How to NOT Blink

[Paul Blackburn]

Any tips on how to overcome blinking? Keeping your eyes open seems paramount to calling your shot.

[RJ]

Blink as in prior to the shot going off?

Hmm. I am pretty new to shooting, so take this with a grain of salt.

When I started shooting regularly for the first time in 2014, I found it easier to manage the concept of a loud explosion going off in front of my face by getting higher NRR ear pro. And then adding ear plugs. So I'd say that would be a start; make sure you have effective, well sealing ear protection. That should help from both the audible effect of the round detonating and physical pressure wave of the muzzle blast.

Also I would add that a combination of fairly regular Dry Practice, mostly a drill called the "Wall Drill" (clear gun, find a safe direction against a wall or light colored surface, press trigger focusing on eliminating front sight movement) as well as Live Fire. My favorite these days is "The Test", 10 rounds in 10 seconds at 10 yards on an NRA B-8 repair center, scored. If you can put 10 in the black you are doing well (I'm not quite there, my average in 2018 was an 84.)

Hope this helps.

[gomerpyle]

Go Enos :)

Ask yourself not where is my sight at the moment the shot goes off. Rather, ask yourself what do I see?

You may notice the orange flash of the discharge. Or the case ejecting. In time, you will notice the path your front sight tracks.... lately, mine is tracking to 1:00 and back, and sometimes even a reverse C and down!

I'm not trying to sound mystical or opaque. But there really is something zen to shooting. Just tap into that. Focus your intent not on what the end goal is but on the process to achieve it.

[Packy]

Try shooting a 45acp, why? Because that cartridge is slower.
I know i am again conditioned to shooting once I "see" the 45acp bullet travelling down to the target.
Point is, this might help you not to blink IF you are Looking for the bullet travelling.

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[taadski]

https://forums.brianenos.com/topic/82124-kyles-flinch-breaker-101/

[gomerpyle]

Try shooting a 45acp, why? Because that cartridge is slower.
I know i am again conditioned to shooting once I "see" the 45acp bullet travelling down to the target.
Point is, this might help you not to blink IF you are Looking for the bullet travelling.

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If yoiu never seen a 45 flying down range, then you are in for a treat. So cool!

In fact, looking for the 45 may help your eyes register that your sights are rising to 12:00 or 1:00 :)

[Clobbersaurus]

Please don’t over think this.

You need to get rounds down range will help to eliminate flinch mechanism. If you are only an occasional shooter, you may find it difficult to eliminate quickly. Innoculation to the noise and recoil, IMO, can only come through putting rounds out.

Double plugging ear pro (plugs and muffs) may help, as will good eye pro.
Berm drills, double drills, and willing yourself to see your sights in recoil may help.

But really, getting rounds through the gun will be the best way to eliminate this problem.

[MGW]

Bill drills into the berm. Don’t aim at anything just track the front sight. Repeat as necessary.

[Clusterfrack]

Great advice so far! It is very important to learn not to blink when the gun fires. Simply put, you can’t advance until you can keep your eyes open. So, good job on realizing this.

Firing a gun is not an event; it is a process. You need to observe the process: locate the target, align the sights, press the trigger, and see the front sight lift. Bonus for seeing fire and the blur of the ejected case. It takes practice, but you will get there.

[txdpd]

At a certain base genetic level, you can't stop yourself from blinking. Blinking, or rather not blinking or having certain reactions to danger is one of those things that separate the elites in sports from us mere mortals.

You probably can't learn to not blink. You get comfortable with what you're doing an not have an exaggerated response to the explosion that's happening in front of your face, but I don't think there's anything you can reasonably do to override that self protection mechanism. Closing your eyes in anticipation before the shot is fired will affect shot calling, blinking in response to the noise/pressure from pulling the trigger won't.

It's not that big of a deal. Until the time it takes you to blink and your splits get very close, and/or your environment is changing rapidly enough that you're brain can't accurately fill in the blanks, the blinking won't cause problems. There's not a lot of random movements in shooting sports, it'd just be a matter of how fast are your splits and how fast do you blink. If you're getting punched in the face and you're opponent is moving around, not being able to keep your eyes open for that fraction of a second to track your opponent is a really big deal.

Get someone with a high speed camera to film you while you shoot and see what's going on.

[taadski]

At a certain base genetic level, you can't stop yourself from blinking. Blinking, or rather not blinking or having certain reactions to danger is one of those things that separate the elites in sports from us mere mortals.

You probably can't learn to not blink. You get comfortable with what you're doing an not have an exaggerated response to the explosion that's happening in front of your face, but I don't think there's anything you can reasonably do to override that self protection mechanism. Closing your eyes in anticipation before the shot is fired will affect shot calling, blinking in response to the noise/pressure from pulling the trigger won't.

