Jocko Podcast - 543: Don't Wait to Get Punched in the Face. The Best Way to Adapt And Learn.

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

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This is Jocko podcast number 543 with Echo Charles and me. Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The U.S. Army's competitive advantage directly relates to its capacity to learn faster and adapt more quickly than its adversaries. The current pace of technological change increases the Army's challenge to maintain the edge over potential adversaries.

In the highly competitive global learning environment, where technology provides all players nearly ubiquitous access to information, the Army cannot risk failure. through complacency, lack of imagination, or resistance to change. Outpacing adversaries is essential to maintain the Army's global status and to fulfill its responsibilities to the nation. And that right there is a little quote from U.S. Army Trade Doc 525-TAC-8-TAC-2 U.S. Army learning concept, 2015. and it's an interesting thing to think about because we we all need to be learning all the time.

And if you don't keep that front of mind, it's real easy to not learn anything and not progress. Whether it's leadership, whether it's your professional career, whatever your professional career is, whether it's working with a new piece of gear, whether it's jujitsu, whether it's fighting, whether it's tactics, whether it's music or art. or software. That's for you. Sure. Yeah. Hell yeah. Right.

Communication. How are you communicating? Language. Like what's your vocabulary? We should be hopefully learning all the time. And it's very easy. It takes effort. It takes an effort to learn.

So it's really easy to go in cruise control. But the fact of the matter is in all these different spectrums, we have to outpace our adversaries, right? In jiu-jitsu, in fighting, in, software like if you want to be productive you've got outpace your adversaries so interesting document it had some interesting statements and I just want to talk about some of the things that are in there here's some assumptions that they make the army will operate in an area of uncertainty and persistent conflict against a full spectrum of possible threats this is what we call life right

eric is you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow there's going to be persistent conflict and there's a full spectrum of threats. What do you call that? An open game versus a closed game. What do you call those two things? Unkind and kind games, right? Oh, right. Kind environment or something like that.

Oh, kind environment versus unkind. Is that the thing? Yeah, I forgot. I was just talking about this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I forgot. But I think it's kind of. Yeah.

So some things are constrained in some way. There's some kind of rules in place. There's some kind of finite provision that you have to operate within, and then there's things that are just totally unconstrained. So you've got to think about what kind of environment you're playing in. And by the way, there's spectrum there too, right? Because like checkers pretty limited.

Chess seems pretty unlimited because there's billions of moves you can make, but it is still. There's a finite number. And then you get to combat total war. There's all the sudden, what is the person going to do to you? There's no, sure, there's rules of engagement. There's laws of armed conflict, but there's also like we can think outside and get creative around those things even.

So thinking about the uncertainty of the future and the persistent conflict that we're in, you better be learning. Next one. The army will continue to confront unexpected challenges from an adaptive enemy and must respond rapidly in the development of doctrine, training, and education. So as your competitors. change, which they will, and they bring new things to the front, which they will. You have to be able to adjust, learn, train, and move people forward.

This is also life, right? Because things aren't going to go as planned. Next, the Army must prevail in the competitive learning environment. Now, if you start thinking about it, you have an organization, your organization has to, we say adapt, right? We say adapt and overcome. We say this all the time. What is adaptation?

Essentially, what is this learning? You have to learn. And not only you have to learn like what the enemy is doing, what the competition is doing, what your rival on the mats of justice is doing, you gotta learn what they're doing, and then you have to learn how to counter it. And then by the way, in an organization,

you have to teach and have everyone else on the team learn what you're doing, to make adjustments. So that's what we have to do. Next, the Army's learning model must be clear in intended outcomes that are rigorous, relevant, and measurable. It's a good idea, right? I get it.

I do think that you have to keep an open mind and be flexible. Because you don't know, it's very, in fact, it might be the most critical thing. Because let's face it, when you are trying to do something to counter someone and you're doing what they expect, it doesn't, it's not going to be effective. You have to do things that they don't expect. Well, how are you going to do things that they don't expect if you have a closed mind and you're only responding with that one methodology?

So to really win, we want to do things that they have no expectation of. That's the goal. You can see this in sports. Sometimes someone will be. bring something to sports that has not been used before low calf kick right this is something that we got you know we got to see i guess mma and jiu jitsu is are very good examples of this number one because they are very close to unkind right i mean basketball yeah i mean if you watch the evolution of basketball certainly there people are doing new moves but not as radically new as what we've seen in jujitsu and MMA over the past 30 years.

So you have to keep an open mind that you're going to try and do things that maybe they don't expect at all. The less rules there are in the game that you're playing, the more opportunity you have to do that. So that's why business and wars very, those are probably the most open environments that you're going to have the chance

to make adjustments. and be flexible. So that's why I say if someone's talking about, hey, you got to be clear in the intended outcome. You know the intended outcome? When? Because if it is, oh, the intended outcome is to do this move right here

to counter their move? Okay. They're used to being in that situation. What if you can completely bypass that? As Dean Lister used to say, you know, you go A, B, C, and then D. That's the move. Here's the counter. Here's the setup.

And then you execute the move. but ideally you just go A to D. Or maybe you go A-C-D. You can skip moves. Or maybe you just go A-D-C-B back to D. So that's what we're trying to do. Next one. Learning is best achieved at the point of need

and therefore must be accessible in career-long continuum rather than limited to specific timeframes or locations. When I hear this, learning is best achieved at the point of need. You know what that makes me think of? I used to say in the teams,

we don't care about anything until it punches us in the face. And this is so true for so many humans. We have an idea that this could be a problem or that could be a problem, but no one really cares about it until they get hit with it. Like, oh, yeah, you know, at some point I'm going to, I'm going to put an emergency kit in my car just in case something goes wrong when I'm driving through the mountains. I'm going to do that someday.

They know it's a good idea, right? It's a good idea. But then they don't do it. And guess what? When a snowstorm hits and they get stuck in their freezing snow and they don't have anything to survive with, it's a problem. And they're going, dang it. And then they go home and immediately, if they make it, if they survive, they're like, where's what we're going to do? We used to run in that and the SEAL teams all the time.

There'd be something like, we all know this is a problem. No one cares. No one cares. No one cares. No one cares. There's an incident. All of a sudden, everyone cares when we solve the problem. So you have to be careful that you don't do that.

You don't. My recommendation is you don't wait until you're at the problem. the point of need to make adjustments in your world. You know that there are things that require. You know, I had an interesting conversation. You know, they have specific people to do the maintenance of an aircraft, of a jet aircraft. So Dave Burke. Good deal, Dave Burke.

Yeah. You know, he's worried about flying the plane. He's got, and he does inspections, you know, they, the pilot does the cursory walk around. you know, they're out there kicking the tires. You know what I'm saying? He's not in the systems, right? But guess what? There is a guy that is there as assignment

is to make sure that that ejection seat is ready to eject and it's functional, it's maintained. If that fell on, you know, the pilot who's got all these other things to worry about, as critical as it is, he wouldn't be as focused as that individual that's making it happen. So, man, did you see those two airplanes?

collide, those two F-18s collide, and they ejected all four people and all four people survived. That was insane to watch. Yeah. But I bet that maintenance guy. Props. That's what we're saying. Same thing with like fire detectors. Yeah.

You know, it's like, oh, how often do you chat? How often you rotate in those batteries like you're supposed to? It's not until your neighbor's house burns down. You're like, I'm going to get in there. At least that's the way a lot of people operate. Yeah, I feel like sometimes, I don't know, my mind kind of habitually goes to like, hey, but isn't that kind of a more effective way of learning a lesson, you know, the hard way? It's definitely a more effective way of learning a lesson as long as there isn't some catastrophic price to pay for learning a lesson. Right.

And even put even more simply when it's like, yeah, if you have to learn it that way. But if you don't have to, bro, like you don't want to learn like, hey, you should wear your seat. belt the hard way, you know. Well, I posted the other day, he who suffers remembers. Yeah, yeah. For Murph, right? We're all out there doing Murph, right?

He who suffers remembers? It's like, yes, that is true. That is a term that I heard in buds. Because they would be making us suffer because we did something wrong. So to your point, oh, somebody didn't bring whatever piece of gear. We're about to do, you know, eight million freaking eight count bodybuilders at two o'clock in the morning. Yeah. Do you think we ever forgot that piece of gear again?

Nope. So he who suffers remembers, you're right. But if it's a catastrophic situation, you know, you don't want to have somebody in your, in your business do something that's going to get you sued. And now all of a sudden it's a catastrophic situation. Right. Because you're like, oh, I bet they learned their lesson cool. We're bankrupt. So good point, Echo, however.

Yeah, when you don't have to learn it the hard way, let's not learn it the hard way. I got you. Let's not learn it the hard way. Next, Army learners must have the opportunity to contribute to the body of knowledge throughout their careers. Good. It's a very good idea that people recognize when you're in an organization, you are not only going to have to receive and learn, but it's good to know that you should be teaching too

and you will be teaching. It's a good thing to recognize because then you start paying attention to how you learn and what was helpful to you. Next, soldiering requires a foundation of comprehensive fitness, Army values, the warrior ethos, and professional competence. Yep.

