You will react as you train...No You Will NOT, it won't be near that good....Clint Smith
I have pretty good experience with teaching people how to respond under duress/stress. I understand the methodology, the science, I am pretty read on the literature. "Training" in and of itself is a fundamental requirement to learn a skill. But when you have to use that skill, if you have done it 1,000 times still, sunny, and safe, under
those conditions will you be able to replicate it. You can advance your training by adding different stressors--low-light/low-vis, gaming/competitions, using a shot timer, doing 25 push-ups before you shoot, etc. That just gets you to the next rung. Force-on-force would be next. Understanding dynamics, movement, tactics would be next.
To be able to reproduce your skill in a stressful situation, you need to do it in as many
overly stressful situations as possible; in shooting, that's right up to being shot at. Then, maybe, you can reproduce the skill on a two-way multi-dimensional "battlefield."
Anyhoo, this was roughly the model we used when we wrote the FMSS/FMTB curricula for corpsmen, to be able to treat multiple casualties under duress. The final exercises we had them doing was sleep deprived, strobes, screaming, animal entrails and 'blood', screaming, loud music, fire hoses to the face, whatever we could do. After the exercise, we'd tell them "if you can respond half as well in battle, you'll be half as good as you need to be."
Which is why I die a slow death when people say they have their CCW class and permit, and never shoot again; or do a 1-weekend class in fill-in-the-blank, and feel like they are competent.
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