Point-Shoulder Indexing
Howdy Ken,
Takin' it a little off-topic...
Point-Shoulder Indexing uses the body's natural reaction to stress,
and is similar to Ayoob's "Stressfire" technique, except the the gun
is slightly below eye level at a midpoint between eyes and shoulder,
or a little lower. It varies from person to person as to exactly where it
falls.
Stand squarely facing a small target and with eyes on that target, point your finger at it. Don't aim down the finger...just point. Now, bring the
weak hand into play with a supporting grip, as though you had a pistol in the strong hand.
Whatever the eyes look at, the finger will point at. If you introduce a gun into the action, the gun will also point at, or should with a little practice.
The exact point of elevation will vary according to how the gun fits your hand. This is easy to determine.
Take a natural firing grip on the gun, and lay your finger alongside in the
"Finger Off Trigger" move that you do as a matter of course for the sake of
Rule 2. Not stiffly, but naturally. Now...without thinking about it, point that
finger at a small target and look at the axis of the barrel. Is it parallel with
your finger? Is it angled upward or downward? How much?
Most people find that the flat mainspring housing on the 1911 tend to
angle the muzzle downward to some degree. That was the main reason for going to an arched housing on the A-1s...It countered the tendency
for the soldier to shoot low under stress, and mad the gun point more naturally during the body's autoresponse to stress.
During a deadly, close-range encounter, the natural tendency is to focus
the eyes on the threat. Carefully aiming in such a situation goes against this natural tendency, and as often as not, must be consciously resisted
and the eyes refocused on the sights...specifically the front sight....which
takes time. In these kinds of encounters, time is usually short, since any
action on our part is a reaction to that threat. The closer the threat, the less time we have, and most of the time, the outcome is determined in fractions of seconds. This is where the "Bullseye" mentality can get us killed. We tend to fight as we practice. Whatever we have repeatedly done on the target range is what we will automatically do in a real encounter, right down to laying an empty magazine on the table that isn't behind us like it is at the range. As one member's tagline wisely observes: "You won't rise to the occasion. You will default to your level of training." More simply put...Whatever moves that you make as a matter of habit will become autoresponse when you "Hoist the Baker Flag"
Food for thought...
Tuner
Tuner
