Safe Training

DC Reed/Director

When you seek out training, do you look for safe, familiar courses? Or something harder?

The only way to really know how you will do in a critical incident (other than surviving a real world experience) is through challenging training.

You have to test yourself against a known standard of performance, then push yourself to improve. If you always “train down” and stay comfortable you will always have a false sense of your ability.

If you are enjoying yourself and performing easily in training, excelling – hearing and doing nothing unfamiliar – you are in the wrong class.

Training that’s difficult, complex, and a little over your head is what you should seek out. A course that bases its teaching off known standards that are proven to work. You should like what you’re doing of course, but always be a little concerned that without your best, most serious and concerned effort, you won’t pass.

The consequences of failure in a hard training course are a better awareness of your true abilities under stress. You may not like it, but you now know what you have to work on to improve. You still go home.

The decision to brush yourself off, check your ego, and then dedicate time and effort to do the work to increase your ability, to be better prepared than you were …

That’s up to you.