Mike Brewer

Sorry.

Didn't mean to sidetrack things.

TTEscrima

Dude I'm new here and even I have seen the EXTREME MMA bias on this board, people without any idea of the needs of a soldier can be seen ruining threads and spouting opinions of how these people ought to train. One thread in particular advocated that a MMA man armed with a knife was more better prepared for a fight than any FMA person and would beat the FMA stylist. BS like that is why Boar accused people of agendas, any other time someone would have pointed out its the man not the art, but it suited the MMA agenda to allow BS like that to fly, and it increased MMA hype and thus participation making it more profitable to those invested in it, yet the argument was flawed and those making it knew it, that made it disingenuous and for a profit, thus an agenda was apparent, Boar just had the balls to point it out. Boar used to copy and paste threads to guys all over the world on active duty, usually he figured we just needed a laugh other times he was astounded by what was being advocated. I know now some of them were from here. I know he wasn't alone is his disbelief of the BS people were posting because some of them are actually used as a whats wrong with this report/line of thinking in training now.

Mike Brewer

Sorry.

Didn't mean to sidetrack things.

And by the way...that very same bias exists in styles like Wing Chun, various forms of Karate, Wrestling, JKD, and yes...Tai Chi.

But just because it exists in some or even many doesn't mean it's a view shared by everyone.

jubaji

LOL! This is exactly in fitting with your M.O.

Someone teaches you a few words and you then try to prance around like an unimpeachable authority. You really are BoringSpear-like (hmmm...)

Behaviorism hasn't been taken as gospel since the 60s, dude. Not so simple.

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jubaji

Maybe you missed it, but BoringSpear wasn't just talking about military action (as you are so obviously trying to specify the discussion to make your 'point' safer from refutation), but anything that happens anytime anywhere on 'da street.'

Nice try though.

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TTEscrima

It's not a new word, it isn't a newconcept and it's CURRENTLY used to train LEO's and Soldiers. Once again Jubaji is jabbering away in a thread he hasn't got a fucking clue about. I notice he hasn't provided much input in the wrestlers corner though, he asks for your thoughts and input and avoids commenting more than a sentence there too, think about it, he doesn't know enough to discuss wrestling intelligently either. All from a guy who didn't know the the first lesson from his supposed teacher. He hasn't ever served in the military and he can't explain the most basic concepts of Tai Chi but he's all over this thread and yet he has no time for wrestlers corner, hmmm.

"Trained to Kill"

"Operant Conditioning

The third method the military uses is operant conditioning, a very powerful procedure of stimulus-response, stimulus-response. A benign example is the use of flight simulators to train pilots. An airline pilot in training sits in front of a flight simulator for endless hours; when a particular warning light goes on, he is taught to react in a certain way. When another warning light goes on, a different reaction is required. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response. One day the pilot is actually flying a jumbo jet; the plane is going down, and 300 people are screaming behind him. He is wetting his seat cushion, and he is scared out of his wits; but he does the right thing. Why? Because he has been conditioned to respond reflexively to this particular crisis.

When people are frightened or angry, they will do what they have been conditioned to do. In fire drills, children learn to file out of the school in orderly fashion. One day there is a real fire, and they are frightened out of their wits; but they do exactly what they have been conditioned to do, and it saves their lives.

The military and law enforcement community have made killing a conditioned response. This has substantially raised the firing rate on the modern battlefield. Whereas infantry training in World War II used bull's-eye targets, now soldiers learn to fire at realistic, man-shaped silhouettes that pop into their field of view. That is the stimulus. The trainees have only a split second to engage the target. The conditioned response is to shoot the target, and then it drops. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response: soldiers or police officers experience hundreds of repetitions. Later, when soldiers are on the battlefield or a police officer is walking a beat and somebody pops up with a gun, they will shoot reflexively and shoot to kill. We know that 75 to 80 percent of the shooting on the modern battlefield is the result of this kind of stimulus-response training.

Now, if you're a little troubled by that, how much more should we be troubled by the fact that every time a child plays an interactive point-and-shoot video game, he is learning the exact same conditioned reflex and motor skills.

I was an expert witness in a murder case in South Carolina offering mitigation for a kid who was facing the death penalty. I tried to explain to the jury that interactive video games had conditioned him to shoot a gun to kill. He had spent hundreds of dollars on video games learning to point and shoot, point and shoot. One day he and his buddy decided it would be fun to rob the local convenience store. They walked in, and he pointed a snub-nosed .38 pistol at the clerk's head. The clerk turned to look at him, and the defendant shot reflexively from about six feet. The bullet hit the clerk right between the eyes--which is a pretty remarkable shot with that weapon at that range--and killed this father of two. Afterward, we asked the boy what happened and why he did it. It clearly was not part of the plan to kill the guy--it was being videotaped from six different directions. He said, "I don't know. It was a mistake. It wasn't supposed to happen."

