My wife and I are extremely fortunate to have two amazing daughters. Over the years, the amount of time it takes them to get ready for anything has grown significantly. Admittedly, I appreciate their willingness to put themselves together before going out of the house, but 2 hours seems a bit excessive. Over the course of time, they have developed a strong level of discipline to be on time, even when others are not. This takes a lot of discipline to plan ahead with the end goal of a departure time in mind.
This same level of discipline is as important on the range. When working with a couple of shooters in the past couple of weeks a trend has emerged which is tough to break, you have to have Visual Discipline. You have to ensure the dot is on the target before you pull the trigger to get your hit. If your eyes leave the target before the shot has broken, your odds of missing the target exponentially increase. Have you ever noticed when you are driving and you look down to the right, the car goes to the right? If you are gazing out the window to the left while behind the wheel you get a lot closer to the solid line? This is not a coincidence. The gun goes to where the eyes go. If you focus on the dot or front sight in Steel Challenge everything is where it needs to be when you pull the trigger. You are able to call your hits better, why? Because you are actually looking at the sights.
If you are someone who cuts their eyes to the target and you miss on the leading edge of the target, this is because you have switched to a target focus. You are subconsciously expecting the sights to be there, but it is not. This is why I reinforce you have to keep your index and move your upper torso, driven by your legs all together as one unit. Some people have asked for some clarification based on my ‘handsy’ comment on the podcast. If you drive the gun with your hands you will lose stability. You may get away with it for a short while, but as with anything else, if you apply more speed or pressure to anything you will find the weakness.
You know who you are. Just because you can point shoot a couple of targets and get some success does not mean this is a high percentage play when shooting. Sometimes you can get the false sense of security by getting a couple of hits… If you want a higher percentage play.. you paid good money for that dot or front sight, use it. Steel Challenge is about control. If you want to score well, remember you have to have Visual Discipline.
Just a few thoughts the next time you are out on the range.
See you out on the range soon!
Steve
Steve Foster - Competitive Shooter 