What I would say about that is, we become what we learn. I would say, is that 100% accurate? No, but you, I shouldn't say we become, we are highly influenced by what we learn.

You've heard me say that you get a lot of your DNA in the SEAL teams from your first platoon because of what you learn in that first platoon it leaves the biggest impression because you're learning the most so what you learn is kind of who you become like when I when I got to the SEAL teams I went to SEAL team one otherwise known as Stahlug Team 1 and it was all like the professionalism and haircuts and stuff like that and that's kind of how I maintained I maintain that course you get that DNA early so you kind of you are highly influenced by what you learned. So that's an important thing to keep in mind.

Not only as a person that is learning, what are you learning from? Because are you learning from, uh, reels? You know what I'm saying? Are you being influenced by reels? Yeah.

Are you being taught by social media? Mm-hmm. Because if you're getting taught trash, what are you going to become? You're at a minimum, you're going to be influenced in that direction. Yeah. And isn't it interesting to think that you technically,

when you're doing, scrolling you are you are learning something you are being influenced by that thing so important to try and maintain some level of control of what you are allowing yourself to be taught next fundamental competencies must be reinforced by maximizing time on the task cool always fundamentals fundamentals fundamentals I in the seal teams I changed the we say basics we wouldn't go through the basics And I changed that terminology to fundamentals because everyone hears basics and they go, oh, this is no big deal. This isn't important.

Fundamentals is actually the most important thing. And there are there are skills that you have leadership skills and operational skills that are truly fundamental. If you don't have them, you're doomed. But when people hear, oh, this is just, you know, just the basics. It's like, no, no, no, we're not doing just the basics. We're actually learning the fundamentals. Yeah, yeah, more like the foundational. Cover and move.

Do we call cover and move basic? No, call it fundamental. Because if you're not, everything that you do is covered move in the teams, in the military. It's cover and move, cover and move, cover and move. That's what it is. One person is covering, the other person is moving. You have to learn that. That is a fundamental skill to learn how to do that.

It's not just a basic skill. Is it basic? Yeah, it's basic. Is it fundamental? Absolutely. Absolutely. Next, continually evolving complex operational dilemmas over extended time in culturally diverse joint interagency, intergovernmental and multinational operational environments will continue to challenge leaders. Again, this is a dude, this is such military terminology here. Complex operational dilemmas.

So these are like different types of missions. Extended over time. They're long. Culturally diverse. They're in different countries with different. Humans there. Joint. That means we're working with Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps working together.

Interagencies. That means you've got other government agencies. Maybe you've got the State Department. Maybe you've got the CIA. You've got other people working with you. Intergovernmental. So now we got their government too. So now you're working with a government of another country.

And multinational. So now we have different countries and their military and their government. There's a lot of different players involved. Well, guess what? This is what life is. This is what business is. You got your neighbors. They have a different culture than you.

They have different goals than you. Yeah, your business, you've got different scenarios going on. You've got to work with different regulatory environments. This is kind of interesting to me because as a non-military person and non-law enforcement person, we'll say. We call you a civilian. Yeah, yeah, a civilian. Civvy. But you know how like I'll watch movies sometimes and it'll be like I don't know the local cops right and they're investigating some crime and then they'll run into like the feds.

Yeah exactly right. The feds come in and they're going to, you know, even remember you know what movie was on the other day, diehard. Remember diehard? Yeah. The OG first it has the one beat cop there kind of handling business and then some superior, you know, superior comes that dude, I forget his name. in the show but and then the FBI come you know and then they're like contending with each other and I remember what I was young I was like bar aren't they all to me they're all cops they all should just be like adding to the team but for some reason they have different agendas and their

jurisdiction yeah you know like all this stuff Rambo has that too right jurisdiction yeah because it's like the local cops oh and then first blood yeah I'm sorry first blood yeah yeah um yeah you know and then they have like these points of contention it's like bro that doesn't make sense to me because you guys are all cops or whatever. But no, different cops have different like responsibilities and goals within their, I don't know, department or whatever at their level or whatever. And this is essentially a more complex version

of that same thing. See what I'm saying? Yeah. So it's like, okay, our government has all these different like different groups in it that have different goals in it with this one big situation. Yeah.

So yeah, sometimes you can step on each other's toes a little bit and, you know, little points of contention. Oh, for sure. But from the outside, I don't, that's not intuitive to me. To me it's kind of like, oh, that's the USA.

The USA's going to roll in and they're all just pointing in the same exact direction and we're going to go in, we're going to, you know, but it's not like that. You know what was weird when I got in the military is I just thought kind of in line with what you're saying, I thought the military just kind of did what it wanted. Yeah. Meaning like, have you ever thought about when you go on a trip in the military, let's say you're driving out to the desert training facility that you got to get gasoline for the vehicles? Well, where does that gasoline come from?

Have you thought about that? Me, no. Like, you have to use a certain card. It's like a credit card, but it's more like a debit card that you use to pay for the gas. Now, it's coming from the fund that is your team, but you're paying for this gas and you're going to get charged for it. So why? Because your team has a certain amount of budget. So when you book, you know, you're using this card to pay for things, just like you're

ammunition, the batteries for your for your radios or for your night vision, like you have to actually pay for it. I thought it was all just provided. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That does, I mean, you asking me that for some reason I feel like we, you've brought that up before.

But yeah, it feels like that. When I played football at University of Hawaii, it's everything's provided, everything, all your clothes, all your equipment, your socks, shoes, like everything. You just go to the little window and you get it. You see what I'm saying? I am under that impression. Yes. Like you get, here's the keys to your Humvee.

Maybe you sign for it. There's already gas in it. Is you what I'm saying? Like the gas is magically just appears. And there is like an element of that when you get your gear issue, right? You don't give them a card for that. But if you lose a piece of gear, you might have to pay for it. So check.

Next time, manpower and resources available for learning will continue to be limited. Isn't that just the way it is? everybody needs more time and more money to train and we don't have enough and by the way the army trains over half a million people a year so getting back to the dock here current learning is typically instructor led timed to predetermine course lengths and not synchronized to meet individual learner needs that's something to think about people are going to learn at different paces and you just get that hey this is how long the course of instruction is This is how long I'm going to teach you for.

Current instruction is based on individual task, conditions, and standards, which work well when the Army had a well-defined mission and a well-defined enemy. Similarly, critical thinking is frequently a course objective instruction, oh, sorry, while critical thinking is frequently a course objective, instruction primarily delivers only concepts and knowledge. Passive lecture-based instruction does not engage learners or capitalize on prior experience. Learner assessments are frequently routine, open book tests that lack rigor and fail to measure actual learning levels. So this whole thing here, right?

First of all, how are we teaching? Because by the way, when you teach something, you have to use multiple elements. You can tell people what's going to happen. There's your audio. Maybe you gave them a pamphlet to read about it. There's visually showing them how to do something. and then there's physically having them do the thing, whatever that thing is.

So it's like you listen or you absorb information or you're presented information and then you watch people do the thing and then you have to do the thing yourself. So whether it's doing mag changes on a weapon, like someone will, you will initially get taught because it seems like, you know, when you do a mag change, Echo Charles

on your Desert Eagle 50 Cal, sure. When you do that, you do it, I haven't watched you do it, but I bet that it's not, how did you, how did you learn how to do a mag change? Oh,

I took a course with our boy, Brian Sargent. Oh, okay. Well, then you do know. If you didn't know that, tactical, if Sarge didn't tell you how to change a mag, you would kind of just be fumbling through it, right?

Yeah, yeah. So you have to learn how to do it. And Sarge taught you how to do it, doing a kickflip on a skateboard. Like, you have to learn how to do it. Then you have to try it if there's a new vocabulary word You can by the way if you learn a new vocabulary word

And you just memorize the meaning of the word That's different than actually putting it using it a sentence And reading it in multiple senses and understanding the context each one of those room clearance is doing a room clearance Did search you any room clearances C QB or whatever no cqB now called CQC? No, but that's a thing you got to watch you got to learn and then you got to do it arm lock a guitar chord different guitar chords somebody has to show you what it is

prioritize and execute this is something to skill that we teach at Eshlam Front you got to learn how to do it you hear the concept it's funny when you do the FTX when people do the FTX at Eshlam Front dude people that show up to the FTX they can recite

exactly like what the laws of what the laws of combat are cover move simple prioritizes X X-U decentralized command they'll kind of be able to talk through them very well and then you see them trying to do them It's very very different because you have to actually do these things Same thing with decentralized command people can people can talk about it, but a lot of times they can't do it So it's very important to keep that in mind and then you have to keep in mind as a teacher That people learn differently so I might be able to talk you through a mag change and and you might be able to do it within, you know, 10 tries.

You can get pretty smooth at it. Someone else, I talk them through it, and I have to talk them through other details of it that I didn't have to tell you. You kind of like figured it out. So everyone's going to learn a little bit differently. And, you know, I talk about this example with, um, jiu-jitsu.

