Stuff to Think About...

...from our pal John Farnam at Defense Tactics:

In personally threatening circumstances, we thus must learn to interrupt what we are otherwise doing and devote our complete attention to the dangers at hand. Sounds logical and easy, but, in training, we see students stumble over this particular speed bump all the time.

Once a repertoire is started, we tend to recite the entire thing, rather than stop mid-sentence and confront a developing menace. Once we start mov ing in a particular direction or doing something with our hands, we desperately want to complete the task before altering our focus, even when a lethal thr eat suddenly appears. It is a natural tenancy, but, in a emergency, it must be manually overridden.

This is a tough point and one we all need to internalize. I've talked about "task-loading," the unfortunate tendency to add small tasks until we're incapable of performing any task. This is an obvious adjunct.