More words of wisdom from Dave Salyer

More words of wisdom from Dave Salyer

This might be helpful for your journey to Master.
Dave Salyer
 
The main cause of flinching is that we pick a time for the bullet to leave while we are aiming. The problems with this are, what we see is recent history rather than real time and our mind is jumping around which clouds our sub-conscience, which is the most powerful support for shooting good scores.
 
What we see is recent history because it takes a finite amount of time for what we see to get to moving the trigger finger.  Plus, the image we see stays in our brain after conditions have changed. So, we must not pull the trigger based on this false image.  We must fool ourselves into pulling the trigger based on something other than what we think we see!
 
Plus, since we can think of only one thing at a time with the conscious mind, we must pick something that keeps us from flinching or slightly moving the gun.  The subconscious is much more powerful so this is what we need to free it up for us.  We must keep the conscious mind from jumping around hampering our stronger subconscious mind from doing its work.
 
We must have a one-track mind while moving the trigger. This is difficult. When it works for me I talk to myself to establish a one-track mind for a few seconds. In slow fire. I just say over and over, “Where's the dot?  Where's the dot?” until the shot breaks without effort. This is the only way I can keep from jerking the trigger or aiming at an image that has lagged in real time.
 
This is not easy.

Dave sent this to me yesterday.  I wasn't sure if it meant what I thought it meant, as it is so completely different from what I've done for my whole life.  I have *always* thought I'm supposed to aim at the "x", and if I did that correctly, that's where the hole would go.  Then came the articles I read on "area aiming".  Wow, talk about a mind changer.

I used to go home so frustrated, because the harder I tried, the more my shots went all around the X, but didn't hit it.  Add this to what I learned about shooting a blank piece of paper, and shooting sub-6'oclock hold, and I feel like when I return to USA, most of what I was and did will become ancient history.

I do get it now - and it all makes sense - but the idea of doing better at hitting something by not trying to hit it sounds so bizarre.  If I told most of the people I have shot with about this, they'd look at me as if I had "lost it".  

Thanks, Dave, for the email!

mikemyers wrote:idea of doing better at hitting something by not trying to hit it sounds so bizarre. 

Mike,

Thanks for sharing Dave's thoughts.   

This is the second time I've noticed you post a thought about doing better by not trying to hit something and I think you are missing the point of what Dave is saying. I believe his point is that you first learn how to pull the trigger smoothly and straight to the rear without upsetting the sights (your blank paper drill) and then relegate that process to your subconscious to complete while you are focusing on the X.   The mistake we all make at some point (me more than others perhaps) is to keep trigger operation and aim in conscious thought.  That leads to the following internal mind conversation;

Are sights perfect?
start trigger
hold on!! - sight picture is not good  slow trigger pull
sights are back to perfect - HURRY UP with that damn trigger!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7?! WTF

And what I have taken away from all the Masters' posts is;

Start trigger moving smoothly and straight to the rear (you have trained long enough that the subconscious can take it from there)
do sights need improvement? (subconscious still moving trigger nicely)
do sights need improvement? (subconscious still moving trigger nicely)
do sights need improvement? (subconscious still moving trigger nicely)
do sights need improvement? (subconscious still moving trigger nicely)
X!

Repetition puts skills into the subconscious - remember how kids learn to walk?  At first they can not move smoothly towards a destination, and later they don't have to occupy their mind with the individual process steps (yeah pun intended), "transfer all weight to left leg, lift right foot, move right leg forward, place right foot on floor, transfer all weight to right foot...........".

I hope that helps you.

Aprilian wrote:

mikemyers wrote:idea of doing better at hitting something by not trying to hit it sounds so bizarre. 

......and then relegate that process to your subconscious to complete while you are focusing on the X.   .......

I would have thought that up until I started reading Dave's articles.  As I see it, he is saying to "trust your wobble zone", and not worry about the X.  

What you wrote is what I thought recently - but from reading all of Dave's articles, over and over, I know what I think he means....     A big part of it is Area Aiming.  If you're shooting for the "area", you don't need to worry about the X, it will take care of itself.  

"learn how to pull the trigger smoothly and straight to the rear without upsetting the sights"...and shoot at the area, not the X.

Maybe he'll post here and clarify, or maybe I will copy all this in an email to him an find out.