Because jih Tzu is certainly a learning sport. probably one of the highest levels of the amount of things to learn. Because it's such an unkind game. Yeah. With so many variables. Yeah. Not just the variables of the move, but just the variable of you as a human,

the human that you're going against. Like there's, it's just, it's just very infinite. But to make a jiu-jitsu move work, let's say, let's say, for instance, I don't know if I want to use percentages, but let's say there's 10 things that you have to,

do to make a move work. An instructor can show you maybe three of those things, four of those things, maybe five of the things, the physical movements they can talk you through, they can show it to you. And then even still, the first time you do it, it's not going to, I just learned a move today from Kynet.

It's something that I had never done before. It's like a guard retention, uh, um, guard retention move. It was a move straight up. and dude when he's when we so I'm watching him do it and I was like oh that's I'm literally thinking all that's dope and I fully understood it yeah mentally yeah when we started doing it

it was like clunky I might as well been a white belt yeah yeah you know what I'm saying I'm like oh I'm a white belt yeah and yeah so I had to do it I had to do the physical move a bunch of times to even start and I still didn't even I need I need to do it another I probably need to do another 100 times. Yeah. Of static drilling, we'll say, right? Where it's just like, hey, this is just the motion I have to go through. So three to five things you can kind of get from an instructor telling you what the move is.

Maybe 0.5 or 1.5 you get from doing the movement physically. Yeah. And then there's a couple. Because I remember I said you got to do 10 things to make a move work. There's a couple of these things you have to do. do now it's not really static drilling it's like I have to you have to actively participate in some kind of a we'll call it a constrained in like um CLA and ecological training they call it a constrained environment meaning like okay echo in order for me to get this guard recovery movement

going here's what you need to do to me do this to me if you get to this point we're going to start again. If I get to this point, we're going to start again. And by the way, you can't do this thing or that thing. Like for instance, oh, I'm working on guard retention. You're not allowed to just fall back on a footlock, right? Okay, that's a constraint that I put on you. And you're not allowed to, let's say, smash pass because this isn't a guard retention for a smash pass. So I give you some constraints, but you're allowed to move within the box that I built for you. So I got to do that a little bit. I can I can figure out one or two more elements of the move by doing that. And then I have to do it live because guess what? In real life, you can fall back on a footlock. In real life,

you can go to a smash pass and said. So there's one or the last one or two things that I have to learn. There's no way to learn it unless we're doing it fully unrestrained. So, That's what we kind of have to do to get somebody to learn. You want to hear a funny story? Yes. I will tell you. So I was recently doing a movie. Yeah, hell yeah.

And I'm doing this movie and I have one line. I have one line. But in the scene, I'm in the scene for probably like a few minutes, but all I'm doing is listening. Yeah. And in fact, I'm listening and kind of giving no response. I'm kind of just being me. Yeah, yeah, in real life. In real life.

Same thing. But the other character is like yapping. Bop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, saying all kinds of funny stuff. I had to keep it professional because she's being hilarious and I'm trying to keep it professional. And so speaking of being professional, having made the way of the warrior kid, I know that you, you want to, you don't want to waste everybody's time. And when you mess up your line. or you mess up, yeah, you mess up your line.

Like everyone tries to be cool because they don't want to add pressure, but everyone's pissed. Yeah, yeah. So I know that going in, so I'm like, okay, I'm going to do my best. And I had one line, bro, so I memorize it. But I memorized it in my head.

Keep this in mind. I memorized it in my head. So it takes a long time to film. And we're there. We do all the different camera setups. And the other actor, she's yapping and she's doing her lines. She's improv and funny, awesome, and I don't have to say anything.

And it keeps going and keep going. It takes like three, four, five hours. And I haven't said a word yet. All I'm doing is my expression, which is expressionless, by the way. Try not to crack up because she's hilarious. So finally, then we turn the cameras around, and now it's the closing of the scene, and it's time for my line, which I memorized. And so we get to that point.

She delivers the line that, like, what is it, cues? me is that what it's called the cue sure the setup she gives me the setup and it's my turn after five hours everyone's looking at me that's my time and i had memorized that line but i but i hadn't physically spoken the word yet yeah and when it came time for me to say the line i was like and it took me a second i got it out i like i had to go team guy mode i just had to like muscle through it i had to muscle through it but i hadn't physically rehearsed it and when you're you don't physically rehearse it, there's something that you're missing.

And I hadn't said the words. So I, I, I muscled through it, and then we cut, and I said it like, I said it out loud, like to myself whispering it like 19 times in the next, in the next three minutes. I was just like, blah, blah, blah, I said it because I didn't wanna get choked up, I choked up, I choked up.

I choked, you didn't get choked up, I choked. You know, this is very similar, you've heard the story about when I started playing basketball. When I started playing basketball, my dad, I told my dad I wanted to play, of basketball and my dad's like old school Hoosiers you ever seen a movie Hoosiers yeah bro my dad's is 100% Hoosiers like okay oh you know you know no flashy you're gonna be defense you're gonna

be defense you're gonna learn ball handling you're to learn to pass you know you you you you don't want to worry about scoring scoring like that we're defense you know so he got me going in that mode didn't really didn't all we did was drill this is a case where you if you go too far with drilling and then my I get to, this is seventh grade or eighth grade. I get, now I try out for the team. I make the team. My dad, my dad worked with me for, you know, two months.

Just Hoosiers, man, Hoosiers. So now I get to my coach. And my coach, guess what kind of attitude? He has, Hoosiers all day. We're not worried about looking flashy and scoring points. We're going to play defense. We're a pass. We're a ball handle.

So we did that. And we did almost no live basketball games in practice. So the first game that I went into, oh, by the way, because I was good pass. and was ball handling left hand right hand I became the point guard seventh grade or whatever eight great right hell yeah the first game I'm dribbling down the court I hold up the signal for like oh we're gonna run play number two yeah and I you know boom walk boom I pass the ball totally get picked the ball gets picked off the dude runs down the court

scores a lay up I was like well damn well play two sucked I come down again I call play one you know better play pass it off gets picked off the same guy just picked it off again because I had never actually played. I mean, I might have played like one scrimmage. We never scrimmaged. So you have to drill. You have to play. You have to play games to get good at it.

And then you have to actually play in an unconstrained environment. So these things are very important. And you have to do all of them, even when it comes to like delivering, saying words. Yeah. If you, because let's face it, When you're saying, oh, like when I, I did that show Billions.

Yeah, yeah, hell, yeah. They, all the lines that those guys gave me were just shit that I said anyways. Yeah, you know, it was just, it was just me. You had some rap. It was me and it was just me, right? Yeah. And so, even though I, it was pretty easy for me to say those words. Oh, you want me to say, uh, hey, keep knocking them out.

Like, that's some shit I would normally say. Yeah. But this line was like a little different. Yeah. And so, like, I didn't, so I forced it out. No one said anything I think people that they're like Oh that's the first one

We'll give him a little breather Yeah yeah Because it sucks when the director comes up And he's like hey Actually it's a female director You know she didn't come up to me and say I was so thankful She gave me a little grace

Grace Yeah yeah yeah But that's what we gotta watch out for Is this movie out? No no it's not out When does it come up? It comes out I think in December

Oh hell yeah All right okay I forget if I'm allowed to talk about it Yeah that's what it feels like Yeah I forget I don't want to get in, you know, get in trouble. Yeah, yeah, leaking the stuff. Yeah, the tea or whatever.

Yeah, the tea, exactly. But, yeah, you got to be careful with that one. Yeah, it's, I mean, as far as the idea of the concept, it seems obvious when you just sort of look at it. But if you understand it, then I feel like, yeah, you can be, like, way more effective in, like, when you progress through learning. So if you, let's say, like, let's say basketball. Basketball is a good one. Where if it's like, okay, hey, jocco or whatever, young jockey, you've been. never played basketball ever before, but I'm going to teach you how and you're going to become

good at basketball. I could be like, okay, first things first, this ball right here goes in that net. See it? See the net? See the ball? And you're like, bro, that makes perfect sense to me. The ball going in the net? Hell yeah. I know basketball. I know that part of it. I said, okay, cool. You know that. Okay, here's this, whatever, but you didn't do anything. I just explained it to you. Brother, you tried to throw that ball in the net. Right, you can't. It's almost impossible, actually. You know with 100% certainty what the ball going in the net is, yet you can't do it because you have no reps doing it. Because there's like millions of little variations in there. You know what's saying?

So yeah, you got to same thing with the talking thing in your line. Like there's so many little variations that you have to experience for them to get locked in. No matter. I mean, yeah, you said the word the and so called or whatever the words are. you've heard those words you said them but not in that progression under that circumstance. So you got to replicate that circumstance and get that experience. In real life. Yeah.

Same thing with like juggling, for example. You ever, you know, you can watch tutorials on how to juggle the technique. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, oh, brother, that's, I didn't know that. And you're like, bro, I think I can trade, bro, try to do that. Yeah. It's impossible. You got to do like.