In the military and law enforcement worlds, the right option is often not to shoot. But you never, never put your quarter in that video machine with the intention of not shooting. There is always some stimulus that sets you off. And when he was excited, and his heart rate went up, and vasoconstriction closed his forebrain down, this young man did exactly what he was conditioned to do: he reflexively pulled the trigger, shooting accurately just like all those times he played video games.

This process is extraordinarily powerful and frightening. The result is ever more homemade pseudo-sociopaths who kill reflexively and show no remorse. Our children are learning to kill and learning to like it; and then we have the audacity to say, "Oh my goodness, what's wrong?"

One of the boys allegedly involved in the Jonesboro shootings (and they are just boys) had a fair amount of experience shooting real guns. The other one was a nonshooter and, to the best of our knowledge, had almost no experience shooting. Between them, those two boys fired 27 shots from a range of over 100 yards, and they hit 15 people. That's pretty remarkable shooting. We run into these situations often--kids who have never picked up a gun in their lives pick up a real gun and are incredibly accurate. Why?"

Operant Conditioning - Dave Grossman, Author

kingoftheforest

Isn't that the same thing moving slow during the forms in Tai Chi teaches you?

Doesn't it condition you to learn those movements out of instinct?

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TTEscrima

That's a part of it I'm sure, you should probably ask Boar if you want a more in depth explanation.

TTEscrima

I'd say any time tapping isn't an option fighting based on tapping might not be the best solution. Mercop is one of the most respected and sought after tactical trainers for SWAT/police depts nation wide and is also very well respected in the civilian world, his T shirt and motto is, "you can't tap out on the street." That's from the combined experience of those involved in real fights with intent to do real harm. Self defense isn't the same thing as bar brawling and bouncing and the results of attempts to use the MMA mentality on the streets hasn't been favorable for the professionals who tried it out.

Mike Brewer

Operant conditioning is a solid training idea, no doubt. It's used by everyone from Law Enforcement training personnel to the military to KOTF when he's working with his son.

Stripping away all the important sounding psycho-nonsense, all Operant Conditioning really amounts to is the use of consequences to influence behavior. Classical conditioning - like Pavlov used to train his dogs to salivate - is used when an immediate and simple stimulus/response link is needed. It functions on basically two ideas:

• Things that are hard-wired into our minds and instincts.
• Things that have to be learned.

If I am recalling correctly, the first is called Primary Conditioning and the other is called Secondary Conditioning. Also Unconditioned and Conditioned Stimuli. Forgive me if my terminology is off - it's been many years since I tried to explain this stuff. But basically, teaching a dog to salivate at food is an example of primary or unconditioned stimulus. Teaching them to salivate at the sound of a bell is conditioned. Dogs don't know what the hell a bell has to do with food, so the trainer builds an association between the thing the dog doesn't know - the bell - and the thing it does know - the food. This kind of conditioning has its place too, but since the thread has moved to Operant Conditioning, let's venture over to that and see how it's used and why:

Operant conditioning changes the game from stimulus and response to "response - stimulus." Now, instead of a stimulus occurring first and the response being trained, the trainee's response is what decides the consequences of behavior. In other words, in Classical conditioning, the trainee responded to a given stimulus, ie the bell is rung (stimulus) and the dog salivates (response). In Operant Conditioning, the trainee acts in response to a set of conditions (doesn't come home by curfew) and a stimulus is presented to get that behavior to change (gets beat like a drum by Dad's belt or has to sit in time-out). Operant conditioning is what's being used when the Drill Sergeants hand out 24 hour passes for doing a good job on range cleanup or a PT test or something. It's also what's happening when they make you do push-ups for screwing up.

Basically, operant conditioning works with four very simple options. When you learn to look at it this way, you start to realize that almost everything we do functions this way naturally, without any help at all from the outside world.

• Good things happen.
• Good things get taken away.
• Bad things happen.
• Bad things get taken away.

Those are the four operant conditions or consequences to a trainee's behavior. Do good, and I'll give you something good (Good things happen). Or if you're in the military, do good and I'll let you rest (Bad things get taken away). Screw up and I'll take away your toys (good things get taken away). Or if you're in the military, screw up and I'll PT you until your eyeballs burst (bad things happen). That's really all it amounts to.

On Killing by David Grossman is really not telling us anything that common sense wouldn't already tell us if we listened to such stuff. He makes the point that when you pull a trigger and a target falls down, you get a 24 hour pass. That better prepares you for the eventuality that when you shoot a bad guy and he falls down, you get the approval and praise of your friends.

