As you probably know when you give out a physical description in a report, over the radio or on the computer it should follow a certain format. Where I come from the sequence is race, gender, age, height, weight, hair, eyes, and any distinguishing marks. Clothing descriptions should be as detailed as possible and start from the top and work their way down.
With that short refresher in mind, give me the description of the threat you shot the last time you practiced with your firearm.
If your response is, “It was a target” you’re missing a valuable training opportunity.
If you described it as a (pick your color) humanoid shaped blob with scoring areas, you have missed a training opportunity.
If you describe the image of the human being on the paper target you are halfway to where you should be.
Each time you shoot your weapon, pistol, rifle, or shotgun I want you to imagine an actual human being who poses a deadly threat to yourself or others.
Visualize a variety of different people as threats — males and females of different ages and races. If you train your body to respond to only one visualized stimulus you’re failing to train for the variety of people you will deal with in the real world.
In the words of Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman:
“If, however, our warriors are still using blank, man-shaped silhouettes, they are being conditioned to shoot anyone who jumps up in front of them. Or they may hesitate when a real armed opponent — complete with clothing, a face and a gun--pops up in front of them, because the target they trained with did not have these features. A far superior training tool is the photorealistic target. When one of these pops up, revealing a life-size photo of a man holding his wallet, the trainee does not shoot. When the next one pops up with a picture of a man holding a gun, the trainee reacts to the deadly threat by instantly firing. Warriors don’t shoot bulls eyes. Warriors don’t shoot silhouettes. Warriors shoot lawful, legitimate, deadly-force threats. With this preferred method, warriors develop conditioned reflexes using superior, dynamic, realistic training to ingrain the proper response.”
