Sights from draw- how do you do it?

[SoCalNoMore]

Shooters,

I am practicing my first shot after draw and I am curious, when you shoot targets (approx 7yds) are you getting sight alignment before releasing the shot or are you more or less point shooting?

For me, I am at the point where I see my front sight, although I don't notice if it is aligned with the rear, and my shots at 21ft are for the most part hitting A's. Should I be training to get full sight alignment before breaking my first shot or should I master my point shoot ability?

[38supPat]

What are your times like? What do you see when shooting farther targets, harder targets?

If it is taking two seconds to just get the front sight then you definitely need to work on your draw speed. If you are say around .7 - .8 on the draw, just barely getting the front sight and hitting A's you are probably OK. If you are only training at 7m and in and not learning to fully acquire the sights when you need to, then I'd put the targets out farther and learn to see a proper sight picture.

The one advantage to learning to pick up a full sight picture at any distance and speed is that you can always dial it up a bit on close, easy targets and give up some sight picture, but if you never train to fully acquire the sights you will have a much harder time on distance or difficult targets where you need good sight alignment.

[Blujay291]

I try to get alignment with long shots. More anyway!

[Ultimo-Hombre]

My take on it....

Early on you should be hungry to see that front sight on every shot regardless of the distance.

Over time you will develop a sense of how much or how long, clear or whatever you need to see of the sight.

But that only comes with visual experience. And it will happen on its own I feel, over time(10K rounds, perhaps)

No secret about that, just requires patience and trust in your front sight.

[MavenTactical]

I teach kids who never shot in their lives to instinctively point the gun on target, because most of them are athletes or gamers they have the eye hand coordination at 7yds to put rounds in the A zone consistently. Then I move them to aim small miss small parts of the target like head or dot on chest and have them align the sites after the initial presentation. That split time from pointing on target to transition to site alignment for a shot is what we rep.... 7yds point shot all day, but know and be prepped to make that transition.

[Jay870]

I'm fighting with this right now as well.

Live fire @7 yards, hand at sides:

• I can "grip and rip it" and shoot an alpha just off my "index" with no attention to the sights at all consistently in the neighborhood of 0.90 give or take a few hundredths, my personal best being 0.8 flat.
• To really see the front sight and gun alignment I am in the 1.10 - 1.15 area
• To get a hard front sight focus I am in the 1.30+ area.

I can do .8 with a front sight focus in dry fire all day, so I don't know why I have such a hard time picking up the sights in live fire.

A related item... in one of Ben's podcasts he says something along the lines that on a close target he begins prepping the trigger when he sees his sights coming up onto the bottom of the target. This really jumped out at me as it means he is seeing his sights waaaaaaaaaay earlier in the draw stroke than I am. I have relative tunnel vision on the "target spot" and need to sights to be much closer to the POA before I can really pick them up.

[Moltke]

Shooters,

I am practicing my first shot after draw and I am curious, when you shoot targets (approx 7yds) are you getting sight alignment before releasing the shot or are you more or less point shooting?

For me, I am at the point where I see my front sight, although I don't notice if it is aligned with the rear, and my shots at 21ft are for the most part hitting A's. Should I be training to get full sight alignment before breaking my first shot or should I master my point shoot ability?

Recommend that you establish your stance/grip/draw to your natural point of aim. If you do this it will help you naturally (and quickly) find your sight. Try looking through your rear sight instead of at it, and catch just enough focus on your front sight to know that you have an "acceptable sight picture", you don't need a perfect sight picture. As long as you're seeing enough of your sights (and only you will know what that amout is) to make an A zone hit then the rest will be up to your trigger pull. Unless you can reach out and touch the target as you shoot it, forget about point shooting, you should strive to see your sights for every shot fired. /rant off

[Ultimo-Hombre]

Shooters,

I am practicing my first shot after draw and I am curious, when you shoot targets (approx 7yds) are you getting sight alignment before releasing the shot or are you more or less point shooting?

For me, I am at the point where I see my front sight, although I don't notice if it is aligned with the rear, and my shots at 21ft are for the most part hitting A's. Should I be training to get full sight alignment before breaking my first shot or should I master my point shoot ability?

