Month: March 2009

Smart criminal?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Austin Police just arrested a man suspected of about 50 burglaries in the Austin area.

The interesting part of the article?

“Mr. Hill is actually not a violent person at all,” Det. Jarrett Crippen said. “He was very specific that he does not like breaking into people’s homes [he targeted small businesses]. He realizes this is Texas and any number of Texans have guns in their homes, and he didn’t want any part of that.”

Folks, you don’t have to fire a gun for it to be effective at deterring crime.

Sunday Metal – Wrathchild America

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Growing up in the Washington D.C. area, Wrathchild America was a local band. I admit I didn’t follow the band back in their early Wrathchild days, but while writing this blog entry I came upon this excellent documentary piece on the band:

Nothing screams ’80’s metal like getting your hair done, eh? It’s rather amusing to watch the guys getting their hair highlighted, primping… how… manly. 🙂  Of course, the drummer, Shannon Larkin is still going today, playing in Godsmack. And it seems guitarist Terry Carter has gone country. Oh, how things have changed. 🙂

Again, during my radio days I got to see the band a great deal. In fact, they were the first band I interviewed at the start of my radio career, in support of their 3-D album. I think Terry and Brad were a little annoyed with me, but I was young and new and had no clue. Still, I saw Wrathchild America many times during their career and always enjoyed their musicianship, their stage banter (they were constantly joking), and their live shows were always a fun party.

On gun fit

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Yet another follow-up from the day of classes… a little rant about gun fit.

I know exactly what he’s talking about, since I was there in class. 🙂  There were a few people that had guns that just did not fit them. They had small hands, they would have a big gun. The gun did not fit them well, so they would do all sorts of gymnastics to try to fire the gun. And yes, they could fire it, but they couldn’t fire it well. We did our best to remedy things.

I’ll let the TXGunGeek elaborate on this matter. I will add a link to this guide on the KR Training website.

Updated: TXGunGeek has now elaborated.

Mindset is everything

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After assisting with classes one day, I was reviewing how the classes went and I recalled one moment I had with a student that I thought was worth sharing.

This student had a particular way of doing something, and the class taught him a better way to do that thing. The student was getting frustrated with himself because he kept falling back into habit instead of utilizing the new, better technique. I told him not to focus on the frustration, on the old technique, but instead to focus on the new technique. To me, it’s a matter of mindset and how that will affect your performance.

Having 3 children and spending a lot of time around and working with kids, I’ve learned that if you want someone to do something in particular, the best way to get them to do it is to tell them exactly what you want them to do. I know that sounds simple, but you’d be surprised how much we don’t it. For instance, let’s say the child is running and instead you want them to walk. What I hear most people say to the child is “DON’T RUN!”. This doesn’t work. There’s an infinite number of things the child could do. By saying “don’t run” you’ve now narrowed down this infinite list by one thing. The child still needs something to do, they will now pick from this “infinity minus one” list of things to do, and statistics will favor the child still not doing what you want. So, if what you want the child to do is walk, then just say “WALK!”. The key is to convey to the person what you want them to do. This isn’t as simple as positive vs. negative phrasing; in fact, they’re orthogonal concepts. For example, “don’t touch the stove” (it’s hot), or “don’t go in there” (something dangerous is in there). Those are negatively phrased, but they are stating exactly what you want the person to do. Yes, you’ll mostly use positive phrasing in this conveyance, but the important thing is to convey what you want them to do.

Getting back to class then, that student was getting onto himself about not doing his old habit. All he kept focusing on was not doing his old habit. So what do you think he did? His old habit. Why? Because his mindset was focused on the old habit. Sure it was also “don’t do that”, but the thing was he wasn’t telling himself what he should do. So once I got him focused on “do the new technique” instead of “don’t do the old habit”, everything changed. His brain was focused on “new technique”, and sure enough, by the end of the day I was only seeing him using the new technique. Good deal!

Going with the gun thing, I hear the stories about people getting shot. I hear about people that got shot multiple times with big guns and managed to live to tell the tale. Then I hear the stories about people that got shot once with a pea shooter in some non-fatal way and fall over and die. Usually the moral of the story is the same: the people that died made up their minds to die… their mindset was “you get shot, you die” and so they gave up; the people that lived made up their minds to live… there was no other option, they were going to live all other things be damned. 

