Sights or Target, Where to Focus?

[Hk Dan]

LOLOL--It should be on my business card 9mmE."Oh, you've been to Gunsight? Don't worry, I can fix you too..." Have you seen their version of an assessment? After you shoot you move the gun about 20 degrees left and right several times. That's it. I tell my guys to look in a 180 and find one thing in each direction and tell me what it is.

How many bad guys are in a fight? All of them you can see plus one. Your mission in the asseessment? Find the one.

With my respects and a tip of the hat 9mmE. I've almost always found agreement with your posts, Sir.

Dan

Ps--I think Gabe was making fun of the teaching at Front Sight rather than using the guy as an endorsement. More at the traditional mode of teaching that they espouse. He actually pointed out the 1911 and the Weaver, which leads me to that conclusion (Gabe being a GLOCK/Isos guy)

 

[Hk Dan]

Where are Gabe, Mas and Rob when ya need them? LOL

Dan

Ps--Probable answer: Doing something productive and not spending their time in an internet chat room...LOL

 

[TexasRifleman]

LOLOL--It should be on my business card 9mmE."Oh, you've been to Gunsight? Don't worry, I can fix you too..." Have you seen their version of an assessment? After you shoot you move the gun about 20 degrees left and right several times. That's it. I tell my guys to look in a 180 and find one thing in each direction and tell me what it is.

That's the beginner class yes. It moves on from there. Do you start your students at the advanced level I wonder? Some attending the Gunsite 250 classes are not completely sure which end the bullets exit from. Front Sight basic classes are the same. Gotta start somewhere. Flying lessons don't start with inverted flat spins.

The story of a Front Sight students messing up in a Suarez class doesn't mean that they were taught wrong, it means they needed more training. If they knew how to do it already they wouldn't be taking another class. That student defaulted to the level of his training, as most say will happen. All that means is he needs more training so he will default to a higher level of performance next time.

None of this stuff comes instinctively, and it takes a long time to build to a level of competence, especially in someone who doesn't do this stuff for a living. I don't think you would get Mas, Suarez or Pincus to advocate training someone faster than they can learn the material or to try to cram too much in without some practice in between.

So, the basic schools teach FRONT SIGHT. PRESS. After that becomes second nature the student can move into more advanced techniques and decide for themselves if that's something they want to do or not. Having no training background to judge against, the beginning or even intermediate student is not well served by being taught "sightless shooting", whatever name you want to give it.

Remember these schools are teaching, for the most part, private citizens. Private citizens have to worry a GREAT deal more about where their bullets land than LE officers do. Shooting one handed while looking at a bad guy and running away is not a technique the average concealed carry holder needs to be taught early on.

 

[ForumSurfer]

The story of a Front Sight students messing up in a Suarez class doesn't mean that they were taught wrong, it means they needed more training. If they knew how to do it already they wouldn't be taking another class. That student defaulted to the level of his training, as most say will happen. All that means is he needs more training so he will default to a higher level of performance next time.

I'd like to add that this doesn't only apply to handgun, rifle or shotgun training. I can give anyone on here a 5-day, in depth class on my field of expertise. If you don't back that training up with practice (and more practice and more practice and more practice and more practice and more practice and more practice), you will not retain what you learned. You could go take a certificate test a year from now and it will look like Greek to you because whatever training and knowledge you did retain, you lost due to lack of reinforcement and applied practice. It's just the nature of all things that we learn, you get out of it what you put into it (and what you continue to put into it).

 

[Vern Humphrey]

When someone has to start using the vague, unscientific concept of "human nature" to prove a point while debating a serious matter, and it's the best he can do, that's pretty indicative that he really means "according to my opinion and biases."

There are two areas of science at work here -- the first is optics -- the basic skill of aiming. The second is psychology -- especially the reaction of people under great stress.

Now, I'm not a cop. I've never been in a shoot-out as a civilian. I have, however, been in combat, and have used a handgun twice (successfully) under stress. I have also spent many years training men for combat.

1. Optics: The key to understanding the proper use of the front sight is distingushing between sight alignment (the relationship of the sights to each other) and sight picture (the relationship of the sights to the target.)

Small errors in sight alignment add up to big misses at the target -- the sights are so close together that a small displacement of the front sight in relation to the rear sight is multiplied many times, even at short ranges. Consequently, sight alignment is more important than sight picture.