Yep, exactly. And by the way, I got, in this movie, I'm playing a pilot. Yeah, hell yeah. A helicopter pilot. And I get in and I'm kind of like I want I literally went on YouTube and watched some videos about like see what the helicopter pilots are doing Yeah, yeah, but I got in there. I said, you know, I'm kind of got there kind of like what are you going to do? I'm like well, I'm going to look at the instruments and look around and I said and they said, yeah, you know, you get that'll be fine. They said, well, the thing is when we get pilots real pilots sometimes they don't know how to act. Yeah, and I said, well, unfortunately for you, I'm neither a pilot nor an actor. So you're just going to have to deal with it. The worst of both worlds. To going back to your basketball example is if you just said, hey, all you got to do is put the ball in the net. And you, so now you take a shot like, what is your form?

If what I should do is like, hey, you got to put the ball in the net. Here are some basic points of performance that you need to utilize. Port your point your elbow at the basket. You know, use the other hand to guide. Because if you say put the ball in the basket, a lot of people would do a two-handed set shot like they used to do in the 50s. Yeah. You know, like, oh, just two hands. but it's known that there's a better technique now.

Not that some people couldn't hit good shots with a two-handed set shot, but it's just not as effective. You can't do it from a job. Like there's all kinds of reason why it's not good. So that's why we need to give people the, that's what those things are. That's what the, when I say that three to five things

can be shown by the instructor, it's a perfect example, a jump shot in basketball. Like I need to give you the fundamentals of the movement. Now listen, you might, you know, have a specific way. You see this with pitchers sometimes in baseball, like a side-on pitcher. Like they didn't get taught that way,

but they figured it out. And it works for them. And that's an extreme example. But a lot of times, your jump shot might be a little bit different. Well, it's going to be a little bit different. Everyone else is based on your body and based on the way you calculate the distance

and how much backspin you put on the ball. It's going to be a little bit different. But there is a line. There is a guide that you can give someone. and then how well or how much they need to deviate from that line is kind of up to them and that's why they have to do the drilling the static drilling the constrained environment like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna teach you a jump shot and then say okay go ahead and take one and I swat you you know like I'm not gonna get in your face no you got to learn the technique and then I start okay let me put a little bit pressure on you oh here's what you got to do here's a little head juke you can and you start and then you start using the game and you start realizing oh I can do this here's how I can do it's specifically. So those are all really good examples. And it's important to remember, too, it varies for different people. Like I said, some people are visual learners, some people are audio learners, some people have to feel it. There's a bunch of different types of learners. And

then on top of that, there's context. How much context do you have? Because if you have no context, and I try and teach you an arm lock, it could take an hour. If you know how to do an arm lock and I want to teach you how to finish with a wrist lock, I can teach you that in seven minutes, maybe even five minutes. If you know how to do a straight foot lock and a heel hook and I want to teach you the aoki lock, I can teach you that very quickly. But if you don't know the heel hook and you don't know the foot lock, it's going to take me longer. And I'm going to have to show you more to get you there.

And same with the guitar chord. Like if I know the D minor and I want to teach you D major, like, You already know them. I can, if you already know one, I can barely easily teach you the other or a weapon system. Once you know a particular, once you know how a rifle works, it's going to be much easier.

When I hand you a new rifle, I go, here's the safety, here's what this type of what a site looks like. Here's what your site pictures should look like. As opposed to you've never shot a rifle before, I'm like, okay, this is called a safety. Here's how you're supposed to manipulate it. This is what you're going to look on the site picture.

Here's the front site. You should focus on the front site. The other thing's going to become a blur. your target you're going to see it but that's going to become a blur too and you're going to keep your focus on the front side and then you're going to slowly pull the trigger and you're going to let it surprise you like all those things I'm going to have to teach you if you already know all that stuff and I hand your new weapon here's how the safety works here's what the site pictures should be go kill and you can make it happen and even this this is true even with leadership skills

like depending on how much context you have I can give you a little a little note bro hey you're a little bit aggressive when you when you're walked in and you really didn't you took partial ownership but you also said you know this is probably my fault and you go proof yeah whereas if you've never taken ownership before you're like dude this I had nothing to do with this we have a lot of work to do so the the amount of context that you have impacts how how well and how quickly people can learn something so when I watch movies back in the day as a kid

you know okay so you know a typical typical movie scenario we'll say let's say it's a cop movie or a lawyer movie or whatever we'll say a cop movie and you get the story about the new

young freaking bright-eyed enthusiastic gifted new rookie right out of the academy then you get this old guy who his kind of claim to fame

or whatever is his quote unquote experience He's like, you know, he doesn't read very fast. He's not very, like, good on his weapon, but he has a lot of experience. Point break. We're talking point break, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right? Cano Reeves.

And then who came? Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey. Gary Busey. Yeah, it's a good matchup of what you're talking about, right? Yep, yep. Yeah, a lot of experience. And I used to think, like, what the hell does that mean? A lot of experience, like, bro, he sucks. You know, he has a lot of experience.

Like, why is that valuable? But really, it's this. It's like you have so many reps in this context that you're talking about. He's seen so many different scenarios that like details just formulate themselves and paint like this very clear picture of what's going on. If you're an investigator, we'll say. But if you're new, you just know this contextless list of skills kind of that you have.

So you can't like you can't place these skills onto anything yet. Meanwhile, this guy can place everything onto everything. Sure, he might not run the fastest. If the criminals running away, He can't chase him or whatever, but he knows exactly what's going on. I just had one look at a situation. So I'm saying?

Like, you ever heard of a show called Forensic Files? It used to be called Medical Detectives. It's basically like some crime happens and they kind of... Is it real? It's a real show, yeah, yeah. It's a documentary or is it? Yeah, yeah.

What does itish mean? Like, it's a show, it's a series show, right? So you got episodes of it? But are you, is it real forensic people? Yeah. Looking at real crime scenes. Exactly, right. Cool.

real crimes and the actual investigators, the actual medical examiner. It's not like CSI Miami. Right, right, correct, correct. It's real. So they interview a lot of times. They interview these cops with a lot of experience and they reveal little secrets that you would know only if you have experience, right? So one of them that was pretty cool was there investigating this guy.

They're questioning them and they saw a cut on his, oh, on this part of his hand on the back of his, on the outside of his pinky, right? right by that first knuckle. It was a cut there. And he's like, and most of us know that when you're stabbing someone, through experience, when you're stabbing someone, the knife gets bloody and blood is very slippery. Like if you don't have experience with blood all over your hands,

right, you don't know that. I didn't know that. Blood's slippery like motor, like motor oil. So it gets slippery. And then when you're stabbing someone, the impact of the knife makes the knife slide your hand, slide down the knife onto the blade. You cut yourself right there.

That happens freaking like, 90% of the time or whatever, as far as what he's saying, you know? But if you don't have experience, like that would have, oh, he has a cut in his hand. Hmm, I wonder what that cut is for. But if you had a lot of experience, you're like, I know exactly what that cut is for.

I've seen a million of those things, you see what I'm saying? Does it happen every single time? No, but all the context, all the situations that I've seen, that thing was present. See what I'm saying? So it's like that kind of stuff. You can just like see it right at an instant. It makes you way better.

Contacts and experience are very closely related, for sure. So when it goes back to you, instruction what percentage of instruction like telling you what percentage of instruction like telling you what percentage of static drilling what percentage of active resistance constrained training and what percentage of life should we do well there's a lot of variables there and you can't set that in stone you can't say oh if you're training guitar, you should do this much, you know, finger picking, this much scales. No, because guess what? There's some people that are just naturally good at scales and they're naturally

bad at finger picking. If you're training in jiu-jitsu, you can't be like, oh, I taught a new move today. We're going to drill it 22 times each, and then we're going to do four minutes each side of constrained drilling or game, and then we're going to do live. Like, you, how complex was the move. Jeff Gloverton move the other day and he gets done teaching it and he's like all right let's give it a try. Good luck. He says good luck because it was a wild ass move. You know? And I

would probably have to learn that move from him you know let's say five classes in a row. Five classes in a row because I had no context around this particular move. Now someone that has a lot of context around the move they probably got it that day or they at least started figuring it out. So how complex is the move that you're teaching?

How well how much context does your each student in the class how much context do they have around that type of move? So it's not going to be there is no miraculous percentage that you should always teach to what you do need to do you have to observe orient decide and act as an instructor. You might have to go, hey, you know, Echo and Greg Train, you guys go over there, start actively, because this is whatever, Mount Escape. You're really good at Mount Escape. I just want you to add this finishing touch on it. Meanwhile, I got a couple people that are,

they might still be black belts, but they don't have that Hawaiian, what do you call it, the Hawaiian Shuffles. They don't have the Hawaiian Shuffle down. They've never even seen it before. If they've never seen it before, it's going to be, it's going to take some time. the the deep the deep arm I think he calls it the deep arm drag the deep arm drag the deep arm

drag by Jeff Glover yeah bro I'm still trying to figure that shit out yeah you know what I'm saying and this is a guy Jeff Glover actively will do this to me I know exactly what he's doing yeah he's a hundred pounds less than me and he can do this deep half this deep arm drag to me and it's like I'll Okay, well, I'll do it too. Can't do it to him. Yeah. Can't do it to him.

