We have recently received some requests from instructors, asking for permission to use our presentations and learning materials in their own tactical schools and courses. The good news for those instructors and all the other tactical instructors out there is that you do not need permission to use any of our materials in your own training. Just like a high school teacher does not need to get permission from the textbook publisher to use a textbook in his/her class, any tactical instructor or school can use any of our materials, as long as they don’t steal them or break any copyright laws. If you are interested in using our materials for your course or school this article includes a few suggestions and ideas that might help.

This article is adapted from our new Outcomes Based Learning (OBL) Professional Handbook. It discusses how unexpected training outcomes can present hidden challenges, even for those who are experienced at implementing OBL. The article takes a real-world example from a CAT-C course that was implemented properly but did not end up achieving the same desired outcomes across the board. The results are surprising and can teach us a lot about how to get more out of training.

This article is adapted from our new Outcomes Based Learning Professional Handbook. The article discusses the difference between outcomes-based training and process-based training using the Combat Applications Training Course (CAT-C) and traditional Army Basic Rifle Marksmanship (BRM) training as examples. In an outcomes-based course like CAT-C you start with the desired outcomes and build every aspect of the training around those outcomes. This approach has proven itself to greatly improve real-world combat effectiveness.

Many of the world’s premier training and education institutions, including prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale are predominantly still operating the same way they were one-hundred years ago. Are there new, better ways to train that people are ignoring? We want to start by opening up the discussion to our readers. Visit our Facebook page and post your comments under this article.

The following article on “Mastering the Basics,” is drawn from the final chapter of Winning the Fight, focused on training and selection. We are happy to announce that “Winning the Fight: A Conceptual Framework for Combat Performance Enhancement” is now available on Amazon Kindle at the link below. Whether you are a law enforcement professional, military service-member, scholar or responsible citizen, Winning the Fight will revolutionize the way you approach your training and help you to greatly improve your combat performance as an individual or as a unit.

One very effective drill that can help refine individual CQB performance is the “track drill,” also referred to as “lane training.” The track drill comes from combat-proven special operations training techniques. When conducting CQB training, special operations units will often have several instructors on the catwalk, each instructor responsible for watching and assessing a single student. The track drill modifies this procedure (and in some ways improves upon it) while allowing a single instructor to run training without needing the help of additional instructors.

It is one thing to learn or understand new footwork techniques. It is another to be able to apply those techniques effectively in a high-stress situation. Mastering footwork requires a great deal of practice and as we mentioned earlier, it is not just about the quantity of practice. The quality of practice is even more important. This article covers some practice/training techniques for refining and optimizing your CQB footwork.

According to the Special Tactics philosophy, two critical factors have a greater impact on combat performance than any other: training and selection. While we have written several online articles on training, we have yet to cover selection. The following article offers some concepts and guidelines that can help any unit (regardless of size) improve its selection, promotion and incentives system. The article is adapted from our newest book, Winning the Fight: A Conceptual Framework for Combat Performance Enhancement.

When tactical professionals get together to train or share ideas, they often waste most of their time arguing with each other and have little to show for it at the end of the day. With the threat level rising both at home and overseas, wasting precious training time and failing to make progress as an individual or a unit can have deadly consequences. Therefore, we believe that trying to solve the age-old problem of the “tactical argument” is a very important effort.

This second installment in our three-part article on combat fitness provides some examples and suggestions for how to develop “combat performance evaluations.” Most performance evaluations in military or LE units test only one skill/attribute at a time (marksmanship, fitness, casualty care) in an isolated environment. An effective combat performance evaluation tests multiple skills/attributes simultaneously under realistic conditions, with little or no warning provided to those being evaluated. The article provides examples for both law enforcement and military, with low-budget and high-budget variations included.

Many debates on tactical fitness focus on the question of which exercise or routines are the most effective. We believe the more important question is, how do we measure whether a fitness program actually improves effectiveness in a given mission set? Part 1 of this three-part article offers five common sense fitness principles that provide a good starting point for answering this question. Whether you are a unit leader/commander or an individual citizen, the same core principles of combat performance evaluation, program development, physical performance testing, personalized adjustment and worst-case scenario planning can help greatly improve your combat fitness and mission readiness.

Quality tactical training is essential for keeping our military and law enforcement professionals at the top of their game. However, many training courses, schools and unit-level training exercises fail to achieve true, sustainable performance enhancement. This article provides a simple list of twelve questions to help leaders and students gauge the quality of tactical training programs.