Welcome to Episode # 33 of the Trainers Bullpen, the ‘’How We Learn to Move series– Part 2" Rob Gray is a psychology professor and research psychologist with a focus on perceptual-motor control in driving, aviation, and sports. He also hosts the Perception & Action Podcast, is the author of two books, including two bestsellers on the acquisition of movement skills ‘How We Learn To Move’ and ‘Learning to Optimize Movement’, and he serves as the Skill Acquisition Specialist for the Boston Red Sox.  In this interview, Dr. Gray addresses key concepts from chapters 3 and 4 of ‘How We Learn To Move’ and he delves into the importance of movement variability and the degrees of freedom of movement, which sets the foundation for the entire training design and coaching and the instructional model that follows. Rob explains the two predominant schools of thought on this issue - the information processing model and the self-organization model - and illustrates their differences using examples from sports domains.  Topics discussed in this interview include information processing model, self-organization model, explanation of ‘Freedom Through Constraints’, Newell’s alternative view of how to execute and learn motor skills, why actions are not caused by constraints, and the three types of constraints in the self-organization system.  This interview contains practical insights on how trainers should design and apply training based on research from ecological dynamics and constraints-led approach to enhance movement variability, promote self-organization, and create conditions for better perception, decision making, and performance in learners. Listeners are strongly encouraged to read chapters 3 and 4 of How We Learn To Move to bolster your understanding of these important motor learning principles. Previous episodes on the Trainer's Bullpen contain research papers relating to these concepts that you can access and download for *free* at www.trainersbullpen.com

Rob Gray is a psychology professor and research psychologist with a focus on perceptual-motor control in driving, aviation, and sports. He also hosts the Perception & Action Podcast, is the author of two books, including a bestseller on learning movement skills, and serves as the Skill Acquisition Specialist for the Boston Red Sox. In this interview, Rob Gray discusses key aspects from chapters 1 and 2 of his best-selling book: ‘How We Learn to Move’. Dr. Gray provides valuable insights for trainers looking improve their motor learning design and reduce the risk of injury. He challenges the traditional approach to motor skill training and emphasizes the importance of embracing contextual variability in the training environment. Topics covered in this podcast include Dr. Gray’s background that led to the conceptualization and success of his book, The ‘Myth’ of the One Correct Repeatable Technique, the importance of variability in movement for skilled performance, how constraints impact movement variability, and the relationship between variability and adaptability. This interview contains practical insights on how trainers should rethink traditional ‘technique-based’ motor skill training methods and embrace a nonlinear ecological methodology to improve their training design, enhance learning, retention and transfer, and reduce the risk of injury.

Welcome to Episode 31 of the Trainer’s Bullpen, ‘Motor Learning Feedback’ with Dr. Tim Lee. The type of feedback that a trainer or coach gives their students and the manner in which that feedback is provided is of critical importance to the effective of how well motor skills are acquired, retained and transferred. The most common type of feedback that is often applied in the law enforcement motor skill learning environment is described as ‘quick and corrective’. That is, the trainer views mistakes and errors as enemies and therefore is very quick to step in and provide feedback when the student is struggling. In addition, the feedback that is usually provided is highly corrective ‘this is what you are doing wrong, this is what you need to do to correct it, now do that’. Ironically, while most prevalent, this type of feedback has been demonstrated to result in the worst retention and transfer of movement skills to the ‘real world’. In this interview, Motor Learning expert, researcher, accomplished author and coach for the Titleist Performance Institute, Dr. Tim Lee will discuss the impact of feedback and the methods of feedback that trainers should consider in order to optimize the learning potential of their students. In this interview we discuss: ·      The different types of feedback – Inherent and Augmented ·      Using knowledge of results rather than knowledge of performance feedback ·      The importance of student motivation and how feedback can either bolster, or impair, student motivation ·      The relationship between feedback types and the students focus of attention ·      The danger of creating students who are ‘feedback dependent’ and how to avoid this from happening ·      The use of video as a feedback tool ·      The timing of feedback – hint – delayed feedback is usually optimal ·      Bandwidth feedback – what it is and how to apply it to really maximize your feedback potential for motor learning. Have your pen and paper ready. This interview contains very important information to help you advance your tradecraft as a trainer! As a reminder, all resources, documents and links are available to you at www.trainersbullpen.com Dr. Tim Lee can be contacted at [email protected]

