doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Vision, Focus on the target.

Respectfully, I think Buzz was asking more about visual concentration and how to optimize that process. It is something elite trapshooters obsess about a lot more than wingshooters - in part because the techniques that improve your concentration on the target don't work as well in the field. Conversely, most wingshooters don't need to hit 99% of their birds to consider themselves successful.

This is a typical target concentration technique from the Quite Eye article I referenced:

1. Plan your shot. Find your break point, mount point and look point with a great deal of accuracy.
2. Visualize the target breaking. Mentally rehearse it appearing, your gun setting up the lead, the shot, and the target breaking.
3. Settle your eye on the look point, a small precise look point. Use a mantra such as "See bird, shoot bird" to focus your concentration; focus and pause for 1+ seconds.
4. Eye on the target. Begin to move your gun as soon as the target appears, focus visual concentration on the leading edge and let your eyes pull the trigger. Let the shot go.

Steps 1, 2 and 4 may sound familiar (Michael Yardley's Positive Shooting approach follows much of this), but it is step 3 that really helps with the visual concentration as it quiets the left side of the brain and eliminates conscious decision-making. If the left side of your brain is telling you where to shoot, you are not fully concentrating on the target. I shot with Chris Batha this spring, and he was really emphasizing the "great deal of accuracy" point in step 1, as well as the efficient gun movement point that Stan raised because shorter gun movements minimize the risk of conscious control of the gun.

In reality, long targets challenge many people because they find it difficult to focus hard on something that appears so small and far away. They think it is a lead calculation issue, but in reality they are not "looking hard enough" - they are missing because they are consciously calculating lead instead of putting all of their concentration on the target. Learning to visually concentrate on a small target takes practice for most people.