Latest Defensive Pistolcraft Newsletter

    Work and life have been busy over the past couple of weeks so I have been late getting to some stories and topics. One of these is Jon Low's most recent Defensive Pistolcraft newsletter from July 15, 2024. As always he has lots of links to good information about training, self-defense, dealing with the aftermath of an armed encounter, and other topics. 

    He also has some lengthier excerpts of information, one of which caught my attention in particular because it deals with memory and learning, excerpted from emails from Dustin Salomon, author of the 2016 book, Building Shooters: Applying Neuroscience Research to Tactical Training System Design and Training Delivery. Because shooting/self-defense requires learning that you can draw on in high stress situations, Salomon indicates that our concern is with procedural memory. In that regard, his email focuses on two aspects of procedural memory and learning: "The first is downtime and sleep.  The second is chaotic, or 'interleaved' practice." He explains:

      It is somewhat counterintuitive, but both time away from the subject matter and sleep are extremely important for retention.  The reason is that the complex chemical processes necessary to store information and create new neural circuitry have some requirements that cannot be met when we are awake and actively working with new material. 

     If students do not have both downtime, away from the related subject matter, and sleep, you can be sure that retention will be poor and that most of what you see from students during the training is only happening from short-term memory.

And:

     Likewise, weaving multiple skills together during practice - ideally in a manner similar to how they may be used in the real world - improves retention and biases consolidation to the Procedural (unconscious access) memory system.  This is called "interleaving" in neural network training. 

There is more. And excerpts from a second email go into more detail on how the body creates neural circuitry and memory. 

    A couple more items that caught my attention:

• An excerpt from an article on testing of gun care:

      "What we have been told is correct, apply liberally to coat and then remove all excess to the point where you think you have removed too much and you will enjoy the least amount of friction.  The side benefit to that dry level of lubrication is that it will not attract foreign contaminants that could get trapped in excess/wet lubricant."  

My father did this. 

• An excerpt from an article, "Surface Forces : Russian Black Sea Nightmare" describing how Russia had built up its naval bases and capabilities in the Black Sea, but lost it all after starting the war in Ukraine as the Ukrainians sunk many of their naval vessels and limited their ability to safely access the Bosporus.  

Anyway, be sure to check out the whole thing.