In this episode, we welcome back to the show, Dr. Paul Taylor. Paul is a Professor at University of Colorado Denver where he studies decision-making, human factors, and system safety in the context of police interactions with the public. He has over ten years of practical law enforcement experience including time as a department training manager, patrol sergeant, and use-of-force instructor. Paul is the founder of the Association of Force Investigators and has delivered law enforcement related instruction for academy, field training, and advanced in-service audiences as well as graduate and undergraduate level courses. Paul is actively engaged in law enforcement research and training across the United States and internationally.  In this interview you will learn about a fascinating study with important training implications that was conducted on the ability, or more accurately, the lack of ability, of officers to effectively and efficiently transition between their sidearm and the Taser or between their Taser and their sidearm under time compressed events. The ability for officers to have the requisite motor skill to be able to conduct these transitions is very important for officer and public safety. This study identifies significant gaps in performance and helps further our understanding of how to improve our training design and delivery to ensure we enable our officers to develop these essential skills. As a reminder, the research paper referenced in this interview is appended to the show notes and free to download over at the Trainers Bullpen website at www.trainersbullpen.com

Law enforcement trainers frequently stress the importance of Situational Awareness or 'SA'. But what even is it? If you ask a room full of trainers, you will get as many varied answers as there are people in the room! And yet, situational awareness in other domains has been found to be the hallmark of expert performance. Experts have developed ways of rapidly assessing an unfolding, often ambiguous event, and knowing what to anticipate, where to scan, how to understand what they are seeing, and are then able to make the most effective decisions to solve the problem. In this interview, Dr’s Huhta and Di Nota will discuss the research they conducted on expert performers and their situational awareness patterns in law enforcement. The paper which serves as the foundation for this discussion is titled “Deriving Expert Knowledge of Situational Awareness in Policing: a Mixed-Methods Study” and was published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology in 2023. In this interview, we explore: ·      The importance of situational awareness, ·      The definition of situational awareness – what does it mean? ·      How experts actually attend to and process unfolding incidents, ·      Differences between how experts and novices scan and assess a scene, ·      The 7 themes of expert situational awareness, ·      Considerations for structuring a learning environment to assist students with the skill of developing situational awareness expertise, ·      Accelerating ‘game intelligence’ in training by applying the principles of the 7 S/A themes. As a reminder, the publication we are speaking about in this interview is available for download over at the Trainers Bullpen website at www.trainersbullpen.com

According to a national survey of police mental health, a staggering 90% of police officers affected by stress reported stigma as a barrier to seeking mental health support. In this very important interview, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University, Dr. Mariana Kaiseler, discusses the research that she and colleagues have published specifically  pertaining to the stress of police work and the many training, policy and leadership implications that need to be considered in order to help advance police officer mental health and resilience. Two research papers used as the foundation for this interview are Ambulatory Assessment of Psychophysiological Stress among Police Officers published in the journal of Occupational Health, and Transitioning from Recruit to Officer: An Investigation of how Stress Appraisal and Coping Influence Work Engagement. In this interview, we discuss: ·      Why stress is, or ought to be, such a concern for police trainers and agency leadership, ·      Chronic vs acute stress and the relationship between them. ·      The shocking reality that it is actually not the acute stress of incidents that officer encounter that put them at greatest risk of harm to their mental wellness, but organizational stress. ·       The deficiencies of organizational supports that are critical to help keep officers resilient and mentally healthy. ·      How the policing ‘culture’ causes officers to be reluctant to seek out help and will actually avoid critical social supports. ·      How poor officer wellness negatively impacts police / community trust. ·      The importance of intentional stress-management routines and how police trainers should understand their role as an essential component of helping their students develop intentional mental health strategies. Please note, if you or any officer you know is experiencing the negative and possibility debilitating effects of stress, please be courageous and seek out life-changing help. The week that this interview was conducted, several police officers in the US and Canada took their lives by their own hand. Also, this same week, a report was released by the National Police Federation indicating that mental wellness amongst RCMP officers was at a point of crisis and still plummeting. This is a clarion call to action for police leadership. If you need assistance or know of someone who does, in Canada, please consider contacting Canada Beyond The Blue (www.canadabeyondtheblue.com )a volunteer organization committed to providing a community of essential support to law enforcement members and their families. In the United States, contact COPLINE at www.copline.org or call their crisis line at 1-800-COPLINE.

