A Major Milestone for Accentus Ludus (edited 28 Sep 2018, to add direct link for approved PDF of the research paper)

I’m very humbled to announce that THE JOURNAL OF POLICING AND CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGYhas completed its rigorous independent peer review of a research study measuring the efficacy of the neural-based training methods we’ve developed over the last 31 years of research and experimentation. (click here for the PDF: Approved Pre-Print Release

The paper establishes a brand new field of academic and scientific inquiry:  the fusion of accelerated expertise concurrent with stress inoculation.  It establishes us as pioneers in this new field and validates our training protocols in the laboratory.  We’ve already validated our results on the street and on the battlefield for over 31 years.

Our patented process and training protocols change the brain through the mechanism of neural plasticity to create accelerated expertise concurrent with stress inoculation.

It’s this process that enables us to take two novices with the MP-5 and train them to perform and qualify, both on paper and in sim fights against non-compliant opponents. as experts who outperformed master instructors.

In four hours.  Case study here: INSERT LINK

With an early version of that process, we worked with a group of rape survivors so traumatized that they were triggered into severe PTSD symptoms at the mere sight of a handgun. After training, women who were previously unable to look at a handgun were fighting with that same handgun against two large aggressive and highly skilled male fighters armed with real machetes and baseball bats.

The women won their fights. 100% lethal hits in dynamic full contact force on force.  They outperformed the local SWAT shooters who were, at best, around 40% hits in the exact same scenarios.

From start to finish, four hours.

Ed Lovette, who was in charge of paramilitary training for an Other Government Agency, was an expert witness to the training that day.  He turned to me and said, “Chico, you broke the code.”

We’ve since then been quietly invited to many of the most elite military and law enforcement units in the world to provide training for their instructor cadres:  CASE STUDY HERE

We’re now taking our refined process and automating it with cutting edge technology.  We’re going to do just what Neo experienced in the Matrix:

This is my amazing research team.  One of them is a tenured professor who, when she’s not tutoring the Dalai Lama and his monks in cognitive neuroscience, is busy defining the cognitive neuroscience of mindfulness and how to apply that to keeping good guys and gals alive.  The other works with wolves in a therapeutic setting to help veterans cope with PTSD, when she’s not saving lives at her clinical practice or running her roller derby team.

They are both amazing and brilliant woman who I am very honored to work with.

Dr. Aminda O’Hare, Research Director, Cognitive Neuroscience Advisor

Dr. O’Hare is a tenured assistant professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She is the Principal Investigator of the Cognitive and Affective Psychophysiology and Experimental Science (CAPES) laboratory, which uses event-related potentials (ERP) techniques to investigate cognition and emotion interactions.  She has been awarded a Multidisciplinary Seed Funding Grant from the UMass system to study the relationships among perceived stress, biomarkers of stress and performance in college students.  She has been honored with a grant from the Mind and Life Foundation to study the effects of mindfulness practice on college relationships in first semester college students.  This grant takes her to India where she tutors the Dalai Lama and others at His Holiness’s educational institution in Dharamsala, India. Previously she completed a two year fellowship on the Cognitive Psychophysiology National Institutes of Health Training Grant at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she specialized in the neuroscience of anxiety, depression, and executive functioning.

Dr. Amanda Beer, Clinician, Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Clinical Applications Advisor

Dr. Beer is a licensed clinical psychologist (licensed in NC, WA, CA) who specializes in integrating awareness and strength-based approaches to help clients transform fear, stress and trauma.  She works with individuals and groups from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds and has specific expertise collaborating with clients facing gender or racial oppression.  Her approach is collaborative in nature and grounded in feminist and Buddhist psychology frameworks.  As a scientist-practitioner, Dr. Beer is committed to utilizing evidence based and cutting-edge strategies while simultaneously honoring her clients innate power to change. Her clinical background involves specialized training in multi-cultural counseling competence, group psychotherapy and intervention, and mindfulness- based approaches to wellness.  She has engaged in intensive training on psychological trauma and healing.  Currently Dr. Beer facilitates educational and therapeutic programs that empower individuals, specifically at-risk youth, to identify with their inner wisdom and innate healing potential via connections with animals and nature in a setting working with wolves and wolf dogs in a unique educational context.

I want to thank all my friends and colleagues who have supported me in this crazy uphill struggle for 31 years.  And I want to also thank the many doubters and haters – our enemies can be great teachers. Mine certainly have been.

See you around the campus. Or out on the street.