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 anywhere he was, anytime.”
Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsouka
The last line, “His mind was a portable room, and he could practice anywhere he was, anytime.”, is critical for trainers to embrace and to share with the men and women they have the privilege of training. Trainers get a limited amount of actual training time with their people with Academy trainers likely getting the most amount of time over a condensed period. It is important for officers to gain an understanding that they can continue train all the skills required for their profession, on their own, by taking advantage of the reality that their mind is a portable room and they can practice anywhere, anytime.
They can practice at home. They can practice prior to their shift. They can practice on their way to a call. They can practice after a call. They can practice for just a few minutes at a time. They do not have to buy any equipment or download an app.
They can use their mind to engage the keys to make learning stick by reflecting and engaging in active / effortful retrieval practice. They can implement spaced repetition by doing a little, a lot. As I have talked and written about before, 10 minutes a day, 4 days a week, 48 weeks a year adds up to an additional 32 hours of training a year. 10 minutes a day, 5 days a week, 48 weeks of the year adds an additional 40 hours of training a year.
Desirable Difficulties is a term coined by Robert Bjork PhD, and is an important element of effective training. It suggests that friction and struggle in training is helpful for learning. Andrew Huberman PhD has said that if there is no friction, if there is no struggle, there is no learning. Research into the Challenge Point Theory would indicate that the learning zone is when you train at the outer edges of your skill level. It is important to understand, however, that training in this zone comes with a psychological and motivational cost so it cannot be all struggle, all the time. Officers can use their mind to imagine struggling to work through an issue, challenge, or problem and overcoming the problem.
Officers can weave in all the key elements to professional policing by imaging tactics, policy, procedures, and legal issues related to a variety of calls. They can also apply the principle of variability by imaging a wide range of variations to challenges, problems, obstacles, types of calls and subject responses. They can use multiple senses to make the scenario in their head as realistic as possible and thus apply the elements of context, specificity, and representativeness.
All of these strategies will help officers prepare their mind for where their body may have to go and can help officers to overcome deficiencies and limitations of academy and inservice training.
This is not meant to suggest that mental training should replace physical training. They are complimentary and we should be doing both. In fact, training with imagination and emotion are keys to effective physical training.
Take care.
Brian Willis
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