Building Shooters: Applying Neuroscience Research to Tactical Training System Design and Training Delivery

It has been sometime since I have chosen to provide a review of existing literature. This work of Mr. Salomon has led me to offer a brief explication of this 192 page manual.It appears that Dustin P. Salomon, the book's author, has been influenced by Mike Seeklander, a former senior instructor at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, located in Glynco, GA. No doubt, this is the principle source for Mr. Salomon's neuroscientific data for this book. FLETC has implemented some form of SET for a while, at least in theory ( [...]The science provided within this manual is sound, as it is based off of Driskell's and Johnston's years of work[...]. What always becomes difficult to show or prove, is the effectiveness of the actual training paradigm's success rate on trainees operating in real high risk environments. Few trainers follow up with their paying customers to actually engage in a longitudinal study of their trainees' successes within high risk environments beyond anecdotal testimonies. Fortunately, DoD does follow successes of training of its soldiers and Marines, and thus far, Driskell's and Johnston's SET paradigm is effective.What Dustin Salomon has generated with this manual is to create a commercially viable attempt to abbreviate an extremely expensive SET (Stress Exposure Training) model. He correctly details how learning essential motor skills are inhibited when trainers induce stressful training stimuli before important motor skills are properly mastered. He correctly details how positive feedback throughout the training evolutions are imperative for learning said skills, correctly. He even correctly schedules what he terms as "interleaved training" in its proper placement--after mastery of motor skills. Salomon's "Interleaved Training" is similar to the Phase Three component of a well designed SET program, where all the materials learned in phase one and two are engaged under realistic conditions. It is here that the trainee learns to deploy previously learned skills under similar conditions he or she will meet under real world stress.Salomon expresses how this "interleaved training" will assist placing essential motor skills needed in high risk environments into procedural memory (what the lay person understands to be 'muscle memory'). Salomon does reinforce the need for correct repetition, but not merely within sterile blocked repetitions and mindless drills for drilling's sake--which is rarely useful in this environment. Variety in execution and variety in the contextual learning environment are needed to ingrain proper performance executions.Overall, the book offers a reliable reflection of how a trainer might explore proper stress exposure training for a commercial setting. The weakness of the book is that its abbreviated format of SET, may not provide the same training outcomes and individual/team performances found in a well designed and very expensive SET Model.

I gave this book three stars for originality and the work that was put in it. There is no doubt the author is very well read and researched but he failed to provide a better way of conducting training.His training principal is laid down in one single chapter (chapter 10) and 19 pages; but even that is very ambiguous and presented in general terms. He briefly mentions that someone can learn a subject more effectively then the way it is usually presented today. He gives a diagram, but he does not really tell us what is he talking about and how to do that. He mentions interleaved training several times but he doesn’t really give us an example. I wish he would have just taken a class/topic and show us how he would teach it.He talks a lot about making sure the information provided to the students gets into the desired long-term memory (procedural or declarative) but he doesn’t really tell us how to do that.He presents a “block training” outline but he fails to show us an outline of his training method.He states that physical exercises improves the transfer of information from the short-term memory to the long-term memory but again he fails to provide an example. What exercises and when? Is he talking about the benefits of exercising, in general? Or exercises done within the training program? Like before and after a presented material?He claims that “emotional arousal after the training period enhances emotional connections effects”? OK… Which emotions?He does an excellent job presenting the challenges (five starts for this one) facing training today.I like that at the end of the book he presented an outline of the factors that influence learning (pretty much an outline of most of the book).This book is original and provocative but if you look for a way to increase training retention, this is not the book.

I wrote Dynamic because after all this years i have learned the neuroscience first hand from Dusty. My name is Angel, Dusty was our Operations / Operations officer for MSF 2 DET22. As the years went by i have been teaching Military, Law Enforcement and Responsible Law Abiding citizens with the same science that Dusty wrote in the book Building Shooters /Mentors. Is a required reading for our Instructors at Black Sheep Training Group LLC. We use the method that is written in both books and applied it even to train people down range because the short amount of time we have with them . With this type of understanding we were able to help the students to learn critical components of their training by applying this neuroscience. I am proud to say that i had the Honor and Privilege to serve along with Dusty and for his continue mentorship thru my Career and Business. Both books should be a required reading for SPECOPS ,SWAT,or Firearms Instructors especially for the Stress Component of training and Critical Thinking and Decision Making.Angel R Fernandez USN RETFounder Of Black Sheep Training Group LLC

Content 5++, Kindle 0--The information is fabulous. Buy the PAPER version. The Kindle version is "Print Replica" and, given the print version page size (7X10), it's larger than my reader. So in presentation it is analogous to a JPG of each page that you have to scroll down/across to read. And when you go back a page, it's whatever position you left from (e.g. bottom right corner) Text can be highlighted and commented but the format is the very definition of a pain. I thought so much of the content that I paid $45 for it ($20 Kindle, then $25 print). Grow smarter, save money: buy the paper version.

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