The senses and sensibility

[Brownie]

The 5 commonly known/recognized senses humans have and use in our daily lives are Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch, and Smell. There’s a sixth sense sense we develop according to some. I’ve written about it a seperaste thread earlier this year which most are unaware of that is known by many in the medical profession as proprioception.

In self-defense with the use of firearms, we primarily will use our sight, sound and touch senses. Sight to see what the potential threat is [recognition], Sound to identify where a potential threat may be coming from, [recognition], and Touch to access and use the firearm to defend ourselves with this particular tool .

Obviously sight plays a significant role in self-defense. Sound may be the sense that alerts us initially to something [recognition again] and draws our attention to a specific area where vision then verifies more specifically that which drew out attention [recognition again].

The two senses working in concert with each other [sight and sound] help us immensely in determining the direction, distance and manner of the potential threat. One or the other, or both almost simultaneously will usually be the leading factors in recognition that we may need to respond physically in some way in our defense.

How that potential response is carried out will involve the sense of touch. We may move our feet along a macadam [pavement made of layers of compacted broken stone, now usually bound with tar or asphalt] or terra firma [solid ground or dry land]. The type of footing we are on will be dictated by our sense of touch and will be dependant on the type of footwear we are in, whether the ground beneath us is uneven, paved, rough, or smooth. All these involve the sense of touch, or how we perceive the way we are connected to the earth though our legs and feet [to include footwear].

While in motion, we will be using another sense developed in most of us within a few months of being born and that will continue to be developed for the rest of our lives, which is called proprioception. This sense gives us natural balance, movement without falling over, and an understanding of where our feet are in time and space.

Our touch sense also will be used when we reach for a holstered weapon, or any tool at any location familiar to us without having to use the sight sense to know where it is and how hard we are gripping with our fingers. This touch sense tells us we have gripped the weapon/tool, and is directly proportional to our proprioceptive ability to know where our limbs are in time and space, how much force must be used to pick up/move an object within that time and space.

Through repetitive movements in practice, we develop a proprioceptive sense of where our arms and legs are in time and space, what movement is needed to access the tool we want to use and where that tool can be found without using our others senses. We develop our proprioceptive abilities, which frees us from having to use all of the senses we are normally born with to accomplish any given task the brain tells us we need to perform. It’s all done without conscious thought once we have honed these skills through repetition.

The more we “practice”, the faster we can react to stimulus from the world we live in. Without highly developed proprioceptors and slow and fast twitch fibers in our muscles, we would not be able to access the tool/weapon as efficiently as possible in any given situation. To further develop these skills requires us to repeat any given task over and over.

Human muscles contain a genetically determined mixture of both slow and fast fiber types. On average, we have about 50 percent slow twitch and 50 percent fast twitch fibers in most of the muscles used for movement. In attempting to be as fast as possible to respond to outside stimulus, I’m interested in developing what are known as the Type IIb muscle [ twitch ] Fibers

These fast twitch fibers use anaerobic metabolism to create energy and are the "classic" fast twitch muscle fibers that excel at producing quick, powerful bursts of speed. This muscle fiber has the highest rate of contraction (rapid firing) of all the muscle fiber types, but it also has a much faster rate of fatigue and can't last as long before it needs rest.

Moving out of a potential kill zone [ moving off line of the attack ], accessing and drawing the weapon [ getting the tool into play ], and, in this case, bringing the firearm muzzle to bear as soon as possible to be able to fire and hit with it in the least amount of time all require the efficient use and high development of our Type IIb muscle [ twitch ] Fibers along with our highly developed proprioceptors which allow subconscious thought in our actions.

The above fairly covers the advanced development of one of the senses, the sense of touch and subsequent movement through our touch sense, both the sense of being connected to the earth through our legs and feet [ moving along the ground ], as well as the sense of touch through are hands and fingers [ accessing the tool in the most efficient manner possible ], none of which could be possible with real speed without the development and use of proprioception and/or our development and use of proprioceptors.
I’ve already written about how proprioception [ the understanding of where our arms and legs are in relationship to our environ and how it works with another sense [ the sight sense ].

I’ve been able to develop the [B]“Enhanced Peripheral Vision” © TM skills using proprioception over direct vision skills in the last 18 months both physically and conceptually. Students are discovering exactly what they are capable of doing without using direct vision and how they can develop their peripheral sense of vision, not having to always rely on direct vision.

