Is there a secret to developing "Visual Patience"?

[Cy Soto]

My conscious mind understands that, in order to shoot only Alphas, the trigger finger has to sometimes wait a fraction of a second until the sights are aligned over the "A" zone but my subconscious doesn't seem to understand this principle.

During dry fire practice I make certain that every trigger actuation happens only when I know that my sights are aligned properly but, come live fire practice and/or match day, I find myself squeezing the trigger as soon as I see cardboard behind the sights.

Are there any exercises I can do to help my subconscious mind achieve visual patience?

[CHA-LEE]

Simple........ Make your aim point on target smaller. Aim for the letter "A" in the A-zone, instead of the whole A-zone or the whole target. This will force you to be patient enough to align the sights on the smaller target. Or at least it should. The same thing for dry fire. Aim for a very small point on a target and dry fire to that position. It should get burned in eventually. What you do in dry fire is what you execute in live fire. So if you believe you are dry firing correctly but doing the opposite in live fire, then something isn't right with your dry fire.

I think that your main issue is that you suffer from the little voice in the back of your head that keeps screaming "HURRY UP AND SHOOT!!!" after the buzzer goes off. You need to ignore that manufactured sense of urgency and instead give yourself the leeway to take however long it takes to align the sights properly and call the shot. To truly accept that however long it takes to call your shot WILL be fast enough is a huge breakthrough. At least it was for me. Give yourself the time to call your shots during stage runs. If you don't have the time to call your shot then you sure as hell don't have the time to waste on make up shots. It turns into a downward spiral once that "I am behind schedule and need to hurry up and make up the time" thought process starts. All your fundamentals start to erode once you allow yourself to "Hurry" under pressure.

[NMBOpen]

For me, conscious migrates to subconscious with repetition. How about something like a Bill Drill, but reduce the target center to a 3x5 card instead of the full lower A-zone, kind of like the X-ring inside the 10-ring for bullseye.

Damn, CHA-LEE beat me to it.

Edited March 9, 2010 by NMBOpen

[little_kahuna]

Hardcover everything but the Alpha zone in practice.

[Cy Soto]

I think that your main issue is that you suffer from the little voice in the back of your head that keeps screaming "HURRY UP AND SHOOT!!!"

BINGO!! I know that little voice is my constant companion and I haven't yet found a way to shut it off.

[Flexmoney]

The only way to "shut it off" is to not allow it into a position of power.

Your conscience mind can hold one thought at a time. You need to make that one though be the one positive thing your are looking for. In this case, it would seem to be visual patience

Can you put that in front of all other desires? Forget speed. Forget score. Forget looking cool. Forget shooting well.

Make proper vision you one and only desire.

When I have done that, I have shot great.

[benos]

The only way to "shut it off" is to not allow it into a position of power.

Your conscience mind can hold one thought at a time. You need to make that one though be the one positive thing your are looking for. In this case, it would seem to be visual patience

Can you put that in front of all other desires? Forget speed. Forget score. Forget looking cool. Forget shooting well.

Make proper vision you one and only desire.

When I have done that, I have shot great.

As my friend Rondy would have said, "There ye go."

be

[Cy Soto]

Make proper vision your one and only desire.

I love the simplicity of this statement!

[BayouSlide]

A friend of mine passed this drill on to me to help me with the same problem: he said it was the key to helping him to Master. I always call it the Daniel Drill—giving credit where credit is due.

Set up a target at 10 yds. I like to put a black paster down in the upper A zone for a more precise aim point.

Set a PAR time in your timer. I usually start with 3 or 3.25 seconds—whatever it takes to allow a normal draw and accomplish what is required in the following drill—then work to decrease the PAR time in stages.

At the first beep, draw and prep the trigger on the paster, but hold...don't break the shot until the instant of the second beep. The PAR time should be adjusted as necessary, just make sure you are leaving enough time to force you to hold momentarily on the target (and concentrate on that sight picture) as you improve.

