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Switch eye during weak hand?


adamge

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I noticed something while shooting weak hand recently, and that is that my wrist is twisted relative to my forearm in order to line up the sights with my strong side eye.  That got me thinking...

 

I am a right handed shooter.  I shoot with both eyes open in most circumstances, I line up sights with my right eye, and I consider myself 50/50 eye dominant (I see both images equally).

 

 

And I'm a terrible weak hand pistol shooter.  My main problem seems to be some kind of mental block where my arm won't make the final small move to line the gun up on the target - I tend to line the gun up off the target and then fail to move it over the target and take the shot anyway, causing mostly misses.

 

I tried something last time out at the range.  When I switched to my weak hand practice portion, I lined up the sights with my left eye (both eyes still open).  I felt like the sight picture was just fine, my only trouble was the lack of practice causing me some trouble with instinctively lining up the sights with my eye.

 

Has anyone ever shot with this technique?  It has the advantage of lining up the wrist better with the forearm.

 

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I don't see any real advantage to using left eye for left handed shooting. The angle of my wrist to forearm doesn't change regardless of aiming with my left eye or my right eye.

 

Sounds like you just need to put many more hours in to weak handed shooting. If you want to use your left eye, go for it, but it certainly won't be a magic fix that will make your weak handed shooting better. Your problem isn't some mental block, the problem is you haven't done enough work on your weak handed shooting.

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I am going through this right now. Suggestions follow.

 

Stop calling it WEAK hand shooting ... assuming you are right handed:

 

Dry fire for 2 weeks, 2 hours a day - only left hand shooting. During that time do two range sessions - 300 rounds each, only left hand shooting.

 

Use the Stoeger or Anderson DF drills as a starting point. Distance drills, Bill drills, Draws etc etc.

 

Come back and tell us how it went....

 

PS. I find that it helps saying "press" for every live shot helps me focus.

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1 hour ago, selecw said:

Stop calling it WEAK hand shooting ... assuming you are right handed:

 

Dry fire for 2 weeks, 2 hours a day - only left hand shooting. During that time do two range sessions - 300 rounds each, only left hand shooting.

 

I get that some people respond well to the positive self talk stuff, but it really doesn't make any bit of difference to me. I feel like it's just ego stroking....to me it's better to be able to train to execute with no influence from your ego at all. I think it's a fundamental problem if saying "weak" effects your actual execution in anyway.

 

As far as how to deal with weak handed shooting, I've found that doing 30-60% of your practice free, strong, weak in equal amounts of all drills is plenty of stimulus to maintian or create formidable strong and weak handed shooting ability. So if you're practicing 5 days per week, doing 2 days F S W is probably enough to maintain while doing 3 days F S W would be for someone actively trying to improve those skill sets.

 

As far as time, I tend to tell everyone that to make a noticeable large change in one area of your shooting takes about a year of work. 

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I agree with doing a good portion of ongoing practise with your right and left hand. In my post, my focus is on adamge kick starting his training.

 

I don't know about the ego stroking part - I am a decidedly very average USPSA shooter, with very little ego about how much I need to improve. Maybe when I win my first Area match I will start to feel that way. Next year maybe :)

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2 hours ago, selecw said:

I don't know about the ego stroking part - I am a decidedly very average USPSA shooter, with very little ego about how much I need to improve.

 

Well, what else could positive self talk be? Isn't the idea to use positive words to improve your self image/confidence and achieve better results? That sounds like ego stroking to me....maybe a better term would be ego soothing. Regardless, if saying "weak handed shooting" effects you negatively, I think that's a gigantic red flag.

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I shoot right hand right eye and left hand left eye. Ive trained it with iron sights yrs ago and still works now that Im with red dots. As said above its practice practice practice. If it feels awkward to aim left hand shooting with right eye and more natural to aim with left eye, go for it. You should have shorter learning curve with that and I think thats one big advantage. 

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7 hours ago, selecw said:

I am going through this right now. Suggestions follow.

 

Stop calling it WEAK hand shooting ... assuming you are right handed:

 

Dry fire for 2 weeks, 2 hours a day - only left hand shooting. During that time do two range sessions - 300 rounds each, only left hand shooting.

 

Use the Stoeger or Anderson DF drills as a starting point. Distance drills, Bill drills, Draws etc etc.

 

Come back and tell us how it went....

 

PS. I find that it helps saying "press" for every live shot helps me focus.

 

Dry fire for 2 weeks, 2 hours a day?  Oh my...  You guys are seriously hardcore.  My shoulders and hands couldn't take that I don't think.

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1 hour ago, adamge said:

 

Dry fire for 2 weeks, 2 hours a day?  Oh my...  You guys are seriously hardcore.  My shoulders and hands couldn't take that I don't think.

