# Making survival a habit



## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

*Street Survival Insights *
with Dave Smith

*Making survival a habit *

There is a lot of misconception about how we learn skills and what we need to do to be ready for the life and death struggles we might face whether on or off-duty. A great deal of the commentary is well-meaning but not supported by science. In fact, one of the real issues we face in law enforcement is the "junk science" that shows up in the courtroom and is used against us.

One of the problems we face when translating any study in human learning to our profession is the limitation on the amount of stress that researchers can apply to their subjects. The reality for most law enforcement officers is criminals, citizens, Nature, and even bad luck often place us in remarkably dangerous and stressful situations that no researcher could ever match. Another dilemma, as pointed out in William H. Starbuck's "The Production of Knowledge," is the "subject-wishing-to-please-the-researcher" phenomenon that brings into doubt much of the credibility of current research in human behavior.
Some recent events have brought up the issue of how we learn a skill and how we can make a mistake such as grabbing our firearm instead of our TASER. The excellent Force Science Institute recently released videos of students drawing and firing a firearm to demonstrate how quickly a suspect with no training can fire a weapon from different positions. On the other hand, some instructors say we need to do "X" number of repetitions to learn a skill. Well, let us take a minute to review what science says about this.

Full Article:http://www.policeone.com/patrol-issues/articles/1791849-Making-survival-a-habit/


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