Training Under Extreme Stress

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmYUIS9N7cU[/youtube]

Getting kicked and pushed around to simulate actual conditions?

Also, that would be so irritating having someone fire blanks (I’m assuming they are blanks) off right near your head.

If you were actually getting treated that way in real life, I think it would be safe to say that it would be from the enemy (not your own guys), and you would be disarmed.

Anyone have more info on training like this?  Is it widely practiced?

Thanks to JP for the video!


Comments

25 responses to “Training Under Extreme Stress”

  1. That’s not stress. That’s stupid. Stress comes from knowing that another is trying to hurt or kill you that’s just harassment. And harassment–even at its worse, its not designed to injure, just annoy. And I got very annoyed watching that vid.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      Good point! “Training Under Harassment” would have been a lot better title for the post.

  2. That looks pretty stressful to me. People get “stressed” from a lot of things that have nothing to do with someone trying to kill or injure them, so I think that can certainly qualify as stressful. Returning fire in a combat situation may involve your buddy’s muzzle being that close to your head as you fire, and you may be bumping into each other as you try to move into position, there may be shrapnel flying through the air, explosions, etc.

    This looks extreme, undoubtedly, but I wouldn’t consider it so extreme as to be “over the top,” or that it doesn’t have some useful value. When I was in the Army a few years ago we did training on the range that involved distracting/stressful elements like blank firing very close, artillery simulators, and yelling and screaming while we fired. None of the physical elements of pushing, shoving, kicking, etc. though.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      Interesting. From what you’re saying, I suppose most of what is in the video would be useful besides the physical abuse.

    2. I would bet you a million dollars that their isn’t a unit in the US military that trains like that when they’re using live ammo.

      The Special Forces are too professional (as are the conventional forces) and training like that is just asking for a mishap.

      That has got to be one of the cowboy training outfits that have popped up. I can’t believe anyone would consider that useful. Like I said before that’s just harassment, pure and simple.

  3. When my friends and I train like this at our local indoor range the range office gets really upset.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      LOL yea ranges tend to frown upon physical and psychological abuse.

  4. Josh,

    I assumed the video was dealing with ‘combat stress’…

    I’m talking about stress as the term is used in the Marines or Army. When you talk about the stress of combat it has nothing to do about being nervous about being late for work or if you paid the gas bill.

  5. DUNsho Avatar

    looks unsafe, at :23 the trainer whips the student around and pulls him to the ground, while the student’s rile is all over the place. I have done sometime similar, but with a handgun however it was more just the trainer pulling on my shirt and screaming at me. no crazy firing his gun next to my ear or spinning around.

  6. Yeah, this is both stupid and dangerous. The stress training we go was having to run two miles, then having to shoot our BRM course afterwards. Basically get our heart beat up, which effects our motor functions and breathing. We were also yelled at, mostly on how to operate our weapon, and then having to recite our three general orders or the parts of grenade at the same time.

    But nothing like this, which is insane.

  7. Jerome Kavanaugh Avatar
    Jerome Kavanaugh

    I’m a firearms and tactical training officer for a federal agency, curriculum vitae available on request. I do this right now, no not for everybody but on a case by case basis. Shooting static to start and once you shoot the basics well you start shooting on the move. Once you get good at shot placement on the move I add distractions, usually one or more other instructors firing at the same time while we all shout. For the very best, I add waving plastic bags in the shooter’s peripheral vision as another distraction. Finally, I add commands about simulated wounds so they have to manipulate firing, reloads, and clears one-handed. NO, I DO NOT push, pull, or strike the shooter OR shoot blanks or live rounds at the ground right in front of us. I DO stop motion with a hand in the middle of the back if a moving shooter strays out of bounds. Non-lethal is with full pads and “at the speed of life.”

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      You’re method definitely sounds safer, and more effective.

  8. 11B FOLLOW ME Avatar
    11B FOLLOW ME

    I am an infantryman in the US Army and we have run things called “stress shoots” where we would start a course of fire by getting smoked for a few minutes with different exercises. We then will run into a course set up on a 50m range with several different stations to engage targets at and then different obstacles between them like barbed wire, low walls, and a sked stretcher drag to get your heart rate up. At the same time you are running the course, RSOs will throw pyro like artillery simulators and smoke grenades around you to simulate the stress of combat. Safety is the range officers main concern though, we never are allowed to leave a station without having our weapon cleared and then inspected by an RSO and we are not allowed to reload until told to do so at the next station by an RSO. What these guys are doing is just stupid and has absolutely no applicable training value, and is just down right dangerous.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      Those Army stress shoots sound pretty intense. Glad to hear safety is a main concern. Nothing worse then getting injured, especially because of something stupid when training.

  9. Seems to me that it would be a more realistic scenario if the trainer went down range and fired back. That is usually how gun fights go, isn’t it? Haven’t heard of to many gunfights where you do pushups and someone fires rounds into the dirt beside you?

    But on a more serious note, you all have it wrong, this video is actually training for the Iraqi Biathlon.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      Seems to me that it would be a more realistic scenario if the trainer went down range and fired back.

      hahahha no kidding. They are blanks right? What could possibly go wrong? :roll:

      hehe Iraqi biathon is definitely an event I would watch

  10. […] Say you’re doing some rifle training. And your instructor is trying to make it all ‘real’. So, while you’re doing some shooting, he decides to fire off some (what I hope are) blanks near your head to ensure hearing damage and slaps you around for good measure. That looks really stupid. […]

  11. Please tell me what school this is so that I don’t accidentally give them my money.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      HindSight Training Academy, where the motto is “You’ll wish you hadn’t” :P

  12. swampFIN Avatar
    swampFIN

    I hope these so called ‘instructors’ have a good dental plan. Some day they’ll end up eating their clients rifle butt, more or less accidentally.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      No kidding!

  13. Timmeehh Avatar
    Timmeehh

    HindSight Training Academy

    LOL

  14. maybe i shoot the instructor jejeje…

  15. p1choco Avatar

    Did the same thing Jerome did but on the USMC side of the house. Never got physical unless it was a part of the training or to keep someone out of harms way ie. keeping your partner down on his knee(s) before he stands up right in front of your muzzle or to prevent some safety violation. Safety first, and there was no kicking or dragging around or firing “blanks”. The firing of blanks is unnecessary when your on a firing line with brothers to the left and to the right of you, or you are stacked up in some fashion or moving as a fire team. We also stressed the importance of communication when moving, reloading, weapons malfunction etc. If Hindsight’s training is for tailored for the one man reloading push up commando, count me out. I can’t tell from the video but I hope the shooter was wearing eye protection. Personally, that training is too extreme and I consider it unsafe.

    1. Admin (Mike) Avatar
      Admin (Mike)

      Thanks for the insight! I’m glad to hear the USMC uses a more positive method of training, one that would no doubt be far more effective in training soldiers.