We regularly emphasize the importance of training, but we do not point out often enough that training itself does not provide every answer. Training can offer a frame of reference, a technique, a better method, or a way to perform a process. Most general training, however, cannot provide a complete solution to every problem. Real problems rarely fit neatly inside a box of known variables or follow a script.
A Technique Is Not a Complete System
In a recent ModCast, we joked about people becoming excited about taking training and performing bounding exercises. Those exercises represent one small part of a complete working skillset, and they typically demonstrate one way of doing things. Enthusiasm for bounding can obscure an important limitation: it is not applicable to most people because most people do not work within a trained team environment.
Apply Training Instead of Adopting It as Identity
Relevant training can establish a performance baseline and provide lessons that help you recognize and address variables more effectively. You take the training, evaluate it, and determine how to implement it. You may not use all of it because not every method works equally well for every person, environment, or mission.
Unfortunately, some students treat the training they receive as the answer. It becomes part of their identity instead of a tool to use when appropriate. A better approach is to seek varied instruction, adopt the most useful elements, and retain the unused material as additional reference points or contingency options.
Look Beyond Training on Rails
Much training is presented on rails. Students focus on the narrow application of the material without examining the concepts beyond the core lesson or considering factors the course did not address. Dogma develops when people treat one course as the option instead of an option.
CQB, room-clearing, and shooting courses can place blinders on students when those students fail to consider conditions outside the content and context presented. Taking a basic first-aid course and then believing you are a capable medic illustrates the same problem. It takes far more than one class and some practice to become effective and proficient in a complex discipline.
Build Skills That Work Together
Consider each class a building block intended for a sturdy structure. Every block can provide value, and the blocks can support a common goal when placed correctly. Your actions—based on how you interpret your environment and situation—determine that placement. A solid foundation of skills and tactics, used effectively and appropriately, creates a more complete defensive system.
Remain a Perpetual Student
As you take classes that offer different perspectives, compare their lessons with your own experience and with events in the real world. That comparison helps you develop ways to approach realistic problems with the skillset you are building. As you learn about new problems, assess possible solutions and determine how they fit within your growing system.
This is a continual process. It is why many of us consider ourselves perpetual students. We do not stop taking classes, learning, assessing ourselves, or evaluating the world in which we live.
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