And it is definitely possible to keep the sights in view -- a good exercise is to use a .22 cal conversion kit (mine is a Colt Service Ace) and track the sights throughout a multi-shot engagement cycle, so that the sights are aligned before the gun returns on target from recoil. From that point, progress to moving and firing.

Now, this doesn't mean you have to have a perfect sight picture in a short-range, fast-moving situation. You just have to have one that's good enough. There are techniques to do this -- the "flash frontsight" approach, for example, the hold under technique, and so on.

2. Psychology under stress: The key factor here is perceptual narrowing. Under great stress you will develop something like tunnel vision -- things outside your immediate environment will not be perceived. Your perception of time and space will change (for example, flight simulators for Naval Aviators have to have a special long, narrow carrier in their data base -- because when an aviator makes a carrier landing, the carrier looks much longer and narrower than it really is.)

You also want time to strrrretchhh out (tardykinesia), not speed up (tachykinesia.) After a very stressful experience (say an automobile accident) you will hear people say, "It seemed like everything was happening at once" (bad!) Or, "Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion" (good.) With practice, you can induce tardykinesia.

The trick is, through training, to make these psychological phenomina work for you, not against you. You want your "tunnel vision" to include the important things and disregard the unimportant things -- and under those circumstances you can do things you ordinarily could not do -- like track your frontsight while keeping aware of your enemy and the tactical situation -- because the perceptual narrowing concentrates all your mental abilities on specific things.

The contention is whether it is possible and optimal to use the front sight and make good hits under stress for a civilian, with proper training. The answer is, yes, it's possible.

Absolutely.

 

[conw]

Thanks Vern.

Hk Dan, you're really trying to string me out with that red herring . Of course you're also doing what everyone does when they backpedal on the internet: treating the topic like it's not serious, or you don't take it seriously, or it's no big deal. You're welcome to think that but I take this seriously, because people who read this deserve to be exposed to logical, rational, current thinking on life or death issues. Your statement was not conducive to helping people in life or death situations, and was incorrect; it was therefore dangerous to people who can't judge the validity of it. So I replied and so did others. You're just beginning to look like a guy who's out of his depth, due to some combination of making an incorrect statement and doing a poor job arguing. Of course now you're going to act like this discussion isn't important to you. Maybe if you want trivial discussions you should go to General Gun, or take up Blackpowder discussion, rather than hang out in S&T.

I did my best to keep my refutations focused on your original contention, generously quoted by Vern above my post here, and you keep following up with non sequiturs.

As someone else said, if a guy got knife-attacked and held his ground...as he was trained to do...shocking. Why don't you make up your mind Dan: will we thrust the gun out, shoot, and run, or stand our ground and press the trigger as we focus on the front sight? You're offering an example which confirms the second. You can't have it both ways.

Luckily for me my training integrates dynamic extension/compression on the high line. My definition (courtesy of Southnarc) of the #4 position of the 4-count drawstroke is "appropriate extension"...not "full extension." Big difference. If I'm within touching distance of my attacker, the gun is indexed along the pectoral muscle in a retention position. My other hand is doing something useful, and my hips and feet are working to drive forward and/or stay upright as I wear him out with the pistol. Of course, if someone charged me with a knife from 6 feet at the word "Go," I have a conceptual framework to deal with that, which doesn't involve me drawing my gun too soon. Your example of someone pointing a gun at my head? Again this has nothing to do with the front sight. At all.

There's a great drill people who take ECQC do. Simply walking to and from a target extending and compressing. When you get 6-10" from the target (touching distance) you go to the #2 position and keep firing...then repeat in reverse. It's the formative step in building habits that prevent you from doing what that guy you cited did.

You know, the guy who was under-trained for the situation he was thrown into in a Suarez class, applied the training he did have where it didn't work. Which goes against your contention that regardless of training level "we" will simply default to thrusting the gun out and running. (It is also fairly stupid and irresponsible to expose students to unscripted heavy duty FOF training without priming them for some modicum of success - giving a strategy, a set of techniques, etc, first. It goes against the principles of teaching, learning, and safety.) Imagine what you can do if you train to deal with situations like that. It's pretty impressive. And you don't have to be a Tier One guy. But if you want to make excuses for complacency, go ahead. Stick with your black and white mentality. Hopefully anyone reading can see you're backpedaling and resorting to logical fallacies and contradicting yourself all over the place.

