16July05 Instructor Course! Our last Instructor Course for this year will be in Columbia, SC on the weekend of 12-13 Nov 05. Those interested in attending need to get hold of me or Rich Wright at _Labrador@usns.net_ (mailto:Labrador@usns.net) . Effective instructing is more art than science, and this program is designed to advance the Art! /John

16July05

The Necessity of Unconscious Competence:

In our journey as warriors, most of us, with reasonable effort, attain a state of "conscious competence" with mostly manageable grief . It is at that point that we all experience an exceeding temptation to pause, to take a breath, to look back and admire ourselves for how far we've come. S uch tendencies are natural and not entirely unhealthy, but the trek from "unconsci ous incompetence," through "conscious incompetence,=80=9D to "conscious competence" represent only ten percent of the distance that must be traveled. Slogging through numberless repetitions lies ahead!

So long as you are only "consciously competent," you=80 re at the mercy of your own attention span. When your attention span lapses, you, in turn, la pse into incompetence. Conversely, a warrior who has attained a state of unconscious competence is a wakeless whirlwind of motion, able to continuous ly process information and effectively address short-term challenges at a subc onscious level, leaving his conscious mind available for extended-term, strategic planning. This enables him to spin his OODA faster than most opponents, continuously setting the agenda, dividing their focus, disrupting their pla n, and leaving most adversaries with the uninterrupted prospect of playing =80 catch-up."

It all takes longer and requires far more dedication and effort than most o f us imagine at the beginning. If we knew in advance, few of us would ever start!

"The belief in the possibility of a short, decisive war appears to b e one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions."

Robert Lynd

/John