Determining eye dominance

February 19th, 2012

Developing a new shooter’s enthusiasm for shotgunning is greatly aided by having early success — ideally, breaking plenty of targets in that first box of shells.

You need a gun that fits reasonably well, and is of a weight and gauge that suits the build and personality of the shooter.

Before you can evaluate the suitability of a particular gun, you need to know which eye is dominant (controls pointing) for this new  shooter, as this is the major factor determining which shoulder they should be shooting off of. This in turn might influence what gun you choose for them to start with.

Starting out on the wrong shoulder, or with a gun that fits poorly, can make a person feel horribly un-coordinated, and help them decide that shooting a shotgun is something that is not for them….

There is a commonly employed test for checking eye dominance that can give inaccurate results.

This test normally involves making a triangular opening by placing your hands together, thumb to thumb, index finger to index finger, and looking through this opening at an object across the room.
While looking at this object, bring your hands and this triangular opening back towards your face.
Theoretically, you will bring this opening back to your master eye.

The fact of the matter is, sometimes the person will pull back to their master eye, and sometimes not…
In my case, I am left eye dominant, but I am just as likely to bring the hole back to my right eye. If a person has a pre-conceived notion about how they think this test should turn out, it can readily influence the outcome.

I prefer to simply have the person point at one of my eyes from across the room, then repeat the test with their other hand. In a clear-cut case, their fingertip will line up with one of their eyes–the same one–each time.

If there is any doubt, then I will re-check after spending a moment or two teaching them how to mount the gun to their cheek, eye and shoulder. After getting a reasonable mount, I will have them mount the unloaded gun, pointed at my eye. (Unloaded status verified each time, the instant before mounting).

If the eye over the barrel is dominant, the barrel should be pointing right at or very close to my eye. If the other is dominant, or just partially interfering, the barrel will be pointing some inches alongside my head. A poor fit, where the master eye is blocked by the rear of the receiver, or a bad mount where the head is laid over the stock, can give misleading results which have to be discarded.

Occasionally, you will see someone who does not have a clear dominant. There is another blog entry about two shooters in this situation… in any event, if this is the case, several steps need to be taken, which I hope to address in another blog entry….

By the way, both eyes are open for the new shooter in all of these tests. No squinting!

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Leading is something that happens when I’ve made a mistake.

March 19th, 2011

The title of this post is a phrase I coined some time ago, but used again just the other day.

A new client had contacted me right after ordering my DVD, A Shotgunning Philosophy, expressing his hopes that it would finally help him see his leads correctly.  He had taken some lessons locally, but after a year of struggling, he “still wasn’t able to see the correct bird/barrel relationships on the skeet field”.

Ouch.  He was slogging around in a very mucky swamp… one that many shotgun shooters find themselves in every time they take the field.

What’s the story with “lead”?  On a given target presentation, how can one guy see three feet, one guy see five, and one guy see none, and yet all three break the clay?  How come a guy can break a target a couple of times while seeing a particular lead, and then miss it three times in a row, seeing the same lead?  Is our ammo that inconsistent?

Nope.

We are.

A whole lot of factors combine to affect the dynamics of how your gun is moving as a shot is fired.  The DVD explains a lot of that, but the most important factor is where you are looking as the gun goes off — 100% at the bird, varying degrees of attention between the bird and barrel, or just at the barrel.  The weight and balance of your gun, your strength, and even your mental state also affect shotgun dynamics.

In turn, how the shotgun is moving as it is fired determines how much “lead” a shooter may need to observe.

Look hard at the barrel, your hand will no longer have the target as a goal, and the gun will tend to stop.  A lightweight gun will respond and stop immediately.  You will probably have to perceive a lot of lead to hit your target.  A heavier gun, especially a barrel-heavy gun, will not stop as readily–less observed lead will be needed because this gun will still be moving somewhat.  This is the argument for heavier guns, and heavier barrels–they are more forgiving of a visual mistake.  The down-side is that this gun doesn’t point well, is hard to start moving, and encourages poor mechanics.  It’s heavy weight makes the shooter want to mount the gun early, and transfer responsibility for moving the gun from his pointing arm to his whole body.  The more difficult target presentations we attempt involve moving along some pretty subtle target lines.  Do you want your brain surgeon making his incisions with a movement of his finger tips, or his torso?