Recommend that you establish your stance/grip/draw to your natural point of aim. If you do this it will help you naturally (and quickly) find your sight. Try looking through your rear sight instead of at it, and catch just enough focus on your front sight to know that you have an "acceptable sight picture", you don't need a perfect sight picture. As long as you're seeing enough of your sights (and only you will know what that amout is) to make an A zone hit then the rest will be up to your trigger pull. Unless you can reach out and touch the target as you shoot it, forget about point shooting, you should strive to see your sights for every shot fired. /rant off

Yup.

[Ben Stoeger]

Shooters,

I am practicing my first shot after draw and I am curious, when you shoot targets (approx 7yds) are you getting sight alignment before releasing the shot or are you more or less point shooting?

For me, I am at the point where I see my front sight, although I don't notice if it is aligned with the rear, and my shots at 21ft are for the most part hitting A's. Should I be training to get full sight alignment before breaking my first shot or should I master my point shoot ability?

I see my sights in alignment on the target at 7 yards. Otherwise... I get crappy points. =(

[toothguy]

Shooters,

I am practicing my first shot after draw and I am curious, when you shoot targets (approx 7yds) are you getting sight alignment before releasing the shot or are you more or less point shooting?

For me, I am at the point where I see my front sight, although I don't notice if it is aligned with the rear, and my shots at 21ft are for the most part hitting A's. Should I be training to get full sight alignment before breaking my first shot or should I master my point shoot ability?

Recommend that you establish your stance/grip/draw to your natural point of aim. If you do this it will help you naturally (and quickly) find your sight. Try looking through your rear sight instead of at it, and catch just enough focus on your front sight to know that you have an "acceptable sight picture", you don't need a perfect sight picture. As long as you're seeing enough of your sights (and only you will know what that amout is) to make an A zone hit then the rest will be up to your trigger pull. Unless you can reach out and touch the target as you shoot it, forget about point shooting, you should strive to see your sights for every shot fired. /rant off

+1, keep working on the draw so it's consistent and you aren't searching for your sights. With the revolver I start my tigger prep before I have a good sight picture. The gun is usually ready and I have an acceptable sight picture at the end of the draw stroke. A close acceptable sight picture for me is just to think about leveling the front and rear sight in the target area.

[crowmag]

I look at the letter A on the target draw at the beginning of the beep the sights line up instinctively then pull the trigger.

[Ultimo-Hombre]

There's an A on the target?

[coordinator]

As stated above, it behooves us to use the sights. Hard focus versus soft focus can be employed on the various sized targets.

[Dirtychemist]

Buy Ben stoeger s new book. Listen to his podcast. One thing he says to do is to TRY with a timer to hit times you don't think you can. It trains your hands to move fast and shows you what speed you have to be at.

[Jshuberg]

Speed should never be a goal. Speed is a result of doing things correctly and fluidly. If you are not doing things correctly, adding speed is counterproductive. Development of speed happens when you take your time quickly.

If you are not seeing your sights, but still shoot well you could either be point shooting, or that you simply don't remember that you saw your sights. You may have seen them correctly, but for some reason, likely because you were focussed mostly on speed, your conscious mind doesn't recall it. Try moving back to 15 yards and shooting the exact same way as you do at 7. If the size of your group is less than twice the size of your group at 7, chances are your seeing the sights and not remembering them. If your group is twice the size as at 7, chances are you're just point shooting and never got a proper sight picture. If it's larger, then you're likely target obsessed and need to recalibrate your attention back to your sights.The remedy is different depending on what the problem is, but lets go on the assumption that you are not getting a sight picture, as you suspect.

Go back to slow practice.

1 - Look at your target and zoom in on your intended POI. As you move your hand down to your weapon and establish your grip, and also move your support hand to a fist on your chest, you should be shifting the focal point of your eyes to the point in space that the front sight will occupy when you are at full presentation.

2 - As you draw your weapon from the holster you should be visualizing the arc and angle the weapon will take from the holster through the air to full presentation. You should strive for your front sight to follow this path from your holster to the point of full presentation and meet in the spot that you shifted your focus to. It is very important to visualize the arc in space the front sight will travel through, and then train slowly on this until you find yourself doing this without having to think about visualizing the arc.

