TargetTalk

Nicole Hamilton wrote:That means you need almost but not quite enough pressure on the trigger already. How do you get that? Smooth trigger pull.

Thanks, now idea is clear.

I believe there is an important distinction that is being missed here. Steve Swartz and Ed Hall have explained this concept thoroughly. As I understand it, it is not possible for either the conscious or the unconscious mind to decide to release the shot at the exact moment the sights are aligned in the center, and have the shot released instantaneously or anywhere close to that. Any decision, by either conscious or unconscious, based on observing the center, must result in a shot somewhere else.

The theory of how the unconscious mind finds the center is rather that, after much training in establishing a consistent smooth trigger release, the unconscious mind knows when to release, IN ADVANCE of the sights reaching the center during one's normal holding pattern, so that the sights will be in the center when the reaction is completed and the bullet leaves the barrel.

Only the unconscious/subconscious is capable of making this calculation, and it can only be made once you have established a very consistent trigger release and a very consistent holding pattern - otherwise there are simply too many variables. The old joke about someone asking a musician for directions to Carnegie Hall (answer: "Practise, practise, practise") applies here. "How do you find the center?" Answer: "Training, training, training."

Total newb here, but in my VERY limited experience my best shots happen when the gun just seems to "goes off". I suppose this may be considered a subconscious release(?) I do know this, that when it happens it just "feels" right. Before I even reel in the target, I know it landed within the 9 ring (excellent for me).

Conversely, when I "over-think" the shot I tend to jerk the trigger....it goes something like this; "hold, hold, hold..okay, NOW!" Literally, my whole hand has a mini convulsion and the outcome of the shot isn't pretty :-)

I have been trying hard to focus on the front sight while disengaging the cognitive part of my brain (if thats the right term) and letting the gun surprise me.

R/
Dustin

Fred wrote: The theory of how the unconscious mind finds the center is rather that, after much training in establishing a consistent smooth trigger release, the unconscious mind knows when to release, IN ADVANCE of the sights reaching the center during one's normal holding pattern, so that the sights will be in the center when the reaction is completed and the bullet leaves the barrel.

I would say (after talking to one gold medalist) that the well trained mind (sub-consciously) knows when *not* to release the shot. In this case the well trained mind stops or modulates the squeeze. This modulation is sub-conscious, fast, automatic.

Fred wrote:I believe there is an important distinction that is being missed here. Steve Swartz and Ed Hall have explained this concept thoroughly. As I understand it, it is not possible for either the conscious or the unconscious mind to decide to release the shot at the exact moment the sights are aligned in the center, and have the shot released instantaneously or anywhere close to that. Any decision, by either conscious or unconscious, based on observing the center, must result in a shot somewhere else.

The theory of how the unconscious mind finds the center is rather that, after much training in establishing a consistent smooth trigger release, the unconscious mind knows when to release, IN ADVANCE of the sights reaching the center during one's normal holding pattern, so that the sights will be in the center when the reaction is completed and the bullet leaves the barrel.

Only the unconscious/subconscious is capable of making this calculation, and it can only be made once you have established a very consistent trigger release and a very consistent holding pattern - otherwise there are simply too many variables. The old joke about someone asking a musician for directions to Carnegie Hall (answer: "Practise, practise, practise") applies here. "How do you find the center?" Answer: "Training, training, training."

Just a little clarification it's the "subconscious" not the "unconscious" mind. I don't think the unconscious mind would do much for shooting performance.

I dunno, Richard. You've seen me shoot when I was pretty much unconscious, and I did pretty well. Too bad the shots landed on YOUR target instead of mine! ;-)

Richard H wrote: Just a little clarification it's the "subconscious" not the "unconscious" mind. I don't think the unconscious mind would do much for shooting performance.

Richard,

Of course you are correct about the usual way in which these terms are employed. In wondering why I was not more careful about which word I chose - because that's something about which I am normally very careful - I realized that the various words people use to differentiate various non-conscious activities, do not have a lot of meaning for me. Subconscious, unconscious, autonomic, instinctual etc. are essentially arbitrary distinctions with a great deal of overlap, e.g. using meditation (conscious? subconscious?) to lower blood pressure (autonomic). These words are mostly for our convenience - it's not like someone dissected a brain and found neat little labeled compartments. Still, if I'm going to use a word, it should be the correct one in normal useage, so thanks for pointing that out.

