But What About the Fundamentals?

You have to learn the fundamentals first.

That’s a common theme I hear when talking about training. Think about every classic martial arts movie. Bad thing happens — training montage with endless drills and maybe a little bit of sparring — and the hero is ready to fight. Maybe the most extreme version of this is The Karate Kid. Daniel spends weeks waxing cars, painting fences, and sanding decks. This all magically transfers into him being able to fight and defeat Johnny. While The Karate Kid is an extreme version of this, the logic isn’t much different from how most firearms training is approached. Spend weeks shooting at non-moving paper targets on a range. Then, do some scenarios toward the end of training—and bam! You’re ready to face real-life deadly force situations. Sound familiar?

When people say “the fundamentals” in firearms training, they usually mean things like how you hold the gun, stand, align the sights, press the trigger, and reload. Trainees are generally shown an idealized technique to perform these fundamentals. The learner then performs the technique under the supervision of the trainer. The trainer gives constant feedback about the learner’s form in an attempt to get them closer and closer to the ideal technique. The technique is drilled hundreds or thousands of times to produce automaticity. The focus is on getting the "correct" movements and postures down.

This drilling is also usually done in a decontextualized environment. Trainees might do extensive dry fire practice using an empty weapon where they draw their gun, align it with a target, and press the trigger. They will often shoot hundreds or thousands of rounds at paper targets in progressively more challenging courses of fire. After the trainee becomes proficient in the fundamentals, they move to scenario-based training where they are focused on learning to apply the fundamentals in a more realistic situation.

Things that make you go hmmm…

I am going to outline a few studies with interesting findings. First, Olma, Sutter, and Sülzenbrück have published two studies on police firearms training that assessed the impact of marksmanship-type training vs. more realistic training. I reviewed the first study here and the second one can be found here.

The setup for both studies was basically identical, but one study used senior police officers and the other police trainees. Participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Both groups did the same set of pretests. One pretest involved shooting abstract targets (e.g., circles) as quickly as possible. The other pretest involved watching a video where the participants had to make shoot/don’t shoot decisions and shoot quickly and accurately. The control group received training that was focused on shooting abstract targets (e.g., circles) with the focus being on shooting as fast as they could while still being accurate (marksmanship). The other stepped through progressively more complicated situations involving more and more realistic (person-like) targets that required shoot/don’t shoot judgments and quick, accurate shooting. After training, both groups did posttests that were basically the same as the pretests.

The basic hypothesis was that the people who got marksmanship training would do better on the marksmanship-type test and the group who got the progressively more realistic shoot/don’t shoot training would do better on the videos. That is essentially what was found in both studies on the posttests, but there was a wrinkle in the findings. The experimental group also did better on the marksmanship posttest. This happened in both the study with senior officers and the one with police trainees.

So, training in the more realistic (complex) environment improved performance in both the more complex environment and in the more simplistic (marksmanship) environment, but training in the simpler environment did not improve performance in the more complex environment. Similar findings have been found in the sports world as well. Playing in constrained game situations appears to improve players’ “fundamentals” in a way that is similar to drilling (It also provides them with better in-game decision making).

Second, Kantor, Reiner, and Pettitt published a study on police officer accuracy and speed when facing a knife attack. A more thorough review is here, but the study involved doing a pretest where the participants drew and fired at a target as quickly as they could and then they were put in a scenario where they had to draw and fire at a charging knife-wielding assailant. They found that officers drew and fired faster when they were facing the charging assailant. They also used a variety of non-standard shooting postures (such as firing one-handed or before the gun came up to their eyeline). Additionally, they were very sensitive to how much time they had to complete their actions. When attackers were further away, they took longer to draw and fire.

Another study by Kantor and colleagues found that officers used different draws when in a scenario than when in a more range-like environment. You can find the published article here, but this paper on ResearchGate uses data from the same study and reports on movement sensors showing that officers used different drawing actions in scenarios than in range-like tests.

On top of that, there are lots of studies that show a substantial drop in performance when officers are put under stress in scenario-based training (see the footnote for some references)¹. Many of these studies also show that practicing under stress can alleviate the decreases in performance, and don’t forget all the research into stress inoculation showing that exposure to stressors reduces the impact of these stressors.

Bringing it all together

So what does this all mean for how we train? Let me bring it all together now. We have evidence that suggests practicing in a more realistic environment produces improved performance in both the realistic environment and the simpler (range-like) environment, but not the other way around. On top of that, we have evidence that shows police officers do not use the fundamentals (e.g., draw stroke and shooting postures) that were extensively drilled in training when they are put in scenarios. We also have a lot of research showing that stress reduces performance, but practicing in a similar stressful environment can reduce the negative impacts of stress. Finally, I reviewed evidence in this post indicating that current firearms training does not appear to transfer effectively to actual shootings.

