Todd Louis Green and the modern approach to using your sights

[TCinVA]

I have been arguing for the last couple of years that the "7 Fundamentals of Marksmanship" are only fundamental on the square range. Even then we call "grip" an fundamental and then make people shoot WHO, and SHO, negating the two hand grip we all revere and teach.

A two handed grip isn't the only good grip you can get on the gun.

The emphasis in class is getting the best grip you can get on the gun. Whether that's with both hands, strong hand only, or weak hand only. If you can get more, get more. If you can't, get what you can. We teach how to get the best one handed grip on the gun you can get and have folks work with that because frankly some of the concepts actually become clearer when someone is forced to work with them support hand only. It's really easy to autopilot in class when you are being instructed in a new approach to something you have already done a fair bit. But if I make someone shoot weak handed and we focus on getting the concepts right it often pays off significantly when we're back to strong hand or both hands on the gun.

We won't always have two hands to use in a fight and it's important that people understand they can succeed even if they've only got one hand available to use.

The importance of gripping the gun as best you can never goes away, but "as best you can" may change based on the situation. The principle holds true, the practice can adapt to circumstances.

[UNM1136]

A two handed grip isn't the only good grip you can get on the gun.

The emphasis in class is getting the best grip you can get on the gun. Whether that's with both hands, strong hand only, or weak hand only. If you can get more, get more. If you can't, get what you can. We teach how to get the best one handed grip on the gun you can get and have folks work with that because frankly some of the concepts actually become clearer when someone is forced to work with them support hand only. It's really easy to autopilot in class when you are being instructed in a new approach to something you have already done a fair bit. But if I make someone shoot weak handed and we focus on getting the concepts right it often pays off significantly when we're back to strong hand or both hands on the gun.

We won't always have two hands to use in a fight and it's important that people understand they can succeed even if they've only got one hand available to use.

The importance of gripping the gun as best you can never goes away, but "as best you can" may change based on the situation. The principle holds true, the practice can adapt to circumstances.

More gold. Keep typing, dude. TLG didn't think much of me in person, but liked my online presence...

😄🤣🤪

pat

[Mr_White]

I agree with this, and have some further thoughts. Without a repeatable grip and index, a shooter will be severely limited, and have difficulty progressing beyond the most basic level. Index is a fundamental requirement for shooting handguns. It can be trained and practiced without shooting a single round. It's remarkable how precise an index can be with eyes closed.

And, under 'real world' conditions (including practical shooting competitions) fusion of visual and kinesthetic feedback is required. This is where things get more complicated and it's worth discussing how best to train shooters how to do this.

As we've discussed in this thread, obsession about front sight focus and perfect alignment can be an obstacle to learning. On the other hand, high level shooting requires a lot from our vision. We need to feel and see how well the gun is indexed (aligned and aimed), and the dynamics of that index over time and space (presentation, transition, wobble, movement, etc.).

I have mixed feelings about whether training with a dot first or irons is preferable for developing that fusion of index and vision. A dot makes it easy "to see what you need to see", but I still think irons offer some advantages--especially in awkward positions. Training with both may be the best approach.

I quoted Clusterfrack’s post above because I think it’s pretty right on, and I bolded an important part.

Kinesthetic alignment (index from grip/stance/platform) supports coarse visual alignment (seeing the back of gun on target or going to the target, or similar) and coarse visual alignment supports fine visual alignment (sights/dot/etc.) The presentation is like a telescoping rod from kinesthetic to coarse visual to fine visual.

If a person doesn’t have much of an index, it can be slow/difficult/messy to get to fine visual alignment on the occasions that level of aiming is needed.

It’s definitely an important thing for people to learn (early on if possible) that aiming can be cheated far below equal height/equal light with a sharp and clear front sight. Less known but also a big thing is to figure out how far a trigger press can be cheated and still hit different targets.

If a person has a great index, they can often shoot with fine visual alignment at a pretty high speed if they practice to do so.

It’s definitely true that visual verification is what allows us to still hit well when index is all messed up (movement, nonstandard positions, orientations, circumstances, etc. – lots of persistent aspects of real world conditions.)

Ultimately, to develop to a very high degree, people need to recognize that it is important to transcend the conventional “more accurate = slower” and “faster = less accurate” paradigm of thought. There is a practical relationship there, but it often colors thinking in a developmentally limiting way.

