Tactical Mental Training (TMT)
There is a saying in the Firearms Training Industry, stating “Your Body Won’t Go Where Your Mind Hasn’t Been.” This saying alludes to the importance of mental training and having a plan to deal with dynamic critical incidents. Visualization and Mental Training have been used for years in Competitive Sports and the importance of “training your brain” to respond before an event takes place is even more important when contemplating using deadly force to protect yourself or your loved ones. Unfortunately, Mental Training is one areas that often gets overlooked in firearms training classes. So this month, we thought we would introduce a new Training Tips segment called Tactical Mental Training (TMT). These scenarios will be pulled from actual experiences or from self-defense stories in current events or news stories.
TMT Scenario: Out on a Date!
Your enjoying a kid free night out with your spouse. You selected a strategic location in the bar area that allows for a quick exit in the event of an unsuspected dynamic critical incident. As you are enjoying your night out, you see your best friends’ daughter enter with her date. The hostess seats them at the other end of the restaurant which is out of your line of sight. What do you do?
TMT Questions
1) Have you created an escape plan for you and your spouse?
2) Are you paying enough attention to who is entering to notice that someone you have known since birth has entered the restaurant?
3) Does this change your escape plan?
TMT Solutions:
For me, this drastically changes my plan. No longer am I able to simply escape with my wife. The plan changes to have my wife escape and I have no other choice than to secure the safety of our friends’ daughter! As soon as I see the hostess return from seating them, I head over to say “Hi.” My wife, advises me to “leave them alone”, assuming that I am going over there to embarrass them while they are on their date. While I am definitely not opposed to embarrassing them, my main objective is to find their exact location in the restaurant. That way, in the event of an armed robbery, or more likely, an active shooter event by a disgruntled employee, I will know exactly where they are and not have to search for them in a chaotic environment.