Do we have it all backward?

Given the studies above, why are we still spending so much time on decontextualized fundamentals? Sure, you can show someone how to hold the gun, stand, press the trigger, and line up their sights—but, they’re going to change everything the moment they get into more realistic and dynamic situations. The way they grip the gun on the range might not work when they’re moving. Their perfect stance goes out the window when they’re using cover or dealing with an aggressive suspect at close range. Their ability to line up sights and press the trigger cleanly means nothing if they can’t process the situation and make the right decision under stress.

If the goal is to prepare officers for real-world deadly force encounters, then we need to rethink how we train. Our current approach seems to be built on flawed assumptions. We continue drilling isolated mechanics in sterile conditions, despite strong evidence that it doesn’t translate well to real situations. Why are we still clinging to methods that give a false sense of competence instead of focusing on training that actually prepares officers to survive and succeed under pressure? Instead of frontloading hours of isolated drills, we should get people into context-rich training as soon as possible—where decision-making, movement, perception, and weapon handling all develop together. Fundamentals shouldn’t be something you memorize in isolation; they should be learned in action, shaped by the realities of stress, uncertainty, and dynamic environments. Doing otherwise risks turning drilled fundamentals into training scars that actually inhibit successful performance.

While most of the studies mentioned above were not conducted by EcoD researchers, the findings align closely with EcoD principles. These provide a robust framework for understanding why training in realistic environments leads to better skill transfer and decision-making under stress. In the EcoD approach, you don’t need to focus on fundamentals (yes, in firearms training you absolutely are going to make sure trainees are safe first). Instead, you set goals and let the trainee pursue those goals. You believe that humans are amazing adaptive systems. You accept that there are lots of ways that goals can be achieved, and you want people to explore those ways (again, safely). Common patterns will emerge because some solutions will be better than others (often these common patterns are what is referred to as the fundamentals). You will design training tasks to encourage people toward the more effective solutions, but you won’t focus on "the" right way to do something. Participants will do as many scenarios as you can fit in a training session, but they will not rep out the same movement hundreds or thousands of times out of context in an attempt to produce automaticity. If we’re serious about improving police performance, we need to stop training officers for a range test and start training them for reality. The research is pointing a direction to go. Are we brave enough to follow the evidence?

1. Andersen, J. P., Dorai, M., Papazoglou, K., and Arnetz, B. B. (2016). Diurnal and reactivity measures of cortisol in response to intensive resilience and tactical training among special forces police. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 58, e242–e248. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000756

Andersen, J. P., Di Nota, P., Beston, B., Boychuk, E. C., Gustafsberg, H., Poplawski, S., et al. (2018). Reducing lethal force errors by modulating police physiology. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 6, 867–874. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000001401

Andersen, J. P., and Gustafsberg, H. (2016). A training method to improve police use of force decision making: a randomized controlled trial. J. Police Emerg. Response. doi: 10.1177/2158244016638708

Arble, E. P., Daugherty, A. M., and Arnetz, B. B. (2019). Differential effects of physiological arousal following acute stress on police officer performance in a simulated critical incident. Front. Psychol. 10:759. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00759

Bertilsson, J., Niehorster, D. C., Fredriksson, P. J., Dahl, M., Granér, S., Fredriksson, O., et al. (2019). Stress levels escalate when repeatedly performing tasks involving threats. Front. Psychol. 10:1562. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01562

Groer, M., Murphy, R., Bunnell, W., Salomon, K., Van Eepoel, J., Rankin, B., et al. (2010). Salivary measures of stress and immunity in police officers engaged in simulated critical incident scenarios. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 52, 595–602. doi: 10.1097/JOM.0b013e3181e129da

Nieuwenhuys, A., Cañal-Bruland, R., and Oudejans, R. R. (2012). Effects of threat on police officers' shooting behavior: anxiety, action specificity, and affective influences on perception. Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 26, 608–615. doi: 10.1002/acp.2838

Nieuwenhuys, A., and Oudejans, R. R. (2010). Effects of anxiety on handgun shooting behavior of police officers: a pilot study. Anxiety Stress Coping 23, 225–233. doi: 10.1080/10615800902977494

Nieuwenhuys, A., and Oudejans, R. R. (2011). Training with anxiety: short-and long-term effects on police officers’ shooting behavior under pressure. Cogn. Process. 12, 277–288. doi: 10.1007/s10339-011-0396-x

Nieuwenhuys, A., Savelsbergh, G. J., and Oudejans, R. R. (2015). Persistence of threat-induced errors in police officers shooting decisions. Appl. Ergon. 48, 263–272. doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2014.12.006

Oudejans, R. R. D. (2008). Reality-based practice under pressure improves handgun shooting performance of police officers. Ergonomics 51, 261–273. doi: 10.1080/00140130701577435