I also agree with TC that “see what you need to see” is an empty cup. It’s true, but empty, and needs to be filled in with the perspective of a developed, experienced shooter. That person has actual concrete answers in “see what you need to see” and it is not an empty cup, but useful instead. This is something highly developed by competitive shooting, and anything else where you shoot lots of different stuff under differing circumstances and physical regimes and thus slowly gives you the answers to what you need to see. I think it’s an empty cup to a beginner.

A lot of the things we discuss here are most applicable to enthusiasts, and less so to everyone who doesn’t care, or are things better trained and applied in different ways to non-enthusiasts.

I don't think I'd agree with that for real world applications, where movement and non-standard positioning is more likely than squared up with a known static target as you remain static.

As an example:



I don't see how you do that via index. A good index sets you up for success, but a moving target as you're moving can't be done by what's roughly rote memorization equivalent of muscle memory (and, yes, I get that this terminology sucks but it shows the idea I'm going for here) that can be very effective at more static shooting events.

That's exactly what I was thinking about when I wrote my previous post about fusion between vision and index. This level of shooting isn't possible without both a very well-developed index and visual skills. (I wish @Mr_White would drop in to discuss).

I could offer a couple of comments about the mode of shooting on the move in that video. I definitely consider that a fusion of index and vision. That is correct. Amazingly however, I did discover that I had developed an index at those tasks – break laterally into a gentle run while drawing and shooting basically perpendicular to the direction of travel. I didn’t know that I had, but one night while running the training group, we did low light pin races. (Two shooters break toward cover in opposite directions while drawing and shooting their target downrange, whoever hits their target first wins the race.) I gave us bowling pins that had been spray painted black, we had the lights down, and the bullet trap is mottled black and gray in color. I could barely see the pin at all – just the few white pock marks where it had been hit already – and was using Ameriglo Defoor sights at the time. I could barely see the target, and could not see the sights AT ALL. Yet to my shock and amazement, I hit the pin in one shot on the move several races in a row, under the conditions described. It was almost all index. I’ve been convinced since then that if you do something enough with a gun, even if it’s weird, you’ll eventually get an index doing that thing.

When I teach other people to perform that task, we lean enormously on conscious use of fine visual alignment (sights or dot) and very specifically to not use less than that. I make the assumption that people do not have an index at that task during the introduction. We jack up the investment on the trigger too. I’m no longer surprised, but am always pleased, at what a high degree of success people in class have in learning to do that. And they are enthusiasts. And they need to take it further. But give me a person who is a good trigger puller, like, can shoot a golf ball sized group at 10 yards, and doesn’t have a problem with the running, and I can tell you right now that that is who will do very well at it.

[Lon]

. This is the point in class where I point at the visual aid and I say that this void in the sight is called a "window". What do we do with windows? We look through them. So ultimately all I care about is that I can look through the rear window and see what I'm trying to hit. So I don't care much about the rear sight.

Excellent analogy. I’m stealing it.

[Tamara]

Can someone (maybe @RJ ) make me a pdf of this, B8 sized, with the blak as the "you held the gun still" and the "you moved the gun" as the rest?

I have struggled long and hard to get to the point where I realized that the Very Big Deal was holding the gun still long enough to make the thing happen.

The thing I want to happen is a hole over there.

The tool I have to make it happen is this pistol.

What I gotta do is keep it aligned long enough for the bullet to get launched. Once it’s launched, it’s not my problem.

[SouthNarc]

I can't remember who is it...maybe John McPhee...that does the demo where he takes a screwdriver shaft and bangs the trigger while the student just holds the gun properly?

:::edited to add::: found it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USbP4dPNoKA

[Clusterfrack]

I quoted Clusterfrack’s post above because I think it’s pretty right on, and I bolded an important part.

Kinesthetic alignment (index from grip/stance/platform) supports coarse visual alignment (seeing the back of gun on target or going to the target, or similar) and coarse visual alignment supports fine visual alignment (sights/dot/etc.) The presentation is like a telescoping rod from kinesthetic to coarse visual to fine visual.

If a person doesn’t have much of an index, it can be slow/difficult/messy to get to fine visual alignment on the occasions that level of aiming is needed.

It’s definitely an important thing for people to learn (early on if possible) that aiming can be cheated far below equal height/equal light with a sharp and clear front sight. Less known but also a big thing is to figure out how far a trigger press can be cheated and still hit different targets.

If a person has a great index, they can often shoot with fine visual alignment at a pretty high speed if they practice to do so.

It’s definitely true that visual verification is what allows us to still hit well when index is all messed up (movement, nonstandard positions, orientations, circumstances, etc. – lots of persistent aspects of real world conditions.)

