No, really. I'm not here. But I thought this worth sharing, for those whose minds are open enough to understand. Alanis Morissette, Travis Haley, AK-47s, and Bananas Posted on December 5, 2018 by DAVID YAMANELeave a comment At the start of most classes, I have my students listen to and discuss the lessons about learning that can be gleaned from Alanis Morissette’s song, “You Learn,” from which her breakout album Jagged Little Pill takes its title. You live you learn, you love you learn You cry you learn, you lose you learn You bleed you learn, you scream you learn You grieve you learn, you choke you learn You laugh you learn, you choose you learn You pray you learn, you ask you learn You live you learn My students – who are only in my classroom because they have a consistent record of educational success – don’t immediately get the point of the song. But when I encourage them to think about the most important learning experiences they have had in life, they recognize that many of those experiences are tied not to success but to failure. Crying, losing, bleeding, screaming, grieving, choking, and learning. Last year when I asked Travis Haley how he developed his thinking about gun training, he responded, “A lot of failures.” AK-47 from West Africa in Travis Haley’s office. Photo by David Yamane Haley told me the story of an AK-47 he has displayed in his office, taken from an adversary, suggesting success. But for Haley the gun also serves as a reminder of bad decision-making that got him into the situation in the first place. A situation he could have avoided. A failure. During the Haley Strategic D5 Disruptive Science Handgun course I observed recently, Haley discusses “body alarm response” – how the human body reacts under critical stress through the autonomic nervous system. Although this has the potential to degrade performance – e.g., a loss of dexterity or fine motor skills – the adverse effects can be mitigated through training. One need not resort to slapping the magazine release on a rifle or using the Gross Motor Skill Reload technique if using the magazine release button with your finger is reinforced through deliberate practice. HSP G.M.S.R. t-shirt Still, you cannot entirely eliminate “the human factor” from these situations, and whenever the human factor is in play, failure is possible. This is true even among those who have a high level of mastery. It was either the 7th century BCE Greek lyric poet Archilochus or the Navy SEALs who said, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.” Haley calls this “bullshit.” I have seen guys that are some of the most highly trained dudes in the world . . . These guys are incredible. And they failed. They couldn’t even load a gun, they couldn’t even move, they couldn’t even make entry to the house. Why? If we fall to our level of training, why would the best [person] on the team . . . fail miserably? https://gunculture2point0.wordpress...qU1uGIfHqfh31FvvVwtSF3i-K6DYVIUvFiaHKtaF7-4lA
