Muscle Memory

Being 65 years young, I went to shoot some basketball at a local basketball court and I would like to think a normal action occurred when I started shooting like I was 15 again. My shots from in close would not go in much less the foul line shots that I hardly ever miss would be air balls (: ! (so much for those golden years) After about 5 minutes of frustration some balls started going in! Life lessons teach us that if you create a muscle memory (hopefully a correct way to do something) it comes back. I have always taught that we need to create that muscle memory so especially in an emergency we just do it and do not do a lot of fumbling around, this exercise drove that home for me. We should always train as often as we can and train the correct way to do whatever it is we are doing so that when something goes wrong we are prepared. That being said a question might be is if we are good at confine space entry because we do it ALL the time then how are we at confine space rescue since we have never had to do it? If we do interior fire training ALL the time then how good are we if we need to deal with an exterior fire? What if we never set up the Incident Command structure or practice it how do we as industry organize and form a command when the municipal guys arrive? If we train to do some type of hazmat rescue/decon how good are we at plug and patch or dealing with run-off or air monitoring? Carry this into the work place and ask yourself how do we train our employees to their jobs efficiently? Is it just on a computer to minimize time away from product, is it just here do it this way because I was taught this way or do you take the time to give them classroom to explain how it works and why things need to be done this way along with a test to see what they retained and understood and then place them in the area with a Qualified trainer that test them with correct hands on training? Not sure which is your correct answer but when something happens there will be people in your facility asking these questions and more. Always remember it is always OK until it is not OK!