I've gotten my back taken 100 times by trying deep, deep arm drag. Yeah, yeah. But I have no context. That's like, okay, so Jeff Glover, what does Jeff Glover do? He turns his back on people all the time. He doesn't give a shit. He doesn't care. I hardly ever turn my back on someone.

So for me to actively start incorporating a move where part of the move is turning your back on someone, it's going to take me a long time to figure that out. Yeah. So as an instructor, and probably, there's, you know, just, just like I said, the move I was learning today from Kynet, just the mechanics of the move, it was going to take,

because it was, oddly enough, it was a guard retention where you kind of turned your back. This is unfamiliar your territory to me. I don't, how many times do you think you've got my back? Got in your back? Yeah, got it.

I can't remember once. Yeah, yeah. That I can remember. Yeah, yeah. I'm, like, very protective of having my back taken. Yeah. Comes from the old days in MMA, having your back taken was having your back taken in jiu jitza was bad but having it taken an

m m ms was horrible now those now the things have evolved and it's actually if you watch shan shan strickland his last fight he gave with the back no factor because because again things have evolved he knows how to defend better but for my upbringing we didn't give up the back and so now i got kind and telling me kind of turned your back. Took me. I didn't even get it, you know? And I was journaling with Noah. Noah was like, oh, I got this.

He started doing it pretty quick. And so that's what you got to deal with. The discrepancy between each student is a real thing. And so you got to take that into account. And the context you got to take into account. And then you've got to provide a little bit of modulation, like, I just said, hey, Echo and Greg, you guys go over there. You guys got this.

You guys can start working. But you two over here, let's start with this basic. All I want you to do is, all I want you do is get the person moving back and forth. That's the game we're going to play. All I want you to do is just get the person moving, but just disrupt their balance. Once you've, because if I'm trying to get you the whole move and you don't even know how to disrupt their balance, we've got a problem. Yeah.

It's the same thing we used to do in the SEAL teams. You don't, we would start immediate action drills. Immediate action drills are what you do. They're like coordinated plays. like you do on the football field. Someone makes a call and then you execute the play, right? You do that when you get enemy contact. Well, when you start your drill,

when you start doing immediate action drills, what you do is you start them on a big flat open range. And the targets are down there and you can all see each other. And there's no terrain to deal with. You just go through the motions. You're going through the mechanics of the move. And if a platoon has worked well, if they did,

before they went out to land warfare, if they already went out on the beach and they did a bunch of walkthroughs and everyone starts getting the mechanics down, by the time they get out to the desert training facility, hey, do a center peel. Oh, they're knocking it out. They're actually will knock it out on the first try.

If you have a platoon that didn't get together and didn't do walkthroughs, they're a soup sandwich, even on the flat range. So once you get done with a flat range, once you get them up to speed, then you start putting them in terrain. The first terrain will be very obvious. Then the terrain gets a little bit more complicated.

And then guess what you do? You start doing it at night. And once you're doing it at night on nods, well, guess what? Now we start using rockets and grenades. And you're going to start escalating things. And by the way, then you're starting hitting them multiple times. And when they're really good with all that live fire,

all that, by the way, it's all live fire. Then once they're solid there live fire, then you can say, okay, now it can go force on force, which means you're going to go against real people that are shooting fake bullets at each other, right? It's ammunition. So that's what we as leaders have to do as instructors. We have to figure out all these things and we have to apply them correctly.

And that is can be challenging, but it's also the way you can make the most progress with everyone that is trying to learn. All right. Next, all course proponents can start now by taking the following three steps. So this is going back to this army manual, let's trying to tell people, to help people, change their learning method or their teaching methodology convert most classroom experiences into collaborative problem solving events led by facilitators vice instructors who engage learners to think and understand the relevance and context of what they learn so it's much better you know if you if you

if you if you're kid you want to teach your kid the times tables if you you have to make it a flash card and you can't see the answer when you say two times four. If they see that it's eight, it doesn't help them at all. They have to come up with that solution themselves. And that's what I like about this. It's like you have to get the people to think. You can guide them. And if they miss it, you can tell them, but then you got to flip it back over and try it again. Taylor, Taylor learning to the individual learners experience and competence level based on the results is what we just talked about. dramatically reduce or eliminate instructor-led slide presentation lectures and begin using a blended learning approach that incorporates virtual and constructive simulations gaming technology or other

technology delivered instruction. So you can't just read to them. You can't just show them. You have to interact. And this is funny because when we used to teach close quarters combat, you'd have different instructors. So you got two, let's say we got a troop attack. task unit and they got two different platoons. And so you take the two different platoons and they're going with two different instructor groups. And for a while, we would just be like, okay, you're going with this guy all day. You go to this guy all day.

Well, one of those instructors really like to talk a lot. And so he's going through all these details. The other instructor talked, kind of gave the fundamental concepts and then started, all right, start doing it, start doing it, start doing it. 10 times out of 10, the, Talking instructor made less progress than the guy that talked probably one third as much and then One third you still you like I said I'm not gonna say hey here's a ball put in the basket No I'm gonna say hey here's how you should position your foot here's what your elbows should do here's where your hand placed on the ball that's all good stuff

Now if I start telling you about the physics of the ball and the physiological alignment of your elbow and stuff like that doesn't matter Doesn't matter. So when you start talking about room clearance, you start getting into these things that are beyond the necessary knowledge for the shooter, you're kind of wasting their time. So let them start to do.

Shout out to Slow, Cal Poly Slow, where my daughter, Coach Rana went. Their motto is learned by doing. They do a lot of stuff there. They do. And that's definitely a great way to learn. Next section, full spectrum operations. Counterinsurgency and stability operations dominate the current fight.

Again, this is written in 2015. However, forces must be prepared to execute full spectrum operations. And this means you've got to be ready for anything. And this means you have to train in different environments for things that are less likely. And putting in a little bit of time on things that are less likely. Instead of waiting for you to get punched in the face with that problem is the is the way to do this and Also you got to look at different variables that you train in different environments different tools Ge-no-gi in Jiu-jitsu gloves like hey you know what you should do in jiu-jitsu sometimes put on gloves once a week someone puts on the gloves and is punching you in the head as you're working your guard

It's a real thing striking for takedowns somebody puts on big 16 ounce boxing gloves or 18 ounce boxing gloves and they try and punch you as you're trying to hit a take down just and then with what else you're doing you know um you're doing pistol work what about nighttime what about low light what about midlight what about backlight you got to do what about with noise happening what about when it's cold outside and you're wearing gloves little things are going to be different so you got to be

prepared for those things next soldiers and leaders must learn to rapidly transition between offensive offensive and stability operations or civil support operations while understanding that many military fundamentals remain the same in any type of operation preparation for future operations must include complexity uncertainty continuous transition between operations protracted time information complexity and adaptive enemies that are anticipated in future conflict you what this means is you have to be ready for uncertainty and you get let me tell you what you get better at dealing with

uncertainty by dealing with uncertainty believe it or not as a skill and it's a skill that you can improve over time we used to throw the most random shit at platoons random one we'll hear the most random thing so let my guys be setting up targets you know for a big hit to go down big target assault to go down but I generally wouldn't go out and see like the deep details that they were doing I would be with the platoon as the platoon's planning to go to the head I'd be sitting and listen to the brief and listen to their platoon interactions see what kind of frictions and fault lines there were but the boys are out in the field the trade at boys are out in the field they're setting up the targets and putting in the pyro and all the

special effects and all the craziness is going to go down so anyways the guys are out there setting up a target and we're always trying to surprise the guys give them something they didn't know what to deal with or how to deal with something So where I'm standing there in like a hallway watching the platoon clear. And all of a sudden like a couple guys open a door and they kind of enter a room and I can see that like the reaction is like kind of confused and shit. And then there's like I hear like weird noises coming out like commands like normally go get out get down get down or whatever. And I hear like hey, just weird stuff. And I see like someone else kind of stumbling back out of the room.

It just was bad. And so I kind of go down there. I kind of peeked to what's going on there. And they had my trade guy guys had dressed two dudes up like clowns. And they were having a pie eating contest. That's funny, right? It's funny. Dude, those guys, it tripped guys up.

Yeah, yeah. It tripped them up. They're like, what are we supposed to do? Is that a weapon? The guy's holding a pie, getting ready to hit someone else in the face with a pie. Is that what? Do we shoot him? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know. Right. Or at least that's what guys were thinking, what am I doing? Are they going to throw the pie at me? Is that now a weapon? Yeah. Is the pie a bomb? So doing that kind of thing is a good way to give people things that they're not expecting at all.

Giving someone something that is so uncertain they have to deal with it will help them dealing with because it'll help them learn to detach. It'll help them learn to assess quickly. It'll help them move through the decision making process quickly. But you have to deal with uncertainty and learn in order to learn how to deal with uncertainty. Did you notice that C.J.I. Two, one of the rules implemented was you, they just, you didn't know who was getting sent out

on the mat from the two teams. Remember that? So when someone got beat or when the round started, because it was, it was team jiu jitsu, which didn't work out well. Yeah. But you didn't know, each team didn't know who. the other guy was sending out. Remember that?