3 - The moment that your front sight enters your peripheral vision, begin tracking its motion through the arc. Dont look directly at the front sight, but mentally tack its location as it moves into the center of your vision. As the front sight moves through the arc, steer the gun so that the rear sights line up properly with the front sight at or before you are at full presentation.

The goal is that the instant you are at full presentation, that the sights are aligned, you are focussed on the front sight blade, and are immediately able to take your shot. Don't rush your motions, but move in such a way that everything you need to do in order to fire a properly aimed shot occurs at or immediately before you are at full presentation. Do this very slowly until you can't stand doing it any longer. More important than the motion of the weapon during the draw stroke is what your mind is doing during the draw stroke, and to a lesser extent what your eyes are doing.

Always visualize the arc in space that the front sight wil travel through, and always begin steering your weapon to a proper sight picture while still in motion. If you find your mental focus waning, stop and pick it up again later, you don't want to practice the physical motions without the mind being fully engaged.

Visualizing the arc the front sight will track through does two things - when doing this you are actually leading the motion of your pistol with your mind, rather than following it with your mind as if you were merely paying attention to it. The conscious mind is very logical, but also very slow, and often can't keep up with an action at increased speed in real time. This is why we fumble when we increase speed beyond what we are capable of observing. The other thing it does is give your subconscious mind another piece of information as to what you want the gun to do when you draw it from the holster. The subconscious mind learns skills by observation, and many have theorized based on exprimental research that the subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between what we are actually doing, and what we are visualizing. By employing a cooperative visualization with an action, we increase the rate at which a procedural memory is persisted. By having the subconscious participate in the learning of the action, as well as providing additional information as to how to perform the action, we significantly decrease the amount of time it will take to be able to perform the action completely sunconsciously. Brute force repetition sucks - this is a much better mechanism for persisting procedural memories.

After doing this awhile, try doing it with your eyes closed. You should be able to draw your weapon, mentally trace the path through the arc with the front sight, and orient the rear with the front, and when you open your eyes at the moment you are at full presentation you should have a near perfect sight picture, in clear focus. If you don't consistently get a proper sight picture, go back and keep practicing slowly.

Once you can do this with your eyes closed, begin adding speed. Do this by not paying any attention to your weapon hand at all. Your mental focus should be moved to your support hand, as conscious observation of the weapon hand will slow down your aquisition of your grip and draw. Visualize the arc that your support hand will follow, both up to your chest at position 3, and then forward to where it mates with your weapon hand. When your hands mate, shift your mental focus to the front sight, and drive the gun forward while alighning the rear with the front.

The motion of your weapon from the draw, the shifiting of the focus of your eyes, and driving the rear sights to the front should all be able to be performed without conscious effort. It may take a little time to "let go" of trying to mentally follow everything, but you have to do this in order to shoot as quickly as possible. The conscious mind is simply too slow to be able to manage paying attention to all of the things that your body and mind are doing, so you need to offload as much as possible to the subconscious. The exercises above are one of several ways to do this in the shortest amount of time and greatest retention possible.

If at any point you begin to fumble, or lose mental focus, slow down or take a break until you are able to do this properly. Again, what is most important is not the motion of the gun through the arc or the alignment of the sights, or the shifting of your focal point. What is most important is that your mind is visualizing what is necessary, and that you are mentally tracking only the things you need to. The mind leads the body, and so the way to perfect the action of the body is through the mind.

Once again, speed should never be considered a goal. Being able to increase speed is the evidence that you are performing the action correctly. Yes, you can increase speed to push yourself, but simply pushing yourself is *not* the most effective way at training yourself to achieve increased speed, and in many ways can be counter productive as you will be practicing poor performance. Increased speed is achieved when you are doing everything correctly, and eliminate the necessity of the conscious mind to be in control of what you are doing.

Hope this helps!!

Edited October 9, 2013 by Jshuberg

[saibot]

Speed should never be a goal. Speed is a result of doing things correctly and fluidly. If you are not doing things correctly, adding speed is counterproductive. Development of speed happens when you take your time quickly.

