Daniel initially joined the Australian Defence Force in search of challenge and served several years as a young Paratrooper culminating in an operational deployment to East Timor. Shortly after he successfully completed the selection course and earned a place within Australia’s premier Special Operations unit. This led to an enduring period of high intensity training, preparation and deployment which lasted almost 2 decades. During this period he was involved in over a dozen separate operations across the spectrum of special operations accumulating hundreds of combat missions and high threat situations. It was midway through this period that he began pursuing a second passion of understanding how to best prepare for the high physical demands of performance within such demanding environments. As a result, he began academic study and help raise and work within a dedicated Human Performance within Special Operations.
This passion then led to a parallel pursuit with his tactical role of academic knowledge pursuing a double Master’s degree and later a Higher Degree by Research PhD project. It became evident that physiology alone was not enough to prepare for these complex tasks, and he started on a journey into exploring psychophysiology and how cognitive and physiological factors work in synergy to provide optimal performance and the platform for constant adaptation. Combined with this academic knowledge and extensive combat experience he is now researching and presenting on the factors for developing critical decision-making skills within high consequence, complex environments and changing the individual’s relationships with fear and discomfort to increase their resilience.
Daniel has recently separated from Defence and after a short 2 season role within professional sport he has moved into a role as a full time father to his 2 boys and full time PhD student to both continue his understanding of evidence-based practice for developing optimal behaviours to maximise accurate information processing, response selection and stress resilience in high consequence, complex and adaptive environments.
Komanchi Website: Click Here
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