Yep, I remember. So you might be getting ready to go against that 170 pound fast guy, but all of a sudden the 280 pound slow big smasher comes out. You got to be ready to deal with it. There was an interesting aspect. It wasn't, I don't, even though I'm using that as an example, it's not a good example for a tournament. Yeah.

A good example of this, that the unexpected weirdness that can happen, even though it's rare, is, okay, you have to have seen this clip and I didn't know who this person was until later on I found out it was Andrus Brunovskis. Okay, so he was in a tournament and how he started

you know some guys they'll pull guard or they whether this guy freaking starts upside down. Did you see that? Did you know that was Andres? Yes, I didn't know until later. But yeah, he's upside down like on his inverted inverted guard pole

followed by moving like towards the person in the inverted guard. He was very unusual, we'll say. He won, by the way. Yeah, exactly right. By the way, the master of all unexpected shit is Jeff Glover. Yeah, hands down.

Oh, yeah. And, you know, the thing he invented donkey guard or whatever. No one starts like that. So it's like, right, through all my training, I've never had to deal with this right here, you know. So yeah, it makes sense. Just the idea of this is unusual. This is unfamiliar to be. Just that idea is just one big obstacle in and of it.

So if you deal with like unpredictable stuff, you can kind of mentally navigate your way through that obstacle that that would be there. For sure. And the other example that is the way John Donaheur explained when they started using leg locks against people that had weren't familiar. And as Dean Lister said, you know, when they started calling the position that we called Kakaureko, which is called the 50-50, you know, Dean would say Dean's, Dean would hear someone say 50-50 and he's like 90-10. because Dean spent so much time there. If you don't know what's going on there, bro, you're screwed. You're screwed. So, yes, getting put into unfamiliar situations will make you better at dealing with unfamiliar situations. Also, if you can do something that's completely unfamiliar to someone,

it's going to confuse them, at least momentarily. So keep that in mind. Back to the dock. The learning model must provide opportunities to experience a full spectrum challenges through a balanced mix of live, virtual, constructive, and gaming environments. And again, this is like static drill, resistance, game, constrained game,

less constrained games, and then live, unconstrained live training. That's what we got to do. And we've got to mix those things up appropriately depending on what it is you're trying to teach, how you're trying to teach it, what the context and knowledge that the individual has is. Got to put all those things into play.

That's what we have to do. Adaptability. Leaders at all levels must have opportunities to develop operational adaptability through critical thinking, willingness to accept prudent risk, and the ability to make rapid adjustments based on a continuous assessment of the situation. They must be comfortable with ambiguity and quickly adapt to the dynamics of evolving operations over short and extended durations. You have to learn.

to adapt and the way that you learn to adapt is by adapting and it's the same thing we just talked about it's like uncertainty you get better at dealing with uncertainty by going through uncertainty and what do you do you learn how to adapt and the way that you train this is by different situations different tools different scenarios different people that's what we have to do we have to try different things and continue to make people adapt when you force people to adapt, they get better at adapting. Leaders must be adept at framing complex, ill-defined problems through design and make effective decisions with less than perfect information. The learning model must develop adaptability at all levels through a foundation of operational

competencies and then increase the type of intensity, the type and intensity of stressors and ambiguity. So that's what we need to do. We need to get to get. Get people good at reframing complex things. So here's a couple notes on this. Talking through potential contingencies. Like, hey, if this happens, what would you do? Talk through them. That is a step that you now don't have to, you know, discuss options.

If we just say, hey, if this happens, hey, if our competitor does this, here's the two things we're going to do immediately. Just that right there. You took, and it might take you an hour or two hours or three hours to come up with Hey, here's our immediate response to this. It might take you three hours to come up with that. But now when it happens, boom, you just save yourself three hours of response time. So you talk about it. You discuss the various options and then run some scenarios like actually run through it.

And if we actually run through it, when you add in a new scenario and you don't have time to talk, you don't have time to discuss, you will be better at problem solving. So you learn problem solving and you become more proficient at problem solving over time and the more you have to problem solve. And part of that is what you mentioned earlier, just the context of it. You know, you have a cop that's been to a thousand crime scenes. He's going to, and it looks a little bit different. He's still going to adapt faster and say, hold on a second. Wait, don't go in that other room. I see this sign and that thing.

Just hold what you got. Like he's going to be able to adapt. Faster than someone's like, well, the protocol that I just learned in the academy was this. Like, so you get better at it. But you have to, you have to put people in problem solving situations so they get better at problem solving. Next, master fundamentals. Currently, the Army has extensive combat experience that provides an in-depth understanding of the fundamentals that contributed to mission success and counterinsurgency operations. Mastering and sustaining core fundamental competencies better support operational adaptability,

than attempting to prepare for every possibility. So we're not going to be able to prepare for every possibility. But first of all, our standard operating procedures can and should cover most contingencies. There's a lot of contingencies you have in combat that you don't need to prepare for because you already have standard operating procedures to prepare for it. Like if we are approaching the target and we start taking fire, everybody knows what's going to happen. It's a standard operating procedure. If we have already guys entered the first floor and we take contact from the building,

we have a standard operating procedure. Like we have things in place in immediate action drills. Like are you patrolling through the desert and you take contact? Everybody knows the immediate action drill that we're going to do. When you have a company, when you have a business, there should be protocols you have in place. If this happens, here's where our immediate response doesn't take any thought, doesn't take any leadership this is what we're doing that the the the standard operating procedures the better you have them wired they give you a line to deviate from now if I gave you a

book of eight football plays how many football plays do you think you had in your book that you had to know in any given year um no you know from 10 to 20 maybe something like 10 to 20 and you have to memorize those. So how much do you think is a lot more in the NFL? Yeah, good question. No, I don't think so. I think it's because it's, and then even then, that's hard to even say because a lot of

the plays are like so simple and there's just like this much difference between one play to the next, you know, so. Got it. It's easier to memorize, but yeah, I'm sure there's more dynamics in the NFL. Right. You know how they call audibles probably more and they do, you know, they, they're probably, Probably more, yeah. The, but they didn't have you memorize 250 radically different plays.

No. Right. And the same thing in the SEAL teams. Like, you're not going to memorize. You don't have, you don't have 342 standard operating procedures. You're not trying to prepare for every contingency. You, you can't do that. And that's what they're saying here.

But what we do know is that you have to train. And if you know the fundamentals well, you'll be able to adapt the fundamentals because the fundamentals exist for a reason. You know, it gives you the opportunity to be flexible because you already have a standard operating procedure, not just wrote memory. Your fundamentals is Jimmy Page, right? He played, he's a studio musician that just had to play what they told him to play. His fundamentals were incredible. So that way, when it came time to make rock and roll music, he could get after it. You could do things that no one was doing.

Next, the fundamental competencies must be clearly identified to support executing future full spectrum operations and time must be allotted to attain proficiency through repetition and time on task. So just make sure that your fundamentals connect to everything that you're doing. If you're learning fundamentals, you know, if you're playing football and you're learning how to do a tennis serve, It's not going to help you. It's not going to help you. So you've got to have those SOPs that make sense. Next, nearly a decade of conflict has shown the army that it is extraordinarily difficult to prepare soldiers

for every battlefield contingency. Instead, soldiers and leaders must master a set of critical core competencies that provide a foundation for operational ability. And this is how we need to train. and by the way this is like in you know let's go let's go jiu jitzu street fight by the time you're learning a go go plata the chances that you have to use a go go plot on a street are are very very very very small very very small if you're are if you're at the point where you know how to do a go go go potta

your fundamental already handled the problem. Your fundamentals of jiu jit-tizu already handled the problem. So if you never learned the fundamentals and you only learned to go-go plata, there's a chance you get your ass beat in the street because there's a whole bunch of things that that other person can do to stop you. So you need to train the fundamentals.

And if your fundamentals are good, this is why we see sometimes, you know, the fundamental jiu-jitsu guy, Hadra Gracie, just take the back or get them out and do just a

gea cross choke. You know, like he's doing things that you literally learn as a white belt, but he's a master. Hicks and Gracie. You'd see him.

In the old days, it's like, oh, what's you going to do? Take the person down, get their back, and apply a rear naked choke. You can learn those, all those moves

in one month of Jiu-Jitsu. But you might not be proficient at that. And there's a big difference there. But if you learn these fundamentals, and by the way, there's also times where someone tries fancy moves that aren't fundamentally sound

and they're not functional. But you can do fancy moves that are based and rooted in fundamentals and that's fantastic all day. Yeah. So it is important that your fundamentals are strong. There is this movie called The Program back in the day. Yeah, that's when the dudes got a skull face and stuff.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, football. That's Oger, right? Oger, Revenge of the Nerds? No, no, no, no, no, that's a different dude. Is it different dude? Oh, yeah, those are, actually, I want to say a whole generation apart. Oger from, that's the guy from Bloodsport. What was in it?

He just died recently, actually. Bummer. See it here? Yeah, um, Jack, Ray Jackson, right, from Bloodsport. That's what that is. Anyway, no, no, no. The guy from the program is the same guy. He's on like that movie called Higher Learning.

