The following is an answer to a question from a student after the U.S. Open. He noticed that a lot of the top shooters had the gun “mounted and their face down” for a lot longer than he did or longer than he felt we taught.
They understand the picture and where their eyes must be, which is always behind the gun. And they have tried to check the lead enough times that they know exactly just how much focus they can give the barrel and still break the target. You must seek your own level and answers as to how it is supposed to look.
After seeing our animations, Scott Robertson said to me that we were giving shooters all over the world the “answers to the test and the pictures that it took us as competitors 25 years to learn.”
The shooters you speak of are not looking down the gun, but are looking behind the gun with both eyes focused on the target away from the gun. This gives them the ability to visualize what they are about to do and then execute it.
We are finding that the clearer you are to your brain what you’re asking it to do, the better and more quickly it will respond, and the sooner the brain will begin the suppression of any confusing or non-pertinent visual data. This allows your focus to ascend to higher and higher levels which is why you can’t do what they do. Stop trying to do it!
I just got an email from a student who said he finally shot a whole tournament without trying to break any targets. He just made the plan and shot the plan, trusting the routine and his right brain to break the targets.
This student was a runner-up in the main and had the top score on the main course on the second day. He was second in FITASC and second in the prelim. There were a lot of firsts for him.
He found he could not shoot 200 targets back-to-back and maintain focus. He left 10 to 12 targets on the main that normally he should not miss. One of his best lessons was what happened to him when he got fatigued 2/3rds of the way through the second 200 targets. He found it hard to turn it off between stands and found he tended to watch other people’s targets.
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