FredB

Interesting question about what term is best. Prompted me to go do a little Googling that's convinced me that my own use of "autonomic" was probably the least correct. As good a term as any seems to be "conditioned reflex." (But I was already wrong once, so what do I know? :)

I've passed over this topic a few times but finally took the time to read it, knowing I'd probably have a reply, that would require time and thought!

Before I begin, most of what I will say came from the former US National Team coach Dan Iuga. All of which I have personally used in my training and found extremely helpful. A few other things I learned along the way.

As for the orginal post, shooting with your eyes closed is a great technique to learn what it "feels" like to break a shot clean. By that I mean squeezing the trigger without disturbing the gun. Of course some of you will say, how do you know you didn't disturb the gun if your eyes were closed? Sometimes you won't know, but with your eyes closed you've taken all the variables out of the picture except breaking the shot clean. You will be able to "feel" when the shot was clean. It's very important in training to break down the various parts of shooting and practice one at a time. Here is where some of the posts went too far and were wrong in my opinion. When doing this exercise, you don't care where the shots land. You only care about breaking the shot clean. A "group" when doing this exercise is meaningless for that is not your purpose at this point, it's simply to break the shot clean. When I used to do this drill, I would do it into the berm. Note, this was 25M Rapid fire pistol training.

I'm getting back into shooting this year after a 6 year break. I will be doing quite a bit of this exercise early on in training. 2.2lb triggers in RF will feel alot different than my 4 oz trigger I used to shoot.

Ok, now for the technique part. Usually when someone teaches you how to shoot, they say align the sights on the target and start squeezing. When you wobble off target, stop squeezing. When you come back on target start squeezing and the shot should be a surprise. I realize that is simplified but bear with me. Personally, I never found this techinque to provide good results. Now let me tell you what Dan told me years ago.

In RF pistol timing is the key. Dan told me that the Captain of this process needs to be the trigger finger, NOT the sights. When the captain says shoot, the gun goes off no matter where the sights are pointing. It is a conscious process. It takes many rounds to learn the timing, but you make the gun fire at given intervals. The next job in line is to try and get the sights aligned the best you can before it goes bang. Note that all of this comes together at the same time. When the gun stops moving from one target to the next, or on the first shot lift, the gun also goes bang. This process is contrary to what most people are taught.

You say, "yeah Eddy but you are shooting with a 4 oz trigger and RF is different, we are talking about slow fire here." Breaking shots this way teaches you trigger control. It also teaches you how to shoot fast. By that I mean you lean how to perform the shot process very fast. Similar techniques are applicable to slow fire.

When I shoot AP my shot process is this. I settle into my hold area or wobble area, whatever you want to call it. By the way, I don't know about the rest of you, but my sight alignment changes some as does the alignment to the target. Some of you have seemed to imply it's possible to keep PERFECT sight alignment. I certainly see very small changes during my hold. Anyhow, when I see the "package" moving to where I'd like to break the shot, I make a conscious decision to break it. I'm here to tell you that it is possible to consciously break a clean shot. Can I do it everytime? No. However, when I get a little heavy on the trigger and I see the front sight move a little when I break the shot, it's usually still a nine or hanger 10. Back in the day when I would let it surprise me, who knows where it would go. Also, I find it very easy to call my shots this way. I'm not surprised when it breaks. I don't blink. I see the sights as the shot breaks and I know exactly where the shot is on the target.

This technique is very useful for me for unless I trained AP multiple times a week, my hold was very bad. Which meant that once I started RF training, the only time I shot AP was in matches. Which of course meant my hold was bad. However, with this technique, I could still shoot alot of 10's even with a very bad hold!

Oh, one more thing, barrel time plays into what I said earlier about seeing the sight move a little and it still being a nine or ten. I always set my AP to above 600fps. This is usally unheard of and I'm sure it will get many reply posts. With an adjustable cone style compensator I made, my machine-rested groups were still very good. At 450fps, if you see that front sight move a little, it's an 8 or worse. At 600fps, it's still a nine or ten.

