A question about mutant eye focus.

[theblacknight]

I can control the focus of my eyes, like a camera.I'm not sure how common this is but whatever. It been a while that I've realized, but never to thought to put it to use in shooting till a couple days ago practicing garment clear and press outs at 7 yards down the hallway at home.

What I'm basically doing is on the buzz, instead of coming up and catching front sight, beginning to focus on it as it zips out to extension, I near focus so the sec the front sight is LOS, it's already pretty much technicolor and I'm now waiting on the pressout and not catching crisp sights.It seems faster. This seemed to speed me up when I upped the par times, but this is with dry fire breaks on a 3x5 taped to my bathroom mirror.

Anyone else have this quirk? Any thoughts?

[TCinVA]

Perhaps I'm slow today since I haven't had any protein yet...but I don't have the vaguest idea what you just said.

[theblacknight]

Your eyes focus on what you are looking at automatically right? Soo go focus on 3X5 at 7 yards. Now, instead of focusing on the target, focus on where your sights would be if your gun was up, but nothing is actually there(yet), your just controlling your eyes and focusing on what could or will be there.




Same as camera with manual focus. You can focus on what's in the viewfinder, but you can control where the focus really is.

[TGS]

Your eyes focus on what you are looking at automatically right? Soo go focus on 3X5 at 7 yards. Now, instead of focusing on the target, focus on where your sights would be if your gun was up, but nothing is actually there(yet), your just controlling your eyes and focusing on what could or will be there.




Same as camera with manual focus. You can focus on what's in the viewfinder, but you can control where the focus really is.

Unless your pressouts are so blazingly fast that you're eyes can't adjust focus fast enough going from 1 foot to 2.5-3 feet, I don't see how doing that is helping anything.

[guymontag]

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=130230&pid=1467636&st=0&#entry1467636

I've had this link bookmarked on my iPhone, I think post number ten and post number thirteen address your concern. I'm able to 'pre-focus', however it's a new concept to me as well. There may be more on the Enos site.

[joshs]

This wouldn't work for me because of the way I align the gun with the target.

1. Pick exact spot on target where I want the bullet to go.
2. Align blurry front sight with clear target spot.
3. If needed, bring focus back to front sight at the end of press-out/transition.

[theblacknight]

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=130230&pid=1467636&st=0&#entry1467636

I've had this link bookmarked on my iPhone, I think post number ten and post number thirteen address your concern. I'm able to 'pre-focus', however it's a new concept to me as well. There may be more on the Enos site.

Weird, that guy mentions left eye being stronger then right. I'm right handed, left eye dom, shoot pistol with left eye, but rifle with right/both.

[DonovanM]

I do it automatically, as do most competition shooters. I don't really think it's a quirk, rather that it's a natural byproduct of training with the intention of efficient sight alignment coupled with an intuitive familiarity of where your sight will be.

Either way, you're on the right track :)

[Mr_White]

I recently discovered/refined the same thing.

Up until then, I unconsciously/automatically focused my eyes on the front sight. But that doesn't happen for me until the front sight is actually present for me to begin to focus my eyes on.

Now, I deliberately and at will, shift my visual focus to where the front sight is going to be, before it is actually there.

This seems faster, at least as far as truly acquiring hard, sharp visual focus on the front sight. With the old way, I think I often fired the first shot with a sharper focus on the target spot, then began to get hard focus on the front sight by the time of the second shot (and hits can be made that way too in many circumstances.)

It's not that this makes me faster at shooting. I believe it makes me faster at getting the clearest information from the sights.

I have been having a great time with this. I practice it all the time. In daily life since then, I practice moving my eyes to the center of an object and immediately shifting my visual focus to where a front sight would be if I were holding a pistol and aiming it.

I read a tip somewhere that made the difference for me to be able to do this at will and more efficiently. It was something like:

Look at a (relatively) distant object, get hard sharp focus on it.

Aim at the distant object, using your thumbnail or other small object in place of the front sight, and get a hard sharp focus on the thumbnail or whatever you are using instead of a front sight.

Notice (this part is key) what your eyes/eye muscles feel like when you make this visual focus shift, and hold your eyes with that feeling and take your thumbnail or other front sight substitute away, maintaining the closer visual focus, but continuing to look at the distant object, which should be fuzzy and out of focus.

Doing that made me realize the feeling of shifting my visual focus and start cultivating the ability to do it quickly and on-demand, without an actual physical object (the front sight) to focus on.

Learning to do this was also aided by my recent switch to plain black sights. I think that the high-visibility front sight I was using made it easier for me to cheat this initial visual focus shift, since I could still see the fuzzy high-visibility front sight and pay mental attention to it, and thus still fire accurate shots (for many circumstances) without getting true hard sharp visual focus on the front sight. The black sights don't let me cheat. Either I will get hard sharp focus on them, or I mostly won't see them at all.

[DonovanM]

I practice it all the time. In daily life since then, I practice moving my eyes to the center of an object and immediately shifting my visual focus to where a front sight would be if I were holding a pistol and aiming it.

Ooh. I've never tried it without my gun in my hands actually looking at the sight. Great tip, thanks... as if I needed something else to distract me in class :D


Learning to do this was also aided by my recent switch to plain black sights. I think that the high-visibility front sight I was using made it easier for me to cheat this initial visual focus shift, since I could still see the fuzzy high-visibility front sight and pay mental attention to it, and thus still fire accurate shots (for many circumstances) without getting true hard sharp visual focus on the front sight. The black sights don't let me cheat. Either I will get hard sharp focus on them, or I mostly won't see them at all.

Absolutely. I had the same exact experience. I swapped out my fiber optic front for a set of black Defoor sights and they won't let me cheat like that either.

[MDS]

Learning to do this was also aided by my recent switch to plain black sights. I think that the high-visibility front sight I was using made it easier for me to cheat this initial visual focus shift, since I could still see the fuzzy high-visibility front sight and pay mental attention to it, and thus still fire accurate shots (for many circumstances) without getting true hard sharp visual focus on the front sight. The black sights don't let me cheat. Either I will get hard sharp focus on them, or I mostly won't see them at all.


Absolutely. I had the same exact experience. I swapped out my fiber optic front for a set of black Defoor sights and they won't let me cheat like that either.

Don't know how I missed this thread until just now. Visual control of the front sight has always been a problem for me. A couple of weeks ago I got a set of black Sevigny Carry sights and am having a much better time with it. I think I'll keep the orange-dot sights for carry, since I definitely shoot that much faster and almost as accurately. But I'll keep using the plain sights for much of my practice - at least until I can consistently keep a strong front sight focus with the orange-dot sights.