Passive Eye

[tightloop]

Was reading an article about Olympic Trap and the hot ticket now to practice is what they call the Passive Eye...it is the ability to focus your vision on the spot the bird will appear without interruption for the second before and the second after the bird appears..this supposedly gives the brain time to assimilate the data the eye give it to plot the angle, speed and intercept line to the bird....

Those with the ability to have or acquire the Passive Eye are supposedly lots better shooters than those than cannot master it...

Anyone heard of it..?

[JD45]

I saw something similar in ClayShooting USA this month.

Lanny Bassham wrote an article about a technique called Quiet Eyes. It was tested in several sports and seems to be utilized by people at the top of their game.

[Bill Schwab]

Very interesting stuff:

http://www.usashooting.com/modules.php?op=...rtid=334&page=1

[eric nielsen]

Another. Click the printer icon & it's much easier to read:

http://www.usashooting.com/modules.php?op=...rtid=335&page=1

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This is the original Golf Digest article, bummer there's no printer-friendly version:

http://www.golfdigest.com/instruction/inde...01quieteye.html

Lots of good stuff about quieting the left brain [the analytical chatter-happy side] which is something I've emailed Benos for help about more than once. A constant challenge for me, for sure.

Edited April 8, 2006 by eric nielsen

[Tangram]

Follow the link from >publications< for a PDF of the Golf article:

http://www.kin.ucalgary.ca/nml/

Look at the bottom of the page for a link to a couple interesting PBS videos.

Dr. Vickers articles on the subject of Quiet Eyes appears to go back to 1992.

Edited August 25, 2006 by Tangram

[AlamoShooter]

we /I would have the student learn to (look) at -the or (a)- place that the target becomes clear and not a streek any more. = this let the perif. visition do its thing the best. and the shooter could make a good move to the break point on the target faster, and with out chasing the target down. I use it with steel shooting to look at a spot on the target and wait for the dot to avive =( with out) looking back at the dot, Clays and steel can cross over on a few things.

But I may not know nothing

[backspin]

Pretty cool stuff.

"Athletes are able to improve their ability to respond accurately through coordinating the period of intense concentration o­n the target[...]and the duration of time they fixate o­n that point before responding."

To me this description of "quiet eye" at work sounds a lot like visual acuity and visual patience as explained in Practical Shooting.

Also I find it interesting that although the goal is to quiet down the analytical mind they are still advocating repetition of a conscious idea like "target target target."