Oct 25, 2019
Ashlie: (00:18)
Welcome back to another episode of Tactical Living by LEO Warriors.
I'm your host, Ashlie Walton.
Clint:
And I'm your co-host Clint Walton.
Ashlie: In today's episode, we're going to talk about why
thinking you know it all is often preventing you from being able to
grow and learn new things. So just sit back, relax and enjoy
today's content. As I sit here, my husband is literally straddling
the chair in a way that looks incredibly uncomfortable and the
reason for that is because he had five straight days of mounted
training. And as you sit there, I wonder if you can just explain to
the listener a little bit about what transpired from the beginning
of the week going into this training.
Clint: (01:08)
You know, riding horses in our mounted unit is such a rewarding
task that I get to do. We have to do trainings on regular basis.
Not necessarily for us but for the horses to kind of get them
acclimated to different scenarios like people pushing strollers,
balloons…anything you could possibly think of that might spook the
horse. You have a one thousand, two thousand pound animal in
between your legs and you're effectively trying to arrest people
while riding them. Yearly, myself and team members from my unit do
a weekly training. We're really spending 40 hours if not longer
throughout the week riding horses. And it's not easy. It's not like
we're going on an easy trail ride and just cruising along. Working
on the horses is actually very easy to do because we're kind of
cruising, looking for people to arrest, to maintain control of
situations and for maybe five, 10 minutes how to actually work.
Clint: (02:28)
During this training it's completely different. They're trying
to scare the horses. They're trying to teach us formations. They're
trying to get us the experience that we need to know how
comfortable we are with our request training skills. So I've been
through this training before. This is my fourth or fifth time going
actually through the training and this week was a different company
that we did the training through. I think all of us went into the
training really thinking that we already know this. None of these
guys deal with what we deal with in our city. A lot of the
agencies, it's all PR related mounted policies or enforcement
details that they do. I was completely dumbfounded by how educated
these people were. And I went into the class thinking I'm not going
to learn anything new or it's going to be just another week-long
adventure and riding horses.
Clint: (03:40)
But in the beginning, I told myself I was going to open myself up
to any new experiences throughout the training that they could
teach me whether I agree with it or not. I'm going to go into the
training thinking that I don't know anything about riding horses.
By doing that, I completely open myself up to criticism, to
critique and to learning new things. And I think everyone on our
team really took away some great tidbits of information that we
never would have thought of if I would have just completely closed
myself off in the very beginning and said, ‘well, I already know
this. I don't need to do this. Let me focus on something else and
just ride the horse like I typically do.’ I wouldn't have been able
to be taught what we learned throughout the week. My body aches as
I sit here. My fists are balled up and my hands are sweaty because
my hands feel swollen from grasping the rains for a full week.
Speaker 3: (04:55)
I can barely walk it seems like but that's just part of the
experience. There was this grizzly old cowboy that was in the
class. He's a short old white man and looks like a country singer.
He looks like the Marlboro Man. If you know what that looks like…he
carries around a cigar everywhere he goes. And to me, I was like,
that is what a cowboy is supposed to look like! And throughout the
training he came over to me and my partner a few times and just
offered some advice. He didn't demand we do something. He didn't
demand that we do it his way. He just offered it as another option
to us. And in doing that, both of us opened ourselves up to a whole
new experience of actually riding the horses and techniques of how
we can approach crowd control situations or just typical equestrian
techniques to make our ride smoother and easier. Things that we
might struggle with, and I won't bore you with the details of side
passing or just getting into a typical formation with horses, but
little minor things like just looking the direction you want to go
or looking ahead of your obstacles is something that the horses
feed off of. They play off of. If you're staring at something right
in front of your face, the horse isn't going to want to do it
because they sense your energy. Looking beyond it, they're going to
do the same and just work through it.
Clint: (06:48)
And in opening myself up to this training, I learned so much
throughout this week than I have in any of the other trainings I've
ever done in reference to riding horses. In doing this with all my
trainings now I'm going to open myself up to learning new things
instead of thinking I know everything surrounding whatever that
training may be.
Clint: (07:16)
I've always set my limitations going into these trainings. I would
say things like, ‘I already know this. I don't need to do it.’ Not
anymore.
Ashlie: (07:28)
I actually had the opportunity to go to training with Clint
yesterday. The coolest thing for me was knowing that Clint and his
partners are actually getting ready to create an entire training
program of their own. Their agency is not very big as it pertains
to the mounted unit, but a very close by agency had their entire
mounted unit shut down and diminished because nobody has taken
charge of it. It's the hope for their team to be able to expand
their team and really combine the efforts of both agencies as it
pertains to their mounted unit as a whole. And knowing that that
was the intent made me so proud to see how open and aware you were
Clint. Your mindset was a little bit different this time. It wasn't
you just going to the training for the sole purpose of being just a
single unit member of your mounted team. You understood that the
anticipation is to be able to take any skills that are required or
any techniques or even the way that the entire training is set up
because you and your partners are going to be able to share that
with other people as you bring them on to do training under
you.
Ashlie: (08:45)
And it was so fascinating to watch the different scenarios. It's
things that we take for granted and we don't always realize what
goes into play when it comes to the training of not only the
officers but the horses as well. Tactics like pretending that
you're screaming at the officer's while you're standing there on
the ground. They had simulated responses and these almost dummy
people coming in and trying to portray the way that it really looks
when you're on the street and you're serving the community on your
horse. And this isn't just good exposure and training for the
officer, but from us having Clint’s horse Buttercups, it is also
incredible experience and exposure for the horses. They're around
people that have different smells and they're experiencing a
different element. That's exactly what it's like when they go into
any sort of work environment.
Ashlie: (09:41)
There was a late night where they're exposed to fireworks. There
was motor vehicles that were turned on and the horses having to
come right next to the vehicles shooting from the horses. Yeah, you
had, um, was it cap guns or empty rounds. They also fired off cap
guns as we're riding around too. This is to pretty much scare the
horses and get them used to it. And I think from my perspective it
was just the ability of being able to open yourself up in a way to
where it's not just receiving the training that you're receiving.
But because you have the intention of being able to teach somebody
else and in our own practices as it pertains to our coaching
practice. Our continued education, we've learned that that's the
trick for me as you sit there. The truth is that I can't just read
a book and keep it to myself anymore.
Ashlie: (10:40)
As I read, I have a notepad that I'm constantly taking notes on
because most of what we consume on a routine basis, you hear that
term. It goes in one ear and out the other and it couldn't be
truer. When you think back on the last book you read or the last
training program that you are in. Something incredible happens with
the way that the content sticks. When you're able to teach it to
somebody else and you carry it with you so much further and it's
not just the content. This is even names of people and just
developing different techniques and tricks to be able to train your
mind. It's the same for this particular training and I think that
once you understand that you don't know it all. We've all been
there. We have situations where we think we're the smartest one in
the room. The truth is that if that's how you feel, you never want
to be the smartest person in the room.
Ashlie: (11:37)
The only way for you to grow, to learn, to develop is for you to
have somebody or several somebodies who are above you in terms of
excellence. That could be scholastically. That can be based on real
life experience. You want be the one that’s sort of dumbed-down.
That way, you can have curiosity sparked within yourself to be able
to learn from the people that you're around. When you understand
that and you embrace it, then you're able to get over some of that
ego. When you can do that, then you can learn and experience life
in a whole new way. And then by taking that and teaching it to
somebody else…you're really able to enjoy your Tactical Living.
Balance. Optimize. Tactics.
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