Okay. Big buffed, dude. Anyway. College football movie, right? But this new up-and-coming rookie goes to, you know, it was Florida State, but they called it ESU. But anyway, one day in practice, one of the early days in practice, he fumbles the ball, right? Just fumbles it, lose the ball.

He just fumbles it. So what the coach does Because holding onto the ball That is as fundamental as fundamental can get You're a tricky nine year old kid playing football Like you gotta hold onto the ball Can't just drop it So he made him carry that ball

With him to class everywhere And he said if anyone The coach goes if anyone brings this ball to me Other than you You're I forget what the punishment was Or whatever some big punishment But that's it He had to train his fundamentals

To hold onto the ball 24 hours a day you know what I'm saying that's how important it was made sense to me that coach was wise too by the way what was the crux of the movie like what was the the did they win the championship or something yeah basically that spoiler alert yeah yeah no not too swear check uh next advances in learning science cognitive psychology educational psychology neuroscience and other related fields provide new insights into improved learning strategies and applications of technology to learning yet years of research Show that there's no single learning strategy that provides the most effective solution to every learning problem

That's why when people get Totally bought into like one system and you got to watch out Because it's there's there's just Years of research so there's no single learning strategy and and when you talk about all the variables that I just talked about Who that person is what the context is how long they what type of learner they are how long they've been training for like there's so much to think if you think no no we're gonna use this methodology It's not a good not a good plan Teaching requires an open mind and teachers and instructors have to continually monitor and adjust what they're teaching and how they're teaching it and what they're doing and how they're doing it. Everybody's going to be a little bit different.

And this doesn't mean you have to teach nine different classes because there's nine different people in the class. You know, but it does mean you got to pay attention because there's generally speaking, bell curve. You got knucklehead over here. He's going to have to, you're going to have to explain it to. He's going to have to go a little bit slower. genius over here get right into it everyone else gonna be you got you're gonna have your you see you got one you got seven people that are kind of like okay there's gonna be a general sort of modality you can use but you still got to pay attention and by the way again

that's with this move that's with this guitar chord but tomorrow I might teach a guitar chord that these guys have never seen before none of them no context to it it's gonna take or it's very tricky with the fingers. Got to pay attention to that one. Next, adult learning is promoted when the learner's prior knowledge is activated prior to learning new knowledge. Yep, there you go.

You're gonna teach something. Let's have them play the chord that's close to it a bunch of time, so we're bringing it out. Let's have them shoot the pistol or shoot the rifle the way that we have, the way that they know how to shoot it, before you give them this. advanced technique the learner observes a demonstration the learner applies new knowledge demonstration

application are based in real world problems the learner integrates new knowledge into everyday practices you got to you got to finish with that real world thing got to finish rolling soldiers must acquire the habits of lifelong learners soldiers must become expert self-motivated learners who are capable of asking good questions and possess digital literacy skills that enable them to find, evaluate, and employ online knowledge, whether in learning or operational environments. This is pretty focused on the Army. But the fact that we need to have people with the mindset of being a lifelong learner,

that's going to pay off in spades inside of our organization. If we got people on the front lines that do a certain task and they are continually trying to learn how to do that task better and what technology they can use and how they can make it more efficient. That's what we need. If we have a person that's not a lifelong learner and they're just doing what we told them to do or the way it's always been done, we're not making progress. Army training, education, and experience domains require a holistic integration and clearly

to find past to achieve outcomes at each stage of a soldier's career. The Army's learning model can facilitate a lifelong learning culture by encouraging critical thinking complex problem solving and providing tools that allow soldiers to access relevant performance related information and by the way that's what we have to force ourselves to do we have to force might be a strong word but we have to pay attention to it we have to be forced as instructors we have to force people to do things that they wouldn't normally do so like me working on trying angles in jujitsu or darts strokes moves that I just don't do but I need to do them finger picking on guitar suck at it but should I do it yes absolutely this is why we

have people do offhand shooting and mag changes people don't want to do that they're not like hell yeah let's do some offhand most people aren't they want to hear that that that steel plate go ping and then want to hear that thing go be ping they want to hear they want to get it as a leader, forcing yourself to either be quiet if you have a tendency to talk too much or forcing yourself to speak because you're usually too quiet. You got to force yourself using words you don't normally use. You want to improve your vocabulary.

You can't just look at the vocabular. You got to force yourself to integrate these new words to expand your vocabulary. And then finally it says, well, the last thing I want to cover from this document. The continuous adaptive learning model is not static, but is responsive to operational changes and evolving trends and learning technologies and methods. It's important to frame the things that you're doing in life as training. Kind of everything is training.

I agree. And there's a whole philosophy like the Russian weightlifting thing. It was like all practice. And everything is practice. Yeah, yeah. That being said, you have to be intentional in what you're doing as well, which to me, intentional, the yoga, foo-foo word, what it means to me is plan, execute debrief. That's what intentional is. We're going to have a plan.

We're going to execute the plan, and we're going to debrief. Even real time. As you train, you should be doing that. What do I need to adjust as an instructor right now? Is this too little? Is this too much? Are they over-trained? are we at the point of diminishing returns,

which you can get to from time to time. But you have to be paying attention to that. You have to be intentional. What's my plan for today? Now, can you say, hey, plan for today is we're going to do six hard rounds? And you get out there, you see everyone lagging, and by round three, you see people like, they're overtrained. Can you make an adjustment?

Absolutely. Did you reach a point of diminishing returns? Perhaps. That's what we have to do to both. be lifelong learners ourselves and be able to teach so that other so the other people can learn life is training so go get after it and with that speaking of getting after it we are shooting running, lifting,

boxing, surfing, playing guitar. Sure. How's the ukulele coming? Clunky. How many hours a day do you practice?

Zero. I've been off it for a while. I taught you two courts. Yeah. And you were pretty good at him. Yeah. You know. Yeah.

I got into digital music making, you by the way. I know. We're tracking. But I'm kind of off that. How come? I'm not off it. Do you need more riffs from me?

I haven't. Yeah, I do need more. from yeah actually it's been like two weeks since it but yes I'm always into something though actually you know what I'm into right now learning yeah it's learning what I picked up and I'm actually it only took like two days um solving a Rubik's cube okay have you ever called a rubic cube before yeah there's like a there's like a technique to it actually more than one there's a bunch of techniques to it yeah it's like uh what do they it's an algorithm or it's uh what is it

called like to get that piece back there's a certain protocol yeah yeah and you just memorize these various protocols yeah you know yeah basically yeah um there's the first method is I think it's it's called layer by layer so you go it's like you know yeah and so there's like a little method to move any one piece or two yeah and you memorize a uh a protocol yeah per step right yeah but but but but because I remember seeing when I was a kid because I was around with those things I think when they were when they were invented yeah and when people would get into the solving them yeah you know of course I learned how to like turn it quarter away and then break the piece off and disassemble the whole thing and put it together yeah yeah you know

a little bit different I learned how to just manhandle that that thing and overcome so how long is it taking you to solve the Rubik's cube my best time layer by layer which is not the speed way to do it labor layer is a minute 59 and do you have you got your kids into it as well yeah Are they beating you? My son. No, no, no. It's okay. Take it easy, dude.

The kid's nine over here. Jesus. Sorry. Sorry. While you're over here having them beat me all of a sudden. Yeah, it's my freaking jam right now. Yeah, leave me alone. No, it's, it's, you got a for real commit to it.

It's not like you're going to learn it in one day and then, okay, you know how now, you know? But you said two days. Yeah, because I nerded out on it. Like, basically to the point where within that two days my wife, was already mad at me because I had I have like four Rubik's cubes now there's like one in every room you know kind of a thing so like if I'm not doing anything or if I'm quote unquote done with the things I have to do I'm like on it you know so she's like is this going to be your thing now you know like chess was for that for that flurry but so I'd nerd it out on it so that's why I picked

it up whatever but yeah my son he knows how to do like the first two layers you know but it starts to get progressively a little bit more complex there's more moves that you have to make Exactly right. So you get to a certain stage. It's like, okay, you've got to do this and then and it's based on like the configuration. So you got to react to it, you know, so it's not like, oh, you just do it and it does it. It's not that. You got to do the right thing and it gets a little bit more complex.

I remember seeing like basically some kind of instructional and we just have like arrows like down, down, down, right, right, left, up across or whatever. Yeah. And is that still a thing? I've seen those before and there's way more to it than that. A lot of times those, especially if it's on like Instagram or something, that's like if you take a solved Rubik's Cube and you want it to look like a American flag or something. You know, like little tricks you can do. But to solve it, no, because it, it, those moves are going to kind of depend on what you're presented with, you know.

But there is a move. There is moves. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. For example, yeah, it'll be like, you kind of memorize. Yeah. So like clockwise, clockwise, counterclockwise. And but at the same time, it's right top, right?

You know, like, yeah, yeah, there's that. But then when you do it, when you finish it, you have to evaluate what you're presented with. And then you do another series of moves. Another series of moves. Or move on to the next one. So I'm saying? It just depends on what you get. And it all depends on where it started.

