In my courses, seminars, and workshops where I talk about imagery, which I define as “Using one’s senses to create or recreate an experience in the mind.”, I always share this excerpt from the book Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsouka. “The only place he could be sure of privacy was his own mind.  So that is where he practiced. Draw. Cock the hammer on the upswing. Sight the heart. Squeeze the trigger. Cock the hammer on the recoil. Sight the heart.  Squeeze the trigger.  There was an advantage to this. His mind was a portable room, and he could practice … [Read more...]

In today’s world people are often looking for the shortcut, the hack, the secret. Some want you to just tell them the answer, rather than challenge them do the research, to think, to reflect and to run the experiment(s) to figure it out.  The reality is that there are no shortcuts, hacks or secrets and “THE Answer / System / Theory / Model / Tool / Technology” is a myth.  Ecological Dynamics is not “THE Answer” to all real or perceived issues with law enforcement training. The Constraints Led Approach (CLA) is not “THE Answer” to all real or perceived issues with law … [Read more...]

Time is a limited commodity. We have a limited number of hours in the day. You have a limited number of instructional hours available to teach your material. The people you train have a limited amount of time they are willing and able to invest outside of training to engage with pre and post course material. You have a limited amount of time to invest in course and content planning, development, and refinement.  Given all of that, you may want to invest some time in reflecting on how you are currently using your time and how you might use it more effectively. From a training … [Read more...]

One agency hired 20 people for their academy, then lost half the class in the first month of training. When I asked one of their training staff what the reason was that so many left, their response was, “They decided it was not for them.” I always find this comment interesting and am curious as to what exactly is covered in the first month of training that would cause so many people to decide that policing was not the career for them. I suspected I knew the answer but was still curious.  In a discussion with another member of that agency they happened to mention that the first month of … [Read more...]

This week’s Between The Lines Newsletter from Coach Dan Pfaff was on The Power of expectation. This information has massive implications for police trainers. I could not find a link to share it so the newsletter is below. You can go to this link to subscribe to all the Altis weekly content: https://altis.world/newsletter/.  In today's Between The Lines, I’ll discuss why research conducted over 30 years ago can help us achieve improved results with athletes where they are least expected …Back in the 1980s, a pair of researchers - Rosenthal and Jacobsen - observed the results of intelligence … [Read more...]