This idea that the only way to break a shot clean is for it to be a surprise is just not true. It's difficult sure, but so is breaking it clean while surprising yourself. I feel there are a few things to do to learn this technique. First is just what the original post said, break shots with your eyes closed. Ten or so at the beginning of your training. Try to "feel" the shot breaking clean. Then move to shooting at a target turned around so you only see white. Understand that you are breaking the shot process down. At this point you could work on one of two things, breaking the shot clean, or sight alignment. Do one or the other. Later you can put them together, but still on the back of a target.

Too many people focus on scoring their targets when training. Why would you care where the shots go when today's training is learning how to break the shot clean? You don't have to see the target to know if you broke it clean or not. You shouldn't care where the shot goes. When I would train RF, I would shoot hundreds of rounds on the same targets. When I was finished for the day I would check the groups briefly. Sometimes when working on the first shot timing, my only focus was to break the shot within a given time period after the target turned. I could care less where the shots were going, for that wasn't the point.

However, now and then it's important to not "work" on any one aspect of the shot process and just shoot what we would call a control box (of bullets) or control targets. At this point you are shooting like in a match, just do what you've practiced.

I suppose that's enough for now, I'm sure this post is already too long.

Eddy Esworthy

Yes, that was a long post :) but a valuable contribution.

There seem to be two schools of though, one at the AP end, one at the RF end.

I know what works for me, but its worth being reminded. Like Ed I am back to shooting after a long break.

Personally I find each discipline teaches me something, whether its AP, SP, Police, Service etc. Its worth keeping an open mind.

I have to agree with Eddy on this. The following is from my perspective and is my personal opinion. I ain't no coach, just some guy trying to get a lilttle closer to the center.

A lot of shooters seem to be trying to "hold still" and then get the trigger to work "subconsciously". Then they seem to get caught up in this feedback loop that seems to promote all sorts of trigger control problems, mostly related to trying to get the trigger to work only when the gun is "still" and not messing up that condition.

I don't have perfect hold, not even anywhere close to what I used to be able to hold, but I do shoot much better scores than when I had a better hold. I don't have perfect sight alignment all the time either, but I try very hard to have "very, very good sight alignment.

So why do I score better without a perfect hold. Trigger process, not trigger control. (Control has too many meanings that are not conductive to how I want to shoot to suit me.) I just want the trigger to not mess up the sights any more than they have to AND complete the process before my hold gets worse. That sounds more like process timing than control to me. How about you?

Personally I think a lot of shooters have it backwards. They spend a lot of time on holding and trying to get the trigger to be automatic. Since the hold and sight aligment are visual, and the trigger is "feel", why not try it to other way around and see what happens? Just for training to get feedback on how your body and mind respond to changing how you are looking at the shot process.

Try to let the sight alighment and hold become more "subconscious" and you drive the trigger process (at least for a while). I can't remember which rifle shooter it was (highpower) but I remember two things that made a very long lasting impression on my shooting:

(1) Shoot the first 10 you see.

(2) Shoot while the sights are moving towards the center.

From a very good competitior in a sport that seems to place a lot of emphasis on hold, these statements sure do seem to have less to do with holding "still" and a lot on the trigger process.

For me, I've learned how my wobble works, and as long as its moving towards the center, I'm with Eddy and I'm one the trigger. I've even developed my own saying:

Keep the trigger ahead of the sights.

(Remember, what you are seeing now is already in the past. So you can't really catch up with the trigger by itself, can you?)

As Mark Twain said "Don't let your schooling interfer with your learning."

I think you are missreading what has been written over these last two pages. I don't remember seeing anyone suggesting you need a very steady hold. Sure you need a degree of good hold but it doesn't need to be a 10 ring hold to shoot tens, in fact I suspect most shooters are 'just' capable of holding the 9 - irrespective of their shooting scores.

The whole point of letting the subconscious free is that it decides the optimal time for the shot release. It is a subconscious act and no direct thought is required - apart from 'driving the foresight'. Their is no thought loop involved because the subconscious doesn't require thought - that's a conscious action. The trigger release is a trained response which the subconscious will do for you.

Think of the subconscious as akin to an instinct. If you interfere with it then it is no longer an instinct and becomes a conscious action. At which point you've messed it all up and might as well abort and start over again from the start.

Rob.

Their is no thought loop involved because the subconscious doesn't require thought - that's a conscious action. The trigger release is a trained response which the subconscious will do for you.

