“Step by step walk the thousand-mile road.” – Miyamoto Musashi

The process of skill development is a thousand-mile road, from novice to competence to proficiency to expert/mastery. Without diving too deep into the subject, the more that you develop a skill, the less you have to think about actually executing it. A common example is learning to tie our shoes. Initially, we have to consciously think about putting the laces in the correct position and in the proper order. Many of us used rote memorization (“the rabbit goes around the tree”) to expedite development through this novice stage. After many repetitions, we were able to tie our laces without looking at our shoes, though we were still consciously thinking about it. Eventually though, we performed the process enough times that it became a habitual process and we could perform it without dedicating any thought to the action (autonomy), freeing our mind to process other things like carrying on a conversation. On the fireground, autonomy in performing basic skills frees our cognitive processes for more important things, like sizing up the building and fire conditions.

As we progress in our skill level, we can begin to focus on strengthening more detailed areas of performance. For example, rather than carrying ladders on a flat, level drill ground or parking lot, practice moving up and down stairs, curbs, or grassy hills. Rather than always carrying a ladder on your right shoulder, work on the left side. Without the prior repetitions to develop autonomy, these changes in surface, grade, or position will require us to refocus our cognitive processes to negotiate them. To some, this level of detail may seem like splitting hairs, but the difference between competence, proficiency, and mastery is all about the details. As our abilities improve, we must critique them on a smaller scale if we wish to further improve. Otherwise, our performance will stall into complacency.

I recorded the following videos recently while working on left side ground-to-shoulder/carries and traversing stairs. The first repetition on the ground to shoulder is a perfect example of autonomy (muscle memory) as my brain attempts to follow the strong neural pathway developed by hundreds of reps to the right shoulder. I had to take a second to reset and mentally rehearse the left side movement before properly executing it.

Understanding the psychology behind skill acquisition is key to our abilities as both instructors (knowing how beginners learn and develop new skills) and as individual firefighters (understanding how we can continue to improve our abilities beyond mere competence for the length of our career).

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