More reading:

https://www.bullseyeforum.net/t8516-area-aiming-by-dave-salyer

I don't want to get into a long discussion technique between two newbies, but just to explain my previous comment...   I am focusing intently on the X and accepting that my dot wobbles in the "area" around it.  I accept that wobble and dial in a correction if it ventures outside the "area" I know I can accept.  If it wobbles in a manner I can;'t accept, then I abort that shot.

I was not saying "keep the dot on the X".   

Best of luck, I hope you identify which of the myriad descriptions helps you the most in moving forward in your learning.

It appears like Dave was addressing a flinching question or jerking the trigger and the thread has progressed to area vs point hold or aiming.

Flinching for me was a big problem with the 45.  I had a many/most shots in matches at 7-8 o'clock in the white.  Over time they migrated to the black.  The biggest cure of this for me was 2 and 3 shot drills with and without commands.  I also did not use a turning target.  You need repetition to work out how to keep the trigger moving while guiding the dot the middle and to develop the mindset on how you accomplish the two tasks at the same time.

If you want to use a point to aim at I feel like you need to have a small area of wobble in your hold.  Even a really good hold creates a little anxiety because you are going to try and make it more perfect than it needs to be.  You need to accept the level of hold you have and work with it.  Getting more aggressive on the trigger helps to get that shot off when you know the dot is in a place that you will get a 10 or X.  

The area aim comes in handy with sustained fire.  Knowing that when the dot is in the back you are going to get a 10 helps me to try not to force the dot to be perfectly in the center for every shot.

Accepting your hold is even deeper than the surface understanding I'm reading in the prior posts.  You cannot create an optimum environment for success if you are intent on correcting anything about your hold consciously.  Any time you consciously correct your hold, you have upset the balance and this will consistently cause shots to be all around your intended hit.  This is because of the history view and because each correction includes a "wait" signal until the correction is complete.  Since you correct to where you want the hit and the action occurs after the perceived correction, which is itself already history, the shot lands somewhere else.

Now, something even deeper to think about:

Many believe that the subconscious must be trained by consciously forming a routine and then making the subconscious replay it as supplied by the conscious.  The subconscious is actually much more capable of performing the process itself if we can keep our conscious self from telling it how to do its task.  We can provide input through training, but if we really want to achieve, we must learn how to let our subconscious take the reins, after letting it know what we desire.

Consider the following:

-Tell your subconscious what you want through visualization
-Start the trigger with no intention of stopping
-Become an observer
-Hover over your area of aim without making corrections
-Return to your area of aim after recoil
-Review and call the shot before looking
-Verify your call

The problem with correcting our hold, or the sight picture, as I have found, is that we almoat always try and do it with our wrist.  

Moving your wrist  is bad, stalling on the trigger is bad. Over holding is bad.  Doing two or more at once, is a disaster.

Sitting here on the opposite side of the planet from my shooting range and all of you, what Dave wrote, and what I'm reading up above in no way sounds "intuitive"...  BUT... from my perspective, it all makes sense.   ....I also think that while it's easy to "read" here, it's not going to be easy to "do".  All I can say is once I return home, I will try to follow this and the other advice from the forum.

I wanted to make sure that what I posted from Dave Salyer is what he meant me to post.  I also wanted to make sure I understand him correctly:

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To Dave:  
From what you’ve written, in my mind, I think this is what you have taught me:
 

• Nobody can hold a gun perfectly steady (some are better than others).
  

• When one “sees” a perfect sight image, by the time the bullet is on the way, the gun will have moved, so that image you were shooting with was already “history”. 
  

• If you know your “wobble zone”, (the area that your red dot might be moving around within, or what you’ve been seeing in your targets), you should keep the gun aimed within that zone, and fire smoothly without disrupting the gun.  The hole will always be within that “zone”.
  

• Accept your “wobble zone”.  Don’t try to shoot “better”.  If you try to fire at a particular spot, rather than the zone, not only will you miss the spot, it will be a poor shot.
  

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From Dave:

"You have it all exactly correct. One other point is that the black is a distraction that causes us to make trigger errors. Prove this to yourself when you get back by shooting for group at the back side of a repair center. It will be smaller than the group on the face of a target."

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