When confronted with a crisis....

[Doggtyred]

Dont remember who's tagline I saw this on.. but... I stole it.. and posted it on facebook... and another friend of mine took it to work.. and they incorporated it into the training center at their brand new fire station..

"When confronted with a crisis, you will not rise to the occasion; You will sink to the level of your training"

Who did I steal that from, and while I'm sure things like this float around forever, any venture on where it originated?

 

[PittsDriver]

No idea where it originated but that sounds like something the training folks would put on a poster to get more funding from the company. But it's also very true and it's something we talk about a lot in aerobatic training. The corollary we use is that if you got mentally behind enough to find yourself in an upset, then during the upset, you're not going to suddenly speed up your thinking to solve it. In fact, the opposite happens - you brain freeze and if you don't have some programmed response that helps/works no matter what the plane is doing, you're in the hurt locker. The best upset/recovery training are all about laying down some simple steps that work without having to think about it.

 

[Doggtyred]

I did some searching.. Turns out the quote is from John Rennie, the editor of Scientific American.. and it was actually in relation to sports..published September 2000.

"We fans might want to believe that when it counts, sheer determination can beat physical obstacles and competitors' superior strengths." (But that sentiment) "... ignores a harsher reality known to drill sergeants and athletic coaches alike: In a crisis you don't rise to the occasion. You sink to the level of your training"

 

[NBPD336]

On of the Drill Instructors in the academy used to always tell us that as we were doing defensive tactics. I have that as my sig line on a few forums.

 

[PilotAlan]

It's the absolute truth. After 15 years of patrol on the street, when the time comes you do as trained.
I still remember coming up to a house and a subject came out with a gun. Literally the next thing I know I was behind a low concrete wall with him at gunpoint, and with no conscious knowledge of how I ended up there.

If there is time to plan, then you can implement the plan and everything happens in the front brain. But when the plan goes south and it's do or die, you will revert to what you have trained, period.

Alan

 

[alaskaflyer]

There is no such thing as tough. There is trained and untrained. Now which are you?