Yeah, it's a thing. But it gets good fun. Nonetheless, yes. Well, it's good learning. It is, yeah. It makes your, um, You know what's weird like I think as you get older I'm more in touch with this where You know like this idea of warming up right let's say before you lift like heavy you go through a warm up process

You can't just jump under the bar start lifting heavy right because your body's like oh I don't think your body can even produce the force yet You're saying you're gonna activate the whole system But doing that Rubik's cube and sometimes even chest or whatever it'll activate your brain so you'll feel like way more like loose and like sharp during the day Um, for this kind of activity, you need fuel. It's true. And I recommend jocco fuel, but I'm not the only one. There's a dude that does reviews. And he's actually a San Diego dude.

And he did a review of brain power. And he did like a memorization, uh, memorization tasks and measured his effectiveness. And it was much more effective. on brain power. Straight up. Straight up. Yeah. And he, you know, it was cool because he did it and then he like took brain power.

And then he's like, oh yeah, he's like, I feel, you know, because you do feel brainpower. You start feeling all sharp. You start, you start seeing like numbers and you start understanding things more clearly. Oh, yeah. And so then he just rolls out and does his memorization task and wins like beats his time. By a lot. Straight up. And so that's pretty, pretty dope.

Brain power. I take brain power. and I have to speak. And especially when doing Q&A, because boy, you get sharper. So check out joccofield.com. If you have a Rubik's Cube to solve, if you have a memorization game to play,

if you have a meeting that you've got to present in, get yourself some brainpower. Keep it and keep it. Like I have some in my back at all times. At all times. Didn't get much sleep, brainpower. Feeling a little groggy? Brain power.

Need to perform brain power. you'll feel it jaco field.com also we have protein we have energy i'm on my second go of the day one before jiu jitsu one before this podcast is that illegal you know what i'm saying is that illegal technically it's not now am i getting an advantage yes i am yes i am such and also a muscle drive we're in the muscle drive activity good i'll tell you what for some reason muscle drive it's got the amino acids in it and for some reason it makes me feel like a little full right like your body's getting something that it needs do you ever have that with salt like sometimes like today trained real hard i know you didn't um but hydrate yeah because you're you're

missing like the electrolytes and sometimes you just want that but it's sometimes you want food but if you have the muscle drive and that's kind of one of the reasons we made it was for fasting slash cutting weight so if you're cutting weight you know

get yourself some muscle drive I fucking need to cut some weight do you I feel like I do check I thought you looked really actually kind of thin check joccofield dot com protein everything that you need

also origin USA.com. We're training jihitsu. At least some of us are. Yeah, sure. Some of us. How come you to train today? Today I was caught up, you know.

I got a lot of stuff. Playing Rubik's scuba. Well, you know, of course. Is your foot still hurt or whatever that was? My foot is not sore or hurting more. No, man, my knee is better too. So, yeah, yeah. I had the strangest, uh, calf oddity.

Like I've, I don't think I've ever hurt a calf before. Yeah, it seems kind of more. Weird thing and I'm not talking like oh I got I got footlocked and someone cranked and I hurt my calf like Dean Lister just getting you on an outside foot lock just leaning into it and you're like yeah I have a basically a bruise on my calf now I'm not talking about getting calf kicked which is another just The way to get this is a random no no combat engagement And I had this like my just felt tight and then believe it or not I was I was lifting doing some dead lifts and all of a sudden just And my point in telling you this is I was like, eh,

maybe I shouldn't train today. But you know what? To maintain the discipline, I'm going to go. I'm going to do what I can. Yeah. And guess what I ended up doing? All of it.

All of it. Got some. Yeah, yeah. Was able to just compensate a little bit. No factor. Yeah, yeah. That's what we're doing.

So we're training jiu jitsu. We should be. By the way, jihitsu is fascinating. It's fascinating. Yeah. But you need a ghee when you train jihitsu. Origin USA.

makes communist free geese, communist free rash guards, 100% made in America. But we're not doing jih Tzu all the time. That's why we make jeans. We make pants. We make shorts. We make everything that you need to wear on your body. Origin at USA.com, 100% American made from American made materials.

That's what we're doing. The boots, you know, the Chelsea boots or whatever. Are those all in freaking stock or what? I mean, you know, those out? Yes. And we have a very fast production line. So yeah, they're out, they're in stock. And if they're not, if whatever particular size

you didn't, you need happens to not be in stock, it'll get made like in that day or two days. No, yeah, yeah. And it'll be to you stat. Yeah, 100% American. You will be more patriotic when you put your boots on. Yeah, he'll be a little bit prouder to be an American. Factually.

So origin, USA.com. Let's defeat slavery, tyranny, and communism. One pair of blue jeans at a time. I was just going to say that one pair of pants at a time. Let's go. Hell yeah. Also, Jocco Storr, Discipline equals freedom, shirts and hats and hoodies on there as well. Summertime coming up.

Is summer here? I heard Theo Vaughn say June 1st. June 1st. Is summertime. Yeah, that's what it feels like. So if Theo is saying it, I'm going to say we're probably pretty good. Good to go on that one. Summertime.

Hell yeah. So yeah. Maybe index on the tank tops or summer. We got tank tops then. Send me a couple tank tops, will you? All right, I got you. Every time I say that and you say I got you, I never get shit. Well, let's not say never, but let's say rarely.

Very rarely. From time to time. Can you throw me some tank tops? How about this? I promise I'll send you some tank tops. Promise. Promise over here. What?

Within, do I am I going to have to remind you again? I got you, 100%. 100%. 100%. 100%. Okay, got you. What's the delivery time? Well, anywhere from 12 hours to, well, you're here.

So, yeah, I don't know. Could be 12 hours. I sent out some shorts to Shannon Googerty. Okay. Because of you, by the way. I guess you, like, shamed him because he had some old shorts on. And you were like, bra, how old are those shorts or whatever? Dude, I got some old shorts, too.

Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, I'm with you, but the ones I use, you gave me. And they're from, yeah, back in the mother of the day. Very durable. Anyway, nonetheless. We got jocco store.com. That's where you can get these things. But the reason I'm kind of understanding

if it's summer right now. So we got 4th of July coming out, kind of in a way, in a month or so. So we got this year's 4th of July. Sure. Being ready. It'll be ready. But if you want to get the jump on that first run,

that first dish, and not risk it being sold out when you go on there. You've got to sign up for the email list. Boom, put your email in there on the website on the front, the bottom there. Don't worry, I won't spam. But you will get the heads up so you can get your hit first dibs on that one. Those ones seem to sell out quick. Yeah, they do.

Yeah. So anyway, there's a lot of stuff on there. Also, a subscription scenario called the shirt locker. Get a new design every month. It's fun. There's this, I called it a mosaic, but like this month's one. It's like a famous artist that he paints. this thing. It's a picture, but when you look at it from far away, it's like, it looks

like Abraham Lincoln. But when you look at something else, when you look up close, anyway, it's that, but it's something else. It's not Abe Lincoln, something else. That's this month's one. It's pretty good. Came out good. It's a mystery. It's a mystery. You got to go on jockelsor.com. You can click on there. You can see what it is. Check. The sneak peek or whatever. But yeah, it's all in Joccoaster. Some good stuff. Right on. Right on. We got some books. Put your legs on by Rob Jones. Need to Lead by Dave Burke. We got St. Stakes, primal beef.com.

Stakes from the Shenandoah Valley. Hell, yeah. Sean Glass out there making some primal beef at primal beef. com. Also, Colorado Craftbeef.com. We got the best steaks and great people. So get in there. Primalbeef.com, Colorado Craftbeef.com.

Eshlamfront, we have the muster in San Diego, July 8th through the 10th, 2026. this is our flagship event by the way this is a leadership conference where you learn the skills of leadership come and check that out if you want we also have extreme ownership.com where we teach leadership online so you can check that out as well also if you want to help service members active and retired you want help their families you want to have gold star family check out mark lee's mom mama lee check out her charity organization it's absolutely incredible if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to america's mighty warriors.org also check out heroes and horses.org and jimmy may's organization beyond the brotherhood

dot org we got warriors in need so check that one out and stronghold rescue dot org got a bunch of people out there doing amazing things so check those out if you want to connect with us check out jocco.com on social media i'm at jocco willink echoes that echo charles just be careful because you don't want to learn things that you weren't intentionally wanting to learn. We have to be careful. That's called brainwashing. And your algorithm is doing that to you.

So don't let it. Be careful. Thanks to all of our military personnel who are right now, this moment, staged around the world. Thank you for continually learning so you can stay ahead of our nation's enemies. Also, thanks to our police.

Police law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, as well as all other first responders. Thanks for learning and training and adapting every day to keep us safe at home. And everyone else out there are speaking of learning. Let's remember to keep learning. Try new things. Try new technology. Try new words. Try new moves.

Try new chords on the guitar or the ukule. or the Rubik's Cube. Try new tools and do everything you can to get better every single day. And you do that by going out there and getting after it. That's all we've got for tonight. And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.