I like to think that I don’t just teach people to shoot their firearms. Anyone can learn how to send a round down range. It is easy to put a few holes in a piece of paper. Being in a situation where your life is on the line is going to be very different than what you see on flat range.
I have a lot of friends and guys that I have trained with that are veterans or law enforcement. In discussions that I have had with them and stories that they have told me, the one thing that has always stood out to me as most interesting is what was going through their minds when they where in those combat or high stress situations. A lot of veterans and LEO call this “combat mindset”.
Well, I never had the honor to serve my country and, I have never been in law enforcement. I am just a citizen and patriot who, after buying my first firearm, realized that I was woefully inadequate in my skill set and , was probably more of a danger with it than a protector. I threw myself into learning and training and, one of the main things that I have come away with is a “fighting mindset”.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year. There’s good reason to believe that most defensive gun uses are never reported to law enforcement, much less picked up by local or national media outlets.
To be successful and survive if you become one of the millions of people every year that are put into a defensive situation. You will need to have a fighting mindset. I have come to believe that there are three main factors to developing that fighting mindset. Awareness, Confidence and, Purpose.
Awareness: You need to be aware of your surroundings and any situations that you are, or have been put in.
Confidence: You have to be confident in your training. One of the most heard things after an incident is, “I just fell back on my training”. You need to train and have the confidence that you can fall back on that training.
Purpose: You have to know and understand the “why” you are acting. Are you protecting your family? yourself? a stranger?
The Greek philosopher Plutarch reported that Spartan mothers would tell their sons “return with your shield, or on it” as their sons left for battle. There is a lot to this very simple statement but I believe that the general idea behind it expresses the kind of mindset that we are going to be talking about in this series of articles that I am going to call “Mindset Mondays”. We are going to explore different strategies and techniques within those 3 main categories that will help you build that fighting mindset and, be better prepared for any situation that you may encounter.
Be sure to check back here and follow my Facebook page to get updates, not only for this series but for the other series and classes that we will be planning
By Cheyne
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