Paul Gomez
www.Gomez-Training.com
Presumptive: Expected to develop in a particular direction under normal conditions.
Training: To make proficient with specialized instruction and practice.
Assumptions drive perceptions. And perceptions drive assumptions. The ideas that you have about the situation that you are training to deal with have a direct effect on what skills you train and how you train them. These same sorts of assumptions can drive weapon selection, holsters and every other facet of defensive living. The presumptions that we make are, of necessity, limiting. If you believe that carrying a gun negates the need for unarmed skills, you will not bother with developing those skills. If you believe that carrying concealed negates the need for weapon retention skills, you won’t bother with that skillset.
The problems arise when the fight you get is not the fight you trained for. If all of your training time has been invested in eye level, sighted fire on a square range and your fight begins with an unseen aggressor initiating his attack from behind with a lead pipe, you have a problem. Conversely, if all of your training revolves around an unarmed solution and you are presented with multiple, armed aggressors, you have a problem.
Tom Givens made an astute comment in a class that I attended a number of years ago. He said “Secondary skills [such as one hand gun manipulations] should not be thought of as ‘less important’ but, rather, as ‘less likely to be needed’.” Of course, if your fight calls for that atypical skill that you’ve been neglecting because it was ‘less important’, your difficult situation has just become more difficult!
One more definition:
Robust: Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and situations in a given environment.
A robust training model must take into account the full range of human interaction. It must not try and force fit a stylized technique into The Solution.
It has to offer an overarching conceptual framework onto which the practicioner can "hang" individual, mutually supporting skillsets. This idea is a personal touchstone when evaluating a technique or a piece of kit or a training opportunity...'How robust is it?'
Training: To make proficient with specialized instruction and practice.
Assumptions drive perceptions. And perceptions drive assumptions. The ideas that you have about the situation that you are training to deal with have a direct effect on what skills you train and how you train them. These same sorts of assumptions can drive weapon selection, holsters and every other facet of defensive living. The presumptions that we make are, of necessity, limiting. If you believe that carrying a gun negates the need for unarmed skills, you will not bother with developing those skills. If you believe that carrying concealed negates the need for weapon retention skills, you won’t bother with that skillset.
The problems arise when the fight you get is not the fight you trained for. If all of your training time has been invested in eye level, sighted fire on a square range and your fight begins with an unseen aggressor initiating his attack from behind with a lead pipe, you have a problem. Conversely, if all of your training revolves around an unarmed solution and you are presented with multiple, armed aggressors, you have a problem.
Tom Givens made an astute comment in a class that I attended a number of years ago. He said “Secondary skills [such as one hand gun manipulations] should not be thought of as ‘less important’ but, rather, as ‘less likely to be needed’.” Of course, if your fight calls for that atypical skill that you’ve been neglecting because it was ‘less important’, your difficult situation has just become more difficult!
One more definition:
Robust: Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and situations in a given environment.
A robust training model must take into account the full range of human interaction. It must not try and force fit a stylized technique into The Solution.
It has to offer an overarching conceptual framework onto which the practicioner can "hang" individual, mutually supporting skillsets. This idea is a personal touchstone when evaluating a technique or a piece of kit or a training opportunity...'How robust is it?'