Lately I’ve been working on further development of another of our senses [ the sense of sound with the use of proprioception ]. In the last few months, one of my students and I have discussed introducing advanced drills to further students sense of sound and being able to determine where the threat is, and more importantly being able to then muzzle the threat without any visual ques which could be used in total darkness. I’ll discuss the use of my “Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM skills in another article in the future.

[Brownie]

I think it appropriate to let the members and readership know that in a recent conversation with Guantes, he mentioned the "use of the clock" where putting the gun in the correct position is concerned.

His comments on the use of the "hands of the clock" in understanding the direction of the opponent relative the direction you are facing was just fantastic. I believe it is going to be very very useful in getting students to understand and come up to speed quickly, in the use of the “Enhanced Peripheral Vision” © TM as well as the “Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM .

Thanks G, you've made my work that much easier in developing the students skills through a better understanding and use of the "clock" analogy. It's something everyone can understand and thats going to help them in these types of drills.

[Guantes]

Thanks Brownie, happy to be of help.

Moving from the mechanics of proprioception into areas of its value some things become apparent. Proprioception, operating outside of the I-function enhances its value in the area of self defense.

It does this by not congesting the conscious part of the brain with unneeded communication and feeback about the movement of the body. This leaves the conscious part of the brain free to interact with the five common senses in determning threats and the best response to them. The performing of the of the chosen response at the proprioceptive level, leaves the conscious brain free for incoming visual, tactile or auditory information, wherein the cycle begins again.

Moving back into the mechanics of proprioception, some other things come to mind. A higher level of proprioception is a significant asset. Even if specific proprioceptive abilities would rarely or never be used, I believe their acquisition is still beneficial and enhances other similar abilities. The negative aspect of this realtionship is demonstrated in Field Sobriety Tests. Proprioceptive skills, such as touching the nose with the eyes closed, are used in part to determine if one is capable of another partially proprioceptive action, driving a vehicle. This would seem to establish that proprioceptive skills are viewed as related.

[DocH]

Good stuff.

[Brownie]

Doc,

Having gotten many students to be able to hit what they are NOT looking at almost immediately in the last 6 months, I'm now working on developing skills drills that will get students to be able to hit without any vision reference and just from the direction of sounds to orient the muzzle.

I've worked with this some myself, it's pretty easy out to about 15 feet but I want to be able to get people to hit on a mans chest without benefit of the use of any sight sense out to 30 feet.

It's important to understand working with the "minds eye", and takes skills to a higher level of awareness of their surroundings, again using proprioceptive abilities [ knowing where your arms/hands are in relation to your own body position and the threat/target ] while training.

Understand that these skills are not something I expect anyone to use on the streets in any normal SD situation. Developing the "minds eye" skills, introducing the understanding of how and why you can hit that which you are not directly looking at, and hit that which you can only hear [ orienting your muzzle on the threat ] pushes the students to levels not obtained by many in any walk of life, let alone this subject of SD with a handgun.

The hard part with the enhanced peripheral vision skills was figuring out how to make it utterly repeatable and accurate, and then working on drills that allow the students to come to that level quickly in the training time we have with them [ easier said than done :o ]. The success with the peripheral vision skills/drills led me to look at the "sound" skills, they are just a natural progression to my thinking as it's another sense we should be able to enhance in others.

Using the analogy Guantes gave me of the "hands of the clock", the drills will be easier for the students to understand and be able to perform. Sometimes the simplest of themes brings it all together, and I'm confident the “Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM can be successful with the use of Guantes' analogy fairly easily.

I've got a student in this coming Monday for three days. He's been curious about the night course material and I'm going to put this to the test [ he's a good shooter ] one night after dark when we head back into the desert. Whats going to be a plus here in the dark is I can use the steel plates that are the size of a humans chest so we'll get instant feedback. If I can get him to perform with auditory skills while all sight sense is removed using the analogy of the clock hands, then hit the plate with a stone and let him orient on that sound himself afterwards, we are likely "good to go".

Neither the EPV, nor the EAP [ “Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM ] will be a primary course function in the future [ nor do I think it should be ], but an after hours bonus if they want it. Who knows, there may be a vision impaired course for ITFTS in the future using their own personally developed enhanced auditory skills.

[DocH]

Well,you and I both know that there are naysayers who would say you were crazy,but it makes sense to me. I don't remember the percentages,but I can't remember how many times I have heard in my life that we only use a finite percentage of what our brains are capable of.
I think this would also apply to the developement of the "twitch" muscles you described,and being able to hone in on sounds and pinpoint them exactly is very possible. You very well may be on to something here,something I have never considered but I believe those senses can be developed to the point where what you describe actually becomes easy.
How to get to that point ,I have no idea,but it's an extremely interesting concept. I suppose repetition after repetition would be required to reach the degree of skill in this that one would want to attain,but the repetition is what makes us good at the other shooting skills,also.
I'm interested in following this to see how it eventually plays out.It may be a slow go and even slower for others to accept and latch onto,but look how long the "point shooting" arguments went on before people started seeing the light. Keep up the good work. As you always say " the mind is the only limiting factor." I,for one,think it can not only be done,but highly developed as well for one who is willing to spend the time.