In this episode, we speak with Dr Logan Markwell, human factors scientist and motor behaviour expert to discuss the Challenge Point Framework and why coaches and trainers should understand and apply this framework in the design and delivery of motor skills training. In this interview you will learn about nominal vs functional task difficulties, the role of variability and contextual interference in motor learning, how to appropriately balance performer capability with task difficulty, the difference between performance and learning and why coaches and trainers so often get this wrong, the importance of offline learning and instructor feedback, as well as several other nuggets of evidence-led training wisdom! An exciting bonus in this interview is that it rounds out with asking Dr Markwell questions about his motor learning ‘Myth Bust Monday’ Instagram Posts. You will be fascinated to hear long-held motor learning myths ‘busted’! I hope you can hear some of those golden idols of traditionalist law enforcement training crashing to the ground! If you are not following Logan on Instagram you will want to be sure to do so! As a reminder, research related to the challenge point framework is appended to the show notes and free to download over at the Trainers Bullpen website at www.trainersbullpen.com

In this interview Dr. Craig Bennell from Carleton University in Ontario Canada discusses the research he and his colleagues conducted into the core Knowledge, Skills and Abilities that law enforcement officers must possess in order to effectively manage potentially violent police public interactions. This important conversation evolves from a study that was published in Frontiers in Psychology in March 2022. In this interview Dr. Bennell outlines the critical findings of the paper that identified ten core knowledge, skills and abilities that are required by police officers for excellent performance in high pressure situations in order to meet societal expectations. Some of these KSA’s discussed are: Awareness and Management of Stress Effects, Communication Skills, Decision Making and Problem Solving, Perceptual Skills and Motor Skills Relating to Use of Force, among others. This interview discusses training and instructional methods to consider in order to help law enforcement officers  improve their ability to manage potentially violent interactions with the public by focusing on developing their essential knowledge, skills and abilities through effective training design and delivery.

Welcome to episode 25 of the Trainer’s Bullpen. Training Under Pressure with Dr. Tim Lee. If you are interested in how to train officers for the best decision making and motor performance on the street, this interview is for you as Dr. Lee blows several training myths out of the water. In this episode, we welcome back to the bullpen, Dr. Tim Lee, professor emeritus of motor learning from McMaster University to discuss the relationship between pressure, training under pressure, and officer performance in the line of duty where it counts the most. Have paper and pen ready as Dr. Lee discusses the role of pressure in law enforcement training and the effect of pressure on officer performance in real life shooting and defensive tactics situations. We also discuss how attention and perception are affected by pressure; how skills ‘well rehearsed’ in low pressure learning environments can quickly collapse under real threat conditions. In addition, Tim discusses how pressure affects attentional processes, internal vs external attention, that can adversely affect perception and performance. Also discussed is the ‘Progression / regression’ theory of motor learning and the difference between ‘performance’ improvements and real ‘learning’ including online and offline learning. The importance of training under conditions of realistic pressure to develop the ability to perform under those same conditions in ‘the real world.’ Why ‘what we practice’ is ‘what we learn’ and therefore why skills practiced in sterile or low-pressure learning environments don’t transfer well. The importance of richly varying and contextualizing your learning environment to develop adaptable skill application in pressure conditions. And many other critical concepts and practical takeaways for trainers.

Welcome to Episode 24 of the Trainer’s Bullpen, ‘Relationships Between Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Occupational Performance, and Fitness for Tactical Personnel’ with Colin Tomes. For years law enforcement trainers have sought to understand the relationship between heart rate and officer performance and have frequently, and incorrectly, applied a linear application from heart rate to performance decrements under conditions of high stress. If you are interested in refining your understanding of cardiovascular function and human performance, this interview is for you. In this interview, Colin outlines the findings of his Systematic Review that was published in Frontiers in Public Health. This interview touches on: ·     The important differences between HR and HRV and how they correlate, or don’t correlate, to human performance in tactical populations. ·     Understanding the often misunderstood ‘stress response’ and the relationship between stress arousal and performance. ·     The role that sleep plays in maintaining a healthy HRV and improving the arousal / performance relationship. ·     The important interaction between PNS and SNS as they relate to cardiovascular function and performance. ·     The relationship between ‘cognitive load’ and the adverse affect on HRV. ·     How HRV monitoring by agencies can provide an accurate indication of the stress arousal state of the performer. ·     Concepts for agencies to explore in implementing HRV monitoring in both candidate selection for specialty tactical units as well as in-training monitoring of HRV. ·     And many more important takeaways! Reminder - you can access and download a copy of the cited research paper at www.trainersbullpen.com