Ultimately, to develop to a very high degree, people need to recognize that it is important to transcend the conventional “more accurate = slower” and “faster = less accurate” paradigm of thought. There is a practical relationship there, but it often colors thinking in a developmentally limiting way.

I also agree with TC that “see what you need to see” is an empty cup. It’s true, but empty, and needs to be filled in with the perspective of a developed, experienced shooter. That person has actual concrete answers in “see what you need to see” and it is not an empty cup, but useful instead. This is something highly developed by competitive shooting, and anything else where you shoot lots of different stuff under differing circumstances and physical regimes and thus slowly gives you the answers to what you need to see. I think it’s an empty cup to a beginner.

A lot of the things we discuss here are most applicable to enthusiasts, and less so to everyone who doesn’t care, or are things better trained and applied in different ways to non-enthusiasts.

I could offer a couple of comments about the mode of shooting on the move in that video. I definitely consider that a fusion of index and vision. That is correct. Amazingly however, I did discover that I had developed an index at those tasks – break laterally into a gentle run while drawing and shooting basically perpendicular to the direction of travel. I didn’t know that I had, but one night while running the training group, we did low light pin races. (Two shooters break toward cover in opposite directions while drawing and shooting their target downrange, whoever hits their target first wins the race.) I gave us bowling pins that had been spray painted black, we had the lights down, and the bullet trap is mottled black and gray in color. I could barely see the pin at all – just the few white pock marks where it had been hit already – and was using Ameriglo Defoor sights at the time. I could barely see the target, and could not see the sights AT ALL. Yet to my shock and amazement, I hit the pin in one shot on the move several races in a row, under the conditions described. It was almost all index. I’ve been convinced since then that if you do something enough with a gun, even if it’s weird, you’ll eventually get an index doing that thing.

When I teach other people to perform that task, we lean enormously on conscious use of fine visual alignment (sights or dot) and very specifically to not use less than that. I make the assumption that people do not have an index at that task during the introduction. We jack up the investment on the trigger too. I’m no longer surprised, but am always pleased, at what a high degree of success people in class have in learning to do that. And they are enthusiasts. And they need to take it further. But give me a person who is a good trigger puller, like, can shoot a golf ball sized group at 10 yards, and doesn’t have a problem with the running, and I can tell you right now that that is who will do very well at it.

This thread is on track to become a classic.

Gabe, I remember some of the low light dynamic shooting we did years ago, and was similarly blown away by how little visual information was necessary to make good hits.

I agree that by itself, "see what you need to see" is sort of BS. I know it’s blasphemy to question an Enos zen koan, but I find it fairly unhelpful unless combined with detailed instructions about what you need to see for a given target and context.

[BehindBlueI's]

I can't remember who is it...maybe John McPhee...that does the demo where he takes a screwdriver shaft and bangs the trigger while the student just holds the gun properly?

:::edited to add::: found it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USbP4dPNoKA

He definitely does, I took his class and participated in that demonstration. Though I thought he used a small breaker bar then, perhaps tool selection changed or my memory is faulty. Either way, he was not gentle.

[Mr_White]

I agree that by itself, "see what you need to see" is sort of BS. I know it’s blasphemy to question an Enos zen koan, and I find it fairly unhelpful unless combined with detailed instructions about what you need to see for a given target and context.

A Zen Koan of shooting is exactly what 'see what you need to see' is! Well said.

And since you put it that way, it occurs to me to ask: how much teaching uses the format of riddles, whose answer is generally rooted in many years of study, to teach something that matters and the student must be able to reproduce as close to as on-demand as possible? (Not meant as an argumentative statement toward you at all - I know we are in agreement here.)

I don't know the answer, but my guess would be zero.

[JCN]

Ultimately, to develop to a very high degree, people need to recognize that it is important to transcend the conventional “more accurate = slower” and “faster = less accurate” paradigm of thought. There is a practical relationship there, but it often colors thinking in a developmentally limiting way.


I could barely see the pin at all – just the few white pock marks where it had been hit already – and was using Ameriglo Defoor sights at the time. I could barely see the target, and could not see the sights AT ALL. Yet to my shock and amazement, I hit the pin in one shot on the move several races in a row, under the conditions described. It was almost all index. I’ve been convinced since then that if you do something enough with a gun, even if it’s weird, you’ll eventually get an index doing that thing.

Thanks for weighing in.

Jives perfectly with what I have been saying.

You just saved me from making a video tonight doing blindfolded runs with a laser gun to demonstrate.