 

[Shawn Dodson]

Just as I've developed the ability to fluidly transition my stance from modified isosceles to Weaver/reverse Weaver or Chapman/reverse Chapman or shooting with one hand - depending on the circumstances, I've also developed the ability to use different sighting techniques (sight focus, target focus and point shooting) - depending on the circumstances - with accurate results.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I've been through two defensive encounters and as much as you want to believe that your training or practice will make things happen for ya? It won't. You're human and you'll ram the gun out, duck, and run for cover just like anyone else, probably shooting the gun one handed at fulle xtension while pointing it in the general area of the bad guy.

Take a force on force class for Christ's sake! With rubber knives and airsoft guns, THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE DO. Gabe talks about one guy from Front Sight who stood there and went to Weaver in the face of a knife attack, and who died a grisly death every time. Finally, easperated, Gabe took the gun away. The guy broke and ran. Gabe said "Great! Now do that with the gun in your hand"

So under stress "you'll ram the gun out, duck, and run for cover just like anyone else" but when this guy was put under stress, he didn't do any of those things? In fact, he seems to have done exactly what he was trained to do instead of the instinctive reaction you said would override training earlier? In fact, he had to be told to execute the instinctive reaction that anyone else would do regardless of all the training they had even though all this guy had in his background was an entry level FrontSight class?

Does that strike you as a good example for your hypothesis that people cannot overcome their instinctive reactions? It seems to me that it is more of an example of a training background that isn't appropriate to the situation; but it seems to be a shining example of a regular non-Delta guy substituting trained response for instinctive response.

And you know, I've done Force-on-Force, though with Simunitions rather than airsoft. And I definitely remember using my sights, sometimes more successfully than others; but using them.

Small errors in sight alignment add up to big misses at the target -- the sights are so close together that a small displacement of the front sight in relation to the rear sight is multiplied many times, even at short ranges. Consequently, sight alignment is more important than sight picture.

May be this is one of the reasons for the disconnect on experience with "target focused" shooting here? If I have shot often enough that I am getting good sight alignment through muscle memory, then something like focusing on the top of the slide is more than enough to get the job done. If however, I am not aligning the sights almost instinctively, I probably won't find that method nearly as useful.

 

[Loosedhorse]

With practice, you can induce tardykinesia.

First, terminology.

-kinesia, (or -kinesis) as a medical suffix, is a Greek-derived term for movement (usually voluntary movement of the skeletal muscles). Bradykinesia (brady- is another Greek root, for slow) means "slow movement," and it is a sign in various neurological, muscular, and psychological diseases.

"Tardi-" on the other hand is a Latin derivative. Mixtures of Latin and Greek, especially in medical terminology, are not unknown but are still awkward. For example, the term "tardokinesis" has been used in cardiology (to describe abnormal ventricular motion), and I have seen that mutated to tardikinesia. I have not seen a similar term used to describe the sensation of time slowing down.

However, there is another term, tachypsychia, that has usually been used to describe this phenomenon. Apparently 40-60% of officers involved in shootings later recall the experience as time having slowed down; another 20% remember it as time having sped up.


Second: you seem to claim that with training, tachypsychia can be called up on demand. I have not seen any support for this in publications, and so I wondered about your sources for your claim. I ask out of interest.

Finally, it is not at all certain that "tunnel vision" is strictly a psychological problem. It may in fact be due to reduction of blood flow to the peripheral retina or to the more anterior visual cortex. I only mention it because, if that is true, no one can learn to disregard it, or "make it work for you."

 

[conw]

Fact: the subjects remember time slowing down. This does not equate to faster response times or a demonstrably difference in the brain's perception of time at the time of the event, only an effect demonstrated regarding memory.

There is at least one study refuting that time perception speeds up or slows down in realtime.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Second: you seem to claim that with training, tachypsychia can be called up on demand. I have not seen any support for this in publications, and so I wondered about your sources for your claim. I ask out of interest.

Experience. I have trained it successfully. You use biofeedback -- and with biofeedback you can do some remarkable things, like change your heartrate. The key is repetitive training followed by a good after-action review. Force the subject to go over his actions and recall them. Then repeat.