It's not that big of a deal. Until the time it takes you to blink and your splits get very close, and/or your environment is changing rapidly enough that you're brain can't accurately fill in the blanks, the blinking won't cause problems. There's not a lot of random movements in shooting sports, it'd just be a matter of how fast are your splits and how fast do you blink. If you're getting punched in the face and you're opponent is moving around, not being able to keep your eyes open for that fraction of a second to track your opponent is a really big deal.

Get someone with a high speed camera to film you while you shoot and see what's going on.



With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree with your post more.

Not only can you train yourself not to blink, but doing so is arguably one of the most important elements/stepping stones to performing at higher levels. It’s not a superpower. It takes work.

It’s one of those ‘don’t know what you don’t know’ things and it’s truly like taking off a blindfold re your ability to see what the gun is doing at speed.

It IS “...that big of a deal.”

[taadski]

Double tap

[Paul Blackburn]

With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree with your post more.

Not only can you train yourself not to blink, but doing so is arguably one of the most important elements/stepping stones to performing at higher levels. It’s not a superpower. It takes work.

It’s one of those ‘don’t know what you don’t know’ things and it’s truly like taking off a blindfold re your ability to see what the gun is doing at speed.

It IS “...that big of a deal.”

I agree 100%!
And thank you all for the help! I was finally able to do it consistently!
Calling your shots is a skill and a there are techniques you can apply to seeing that front sight lift.

[txdpd]

With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree with your post more.

Not only can you train yourself not to blink, but doing so is arguably one of the most important elements/stepping stones to performing at higher levels. It’s not a superpower. It takes work.

It’s one of those ‘don’t know what you don’t know’ things and it’s truly like taking off a blindfold re your ability to see what the gun is doing at speed.

It IS “...that big of a deal.”

And what training method would you recommend? I get that the technology to validate some sort of suppression of blink reflex when shooting is cost prohibitive to non-existent. There's nothing that I've seen that comes close to passing scientific muster, that someone can be trained to suppress a blink reflex. There are plenty of snake oil salesman peddling some sort of "numbing" to repetitive stimuli programs, like getting hit repeatedly in the face, air puffs, water drops, water spray, standing behind a plexiglass screen and getting bombarded with baseballs, etc, and there's not a single shred of evidence that any of that has ever trained someone not to blink.

We don't all get to be astronauts, some people are better than the rest us, because they are just better built than the rest of us.

I'm not going to disagree that part of being an elite shooter is keeping your eyes open while shooting, but that's part of what makes them elite. They can do something that most of us can't do

[Clusterfrack]

Try:
Double plug/muffs
Eyes wide open
Shoot at the berm not at a target
Your goal: see the muzzle flash and the case as it’s ejected. Convince yourself that this is the most awesome thing to see.

You can also try .22.

You can learn do this pretty easily. I’ve taken a girl who could barely keep her eyes open before pulling the trigger to a both eyes open shot caller in a few sessions.

[taadski]

In my experience, it comes down to conditioning. On the order of 10s of thousands of iterations. There are hundreds of M/GM level shooters who will all attest to the same phenomenon. The scientific muster is listening to the consistent testimony from the folks that have gone through the process. The upper order of “the game” is truly about vision (not to take anything away from any of the other requisite skills). And you're not exclusively born with it.

I feel so strongly about it because I’ve been down the road personally. That is to say I had a horrible blinking reflex, to the point where I’d have trouble not blinking even during dry fire. Yet through intensive and dedicated effort, was able to beat it.

Take a look at the link I posted above the other day. The Enos one. Flexmoney is the moniker for Kyle Farris, a national level GM and moderator over there. Read his post. There’s some gold to be found there that’ll put you on the path if you so choose. Many of the points you’ll note have already been discussed here in this thread also.


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[Paul Blackburn]

And what training method would you recommend? I get that the technology to validate some sort of suppression of blink reflex when shooting is cost prohibitive to non-existent. There's nothing that I've seen that comes close to passing scientific muster, that someone can be trained to suppress a blink reflex. There are plenty of snake oil salesman peddling some sort of "numbing" to repetitive stimuli programs, like getting hit repeatedly in the face, air puffs, water drops, water spray, standing behind a plexiglass screen and getting bombarded with baseballs, etc, and there's not a single shred of evidence that any of that has ever trained someone not to blink.

We don't all get to be astronauts, some people are better than the rest us, because they are just better built than the rest of us.