If you focus on failure, that’s that’s you’re going to do — fail. If you want success, focus on success. Focus on what to do that will lead to success. Your mindset is your first step in whatever direction you choose to go.

Updated: An article/study lending support.

Updated 2: Further support.

Another day, another class

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I was back out today at KR Training helping with classes. There were two classes today, first Defensive Pistol Skills then Handgunning: Beyond the Basics. Overall, it was a good day. I came home and didn’t have any holes in me, so I cannot complain. 8)  Wife is, understandably, happy about that too.

The classes actually went pretty smoothly, from where I sat. Sure things weren’t perfect, but all in all the students were good and things went alright. Up front however, I want to admit my goober moment. Before the first class we were out on the small range getting people properly geared up. One gentleman had brought a revolver to shoot, so I was asking John for his take on things (the gentleman also had a semi-auto and was trying to determine which he should shoot during the class). The gentleman was well behind the firing line and unholstered the revolver to hand to John. John immediately did the proper thing, directing the man to reholster… but I goobered. I said “it’s unloaded”. As soon as I said it, I realized I just had a goober moment. The reason I spoke up was because just a few minutes prior I had taken that gentleman up to the line and got things unloaded, so what I was trying to do was let John know I had cleared the gentleman. But it doesn’t matter. Rule 1? All guns are always loaded. Furthermore, proper range etiquette is that you don’t handle the gun where we were. So, I admit my goober moment in hopes someone else can learn from my mistake.

Again, I overall felt the classes ran OK. Many of the people that came for the first class stayed for the second. Because of the amount of overlap in the students between the two classes, it was cool to watch people progress all day long. So with that, I have a few comments towards the future:

Skills Build

The way classes are structured, what you are doing now is laying a foundation for what you will be doing later. This means you should pay attention to what you’re doing now. It can also perhaps provide a hint as to what’s coming later. But more importantly, as you move on to later things, don’t forget the things that you did prior. You might get taught A then B then C, but when you’re working on D, don’t forget to do A (and B and C). Everything builds, and you should keep that in mind. For those that have taken the class, I’ll just say one word: “SCAN!”. For those yet to take the class, there’s your hint for what you’ll be doing later. 🙂

Speed Is Relative

Fast is important, but I believe correct/accurate is more important. Yes it is important to go fast, but if you’re missing your target, you might be going too fast. I understand the pressures of class… the instructor wants you to go fast… there’s other people shooting faster than you… you want to go fast, you want to do well. Thus, we go fast. But here’s the thing. You can only go as fast as you can go. Yes, there will probably be someone faster than you. Yes, there will probably be someone slower than you. But who cares; this is a classroom, a place to learn, not a competition. You should go as fast as you can go that allows you to properly and correctly perform. Once you are comfortable and confident going that speed, then you should try going a bit faster.

For instance, there was one gentleman in class that was shooting all over the target… very little consistency. We watched him. He was going too fast: trying to shoot fast, pulling the trigger really fast and thus pulling the gun off target, and things just weren’t panning out for him. Eventually we got him to slow down, and slow everything down: slow down his time between shots, slow down his trigger press. Once he did this, his accuracy improved exponentially. Was he as fast as others in the class? No, but he was fast enough for himself. Now that he knows how to shoot correctly, he can work on having correct skills first then he can working speeding up those correct skills.

There’s a story of an Austin Police shooting from a few months back. Apparently that rookie police officer was shooting at the suspect, and was shooting fast. Things weren’t working. He remembered to slow down, use his sights, and he was able to take the bad guy down. 

Misses don’t count. Slow hit is better than fast miss. Work to be correct, work to be smooth, then gradually speed that up.

Mindset is Everything

This is something I actually want to devote to its own blog entry. So here it is.

 

So anyway, the day was good. The weather was gorgeous, a little windy, but wonderful. The drive was great too, as the wildflowers are coming up, bluebonnets are everywhere. Just a good day.

Aim low, baby

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

It’s saddening to read that 1 in 3 people want a salary cap for movie stars and athletes. And not just any cap, one imposed by the government.

*sigh*

If I can’t have it, you can’t have it either. It’s not fair, they lament whine.