Curtis

[CHA-LEE]

You can also change the “Price” of shooting sloppy to make it more motivating to do well. If you make the price of missing the A-zone tangible or painful then you will earn your hits. One way of doing it is to start your practice with 5 magazines with 10 rounds each. Then take one round out of a magazine for every hit that isn’t an A-zone hit. When you reload the magazine only add the new lower quantity of bullets to it. One of two things will happen. You will focus on doing it right and keep your bullets in the mags, or you will not do it right and have no bullets left to practice with. This will make you earn the A-zone hits if you want to keep shooting.

You could also do it with actual money. For example, start your practice with $100 one dollar bills and 100 rounds of ammo. Setup drills that are a decent test of your skills and shoot the 100 rounds. For every non A-zone hit take $1 away from the $100 and consider it lost. Burn it, give it away to charity, or go buy a bum a steak dinner. Do whatever you want with the money but make it a non rewarding thing to not hit A’s. Then use a balance of that $100 to go splurge with or save it for a vacation or whatever, that is your reward for doing well. The money level needed is subjective to each person. Maybe its 1 cent a round for one guy or $10 a round for another guy? The point is to make it painful enough to make you earn it but still not break the bank and put you in the poor house by failing during the normal learning process.

Once you put the appropriate price and reward to executing what you want to do then you will do it!!! As it is now you have no penalty to not doing it right. Other than saying, “Why do I do that?”. So there is really no tangible motivator to change your ways.

[ParaGunner]

This thread is just what I need . I really like the money idea.

[eerw]

vision is the secret and the *thumb rest [generic]*.

let proper vision be the signal that is sent to the finger to act on the trigger.

nothing else is of importance.

and I'll be there Sunday to whack you with a stick

[Strick]

The only way to "shut it off" is to not allow it into a position of power.

Your conscience mind can hold one thought at a time. You need to make that one though be the one positive thing your are looking for. In this case, it would seem to be visual patience

Can you put that in front of all other desires? Forget speed. Forget score. Forget looking cool. Forget shooting well.

Make proper vision you one and only desire.

When I have done that, I have shot great.

A big +1 to this and Cha-Lee's post.

I am learning and trying to apply this to my shooting and have realized the huge benefit. If I focus on the hits I want the rest takes care of it self. If I only focus on speed then my hits start to get wild and my shooting is sloppy.

[Flexmoney]

Just realize that Cha-Lee's post and mine cover different angles.

One is positive reinforcement and one is negative reinforcement. I'm not against the negative reinforcement, but you need to visualize the positive outcome. That needs to be the driving desire.

The negative can serve as a reminder of what the positive goal is. With that, I might suggest that the penalty could still be a long-term positive. Doing push-ups might serve as a short-term reminder...and be good for you long-term. Taking your "fun money" and losing it's use in the short-term would be a good reminder...sticking it in the Christmas fund could be a long-term positive.

Son: "Daddy, Christmas is awesome this year!"

Wife: "And, you are looking kinda toned up?"

It's all part of Daddy becoming a great shooter.

[waktasz]

A friend of mine passed this drill on to me to help me with the same problem: he said it was the key to helping him to Master. I always call it the Daniel Drill—giving credit where credit is due.

Set up a target at 10 yds. I like to put a black paster down in the upper A zone for a more precise aim point.

Set a PAR time in your timer. I usually start with 3 or 3.25 seconds—whatever it takes to allow a normal draw and accomplish what is required in the following drill—then work to decrease the PAR time in stages.

At the first beep, draw and prep the trigger on the paster, but hold...don't break the shot until the instant of the second beep. The PAR time should be adjusted as necessary, just make sure you are leaving enough time to force you to hold momentarily on the target (and concentrate on that sight picture) as you improve.

Curtis

I like it

[Flyin40]

For me the secret of understanding visual patience is understanding that it takes a little extra time to put the sight on the target spot. When your doing it, it may seem like it takes a long time but it doesn't. Just that small fraction of a second to allow that sight to settle on your target spot.