If you are not seeing your sights, but still shoot well you could either be point shooting, or that you simply don't remember that you saw your sights. You may have seen them correctly, but for some reason, likely because you were focussed mostly on speed, your conscious mind doesn't recall it. Try moving back to 15 yards and shooting the exact same way as you do at 7. If the size of your group is less than twice the size of your group at 7, chances are your seeing the sights and not remembering them. If your group is twice the size as at 7, chances are you're just point shooting and never got a proper sight picture. If it's larger, then you're likely target obsessed and need to recalibrate your attention back to your sights.The remedy is different depending on what the problem is, but lets go on the assumption that you are not getting a sight picture, as you suspect.

Go back to slow practice.

1 - Look at your target and zoom in on your intended POI. As you move your hand down to your weapon and establish your grip, and also move your support hand to a fist on your chest, you should be shifting the focal point of your eyes to the point in space that the front sight will occupy when you are at full presentation.

2 - As you draw your weapon from the holster you should be visualizing the arc and angle the weapon will take from the holster through the air to full presentation. You should strive for your front sight to follow this path from your holster to the point of full presentation and meet in the spot that you shifted your focus to. It is very important to visualize the arc in space the front sight will travel through, and then train slowly on this until you find yourself doing this without having to think about visualizing the arc.

3 - The moment that your front sight enters your peripheral vision, begin tracking its motion through the arc. Dont look directly at the front sight, but mentally tack its location as it moves into the center of your vision. As the front sight moves through the arc, steer the gun so that the rear sights line up properly with the front sight at or before you are at full presentation.

The goal is that the instant you are at full presentation, that the sights are aligned, you are focussed on the front sight blade, and are immediately able to take your shot. Don't rush your motions, but move in such a way that everything you need to do in order to fire a properly aimed shot occurs at or immediately before you are at full presentation. Do this very slowly until you can't stand doing it any longer. More important than the motion of the weapon during the draw stroke is what your mind is doing during the draw stroke, and to a lesser extent what your eyes are doing.

Always visualize the arc in space that the front sight wil travel through, and always begin steering your weapon to a proper sight picture while still in motion. If you find your mental focus waning, stop and pick it up again later, you don't want to practice the physical motions without the mind being fully engaged.

Visualizing the arc the front sight will track through does two things - when doing this you are actually leading the motion of your pistol with your mind, rather than following it with your mind as if you were merely paying attention to it. The conscious mind is very logical, but also very slow, and often can't keep up with an action at increased speed in real time. This is why we fumble when we increase speed beyond what we are capable of observing. The other thing it does is give your subconscious mind another piece of information as to what you want the gun to do when you draw it from the holster. The subconscious mind learns skills by observation, and many have theorized based on exprimental research that the subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between what we are actually doing, and what we are visualizing. By employing a cooperative visualization with an action, we increase the rate at which a procedural memory is persisted. By having the subconscious participate in the learning of the action, as well as providing additional information as to how to perform the action, we significantly decrease the amount of time it will take to be able to perform the action completely sunconsciously. Brute force repetition sucks - this is a much better mechanism for persisting procedural memories.

After doing this awhile, try doing it with your eyes closed. You should be able to draw your weapon, mentally trace the path through the arc with the front sight, and orient the rear with the front, and when you open your eyes at the moment you are at full presentation you should have a near perfect sight picture, in clear focus. If you don't consistently get a proper sight picture, go back and keep practicing slowly.

Once you can do this with your eyes closed, begin adding speed. Do this by not paying any attention to your weapon hand at all. Your mental focus should be moved to your support hand, as conscious observation of the weapon hand will slow down your aquisition of your grip and draw. Visualize the arc that your support hand will follow, both up to your chest at position 3, and then forward to where it mates with your weapon hand. When your hands mate, shift your mental focus to the front sight, and drive the gun forward while alighning the rear with the front.

The motion of your weapon from the draw, the shifiting of the focus of your eyes, and driving the rear sights to the front should all be able to be performed without conscious effort. It may take a little time to "let go" of trying to mentally follow everything, but you have to do this in order to shoot as quickly as possible. The conscious mind is simply too slow to be able to manage paying attention to all of the things that your body and mind are doing, so you need to offload as much as possible to the subconscious. The exercises above are one of several ways to do this in the shortest amount of time and greatest retention possible.