[Brownie]

Doc,

Medical studies have shown the majority of normally functioning humans have about an equal number of fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fiber [ thats about 50-50 between the two types ].

In developing athletes, what they have found is that these two types of twitch muscles can be isolated, and trained till they are fully enhanced depending on the type of training based on the function [ skill ] that is required in that particular event.

The research I've seen suggests the 50-50 equation normally found without any enhancement can be increased to an 80-20 in either direction. For shooters who need to react explosively in drawing their weapon which will be the time for the body to react/arm to move to the firearm, the draw sequence to include muzzle on threat needs the fast "Type IIb muscle [ twitch ] Fibers" really developed. It can be developed in a few ways but as you suggest, repetition is one of the major players in developing the twitch muscle fibers.

To reiterate from my original post:

Through repetitive movements in practice, we develop a proprioceptive sense of where our arms and legs are in time and space, what movement is needed to access the tool we want to use and where that tool can be found without using our others senses. We develop our proprioceptive abilities, which frees us from having to use all of the senses we are normally born with to accomplish any given task the brain tells us we need to perform

A classic example is given by the below recounting of a conversation I had with a student recently:

I remember one student in Flagstaff who watched me demonstrate EU/ED with real speed and then asked me "When is your trigger finger reaching into the trigger guard and getting on the trigger?" My answer was "I can't answer that question"

Some two hours later, after he was drawing to EU/ED with some real good speed I asked him "Can you tell me when you are putting your trigger finger on the trigger?" His reply with a chesire cat grin was "No, I can't, it's just happening":D He had substantially developed his twitch muscles and proprioceptive abilities in that skill in a very short time. He understood why I couldn't answer the question when he asked earlier.

Yes, I think there will be some hard road to travel in this idea of enhancing/developing the sight and sound senses. Thats not something I'm unfamilair with though:D

[RTBRANE]

Brownie,
something to look for in the auditory sessions is unequal hearing ability between a students ears. Not sure how common this would be, but I suspect this condition would influence sound locating capabilities to some extent. This would be from trauma or illness.
Also, hair covering one ear, a deformed or missing external ear may effect this ability.
These thoughts were suggested by a tv show about tests done to find out how owls hear, and locate prey using it.

Will

[JMusic]

These are high end discussions and may or may not be accepted as viable for the average shooter. Proprioception is not majic and the brain learns what is needed to allow you to function on an everyday basis. Proprioception is the subconscious hub that allows our body to move and act without burdoning our conscious thought. With that said proprioception is a "sense" that can be further developed. It was stated earlier that there are 5 senses and proprioception would be the sixth. I guess I would say there are 6 senses, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell and "balance". This could be debatable but when discussing proprioception, balance is usually defined as a sense.

In shooting some drills were devised to increase your proprioception sense. One drill comes to mind for Bullseye shooting. In my day revolvers ruled. The drill used a wall, sheet of paper, pencil and revolver. You would stand by the wall arm up with pencil in the bore of the revolver. With eyes closed you would lower your arm and point it toward the piece of paper just inches away. This was practiced for months and after awhile you knew where your weapon was when you pointed it at the wall eyes closed.

I find it much easier for me to learn new techniques if I physically do them. Many people are like this. This type of learning is described as kinesthetic. There is a relationship between kinesthetic learning and proprioception sensing though the relationship is still debated. The way I see it though is you can increase one sense by employing the other learning technique.

Using hunting as an example lets walk through a newbee's take on flushing a bird compared to a seasoned hunter during a week hunt.

As a newbee walks through the field the terain all looks the same. As he walks up to a briar thicket or the end of a field he notices his partners become more focused. They go from low or high ready into a 3/4 extention mode. Their footsteps are no longer the long swing strides that were used as they walked through the field but are now slower, shorter and more deliberate. There head is constantly scanning. To the newbee somethings up but he don't know why. As he walks up to the end of the field there is an explosion just to the left of him. He is startled. Chances are his buddies are shooting away and he has not as yet identified exactly what the noise was. In his periphrial he see's birds flying away but its to late to shoot now.

