My barber sent me the link to this article: "Zen and the Art of Hitting Stuff" by Bruce Gray.
Without any concession to Eastern philosophy or mystical practices, I have to say that I believe the author has combined two powerful approaches to handgun training. First of all, I have discussed dry firing as of great importance in training. Adding visualization to this method will, I believe increase its effectiveness by an order of magnitude.
I have addressed mental imaging or visualization in self defense training previously (for example, see here and here). Here's how Bruce Gray describes the use of visualization in dry-fire training:
Unload your gun, and check it three more times. Good! You’ll do the rest with eyes closed.
You note that you can easily drop the hammer without disturbing a dime when dry firing, but not when you know a bullet is present. I think you need to develop an unshakable faith in that skill, and an equally hard faith in the belief that if you focus on and align the sights and press through as you practice, you absolutely will hit the target.
You also need to have equal faith in your ability to call each shot, and know where it went based on what the sights were doing as they lifted off the target during recoil.
Visualize a sight picture on your chosen target in your mind while simultaneously pressing through on the trigger. Feel the trigger, how it might creep and wiggle under finger pressure. Try to get as close to dropping the hammer as you can, and hold it as you watch those imagined sights. You should ignore the target if your mind wants to stick one down there for you to look at instead.
Watch the sights in your mind’s eye and you’ll see them dip, jerk and do all sorts of things. Feel the recoil and blink, perhaps. That’s great! Let your visualized shooting session seem as real as possible without too much conscious direction. Just allow yourself to come back to the sights, focus on the front blade, align them and press.
Be focused on the process of operating the trigger, and learn to press through without tension, convulsive grasping of the hand, jerking or other funny stuff in response to the appearance of aligned sights in your mind. It’s a thing, a device, a machine you own and control. It doesn’t control you.
Do this for two weeks, each night for at least ten or 15 minutes, or until you can’t maintain good form and sight visualizations without your mind wandering too much, and stop when you can’t feel exactly what the trigger’s doing as it releases the hammer. It’s fine to alternate visualization drills with a sighted “shots” against the wall, but the bulk of your dry firing practice should be associated and reinforced with guided imagery.
I strongly suggest you click on the link to read how to transition these skills from dry fire to actual shooting at the range.
Without any concession to Eastern philosophy or mystical practices, I have to say that I believe the author has combined two powerful approaches to handgun training. First of all, I have discussed dry firing as of great importance in training. Adding visualization to this method will, I believe increase its effectiveness by an order of magnitude.
I have addressed mental imaging or visualization in self defense training previously (for example, see here and here). Here's how Bruce Gray describes the use of visualization in dry-fire training:
Unload your gun, and check it three more times. Good! You’ll do the rest with eyes closed.
You note that you can easily drop the hammer without disturbing a dime when dry firing, but not when you know a bullet is present. I think you need to develop an unshakable faith in that skill, and an equally hard faith in the belief that if you focus on and align the sights and press through as you practice, you absolutely will hit the target.
You also need to have equal faith in your ability to call each shot, and know where it went based on what the sights were doing as they lifted off the target during recoil.
Visualize a sight picture on your chosen target in your mind while simultaneously pressing through on the trigger. Feel the trigger, how it might creep and wiggle under finger pressure. Try to get as close to dropping the hammer as you can, and hold it as you watch those imagined sights. You should ignore the target if your mind wants to stick one down there for you to look at instead.
Watch the sights in your mind’s eye and you’ll see them dip, jerk and do all sorts of things. Feel the recoil and blink, perhaps. That’s great! Let your visualized shooting session seem as real as possible without too much conscious direction. Just allow yourself to come back to the sights, focus on the front blade, align them and press.
Be focused on the process of operating the trigger, and learn to press through without tension, convulsive grasping of the hand, jerking or other funny stuff in response to the appearance of aligned sights in your mind. It’s a thing, a device, a machine you own and control. It doesn’t control you.
Do this for two weeks, each night for at least ten or 15 minutes, or until you can’t maintain good form and sight visualizations without your mind wandering too much, and stop when you can’t feel exactly what the trigger’s doing as it releases the hammer. It’s fine to alternate visualization drills with a sighted “shots” against the wall, but the bulk of your dry firing practice should be associated and reinforced with guided imagery.
I strongly suggest you click on the link to read how to transition these skills from dry fire to actual shooting at the range.
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