The training mindset is something that everyone in the defensive world should work to cultivate. Unfortunately, few people really do.

This mindset is one that is first open to your own limitations. This could be limitations to your knowledge, experience, technical or tactical capacity, but whatever it is, seek to identify it and then look for opportunities to enhance it.

The training mindset is concerned with breaking down ego. Ego says, "I got this." even when you don't. There's a difference between "confident" and "egotistical." One is certain because of learn-practice-experience, the other is a leap to a conclusion based on ungrounded evidence, i.e., I can shoot a target, therefore if confronted by a lethal threat, I will absolutely be able to draw my firearm from concealment and engage the threat (even though I've never practiced draws in live fire, much less in a scenario!) See how one makes sense and the other is senseless?

The training mindset recognizes that training and preparation aren't simply "one off" events. Even if you only have five minutes to get your SIRT or shadow box your martial arts or combatives skills, the person with the training mindset will do it as often as they can.

SMT wants to help you cultivate the training mindset. That's why we've done the Drill of the Week, Shadow Gunning, and weekly training sessions and the SMTers that are giving a little every week to their training are growing fast. If you have a friend or colleague that is ready to join you in this journey, ask them to come to an SMT session, or show them the Shadow Gunning, or share the Drill of the Week. With your help, we can start to change the conversation about firearms training.