I didn't say that for the "shot process" but for their training it appears that a lot of new shooters get trapped in that through process loop for their "practice or training". I see them trying and struggling to get to that "subconscious" process. The comment for a "steady hold" was simply an example that new shooters get distracted from the goal of individual training items by a number of other things. As I have stated before, train on just one thing. Shoot as one action, just like a golf swing.

How can the subconscious (or whatever since my opinion and terminology is a little different) decide the "optimum time" if you don't train to let it know what you want to do when the inputs are correct? This seems to be a core problem with new shooters. And one of the best reasons to train on the trigger press while resting the gun on a bench or rest if live firing. That way we are setting up the conditions we want to recognize as optimum.

So my suggestion was simply another training exercise to try to keep the trigger moving consciously and let just monitor the sight alignment for a while. Which is one of the purposes of shooting with your eyes closed as a training technique.

Sorry for the confusion.

Cecil Rhodes

fyi, "shoot the first 10 you see" and "shoot while the sights are approaching the target" are advice given by David Tubb, who knows a little about shooting 10s.

Bob Riegl wrote:BTW saw your website and I think your choice of stopping flying lessons in that Piper ??Tomahawk???---it had more AWD's ( Air Worthiness Directives ) than any other general aviation plane out there.

Sorry, I know I'm a little slow responding to this and, yes, it is OT.

It was actually a Diamond Katana, a very nice two-seater stick plane made in Canada. (For the non-pilots: A stick plane is one that has a stick, like a joystick, that you move around to control the plane. The alternative is a yoke, which looks more like a steering wheel. Fighters and acrobatic planes all use sticks; passenger planes use yokes.)

I only took lessons for a few months in 2000/2001 and got to where I was about to solo, at which point I realized (a) I wasn't that good and could easily kill myself and (b) it was a pretty expensive way to buy a chicken salad sandwich. (A lot of recreational flying amounts to going up in the plane to fly around rather aimlessly for a while, landing at another little airport to have lunch in their diner, then flying back home.) I just didn't have the time or money (especially as I was fending off a lawsuit from my ex at the time) or the business reasons to justify the expense. But I did have fun and if I'd had more money (enough to make actually buying my own Katana realistic) I'd probably have continued. Maybe someday I'll give it another go.

CR10XGuest wrote:How can the subconscious (or whatever since my opinion and terminology is a little different) decide the "optimum time" if you don't train to let it know what you want to do when the inputs are correct? This seems to be a core problem with new shooters. And one of the best reasons to train on the trigger press while resting the gun on a bench or rest if live firing. That way we are setting up the conditions we want to recognize as optimum.
Cecil Rhodes

Cecil,
In this instance what you are training the subconscious to do is to perform the shot function correctly. You need therefore to train it all the way through, i.e. the whole shot cycle - little bits aren't that great in terms of teaching the subconscious.

Think of the subconscious as a very young kid, it needs to feel good and comfortable and it likes repetition. It learns by repeatedly being fed the same thing over and over again. So you need to shoot ordinary shots to teach it. As the skill develops so the subconscious will take over more of the job - as long as you let it free. The subconscious can multitask to a massive degree, the conscious mind can only do one thing at a time.

So from my perspective the subconscious is learning every time you shoot from the very first time you pick up a gun. You tell it when you get a good shot (but if you're not careful you can also feed it poor shot info). Hence one of the maxims not to dwell on poor shots but to re-inforce the good shots.

I feel I'm rambling but I hope at least a little bit of it is clear.

Rob.

RobStubbs wrote: In this instance what you are training the subconscious to do is to perform the shot function correctly.

Do we drive a car subconsciously? Well I think so. While driving we do not think "now I must do this, or that". We just do it, subconsciously. Is that correct?

scerir wrote:Do we drive a car subconsciously? Well I think so. While driving we do not think "now I must do this, or that". We just do it, subconsciously. Is that correct?

Yes indeed. That is why when you start to drive it seems horrendously difficult. Changing gear (well for us with manual cars), indicating, watching the mirrors etc - all seem way too confusing. As soon as you learn the skill it becomes almost automatic and easy to do.

Rob.

Mark Briggs wrote:I dunno, Richard. You've seen me shoot when I was pretty much unconscious, and I did pretty well. Too bad the shots landed on YOUR target instead of mine! ;-)

We could of counted one of those for the one I put into the bench with my unconscious mind. Next time if you are going to cross fire the least you could do is give me a ten.