In my last article I discussed perfect practice making perfect. Once you have good mastery of

the fundamentals it’s time to change your environment to address other variables that may

come up in practical application.

For example, Texas summers get extremely hot. And while I have no problem loading and

racking my sidearm, once I’ve spent an hour doing yardwork in the middle of the day in July I

found racking my pistol quite difficult.

If I were in a situation where I actually needed to defend myself and had never practiced racking

the slide while very hot and sweaty, I may not be able to effectively utilize my tools.

Another good example may be training on a variety of terrain. I am a competent boxer, but what

if I am forced to protect myself with my hands on very loose gravel? Or during the winter when

the ground is very icy? If I have practice any scenarios I at least have an idea of how to modify

my movements to accommodate these variables.

Something else that I have seen done in the tactical community is for experienced experts to

partake in plyometrics or heavy weight lifting and then immediately do firing drills and reload

drills once they are out of breath and feel sub optimal with their fatigue.

Something is simple as an adrenal dump can compromise your fine motor skills, make you feel

exhausted, or possibly give you tunnel vision. That is why is important to inoculate yourself

against environmental and stress factors as much as possible once you’ve reached a solid

grasp of the fundamentals.

Be prepared, take your personal security into your own hands and stay safe out there.