Duh.

You also get to go home to your wife and kids without perforations and missing limbs.


What's absolutely and totally misleading about the clip TTE posted is that, well, in many cases it's outright falsehood. Cops are not trained to shoot any and everybody that could be perceived as a threat. In fact, quite the contrary. Simulators like the FATS and other similar machines provide cops with a level of decision making pressure never before obtainable. They're not being taught to shoot indiscriminately, but to assess and make sound judgements based on individual scenarios. Each scenario forces the officer to take in the details and assess. What are the rules of engagement? What is the appropriate level of force? I know, I know. I get roasted every time I say this, but the modern methodology isn't conditioning officers to fire without thinking. Exactly the opposite! It's teaching them to assess and make the right call under unbelievable pressure. For reference:

Philadelphia Police Department :: Firearms Training Simulator (F.A.T.S.)
AMIC - Insuring the Future of Local Government


Likewise, Military operators are faced with a much broader spectrum of conditions and scenarios than their predecessors. They need to be taught to think, assess, and make correct decisions, and I can tell you from personal experience as one of the trainers tasked with making them more able to do it that this is exactly what the military attempts to do. They're not looking for robots who shoot the first thing that moves, but skilled soldiers who can maintain situational awareness and make the right call under horrifying pressure and chaos. Operant conditioning is at play in things like the FATS when an officer or soldier must assess a dangerous situation and make the correct shoot-or-don't-shoot decision. That decision - the response of the student or trainee - determines the stimulus issued out by the trainers and peers. If the trainee gets it right, they get congratulations and praise. If they get it wrong, they get picked apart and second-guessed and they have to do it all over again.

In other words, it's an effective method (Operant Conditioning) and even if that's not what you like to call it, it's a method we use in our everyday dealings.

Tant01

Like looking at the yellow signal light at an intersection... Go faster or slow down?

A friend of mine likes to MIX things up in his scenario training exercises... Instead of REACHING for a WEAPON the "threat" is a deaf mute trying to get a card from his wallet...

"Congratulations, you just earned yourself 20 years for two perfect shots"

DON'T SHOOT!!! Is good advise (sometimes)

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James Paterson

TTEscrima

You can't blame the training for the piss poor police performance, you have to blame the shitty people going through the training. Police are not known for their gun handling skills being good in fact they're some of the worst you'll ever see. Look at the studies on police brutality and such and they all blame people with no experience in real world violence being subjected to real world violence and their training goes out the window because the individual isn't suited to the task. Police shoot the wrong people, each other and grandmothers in their homes and also miss unarmed people not even shooting back. The standards have been lowered to point its horrifying, the people who go through the training are incapable of absorbing it, new training procedures and people capable of comprehending them are both needed.

Here's an article from Mercop:


ROOT OF EXCESSIVE FORCE


When the majority of people think about the role of police it conjures up thoughts of peace keeping and protection, or at least it should. And whom do they protect us from, who is the traditional opponent of the police? The criminal right? We are familiar with the phrases “fighting crime” and “keeping the peace”. The words fighting and keeping imply that some force or effort is going to be needed to fight crime and keep the peace.

In order to obtain the position of police officer you have to have a clear criminal and in most places traffic record, a high school diploma and in more and more places college credits. A history of drug use has to be minimal and in the majority of places nonexistent. This usually means that you had a somewhat normal background. Managed to get through school and a few years afterwards without getting into any real trouble, chances are that you did not grow up in an environment brewing with chaos, crime, drug use and physical interpersonal conflict. Your life was injected with right and wrong and the learning of appropriate behaviors.

In contrast research shows us that the average criminal is produced from a turbulent child hood where abuse and substance abuse are the norm. A lack of parental support leads to the belief of a shortened future and impulsiveness. Sometimes this leads to dropping out of school, more substance abuse and more time to get in trouble. Lying and stealing are survival instincts that have to be removed during early childhood. Fighting for survival is also required in one form or another is also the norm for these individuals. Criminals are typically impulsive and fear of getting caught far outweighs the fear of punishment. This leads them to being very violent, especially when cornered. This is before you add in alcohol and other substances both legal and illegal.

In years past our police candidate was given a uniform, badge, gun, nightstick, and in many cases a sap. He might have had a high school diploma and maybe a few years of military experience. Usually he was put into service with little to no training except the wisdom he could steal from the old timers. Even today in many big cities officers start out on a foot post. What is very different today is that they have radio and no longer have respond to a call box for an assignment or drag a bad guy back to the call box for the wagon to pick him up.

Another thing that is different is that you no longer see officers walking down the street with nightstick in hand. Can you imagine the public outcry? So even if he came to the job without much experience with the other side of the tracks, he was dropped off there and learned to survive. He learned how to hurt bad guys before they hurt him, in most cases by himself since back up was coming of foot if they came at all.