Finally, it is not at all certain that "tunnel vision" is strictly a psychological problem.

It doesn't have to be -- what is important is that it occurs, along with time and space distortions.

 

[conw]

Eagleman is the name of the researcher.

Brain time, as Eagleman calls it, is intrinsically subjective. How much of what we perceive exists outside of us and how much is a product of our minds? Time is a dimension like any other, yet the data rarely matches our reality. The jittery camera shake of everyday vision is smoothed over and our memories are often radically revised.

A few years ago, Eagleman ran an experiment to investigate the slowing down of perceived time under stress. First, Eagleman and a graduate student developed a perceptual chronometer. The unit could be strapped to a subject's wrist, where it would flash a number at a rate just beyond the threshold of perception. If time slowed down, Eagleman reasoned, the number would become visible. Then his team built SCAD, a "suspended catch air device." At the top of a tower, a subject would be hooked to a cable and lowered through a hole in the floor. His back would be to the ground, his eyes looking straight up. When the cable was released, he would plummet 110 feet, in free fall, until a net caught him near the ground.

(from: http://www.andyross.net/eagleman.htm)

He explains a study he conducted in order to determine if the fear/stress that causes a change in time perception also affects other senses. He wanted to know if time appears to be altered- do sights, sounds, and other sensory information change too? Dr. Eagleman created a machine that portrays two images in a fraction of a millisecond. Under normal conditions a person sees the two images as one combined image. If the brain changes visual perception during time perception alterations then one would be able to see the two images apart during the slowed events. When Eagleman had participants pushed off a ledge to free-fall into a net their visual perceptions did not change. The participants still only detected one image. From this study, Eagleman explains the theory that time perception is regulated by several separate neural mechanisms.

(from: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/kmeci003/neurobiology_blog/2011/09/changing-the-speed-of-time.html)

Therefore I disagree that tachypsychia = good or skilled reaction and tardipsychia = poor or unskilled reaction. More importantly I disagree that tachypsychia is anything but altered perception of time in retrospect, i.e. better memory storage at best.

 

[Loosedhorse]

The jittery camera shake of everyday vision is smoothed over and our memories are often radically revised.

What jittery camera shake of everyday vision? Outside of being placed in a very jittery environmentment (for example, motorized travel at significant speed on uneven ground) our immediate perception of vision is smooth, just like our memory of it.

This analogy does not lend support his contention (though it does not make it false, either).

However, his visual test may not be valid, either.

it would flash a number at a rate just beyond the threshold of perception

I am not sure what this means, but I will assume that a number was presented and then followed by a "masking" stimulus. Most people begin to "see" the number once the delay between number and mask reaches 50-100 msec.

What he seems to be saying is that the visual system does not work more efficiently during periods of tachypsychia. Perhaps saying that the brain doesn't actually "speed up" although it may seem that it does.

However, that does not get at the core of what happens when time seems to slow down, or what if any new abilities that state may bestow (perhaps it suggests there are NO new abilities). And it certainly doesn't prove that those experiencing tachypsycia don't actually experience it at the moment, but instead only remember it (falsely) later.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

The point is not that time actually slows down, or that space is distorted, but that it appears to be slowed (or sped up) and space appears to be distorted. You can use those perceptions to your advantage (or they can be to your disadvantage.) The example I cited, the distorted image of an aircraft carrier, shows one way to make it work for you.

When time appears speeded up, it induces panic, irresolution and a feeling of inability to act. When it appears slowed down, it has the opposite effect. You are confident and able to act much more effectively.

 

[sugarmaker]

Seems that first hand experience in this would get limited by Murphy's law - do this a few times and something will go wrong, and you're done. Surviving enough gunfights with handguns, at close range, to develop a real sense of the art is probably very rare. Yet many hold such strong opinions...

 

[conw]

When time appears speeded up, it induces panic, irresolution and a feeling of inability to act. When it appears slowed down, it has the opposite effect. You are confident and able to act much more effectively.