If at any point you begin to fumble, or lose mental focus, slow down or take a break until you are able to do this properly. Again, what is most important is not the motion of the gun through the arc or the alignment of the sights, or the shifting of your focal point. What is most important is that your mind is visualizing what is necessary, and that you are mentally tracking only the things you need to. The mind leads the body, and so the way to perfect the action of the body is through the mind.

Once again, speed should never be considered a goal. Being able to increase speed is the evidence that you are performing the action correctly. Yes, you can increase speed to push yourself, but simply pushing yourself is *not* the most effective way at training yourself to achieve increased speed, and in many ways can be counter productive as you will be practicing poor performance. Increased speed is achieved when you are doing everything correctly, and eliminate the necessity of the conscious mind to be in control of what you are doing.

Hope this helps!!

Great post!!

Thanks for sharing.

[BoyGlock]

Speed should never be a goal. Speed is a result of doing things correctly and fluidly. If you are not doing things correctly, adding speed is counterproductive. Development of speed happens when you take your time quickly.

If you are not seeing your sights, but still shoot well you could either be point shooting, or that you simply don't remember that you saw your sights. You may have seen them correctly, but for some reason, likely because you were focussed mostly on speed, your conscious mind doesn't recall it. Try moving back to 15 yards and shooting the exact same way as you do at 7. If the size of your group is less than twice the size of your group at 7, chances are your seeing the sights and not remembering them. If your group is twice the size as at 7, chances are you're just point shooting and never got a proper sight picture. If it's larger, then you're likely target obsessed and need to recalibrate your attention back to your sights.The remedy is different depending on what the problem is, but lets go on the assumption that you are not getting a sight picture, as you suspect.

Go back to slow practice.

1 - Look at your target and zoom in on your intended POI. As you move your hand down to your weapon and establish your grip, and also move your support hand to a fist on your chest, you should be shifting the focal point of your eyes to the point in space that the front sight will occupy when you are at full presentation.

2 - As you draw your weapon from the holster you should be visualizing the arc and angle the weapon will take from the holster through the air to full presentation. You should strive for your front sight to follow this path from your holster to the point of full presentation and meet in the spot that you shifted your focus to. It is very important to visualize the arc in space the front sight will travel through, and then train slowly on this until you find yourself doing this without having to think about visualizing the arc.

3 - The moment that your front sight enters your peripheral vision, begin tracking its motion through the arc. Dont look directly at the front sight, but mentally tack its location as it moves into the center of your vision. As the front sight moves through the arc, steer the gun so that the rear sights line up properly with the front sight at or before you are at full presentation.

The goal is that the instant you are at full presentation, that the sights are aligned, you are focussed on the front sight blade, and are immediately able to take your shot. Don't rush your motions, but move in such a way that everything you need to do in order to fire a properly aimed shot occurs at or immediately before you are at full presentation. Do this very slowly until you can't stand doing it any longer. More important than the motion of the weapon during the draw stroke is what your mind is doing during the draw stroke, and to a lesser extent what your eyes are doing.

Always visualize the arc in space that the front sight wil travel through, and always begin steering your weapon to a proper sight picture while still in motion. If you find your mental focus waning, stop and pick it up again later, you don't want to practice the physical motions without the mind being fully engaged.

Visualizing the arc the front sight will track through does two things - when doing this you are actually leading the motion of your pistol with your mind, rather than following it with your mind as if you were merely paying attention to it. The conscious mind is very logical, but also very slow, and often can't keep up with an action at increased speed in real time. This is why we fumble when we increase speed beyond what we are capable of observing. The other thing it does is give your subconscious mind another piece of information as to what you want the gun to do when you draw it from the holster. The subconscious mind learns skills by observation, and many have theorized based on exprimental research that the subconscious mind doesn't distinguish between what we are actually doing, and what we are visualizing. By employing a cooperative visualization with an action, we increase the rate at which a procedural memory is persisted. By having the subconscious participate in the learning of the action, as well as providing additional information as to how to perform the action, we significantly decrease the amount of time it will take to be able to perform the action completely sunconsciously. Brute force repetition sucks - this is a much better mechanism for persisting procedural memories.

After doing this awhile, try doing it with your eyes closed. You should be able to draw your weapon, mentally trace the path through the arc with the front sight, and orient the rear with the front, and when you open your eyes at the moment you are at full presentation you should have a near perfect sight picture, in clear focus. If you don't consistently get a proper sight picture, go back and keep practicing slowly.