The next field the same thing happens this time our newbee is still statled but he manages to shoulder the weapon and point it in the general direction of the "noise". After several jerks on the trigger he realizes he forgot to take the safety off. Though he is embarressed at his performance he has improved from his first attempt.

Fast forward to the end of the week. The newbee walks to the edge of a fence row. This time he is ready he knows he has pushed the birds as far as they can go. A sound go's off behind and to his left. This time he's not startled click the safety is off as he turns. Without his knowledge he has turned and shouldered the weapon at the direction of the noise. Visually he picks up the bird in his periphrial vision, leads the bird and fires, the bird falls. He is no longered startled or hurried. When his sense of sight caught up with his unconsciouse body reactions all he had to do was make an accurate shot. He has retrained his body to work to his advantage in just one week by doing and experiencing. He has increased his proprioception sense and has become a better hunter.

Jim

[Brownie]

Will,

Thanks for the heads up, it's something I'll need to watch for in others. Tuesday night I'll be in the desert with another who'll be out here three days. I'm going to work on the audio/sound sense with him on the steel plates in the dark.

Jim,

Good analogy with the hunting scenario. McDaniel was the first time I read mention of proprioception. Most who've read his work know he was a southern gentleman whose passion was bird hunting.

His Instinct Shooting program in the 50's was a direct result of his attempt to get his son to shoot clays who was having a lot of difficulty hitting. The ability to cheek and shoulder the gun, exactly the same way everytime was [ and still is ] an important part in developing the proprioceptors [ the subconsciousness of the two in concert with each other quickly and automatically ] so that an individual could then concentrate on watching the quarry and make the hit.

Your analogy fits perfectly with the history of how rifle Quick Kill came to be developed.

[Beagles747]

Brownie,
something to look for in the auditory sessions is unequal hearing ability between a students ears. Not sure how common this would be, but I suspect this condition would influence sound locating capabilities to some extent. This would be from trauma or illness.
Also, hair covering one ear, a deformed or missing external ear may effect this ability.
These thoughts were suggested by a tv show about tests done to find out how owls hear, and locate prey using it.

Will

I think that cocking the head to one side (strong ear side if you will) would help with unbalanced hearing. I know my hearing is better in my right ear so I might have an advantage if I cocked my head slightly to the left. I'm sure someone with a real hearing loss problem in one ear or both would struggle with this type of drill but I also think in time with practice that individual could teach himself how to get better at it. I'm very interested in this. This is something that may never be needed on the streets but yet I can think of a few scenarios where it could come into play. I just signed up for the field trip!:D

-John

[DocH]

Jim,that's a great post,a good explanation.I especially like the analogy of the quail covey flush. Brings back memories of me and Pop and old Flora,a great Lemon pointer. That's exactly how I learned to hit 'em on the rise as a kid.:)

[JMusic]

Brought back memories for me too Doc as I was writing it.

Jim

[Beagles747]

It's been a busy week! Been trying to get back to this thread for a few days now to comment on what I observed/learned Tuesday night. Right off the bat I'm going to say that I was very amazed at the hit percentage that I witnessed! We were in almost total darkness. There was very little ambient light from the stars. Where we were there wasn't any glow or anything from surrounding cities.
It was pretty damn dark! Actually it was a very clear night and I got to see a great view of the night sky with all the stars and constellations. Brownie seemed to be pretty up on the constellations, too. He pointed out a bunch of them I have never seen before. Ok, back to more manly stuff...;)

Quote from Brownie's first post in this thread...He referred to: " “Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM skills."


Brownie had two steel plate targets placed about 8 to 10 feet apart. "The steel plates are a little less than an IDPA -1 scoring area. They are roughly 19" tall by 13" wide."[-Brownie]
The height of the plates were correct for the height of an average man. Brownie was shooting at distances from about 8 to 15 feet on average. There were several different phases during the night trying a variety of positioning and turning to shoot to the sound. It was done with eyes open and eyes closed (mostly eyes open as in a real life situation of a low light SD encounter there would be some type of ambient light, and you would normally be able to use your eyes, just my take on that, and I thought I heard Brownie mention that as well). This is kind of how it went; When Brownie was shooting there would be a person to his right throwing small rocks at the steel target to create the sound to shoot to. Usually I would hear the rock hit and resonate a "dingggg" that lasted a second or two and then hear the shot not to far after and a corresponding ding from the bullet! I would hear that about 75% of the time maybe 80%. There were misses but after playing with it for a while the misses were far and few between. I was impressed at how accurate one could shoot in near total darkness. The steel plates were set at a slight angle , plus add to the equation of your positioning to the plate your making that angle more steep the target becomes smaller and more difficult to hit, yet it was being hit. Almost a "ZEN" shooting style if you will.......