The best way I can explain it is that I have a visualizaton that I created in my head. I drive the gun to my target spot but it is right on the edge of it. I just bring the sights into the target spot and squeeze the shot off. I visualize using a target with hardcover with just a small fraction of the A zone available.

Flyin

[little_kahuna]

I'm not smart enough for too much of the philosophy, but I like flex's post.

You have to shoot the Middle to win right? So I practice looking at the Middle, but because the Middle is surrounded by so much "Not Middle" it is harder. I hide the "Not Middle" to practice seeing only the Middle, then when I have to shoot, I only see the Middle.

/deactivate "Sesame Street" posting

[boz1911]

I got in a little rut with this a while back. What seemed to help me was changing my dryfire routine and my dryfire targets. I used small red dots on the center A zone of all my dryfire targets. I also painted some form of hardcover on the targets. Now when I dryfire I won't accept anything but an A zone hit. If I'm doing a routine where I slip up I continue that same routine until all the hits are acceptable.

I'm not sure if this is/was the answer but in the last few months, I've been shooting a lot of clean matches with very few Deltas, including the Alabama sectional.

[Pezco]

Roy,

I like the money idea also, maybe we throw the cash in a pot for the most A's! I'm sure we can talk some of the other guys into this?

[CHA-LEE]

Pezco> You can do a competition like that but make sure that its not just about making A's. Still use a hit factor as the gauge of who is doing well and who isn't. We can all slow down to snail pace and get all alpha's, but that isn't productive either. The goal is to learn how to shoot alpha's at your normal shooting speed or faster. When I do stage based practice with others we calculate the hit factor of the runs and use Minor scoring to emphasize the importance of getting A's. The guys I normally practice stages with are C or B class shooters and we all shoot Limited Division. They will shoot Limited and I will shoot Limited-10 so it forces me to make extra reloads during the stage run. The extra reloads I have to do during the COF is a good equalizer between their skill level and mine with how I have to break down the stage and shoot it compared to them which makes it more competitive and fun for all. Not to mention the extra practice I get at doing reloads.

These are the things that I have done to motivate myself to shoot better points (scoring targets minor) and focus on executing my plan well so I can have a decent time (extra reloads, 10 round mag stage plan).

I have listed just a few things to get you motivated to shoot better. The point I am trying to make is that it really does not matter what you do to motivate yourself to shoot better its that you DO motivate yourself. Many shooters simply do not have the motivation to get better. They think that one day they will wake up and be graced with shooing awesomeness. This isn't going to happen. You have to earn it and in order to earn it you have to motivate yourself to do better.

[Cy Soto]

Many shooters simply do not have the motivation to get better. They think that one day they will wake up and be graced with shooing awesomeness. This isn't going to happen. You have to earn it and in order to earn it you have to motivate yourself to do better.

You have just burst my bubble...

Just kidding!

Edited March 13, 2010 by Cy Soto

[Flexmoney]

I have listed just a few things to get you motivated to shoot better. The point I am trying to make is that it really does not matter what you do to motivate yourself to shoot better its that you DO motivate yourself. Many shooters simply do not have the motivation to get better. They think that one day they will wake up and be graced with shooing awesomeness. This isn't going to happen. You have to earn it and in order to earn it you have to motivate yourself to do better.

Good stuff.

[kimmie]

This definately applies to me - and I have about 2 or 3 posts searching for answers to these same types of questions. I've gotten some great suggestions and will add these additional suggestions to my list of 'things to do/not do'. It does make me feel better though, to know I'm not the only one suffering from these issues!

[Flexmoney]

Lots of good stuff...

You have to shoot the Middle to win right? So I practice looking at the Middle, but because the Middle is surrounded by so much "Not Middle" it is harder. I hide the "Not Middle" to practice seeing only the Middle, then when I have to shoot, I only see the Middle.