Once you can do this with your eyes closed, begin adding speed. Do this by not paying any attention to your weapon hand at all. Your mental focus should be moved to your support hand, as conscious observation of the weapon hand will slow down your aquisition of your grip and draw. Visualize the arc that your support hand will follow, both up to your chest at position 3, and then forward to where it mates with your weapon hand. When your hands mate, shift your mental focus to the front sight, and drive the gun forward while alighning the rear with the front.

The motion of your weapon from the draw, the shifiting of the focus of your eyes, and driving the rear sights to the front should all be able to be performed without conscious effort. It may take a little time to "let go" of trying to mentally follow everything, but you have to do this in order to shoot as quickly as possible. The conscious mind is simply too slow to be able to manage paying attention to all of the things that your body and mind are doing, so you need to offload as much as possible to the subconscious. The exercises above are one of several ways to do this in the shortest amount of time and greatest retention possible.

If at any point you begin to fumble, or lose mental focus, slow down or take a break until you are able to do this properly. Again, what is most important is not the motion of the gun through the arc or the alignment of the sights, or the shifting of your focal point. What is most important is that your mind is visualizing what is necessary, and that you are mentally tracking only the things you need to. The mind leads the body, and so the way to perfect the action of the body is through the mind.

Once again, speed should never be considered a goal. Being able to increase speed is the evidence that you are performing the action correctly. Yes, you can increase speed to push yourself, but simply pushing yourself is *not* the most effective way at training yourself to achieve increased speed, and in many ways can be counter productive as you will be practicing poor performance. Increased speed is achieved when you are doing everything correctly, and eliminate the necessity of the conscious mind to be in control of what you are doing.

Hope this helps!!

Thank you!

[Supermoto]

There is nothing wrong with working on pure speed. Just like there is nothing wrong with working on pure accuracy. It will help you break through barriers sooner than taking baby steps.

If you don't train at balls to the wall speeds, you will not train your hands to move faster and your eyes to see more. Speed, accuracy. practice them seperately and practice them together

If you don't push yourself while training, how are you going to get better?

[Jshuberg]

If you feel that you are at a point where you can pick up the speed, then by all means pick up the speed. It may even take a little while to work the kinks out of the act of moving faster, even when your underlying technique is correct. If you are having trouble at the new speed you need to pay very close attention to yourself. It could be that while your technique is capable of handling the increased speed, you need to practice at that speed a little while to tighten up the execution. It could also be that you're moving faster than your technique is capable of handling, in which case you need to slow back down, as you're just practicing poor performance.

For me, how I proceed is determined by identifying whether the problem being experienced at the new speed is consistent or not. When the speed induced errors are consistent, I train through it until I can execute my technique correctly again. When this is happening, steady progress is made, and no additional errors are introduced when tightening yourself up. However, if the errors you are experiencing are not consistent, or when you try to tighten yourself up another error pops up, or if your improvement seems to stall when there is still a glitch in your exectution, you have moved beyond what your underlying technique can deliver for you. At this point continuing at that speed can be detrimental, and you should slow back down again and improve your underlying technique before attempting to introduce speed again.

Occasionally going balls-out is fine (provided you don't become unsafe in doing so), and you can actually learn from it if you see a pattern in it. For the vast majority of your training though, you should limit yourself to the speed at which your performance is correct and/or consistent, and be continually and gradually increasing speed. Overall you will make progress faster this way as you won't be trying (and failing) to occomplish things beyond what your current technique and skill level is capable of delivering for you.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Rinse and repeat.

Edited October 21, 2013 by Jshuberg

[Jshuberg]

Last night I was practicing the draw exercise I described above, and realized that I need to make a correction.

As you move your weapon hand down to establish your grip, while simultaneously moving the support hand to the chest, you should be moving the focal point of your eyes to a spot about 2/3rds of the way between your eyes, and the point the front sight will occupy at full presentation. Your focal point should be 8-12" closer to your eyes than the point the front sight will occupy.

