Article: "Extract from NEURAL-BASED TRAINING BOOK ONE: RETROSPECTIVES" by Marcus Wynne

"Neural based learning"--Marcus Wynne (37 min.)

Wynne explains neural based learning, and gives some examples that you can easily learn and incorporate yourself.

If you have read posts by Marcus Wynne at his older blog or his new location, you know that his specialty is neural-based training. He has trained not just war-fighters, but applied his skills to many different fields, including fire-fighters (see also here). 

    Some of you may remember from your school or college experience discussions of how students may have different learning styles--e.g., visual, auditory, and kinesthetic--and that students learn better if they can use different learning styles to reinforce what they have learned. ("Visual learners must see it to absorb it; auditory learners need to hear it to master it; and kinesthetic or tactile learners need to move or experience it to understand it."). In fact, the traditional method of teaching via lecture may be one of the worst ways to teach as the typical person has poor auditory memory.

    For instance, it is common to be told to not only read something, but to, in addition, hear it or write it out. In fact, one of the key breakthroughs in learning that I had in my university days was learning the importance of reading the material before-hand, drafting an outline, and then taking that outline to class and adding or modifying it during the lecture. Unfortunately, I didn't learn that until I was in my advanced studies, but it proved very useful to my wife in her classes. 

    As you will see from the video above, Wynne goes well beyond even that to provide all sorts of feedback and reinforcement mechanisms, and break through barriers to learning and observing that we have learned through our civilized, passive lives.

    "extract from NEURAL-BASED TRAINING BOOK ONE: RETROSPECTIVES" is an article that presents a snippet from what appears to be an upcoming book on neural based training. He even includes a simple exercise for shooting instructors to use to easily determine which students actually have some experience or skills versus those who don't. I was also glad to see an explanation of "shadowboxing with guns"--a phrase and concept that Wynne had discussed in an earlier post but which I didn't quite grasp (although my 5-year old self probably would have instantly understood). 

    Just a quick excerpt from the article shows the need to think outside the box when it comes to training. Wynne explains:

The importance of integrating movement into firearms training that’s meant to be used in a fight is generally addressed as an “advanced skill.” Since all fights involve movement, it’s important to identify square range training and over-safety requirements as an artifact of the 1700s era model for CURRENT DAY FIREARMS TRAINING, which came to us American peasants via Baron Von Steuben, whose training methods are enshrined in the US Army’s NCO manuals.  The emphasis on control, staying in line, square range and known distance comes from those antiquated methods, though they are the basis for ALL current firearms training in the United States.  Experimenting with approaches validated by neuroscience as being faster and more applicable to the modern adult learner who has limited time to learn and practice skills before they must be used under stress might lead some to reconsider the paradigm they lock themselves into.

Read the whole thing.