small Arms and Tactics Instructor would describe such behavior as “The perfect way to create training scars without actually training.” Training scars or bad habits are the bane of professional trainers as they must spend as much time correcting the bad habits as they do teaching the correct way to do things.
Unconscious Incompetence
Part of my first professional training course was being taught the four steps of learning; unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence.
Unconscious incompetence is the barrier that must be broken before a person can actually begin to learn. The state of UI is one where a person doesn’t even know what they don’t know. People in a state of UI say things like, “I know how to shoot a gun. What could I learn from some training course?” There are also those who boldly state, “How hard can it be? You just point the gun and pull the trigger.”
The second statement is a near perfect encapsulation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. That’s a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills.
Conscious Incompetence
Conscious incompetence is where every student must be, from a psychological standpoint, in order to get them to voluntarily enroll in professional training. As an instructor, as long as your students are in a CI mindset, they can be taught. CI, or realizing that you don’t know everything, but are willing to learn, is the open-minded state trainers are looking for.
Sadly, the reality of our world is that getting people — both men and women — to shift from the UI to the CI is far more difficult than getting them from the conscious incompetence to the conscious competence stage. In the CI state, a person will do some research and then sign up for a class.
First Class Mystery
Let’s go back to the original issue of practicing without even knowing what you should be doing. Back in the old days, pre-internet, we used to just mimic what they saw in the black and white photos in dead tree gun magazines or paperback books.
Today, after signing up for a class, modern individuals will go to the internet and start watching “training videos” of dubious origin. They’ll key in on whichever videos seemed “cool” and then start practicing what they saw on the video so they don’t look bad when they get to the class.
Most professional training programs do indeed have detailed websites where prospective students can go and read a description of what will be expected of them. Despite that, the reality that instructors face is that students will gloss over the description and instructions on the website. Even if they take the time to read or watch a “Welcome to Our School” video, the temptation to mimic what they see on the internet is strong, if not overwhelming.
Another issue for new students isn’t really understanding what’s expected of them or, just as often, they assume that they know what’s going to be expected of them based upon their pre-existing bias.
Removing the Mystery and Building a Foundation
From the perspective of the trainers and the school personnel, they must understand that merely telling students not to watch internet videos or not to go out and practice on their own before attending training isn’t enough. The psychological desire of the student — men, you are the biggest culprits — to look good when they arrive at training is just too powerful. Women, you aren’t off the hook. Women are the ones who decide they need to lose weight before they start going to the gym to exercise.
One of the teaching tools I learned many years ago was that it’s often not enough to prohibit a behavior, you need to substitute a positive behavior for a negative one. We see this technique used when people are trying to break a negative habit like smoking cigarettes or drinking six sodas a day. I had a good friend who was in the habit of drinking three or four cans of Mountain Dew a day. One can of Mt. Dew is 170 calories and 46 grams of sugar. What my friend did was switch to cans of Rehab Tea; 25 calories per and 3 grams of sugar. He lost a considerable amount of weight by making that one change.
Getting back to the topic of firearms training and helping people who are getting ready to take their first class, how can we apply the technique of substituting a positive habit for a negative one?
I took my first professional firearm training instructors course in the Marine Corps in 1990. However, back then they had the sanctified 3-Ring Binder and you didn’t deviate from it. Now that I have the freedom to do whatever I see fit, I’m able to make what I believe are positive improvements in the learning process.
Distance Learning: Get Started Before Your Arrive
With the tireless efforts of my crew, we at Student of the Gun University created a Home Study/Distance Learning Program to mesh with our in-person/residency training. We didn’t create distance learning, we built a program to remove the psychological desire to search the internet for videos and develop bad habits.
For instance, when a student enrolls in the Martial Application of the Pistol P201 course, they immediately get access to the distance learning program which incorporates written lessons, video tutorials, quizzes and tests to ensure comprehension. A physical book is also shipped to the student as an added way to reinforce what’s expected of them and to help remove the mystery.
Over a period of three years or so, we have interviewed the students who have taken our residency training regarding the home study program and their experience with it. To a person, they have all responded that engaging in distance learning helped them to understand what was going to be expected of them and removed the mystery.
From the aspect of the instructor, having students who have already gone through the home study is a tremendous benefit. When you use certain terms or explain certain techniques, you’re reinforcing what the student has already read or watched. It’s not the first time they are hearing or seeing the subject. That leads to a better learning experience for everyone involved.
Parting Shots
Even if you have chosen a training course that doesn’t offer a distance learning component, one of the best things you can do is thoroughly read the course description and gear list provided by the school on their website. If, after reading, you still have questions, email or call them for clarification.
As tempting as it is, I would strongly suggest that you resist the urge to get online and then mimic what you see in various youtube videos. This is particularly important if you haven’t taken professionally structured training before. The bad habits you develop by trying to train yourself before you go to class are only going to slow down your learning process.
The most important attribute of any student is to arrive with an open-mind and willingness to learn and experience new things. Couple that with the recommended gear list. Be sure that you bring everything the instructor expects you to have, and you should have a good experience.
Paul G. Markel is a combat decorated United States Marine veteran. He is also the founder of Student the Gun University and has been teaching Small Arms & Tactics to military personnel, police officers, and citizens for over three decades.