As you punch your weapon out to full presentation, you will see your front sight move through the focal point your eyes are at. The moment you clearly see your front sight, follow it forward the last couple inches to full presentation. Doing it this way has the following benefits:

1) It's hard to learn how to focus your eyes on an exact point in space if there is currently nothing there to lock on to. Focusing your eyes at a point slightly before full presentation doesn't require the same level of precision, and allows you to lock onto your sight as it moves through that point.

2) When you visually lock onto your sight a few inches before full presentation, it makes it easier to "steer" the rear sights so that they are correctly aligned with the front when moving through those last few inches. This allows for a better sight picture and better shot when you get to full presentation.

3) When you visually lock onto your sight a few inches before full presentation, you are giving your subconscious another piece of information as to what you want it to do. As I stated earlier, the subconscious mind learns through observation, it doesn't know what your conscious mind is thinking. It may take it awhile to realize that you want it to steer the sights to being aligned while still in motion unless you do something to point it out. Focusing your eyes on the front sight slightly before full presentation points out that you are doing something important, and it should learn to align the sights easier this way.

You may notice after awhile, especially when you increase speed, that your eyes actually *are* focusing on the exact spot that the front sight will occupy at full presentation. That's fine, let it happen. It's an optimized motion, and takes less time as the speed of your draw won't be slowed down to the speed at which you can shift the focus your eyes. However, when first learning to do this, and periodically when you go back and reinforce the technique with slow dry fire practice, you should move your optical focus to 8-12" before full presentation and then follow the front sight forward. This will reinforce not just the act of shifting your eyes, but highlight the importance of aligning of your sights while still in motion, which can be quite difficult to learn.

Sorry if anyone tried this and found it difficult to do the way I originally described. This is both easier and more effective.

Hope this helps!

[jcarpenter82]

+1 for jshuberg. After struggling with consistency all year ive gone back to doing the draw in slow-mo. Focusing on every aspect of the draw. Same with reloads. After a few nights of practice i noted a few times where i broke the shot before i was consciously ready. I attribute this to my sub conscious learning the proper mechanics and timing i was teaching it. Ill do this for a couple months and work on adding speed and other aspects later on.

In psych class it was compared to a computer. The keyboard is us or our conscious. Sub conscious is RAM memory, used to perform tasks we are currently using and in need of. By showing our sub conscious what its like to do things properly, we can later let it take over while our conscious performs a different task. My buddy who has laid out a training schedule for me calls it sub conscious burn reps. Soon i anticipate i will be able to squeeze off a perfect shot while thinking about what to cook for dinner

[Mat Price]

There is nothing wrong with working on pure speed. Just like there is nothing wrong with working on pure accuracy. It will help you break through barriers sooner than taking baby steps.

If you don't train at balls to the wall speeds, you will not train your hands to move faster and your eyes to see more. Speed, accuracy. practice them seperately and practice them together

If you don't push yourself while training, how are you going to get better?

werd

[LilBunniFuFu]

If you don't push yourself while training, how are you going to get better?

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Rinse and repeat.

If you only ever practice slowly you will only ever be slow. Smooth is good, actually it's great but sometimes you have to practice with ridiculous speed to see your limits and how to work up to them. See how fast you can go before you aren't smooth.

I say to get your fundamentals down, that machine like draw, then increase the speed until it falls apart. Find that balance point and try to go from there.

[golfguy7]

What a great topic, I am struggling with this very problem,just can't get my sight picture fast as I would like. I will work on the excellent drills posted in here.

Thank you all for vast knowledge on this subject.

[ktm300]

First to answer your question, on a 7 - 10 yard open target I see the gun get between me and the target. I am focused on the target. Put some hard cover on it, or a NS and I pull my focus back to the sights. I don't think there is a correct answer for the question "what do I need to see". You need to see what you need to see to make the shot.

Funny thing happened getting ready for the Florida Open this year. I did a few practice sessions with really hard targets. 15-20 yards with 4" of the target showing over a NS, 35 yard open targets, add in some hard leans and anything else I could do to make it as hard as I could make it. At first I had a lot of misses, and hit a lot of NS but I did it until I could make the shots. At the end of one session I set up a hard normal stage. Stuff like 1/2 target at 10 yards, draw to a 15 yard open target, etc It was so easy I was amazed. I can tell you my practice from now on is going to be on stuff so hard I can't think of it yet.