I'm not going to disagree that part of being an elite shooter is keeping your eyes open while shooting, but that's part of what makes them elite. They can do something that most of us can't do

I read and applied what's been suggested in this thread. Foam ear plugs plus Sordins, my intent was to see the sight lift instead of looking for my hit on target. For me this took a lot of concentration.

[johnm]

Try:
Double plug/muffs
Eyes wide open
Shoot at the berm not at a target
Your goal: see the muzzle flash and the case as it’s ejected. Convince yourself that this is the most awesome thing to see.

You can also try .22.

You can learn do this pretty easily. I’ve taken a girl who could barely keep her eyes open before pulling the trigger to a both eyes open shot caller in a few sessions.

+1

Also, check out Stoeger’s ‘practical accuracy’ and ‘doubles’ drills. Ie just shooting a single shot at a time only goes so far.

[runcible]

Replying broadly:

The blink reflex is understandable, desirable in its operation, and the default response for much of the stimuli associated with the shooting experience.

Almost all of the work I’ve done with shooters related to it addresses the triggering stimuli as opposed to the reflex itself; I’m ok with this. BLUF: wear doubled-up earpro with a sound-amp component, wear eyepro, and have a sufficiently resistive shooting grip + conducive shooting stance.

The triggers as I understand them to be include: objects in close proximity directly approaching the eyes at speed, noise past a certain threshold, direct contact with the eyes (to include blastwaves propagating through the body), and bright lights and/or flashes. With an expanded frame of reference, conditioned negative association may apply as well.

A handgun significantly closing the distance between full extension and the shooter’s eye(s) under recoil can trigger the blink (+/- a flinch), even if the shooter isn’t consciously aware of it. Coincident to that may be a perceived loudening of the weapon’s report, as the muzzleline is no longer oriented maximally away from the shooter. A shooting grip that reduces or eliminates majority articulation of the wrists and elbows by recoil addresses this portion of the concern.

Combining in-ear plugs with over-ear muffs can reduce both the objective noise hazard as well as the subjective level of distraction; using sound amplifying muffs reduces the deficit in audible acuity that otherwise follows with this.

The wear of eye protection, even for those not requiring and/or not using prescription lenses, can drastically reduce the degree to which both the muzzle report causes the eyes to reverberate and the intensity with which the hot exhaust gasses may be felt upon the surfaces of the eyes.

Managing bright lights and flashes doesn’t come up to much outside of duty settings, and mostly military settings at that. That said, if you’ve got someone with hereditary and/or induced light sensitive (e.g. multiple concussions in medical history), it may come up during outdoor shooting with bright sunlight and ammunition that is high-flash; this, not so much from an individual factor but from the accumulation of many. Tinted or color-blocking lenses are the appropriate prescription; polarized lenses may assist with the blink issue, but may add compatibility issues with some optics and electronic displays.

If a significant history of negative associations exists between shooting, the associated visceral elements for the same, and the shooter demonstrates blinking to detriment up to blinking pre-shot-break; then stack as many insulators and measures as described above onto the shooter, and stack meaningful repetitions of the shooting experience onto them through PROCTORED and GUIDED practice; identify their threshold for failure and/or exhaustion and conclude that training block prior to them crossing it.

[fixer]

My wife has on and off again flinching issues. This was really triggered by a gen 3 G19 with B-T-F phenomenon...

Here are somethings that I've seen work well

Rounds into the dirt
Shooting larger caliber, then smaller caliber
ball and dummy drills
Shooting to a par time on any simple drill works well too. It takes focus off the anticipation and applies it to remembering the drill and draw mechanics.

In all of these suggestions, it is important for regular practice. I've seen the flinch issue come back because there was a long gap in between range sessions.

[TiroFijo]

It is easy to supress the blink reflex with "normal" calibers such as 38 spl, 9 mm, 40 and 45. Even more if the barrel is not too short or the blast/flash of the load too marked.

With proper grip control and stance, recoil isn't an issue. And I never had to get someone to wear special (double) ear protection, the blast isn't large enough. Better to wear eye pro as well, as you should do anyway in all cases.

IMO, the psychological part is HUGE... relax, do it all in your mind before, keep calm through the shooting process, and blinking and flinching go away.

It is GREAT to see that front sight tracking.


Now, magnum calibers and heavy loads are a very different animal. You have to really fight the blink and flinch reflexes.

[Packy]

If yoiu never seen a 45 flying down range, then you are in for a treat. So cool!

In fact, looking for the 45 may help your eyes register that your sights are rising to 12:00 or 1:00 :)Yes sir. As i said. I want to SEE that 45acp slug travelling to the target and it doesnt mean a Bulls eye but JUST to know i am conditioned. Afer that seeing the slug travelling, I focus then with the front sight.

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