Whatever happened to dreaming big? To chasing your dreams? To having the gumption to get off your ass and make something of yourself? Why would you want to impose any sort of upper limit on what people could earn? I guess only because you feel you’ll never earn that so it’s OK… that you never think such a limit will come back to bite you because you never envision yourself earning that much money. Just because you can’t envision yourself rolling in dough, why should you demand that others can’t either? I may not be rolling in that level of money yet, but I’ve been working my way up and along all my life, and I’m not stopping now. I’m willing to dream big and aim high and work and sacrifice to get there. I’m sorry you’re not similarly motivated.

If you don’t want these people to make that sort of money, it’s simple. Don’t feed into their revenue stream. Stop going to see movies. Stop watching sports. Stop being a consumer of the things that enable them to have that high salary. If you stop feeding the beast, it’ll either have to go on a diet or go hungry. But I know… this route requires you to make some effort, which we’ve already established you refuse to do. So instead, “thereoughtabealaw” so it saves you from having to make any effort and take any responsibility for yourself’.

Alas.

Yes, there is hope!

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Dinner is done.

The table needs cleaning off. The children are supposed to be cleaning, but are farting around and wrestling with each other. Wife is getting irritated. Yes the kids are all in a good mood, and we really don’t want to dampen it with Threat Of Dad® coming down upon them. So instead, I opt to bribe provide positive reinforcement to the children.

Ice cream.

Going out for it, no less. Wife requested a little peaceful time to herself, so I’ll happily take the kids away so she can have her Calgon moment.

I told the kids: clean the table and kitchen to Mom’s satisfaction, then tend to the litter box. You have 15 minutes. And I walked away.

These kids are moving. They set a timer. Oldest started delegating tasks. They are focused. They are cooperating. I just heard Oldest holler for Middle, “I need some help!” “OK, I’m coming.” Wow… no smart-assery, no belligerence, no nothing. Just the stuff that parental dreams are made of!! 🙂

I just heard “OK, we have 5 minutes left.”. I’m not sure, but it sounds like they are going above and beyond, cleaning even a bit more!! Are they wanting sprinkles on top of their ice cream? Oldest is barking orders. There’s no “You’re not the boss of me!” retort, just a simple “OK.” and obeying of the command. Wow….

Is it a bribe? Is it positive motivation? Call it whatever you want. I know the true power of this moment. You see, now I have tangible proof they are totally capable of working together, as a streamlined unit, cooperating, focused, efficient, on task, without back-talk, without fighting, without a need for Dad to intervene and put things back on course. Yes… yes I will hold this against them in the future. 🙂

And get this. 2 minutes left. They come in my office and give a successful report. So this is another thing… they can get things done early!  Man, they don’t realize how they’ve been set up… how high they just raised the bar for themselves. *insert diabolical fatherly laugh* 🙂

 

Updated: I should clarify, it’s not like my kids are normally misbehaved, disobedient, fight with each other, etc.. They’re actually quite well-behaved and do work well with each other. But, they are like any kid, they do have their sibling issues, they do have their moments of sheer jackassery. But still, tonight was sweet.

And sweet it was. I am still waiting for their Guinness ice cream to come back into rotation. A cup of that, some chocolate chunks crushed in. People I’m telling you there’s nothing finer. Had to settle (if you can call it that) for Mexican vanilla with fresh strawberries crushed in. Mmm.

Sobering facts

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

Thanx to Xavier for bringing this to my attention.

I would love to get a hold of the full report. If you have a copy and/or know how to get it (my Google-Fu has been weak today), please let me know.

The facts presented are sobering:

  • Handguns are the weapon of choice. None are obtained by “legal” means and no laws stop them from obtaining the gun; in fact, they laugh in the face of gun laws.
  • Many offenders have formal training (e.g. military) and most practice on average at least bi-weekly.
    • Their training is motivated by thinking police practice a lot. In reality, police don’t practice much at all. Just because their job requires them to carry a gun doesn’t mean they’re proficient with them.
  • Offenders don’t use holsters, but they do have backup weapons.
  • Offenders have a cold-blooded mindset. They have no problem killing you and killing you first.

And there are many more. Go read.

And I have to agree with Xaiver:

“They practice getting the gun out and using it,” Davis explained. “They shoot for effect.” Or as one of the offenders put it: “[W]e’re not working with no marksmanship… We just putting it in your direction, you know… It don’t matter… as long as it’s gonna hit you…if it’s up at your head or your chest, down at your legs, whatever… Once I squeeze and you fall, then… if I want to execute you, then I could go from there.”

Those are some chilling words. Remember them when you practice. Train like you fight, and you’ll fight like you train.