Kinda hard to be so proud of that outie when at the slightest hint of danger it squeals, and then runs and hides like an elementary school girl...
pat
Kinda hard to be so proud of that outie when at the slightest hint of danger it squeals, and then runs and hides like an elementary school girl...
pat
I've found I've been turtleing more of late, and figured out that it was to see over my glasses. I wear glasses to see at distance, and as I press out I lower my head to see over my glasses to see a crisper front sight. My eyepro is also "prescription strength", so same issue. Not sure what the best solution here is. Bifocals?
Go with progressive lenses so there are no lines. I got my first set last year after 60 years of wearing glasses and am kicking myself for waiting so long. I actually have a crisp sight picture after years of fuzziness. Plus, lowering your head to see your sights means you're effectively shooting without eye protection.Originally Posted by 43Under
What Revchuck said.
Also...
If you're going to bring the head forward, and you need multifocal lenses, tell the optometrist that you want your glasses with the reading prescription (essentially, what you want for decent front sight focus) at the TOP of the lens, not the bottom as usual.
This gives you normal walking around vision when you're walking around with your head up (don't bump into things....identify the threat...) and when a threat is perceived and the head comes forward and down as we've known it will since Dr. Walter Cannon quantified fight or flight response in the human at Harvard Medical School more than a century ago, voila! we have a clear front sight.
I always perceived the "tactical turtle" terminology as pejorative. Back around 1984, when Mike Plaxco was the guy to beat instead of Rob Leatham and Robert Vogel, I noticed that he brought his head very aggressively forward and down when he shot. When I asked him why he explained that when shooting reaction targets (like, oh, bowling pins or falling plates or the ultimate reaction target, a lethal opponent) we all have a subconscious tendency for that target to suck our eye focus downrange to see whether it was falling down or not. That caused us to lift the head, subconciously, to look at the target.
And that caused the shot to go high, over the intended point of aim.
Cecil Burch, and many more advanced martial artists on this forum, will tell you that where the head goes the body follows. Lift the head, and the extended arms aiming the pistol will almost imperceptibly lift with it. But with the head forward and down, the shooter would have to consciously unlock his neck muscles to look over the gun. Voila again: the instant cure for high shots on reaction targets.
I started teaching this as "Plaxco technique." Today, since J. Michael Plaxco is now retired from the competition shooting world, I call it "Vulture technique." This is no slur on Mike, who was and is one of the finest sportsmen and gentlemen in both the training and competition worlds: since his retirement, only P-F type folks recognize the name. "Vulture" conjures to everyone who's ever read a Peanuts comic strip the image of Snoopy sitting atop his doghouse pretending to be a vulture with his head forward and down, and they can relate to the image a whole lot better.
As to the theory that it "MIGHT" limit peripheral view, if it helps you to quickly neutralize the definitely identified target, it has bought you time to THEN lift your head (if necessary) to check for other (by definition, less imperative at the instant moment) targets.
Once the "thing that needs to be shot right now" has been identified, I've found that the head forward and down is an enormous help in achieving that goal expeditiously. Call the technique what you want, but I see it as more of a feature than a bug.
Let me close by respectfully underscoring Revchuck's point about safety. Some years ago I was consulted on a legal case involving a woman who lost her dominant eye at a bowling pin match. Video of her shooting when it happened showed that she had tilted her glasses down to the tip of her nose to look over them to aim. The not-yet-spent bullet that bounced back excavated her eye socket and totally destroyed her eye.
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