 

 

I couldn't take it either.  Did 30 minutes and had severe shoulder pain for an hour afterwards.  Old age stinks.

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4 hours ago, Jake Di Vita said:

 

Well, what else could positive self talk be? Isn't the idea to use positive words to improve your self image/confidence and achieve better results? That sounds like ego stroking to me....maybe a better term would be ego soothing. Regardless, if saying "weak handed shooting" effects you negatively, I think that's a gigantic red flag.

 

 

Gigantic red flag. That made me laugh. I'm off to do some stroking :) Sorry I mean dry fire.

 

 

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52 minutes ago, johnbu said:

 

 

I couldn't take it either.  Did 30 minutes and had severe shoulder pain for an hour afterwards.  Old age stinks.

 

It does. I have soccer knees. I'm OK in dry fire until I have to move left or right :D

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Selecw, I see your location... how good is the Wyoming 2gun Governor's match going to be this summer?  I'm trying to find a travel buddy to attend it, it's about a 14 hour drive for me.

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7 hours ago, adamge said:

Selecw, I see your location... how good is the Wyoming 2gun Governor's match going to be this summer?  I'm trying to find a travel buddy to attend it, it's about a 14 hour drive for me.

 

I don't know about that match, sorry. The USPSA sectional match is always good. So are the local matches - which for me is Cody and Billings. 

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On 6/14/2017 at 6:46 PM, Jake Di Vita said:

 

Well, what else could positive self talk be? Isn't the idea to use positive words to improve your self image/confidence and achieve better results? That sounds like ego stroking to me....maybe a better term would be ego soothing. Regardless, if saying "weak handed shooting" effects you negatively, I think that's a gigantic red flag.

 

Given most shooters (and stage descriptions....) call it "offhand" ,  I think he's simply correcting a term and making a point: there is no reason one hand has to be any "weaker" or less dexterous than the other, you can build skills and strength both through practice.

Edited by JeremiahD
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14 hours ago, JeremiahD said:

 

Given most shooters (and stage descriptions....) call it "offhand" ,  I think he's simply correcting a term and making a point: there is no reason one hand has to be any "weaker" or less dexterous than the other, you can build skills and strength both through practice.

Interesting, I always heard the term offhand in reference to rifle shooting, never in terms of pistol shooting although now with PCC it could apply.  The USPSA rule book and classifier stage descriptions use the terms "strong" and "weak" hand, not once is offhand used.

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19 hours ago, JeremiahD said:

 I think he's simply correcting a term and making a point: there is no reason one hand has to be any "weaker" or less dexterous than the other, you can build skills and strength both through practice.

 

That sounds great in theory but in the real world I think you're gonna have a hard time finding someone that has equal proficiency weak hand only as strong hand only. Regardless, that isn't even what I was saying. I know that you can get really good with each individual hand. I've put the work in because I see those types of stages as free match points since most people have not put the same amount of work in to those skills as I have. Even with the rather large amount of work that I've put in, there is still a difference between my ability with only my right hand and only my left hand.

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1 hour ago, selecw said:

When I hear "rather large amount of work", that is a gigantic red flag ;)

 

You're a funny guy aren't ya. Considering that I've been shooting competitively for over half of my life and have been a GM for over 10 years, "rather large amount of work" is a significant understatement.

Edited by Jake Di Vita
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51 minutes ago, Jake Di Vita said:

 

You're a funny guy aren't ya. Considering that I've been shooting competitively for over half of my life and have been a GM for over 10 years, "rather large amount of work" is a significant understatement.

 

I try my best :) I like your posts, you have good knowledge. 

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5 hours ago, Jake Di Vita said:

 

 I know that you can get really good with each individual hand. I've put the work in because I see those types of stages as free match points since most people have not put the same amount of work in to those skills as I have.

 

Fair enough. I guess it would be more accurate for me to think with practice my weak hand could be better than any other persons weak hand (or depending on the level of dedication and work, better than their strong hand.) but it will always be at a disadvantage over my own.

 

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8 minutes ago, JeremiahD said:

 

Fair enough. I guess it would be more accurate for me to think with practice my weak hand could be better than any other persons weak hand (or depending on the level of dedication and work, better than their strong hand.) but it will always be at a disadvantage over my own.

 

 

Agreed.

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Talking to experienced shooters is a great way to get ideas...but not necessarily answers.  Take those ideas to the range, practise them and test them.  Then you'll have your answer; what works best for you.  On this topic, I shoot left hand - left eye and right hand - right eye in standard division.  On those stages I usually place well ahead of my overall match placement.  This tells me this is a strength, so I don't spend much time / ammo on it when I am able to get to the range, there's other skills that need my attention at practice sessions.

 

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