At one point Brownie was making snap shots quickly and accurately (Using the Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM ) with very few misses. He was in the "ZONE" for the most part. It was something to see... One thing I still would like to have seen is even on the misses if it had been an actual body it still may have been a hit. If somehow we could position a full silhouette target behind the steel target we could see how far off the misses were. My guess not to far off! The shots were single snap shots for the most part. In a real situation I would think the proper response would be 2 rounds per target, I'm guessing at 2 per the hit percentage would jump accordingly.

We had a red amber light to provide some dull light.... Brownie demonstrated "laterals" on the two steels while running by them in the dark while one of us gave him the dull red amber light in front of him to keep his footing! He was hitting pretty well only with slight problems on the second plate which was mainly from the muzzle flash. Brownie can comment more on exactly what he saw. Still in the dark....running...making good hits on targets that honestly were pretty small. You are going to see an actual person a whole lot better than two dark gray in color steel plates at night! There were four of us out there that night. Two I would consider better than average shooters one being myself and the other two obviously seasoned pros! The seasoned guys shot great and consistently all night! (I wouldn't expect anything less from Brownie) I was up and down, but made hits, I didn't try the audio drill, but tried a few others....also I learned a great technique for holding a flashlight while shooting that I plan to practice with in the future! Muzzle flash played a huge part for me. It was a big distraction...I tried looking past it but it's difficult. Also for some reason I always could see the target on the left if I moved in a bit but had trouble with the targets on the right. It may have been the positioning of the target and the way the ambient light was hitting. Not sure exactly, but I did hit the steels e few times moving around in the dark looking for the shadow of the plate in the darkness. Then I was handed Brownie's Gen 1 G17 (Glock 17 9mm full sized) with night sites and used the front sight only as a reference point using quick kill. I did ok with that but not as well as I would have in the day time. Part of my problem was I was seeing spots in my eyes from using a night vision camera most of the night, that coupled with the muzzle flash and not nearly being used to the situation was a huge challenge. It was hard...but it could be done as Brownie had demonstrated over and over throughout the evening.

I'm sure I missed a bunch of stuff but I wanted to share at least part of what I saw and did with you guys.
Had a great time, Thanks for the invite Brownie and the learning experience! Great stuff! Really great stuff!

-John

[Brownie]

John,

You covered just about all of what we were playing with out in the desert in near total darkness very well in your post.

I've got a long way to go with the “Enhanced Auditory Perception” © TM skills. Though the success rate with hits was as good as it could probably be expected on the steel [ just the size of a humans chest ], as you suggest we'll throw up a stand with a full silhouette behind the steel to determine actual hits.

Thats a great idea, wish we had thought to bring the stands last Tuesday night.:rolleyes:

Remember that Rich, Christian and myself ran the Enhanced Peripheral Vision © TM with two guns simultaneously as well in the dark with excellent results. Christians comments after a few rounds of that drill were something to the effect of "Thats just sick"

As John mentioned, he video'd an hour of the night shooting and I've seen the dvd he made of the footage. After watching the dvd, it's hard to believe we were hitting like we were in the dark. The tape shows just how dark it was, and all you can see is the muzzle flash and hear the hits on the plates.

John was having more trouble than I would have expected with his ability with a pistol, but as he mentioned, he video'd an hour through his camera and his night vision just was not there afterwards. I was actually surprised he could put the camera down and shoot at all under those conditions.

We'll do this again before X-mas if you are up to it. No video taping this time, so you can have a chance to shoot like the rest of us in the dark. If the moon gets too full, we'll just step back till we can barely see em to adjust the lighting conditons on the threats.

[DocH]

Outstanding report,John.

[Beagles747]

Thanks Doc!

Brownie,
I definitely would like to get the full experience! It took about 45 minutes after I put the camera down before my eyes were back to normal again and I wasn't seeing spots. I don't know how the guys in the Military can use the NV goggles and the like and function for long periods of time. Looking forward to the next time!

-John

[Brownie]

John,

I owe you a night in the desert, you and I will go play with this by ourselves one night before the holidays.

I appreciate you filming what we got done out there the last time. We'll talk Sunday at the shop.

[Beagles747]

Brownie,

Sounds like a plan...

Oh and by the way I purposely left out the two handed stuff as honestly I just thought no one would believe it! I saw it and still question it:D

That was some amazing stuff!

-John