Stress and Fundamentals

[556mp]

I have searched the internet as well as this forum and have come up with no answer to the following question about professional operators clearing rooms, buildings, streets, etcetera:

When the operators engages a threat, does he act using muscle memory learned through extensive training or deliberately and efficiently go through the steps of target acquisition, sight alignment, trigger pull, search and assess? Does the operator perform using a combination of these actions?

The reason for this question is as follows:
When I train, I deliberately go through each of this steps. I am improving my speed tremendously, while still improving my accuracy. I shoot easily two times the speed I could four months ago, my group sizes have decreased to 1/3 - ¼ of their original size, at nearly twice the distance. However, when I shoot competitively, I seem to not pay attention to individual actions. Rather, I am focused on the task at hand as a whole. I shot over 200rounds in the last competition I was in, under pressure, and do not remember reloading a single time out of the twenty or more reloads that I performed. I do not recall paying attention to sight alignment, however, I do recall paying attention to trigger pull on the longer range shots. Is it possible that I did focus on each of these actions but simply do not remember them because of the adrenal rush?

Should I work some more stress into my training while still paying attention to each fundamental task so that I can more consciously perform the fundamentals? Or, Is shooting based off of suspected muscle memory, based on training experiences the norm?

[El Gato]

IMHO... as a trainer...

it's all about the fundamentals...
once you get really competent then it's time to go back and stress the fundamentals again...and again again...again...

[Chameleox]

Most every combat oriented discipline has a saying that goes something like, "There's no such thing as 'advanced________', only the basics, applied faster and straighter."

I can't speak for the creme de al creme, but I've found that, in my training and experiences, with practice, and a little stress inoculation, I'm quicker to target identification and acquisition, and therefore, quicker to the safety. For me, this allows me a little more time for trigger control. In handgun parlance, this translates to being quick to the gun, so you can be slow on the trigger. Its nowhere near "instinctive" for me, but its "reflexive", if that makes sense. And I'm definitely nowhere near the top of the game, even as a professional.

Keep in mind that this requires practice and time. I first have to be good with target/thread identification, then acquisition, then safety/trigger discipline. I think your question ref. the "operators" answers itself: those steps are deliberate, but they're much faster, due to training and some stress inoculation.
Second question: stress inoculation, can't hurt, as long as you're not overdoing it and sacrificing on accuracy.
Gato's right, fundamentals. Get them down, then start to make the fundamentals faster and straighter.

[Failure2Stop]

Simple, efficient, realistic skills practiced to technical precision and perfection consistently and regularly will result in those actions being habitually correctly employed in high-stress situations. It helps to have a proper training progression where the shooter's stress level is gradually increased, while enforcing technical precision. These realities force the trainer to make a moral decision on exactly what skills are taught. Failing to include target discrimination as stress in increased will probably lead to a very good shooter having a blue-on-blue/non-threat engagement situation. Gunfighting is heavily dependant on shooting skill, but gunfighting is more than just shooting.

[556mp]

Thank you fellas. Thats what I wanted to know.