I got in a little rut with this a while back. What seemed to help me was changing my dryfire routine and my dryfire targets. I used small red dots on the center A zone of all my dryfire targets. I also painted some form of hardcover on the targets. Now when I dryfire I won't accept anything but an A zone hit. If I'm doing a routine where I slip up I continue that same routine until all the hits are acceptable.

I'm not sure if this is/was the answer but in the last few months, I've been shooting a lot of clean matches with very few Deltas, including the Alabama sectional.

Those are good example of defining what true target is. (so many think it is anything brown)

As Flyin40 mention... I came up with a term to help... "target spot".

Aim small, hit small.

Roy,

I like the money idea also, maybe we throw the cash in a pot for the most A's! I'm sure we can talk some of the other guys into this?

The good old Alpha-bet. I really like it. Even during matches. I've never had anybody go into bullseye mode while doing it. It is a focus on the positive...on Alphas. It's about the shooting part of what we do. So, it works for any division, and for most skill levels. (you don't have to have speedy transitions, or be able to get in and out of positions like a pro) It also teaches that you can still win...with an Alpha focus...because you learn that time saving comes from other places.

[38supPat]

I have some things to add but I'm going to ponder them while I make dinner and post it up shortly.

Ok, keep in mind that during all the stuff discussed above, you still have to drive the gun. It can become very easy to worry so much about shooting A's that you begin to suck time.

Your index should do the lions share of having the sights aligned, and your vision should be directing the gun. Snap your eyes to the target, the exact spot you want the shots to land, drive the gun to that spot, and shift your vision back to your sights. This last part should mainly confirm that they are already aligned and allow you to call the shot. I have seen in my own shooting that wanting to place the shot precisely in the center, and focusing too hard on this, can cause a problem. In wanting to place it precisely you spent too long looking at the sights when they were already aligned. What really happened is you never really acquired the spot on the target, you just looked over at it and the gun headed there, but before you had the spot focus on the target, you looked back to the sights instead trying to bring them into focus and align them. All the visual patience in the world won't help you here because even though the sights are aligned, you have no idea where they are on the target. And you certainly don't want to bring the focus back to the sights, then back to find the spot on the target, then back to the sights. Unless the shot has a high difficulty the 'visual patience' needs to be on the target not necessarily the sights. With my Open gun, as BE has pointed out to me, your focus never really needs to come back to the dot at all, but stay on the target throughout. With a good index and irons you can drive the gun to the target by looking at the exact spot you want the shots to land, and not until the sights get to that spot, bring your vision back to them. Then the difficulty of the shot will determine how much focus you need to bring the sights into. On a close full target (7yds and under) a blurry sight focus may be all that you need, on a 15yd target bringing the front sight into focus but not worrying too much about the alignment might get the job done, it just gives enough pause to ensure the gun is settled. On a 15yd B zone or a 35yd target you will want to bring the front sight into focus and check the alignment before dropping the hammer.

The one problem I have with the idea of putting a smaller target in the center of the A zone is it can cause too much aiming. Because it is such a precise target you will use a 50yd focus on a 10yd target. What I mean is because you are now aiming at a small target, instead of just seeing what you need to see at 10, you will try to get the sight alignment you would use to hit at 50 and your trigger press and everything else will be affected. If you read Brian's description of the different focus types, imagine using a type 5 where a type 2 would work.

Try this instead; set a target up at 10yds, Or get one of the smaller targets and set it up in your house for dry fire. Start will be with the gun held in your freestyle position but aimed off target (how far off is up to you and probably best if you try different distances left and right of the target) Now look at the spot on the target you want the shot to land, if you want to look at the A stamped in the surface, go for it. Really focus on it. On the start signal, snap the gun to that point. On your first runs just pick up the front sight peripherally but stay focused on the target surface and pull the trigger when the front sight (out of focus) hits that spot. Do a few runs like this, then repeat but bringing the front sight into more and more focus until you are confirming a perfect 50yd sight picture. Take note of the times and points. Remember an A is just an A, you don't get extra points for hitting the center of the A. Now repeat this drill at different distances and again, note the points and times.

See what happens.