reality based training
The Reality Based Training Association was initially formed in an effort to
address issues specifically related to Reality Based Training safety. As the
mission of Law Enforcement, the Military and various segments of the Emergency
Services has evolved, training for these missions in many ways has not. In some
instances the direction that has been taken by some organizations or individual
trainers has been misguided, dangerous or deadly. Part of the mission of the
RBTA is to examine training systems as well as overall system designs in an
effort to move training in the most effective direction. The cost of ineffective
training systems in terms of money and loss of life has been immense. Much of
the discussion that led to the formation of this association was due to the
number of serious injuries and senseless killings of military and law
enforcement personnel during training exercises. In many instances of near
tragedy, the trend has been to bury the incident and attempt to ensure it is not
repeated. Sadly, this is exactly what NOT to do. Once such incidents are
uncovered it is possible to understand the root cause of the system failure so
that it can be repaired or replaced. Upon a more thorough examination of various
tragedies, dangerous training trends and paradigms were discovered. In many
cases, where certain training practices did not lead to the injury or death of
training participants, such practices had the propensity to programme
participants for future failure during dangerous encounters. Due to the deep
entrenchment of many of these trends and philosophies inside the cultures where
they were developed, it has been determined that the faulty architecture of many
of these systems or the individual training philosophies of certain trainers is
not easily changed. The RBTA was founded as a means to an ongoing investigation
into how such systems CAN be changed so that personnel can be trained in the
safest, most cost effective manner possible. To that end, the RBTA is an
organization dedicated to the unification of the trainers and organizations
tasked with supplying the soldier on the battlefield, emergency services worker
or officer in the street with the most current information availble with regards
to training philosophies, systems and products. Where systems, organizations or
individual training practices are found to be defective or dangerous, the RBTA
will direct its resources to the correction of those defects. Where defects are
not correctable, it will inform its membership of the perceived dangers so that
such systems can eventually be corrected, removed from service or avoided.