Fast forward today when majority of police of police academies are 4-6 months long. Officers carry a semi-automatic handgun, two spare magazines, OC spray, ASP Baton and Tazer on their belt. A radio on their belt keeps them in touch with communications. Their training covers a broad range of topics from constitutional issues to use of force. Or more importantly warns them against excessive force. When not to hit, when not to shoot.

They are trained how to take compliant subjects into custody. In most cases force on force training implies Simmunitions and when those situations deteriorate into chaotic hands on situations the scenario is stopped. I mean after all someone could get hurt and they have a lot of money invested in the recruits. They never really get to test what works in a real fight. Therefore they either have over confidence in their training or lack of confidence in their options. . Because of lack of experience just not the ability to recognize limitations and the need for other options. Recruits who refuse to use the appropriate amount of force are ignored while a student who fails to pass a test is recycled.

So there is a very good chance that an officer might make it from birth all the way through the graduating the police academy without getting punched in the face. First protected by their upbringing and then by the institution. So more than ever there is a separation between the mindset and “training” between the officer and the criminal.

What happens when the good guy and the bad guy meet in the street? The majority of the time that suspects are injured it is not a result of the use of deadly force. It is a result of several officers trying to take a subject into custody. We have all seen this, several officer swarm an individual. Much of the time punches, kicks, OC and the baton are used. Very often the strikes are ineffectual because of two major factors, one is the suspect being under the influence of alcohol or drugs, two, especially in the case of baton strikes, the strikes are targeted towards major muscle groups, which have no mechanical effect and rely on pain compliance.

The petri dish of excessive force is when officers experience task fixation when techniques fail to perform as advertised and their heartbeat rises towards 220 beats a minute which is the level at which most people are unable to switch gears and try something different. The only thing worse that seeing a video of an officer beating a subject with a baton, is a video of several officers doing so.

The officers of the call box days would have laughed at the idea of striking a bag guy on the side of his leg to get him to stop doing something. They knew that it did not work. They knew the trick was a sap tap to the head, collar bone or chin depending on the circumstances. They also knew how much force to apply either from experience or being schooled from the old timers. What else did they have that too few police of today do? Confidence in their tools besides their sidearm and stress inoculation resulting from immersion in the criminal environment. I would imagine that they were also quicker to use force since they new that help was far away.

I am sure many of you are saying, “oh my God, I can’t believe he is advocating hitting people in the head”. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. When you have several officers hitting a subject with batons and he is continuing to fail to comply, chances are sooner or later he will take a headshot or more likely a shot to a major joint that will drop him. Just too bad it is after the 30th strike. How about doing that in the first few strikes. You give police a stick, arguably the best martial tool in the world and make them impotent by telling them to strike large muscle groups when the rest of the world knows that impact weapons seek bones.

And while we are at it, saps should be brought back into the mix. A traditional weapon of the police that have been all but outlawed, and why? Because they work and people got hurt.

There are a few things that are never going to change. One is that criminals have the choice not to commit the crime. Two they have the choice to submit the authority of the police. And three, no matter who the officer is, and not matter who the criminal is, at some point they will meet and the officer has to make physical contact to arrest the criminal. If the criminal chooses to resist he needs to accept the consequences.

As criminals get more daring and violent we owe it to the police and the society they serve to ensure that that their selection, training and equipment allows them to meet the level violence needed to complete their mission. If we continue to fail in doing this don’t be surprised when we just trade criminal’s lawsuits for the funerals of the police and citizenry.

http://www.mercop.com/docs/articles22.htm

jubaji

Its certainly used a lot, but cognitive approaches rather than behavioral ones have been recognized for some time now as being more accurate in reflecting how human beings actually learn.

The more complex the subject being learned is the less effective behaviorism has been shown to be.

We are not dogs.

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Mike Brewer

You're reading too much into it, TTE. This was the statement I took issue with:

In terms of Operant conditioning, I tend to agree with you. But the statement quoted above is not accurate, plain and simple. Clearly, both the military and police are attempting to condition decision making ability, not wanton reactive killing. The training methods I cited are examples, but there are many, many more. If "reactive killing" was the goal, there would be no purpose to adding all those elements of decision making, use of force levels, etc.

Mike Brewer

Also very true. But it's still a very effective way to train people in basic behaviors. It's the basics I was talking about. You'll never teach someone trigonometry with operant conditioning. But you can (and very often do) teach them things like "Keep Your Hands Up" that way. We're not dogs, but we also shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking that we have absolutely nothing in comon with them.

In my opinion, it's just a matter of "proper tool for the proper job."