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CCT125US
06-24-2011, 04:42 PM
What methods or drills have others had success with in helping themselves or others stop blinking at the moment of firing? I did not want to hijack cammandars thread on "the dreaded flinch" so here goes. We are certainly aware of how important visual input is when shooting, so what can be done to correct this in shooters who have the desire to improve but miss the feedback from the sights due to blinking. I believe we are born with the fear of falling and the fear of load noises, so it is only natural to blink, especially with a controlled explosion several inches from our face, but how do we work with a student to correct this? Now this may sound silly, but personally I don't recall actively learning not to blink. I have hammered enough nails and fired enough rounds that I feel my subconscious just said "I am tired of blinking when things go bang". Not sure when this was or what activity I was doing, so it's hard for me to teach this. I have seen new and seasoned shooters who don't blink, as well as seasoned shooters who contort the entire face upon recoil. I have had success with several shooters by first using a .22 pistol and watching their eyes from the side and seeing them realize for the first time that they are blinking and missing feed back. Ball and dummy works great for flinching as well as the wall drill for focus issues, but what about blinking? The tips mentioned on page 94 of the B. Enos book such as looking for muzzle flash and watching the FS lift are great to identify the problem but how have others overcome this?

JeffJ
06-24-2011, 05:17 PM
I will occasionally start doing this, shows up like the flinch does - sometimes at the same time - cure is the same for me, ball and dummy drills and the timing/sight tracking exercise where you fire into the berm and focus on tracking the sights

jslaker
06-24-2011, 07:54 PM
I found that working specifically on tracking the front sight helped me with this the most. Your eyes obviously have to be open to watch the FS arc, so actively concentrating on my tracking means I'm actively concentrating on keeping my eyes open. Over time it stopped requiring as much conscious effort. YMMV.

ToddG
06-24-2011, 09:51 PM
(a) get used to the gun going off without trying to aim. I tell students to count the pieces of brass as they come out of the gun.

(b) make "see the sight lift" your followthrough and understand that every time you don't see it lift in recoil, you've made a mistake no matter where your bullet lands.

johnvolk
06-24-2011, 10:01 PM
There are very few questions that have simple answers. This thread's question happens to be one.

Brian Enos got it right in his book "Beyond Fundamentals". All one must do to be successful with the handgun is: (1) to point the gun at the intended target. (2) Focus on the front sight (or whatever is effectively the front sight, e.g. a red laser dot) while ignoring its movement around the target's center of mass, that you can see but do not focus on. (3) While doing #2, one applies authoritative, PROGRESSIVE pressure to the trigger until one sees the front sight jump fro the recoil of the shot just fired. If this does not happen you flinched and closed your eyes from making the gun fire "now" as compared to "very soon' with progressive trigger pressure.

The foregoing is sometimes likened to learning to "pat the top of your head and rub your belly at the same time" using different hands. It is a coordination thing.

Forget the exaggerated and often fictional exploits of Old West Gunfighters. Charles Askins, Jr. (U S Border patrol and U S Army) admitted to over 27 individual firearms homicides. Most were likely with the handgun; and the true number is likely much higher. He won two USA national pistol championships, and numerous pistol competitions. In 1955 he wrote for the "Shooter's Bible" and declared that progressive trigger control was 99% of pistol shooting success. He was basically right.

In sports played with a ball the rule often is: "Keep your eye on the ball". In shooting the handgun: "Keep your eye on the front sight, while applying progressive pressure to the trigger, until the sight jumps from recoil. This progressive pressure does not have to be slow pressure; but you must never try to make the gun fire "now" as compared to 'real soon". A proficient shooter can easily fire four "real soon" hits within a one second time span at most gunfight distances.

If the distance in a gunfight is so close that no sight use is appropriate, you focus on a spot on your attacker while pressuring the trigger to make the gun fire "very soon', over and over until the threat collapses.

softspoken
06-25-2011, 07:14 PM
I've only been shooting for a few years and I'm fighting the same issue. I've been reading threads such as TCinVA's on sight management, and wondering how to ask the question about blinking - thanks to CCT125US for bringing it up.

I've done a lot of dryfire, and run ball-and-dummy drills with a friend, to the point that I believe I've eliminated my flinch, but I still fight the blink. In my experience, I think it's partly a reflexive response to the sound; with effort I can typically avoid blinking while watching someone hammer nails but I often feel my eyelids moving as if to blink. Same thing happens to a lesser degree when I dryfire, so there could certainly be a component of anticipation or flinching. When watching other shooters I can sometimes avoid blinking. In that case I'm certainly not expecting the trigger press to be "now" but rather "very soon"... also I typically stand on the shooter's left side to avoid the ejected brass, so I don't have a visual indication of the trigger pull.

To state it another way, my mostly uneducated belief is that my blink typically happens after the muzzle blast (reaction) instead of before/during (anticipation/flinching). As I get fatigued, I tend toward the anticipation/flinch blink. When I'm shooting, my eyes are open just long enough to observe my front sight begin to shift if I flinch or otherwise mess up my trigger pull, then I blink, and then I see the front sight settling back onto target.

I need more help than I can offer on this topic, but here are some things that been beneficial for me:

- focus on keeping the eyes open; wide eyes and/or raised eyebrows
- dryfire
- double hearing protection
- .22lr or other rimfire pistol