As someone who debated with some points I posted above you pointed out, there is not great weight of evidence that you are correct or incorrect. I posted my counterpoint to get people thinking, although I'm pretty sure Eagleman's research goes deeper than what I posted. No dog in this fight though so I hope someone else gets deep in the research and lets us know. (MAybe a new thread would be useful for that)

Your explanation, BTW, still doesn't prove anything other than a correlation, if we take the statement as true for the sake of argument. I could just as easily frame it this way:

"Panic, irresolution, and indecisiveness can make time appear to speed up, while confidence and training can make time appear to slow down." I could even add "...when subjects recount their experiences."

Even if we demonstrate that tachypsychia is linked with a positive outcome, that doesn't mean tachypsychia is anything other than a psychological artifact residing within our perception...or memory. The positive outcome could be altogether due to the skills and training and the tachypsychia could be altogether unimportant (albeit interesting).

 

[USAF_Vet]

I tend to focus on my target and bring the gun up to my line of sight so I can see the front sight.

Punching paper, I notice I tend to drift between the target and the sights. If scoped, I shift focus between the target and the crosshairs, then back to the target before the shot. Shooting any shotgun with a bead sight, I line up on the bead getting in the best position, acquire target, focus on target, squeeze trigger.

 

[Strykervet]

Simple answer for this one:

For close range shooting, for action shooting or defensive shooting, or for point shooting, focus on the target. But not just "the target", focus on detail on the target like a button or something small.

For long range shooting and for slow accurate shooting, focus on the sights. I sometimes focus back and forth to get it "where I want it" but I focus on the sight alignment before firing.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Your explanation, BTW, still doesn't prove anything other than a correlation, if we take the statement as true for the sake of argument. I could just as easily frame it this way:

Correlation is all we need -- causation is beyond us.

For example, suppose we show that people who use a certain gun and caliber are more likely to win a gunfight that people who use other guns and calibers. That doesn't prove causation -- only correlation. But still in all, when choosing a gun, we might consider that one.

"Panic, irresolution, and indecisiveness can make time appear to speed up, while confidence and training can make time appear to slow down." I could even add "...when subjects recount their experiences."

Which is approaching my point from a different direction -- panic, irresolution and indecisiveness can be trained out, or greatly reduced through training.

Even if we demonstrate that tachypsychia is linked with a positive outcome, that doesn't mean tachypsychia is anything other than a psychological artifact residing within our perception...or memory. The positive outcome could be altogether due to the skills and training and the tachypsychia could be altogether unimportant (albeit interesting).

Perfectly true -- nevertheless, all the evidence I have seen (distorted aircraft carriers, distorted shooting scenes, and so on) indicates that psychological distortion of time and space is closely related to performance, to the extent that if you prevent it in training situations, you degrade the training.

 

[1911 guy]

There is no single answer. It's a sliding scale and the variables are distance and time, both of which are depleting rapidly. Use as much sight as you can afford to and point shoot your way to a sight picture.

 

[conw]

Use as much sight as you can afford to

As Tom Givens says to people who say "You don't have time to use the sights..." - "You don't have time to miss!"

 

[Matthew Temkin]

Interesting--what happens when smoke, darkness or close distance makes it impossible to see your sights?
Do you just crumple up and die?
You are also allowing someone to tell you that one will miss without using the sights.
Pity, but people who let others do the thinking for them usually get what they deserve.

 

[David E]

(cue dramatic music crescendo, fade to black. Cue narrator: )

"next time, on 'Point Shoot or DIE!', we show the best techniques for removing those unnecessary sights, what your holster color says about you and Stevie Wonder talks about accuracy."

 

[Matthew Temkin]

Why would anyone want to remove the sights from a pistol?
As there is a time for target focused shooting there is also a time for sighted shooting.
Why would one want to limit their options?

 

[Justin]

What jittery camera shake of everyday vision? Outside of being placed in a very jittery environmentment (for example, motorized travel at significant speed on uneven ground) our immediate perception of vision is smooth, just like our memory of it.

Your gait isn't perfectly level, and on top of that, your head doesn't remain perfectly still as you walk, and your eyeballs are probably rotating around, looking at things in your environment. Your whole body, including your head and eyeballs bob up and down as you walk, and your brain has built-in filters that smooth your perception as you walk.

Your brain does this for a number of things, actually. For instance, when shifting your visual focus from one object to another one, your brain filters out the visual blur that occurs while your eyeballs are rotating.

Do you just crumple up and die?

Yes. I've crumpled up and died at least four times when trying to engage targets in a dark or smokey shoot house.