Varying degrees of attention split between the clay and the barrel, and varying weights of guns and shooter strength will result in varying gun speeds as the shot is fired.  This results in the need to observe varying leads for the same shot, and can explain why a particular lead worked on one shot, and failed when the shot was repeated.  The shooter simply changed where his visual emphasis was slightly as the time to pull the trigger approached.  “It looked the same, I must have used the wrong choke, or shell, or I’m not wearing the vest color needed to break this target consistently….”

110% focus at bird distance and being aware of your target’s future line creates a smoothness, a fluidity, that can not be forced or faked.  I talk more about this fluidity than I do about gun speed.  Talk about maintaining or increasing gun speed and the gun becomes the center of attention, the move becomes mechanical and forced.  The conscious mind gets caught up in guessing whether the speed or acceleration is enough or on time or in the right direction… Yuck!

Learn to use your eyes and imagination correctly and consistently, and all of those mental gymnastic computations go away.  Your hand’s job changes from sticking the gun varying distances in front of different targets to simply touching the bird to trigger the kill.

If I remember correctly, the United States hosted the World FITASC Championsips for the first time way back in 1993.  I attended that shoot at Okemo Mountain, VT, not to participate, but to shadow the best sporting clays shooters in the world, shooting some of the most challenging targets in the game.  I had been teaching for a number of years by then, and believed strongly in what I had been taught, but I wanted to see if anybody at the top shot that way, or if the method could be applied to this level of target difficulty.  I charted out the parcour times for the top six or eight shooters in the world,  all Brits, I think, and followed them shot by shot through the event.  There were at least four world fitasc champions in the group.

Being careful to stay out of the way, I got in close with each squad, so that I had the best possible perspective of the shooters and the presentations.  I kept my mouth shut, but learned through observation just what made each shooter tick, their methods, their strengths, their weaknesses; what they thought they were doing versus what they actually were doing.  Even those champions who were a bit off their game didn’t miss very many, but I learned to observe imperfections creeping in, and to predict an upcoming miss before it happened.  It was often not a very difficult target, and most of the time they didn’t accurately know why they missed!  They were human!  About three out of the eight I was following moved the gun and shot exactly as I had been taught when they were shooting their best.  That was pretty cool.

One of the most amazing revelations of attending this event didn’t occur on a parcour.  It occurred during dinner one evening, at a little restaurant in the town below Okemo.  Three or four of the Brits I had been following through the shoot ended up seated at a table next to my wife and I.  At one point late in the dinner, a few American shooters stopped by to talk about how one of the Brits had approached a particularly difficult, far, fast, quartering down hill target.  He was one of the few at the shoot to hit it consistently and well.  The American was asking about how much lead he gave it, and what method he used.  The Brit’s response was almost apologetic when he said that as far as he was concerned he had shot right at it!

After the American shooters had walked away, the Brits were talking amongst themselves, and talking about how what they see for lead is not always the same, from day to day.  One of the three who shot most like I had been taught made the comment that when he was shooting his best, it seemed like he shot right at everything, no matter the distance or speed of the target.  There was a bit of wonder in his voice, like he couldn’t explain it, but that was how it was.  A couple of other shooters at the table said they had experienced the same thing.  Being in that zone seemed to come and go, and they weren’t sure how to get back there.   They didn’t understand it, there were no conclusions made, but you could tell they would have loved to live in that zone all the time….

I understand it, and my job is to teach people to live in that zone.

Learn to use your eyes correctly, think the correct thoughts, and the need for lead goes away.

Leading is something that happens when I’ve made a mistake.

We strive for perfection, but occasionally things happen, and you’ll observe the gun drifting off in front of the target before you get the impulse to pull the trigger… and the target breaks.

If you are practicing, I would tell you to recognize the imperfection, and try to correct your approach on the next shot.

If you are shooting for a score, you have to make a decision as to whether you are going to attempt to repeat the imperfection on the next shot, or attempt to change your approach and go for the perfect shot.  It is a judgment call, and I’m not going to tell you which choice is correct.  How solid was your break?  If it felt like a “lucky break”, correct and go for perfection on the next shot.  If it broke solidly and felt like something you could reproduce, maybe you try to duplicate the “mistake”.  There is a risk in doing this.  It is very easy to try to duplicate where you observed the barrel during that shot, and not duplicate the perceptions and move that got it there.  This is not the same thing, and can result in the shot not connecting the same way.  It is a gamble, and you have to make an assessment about which choice gives you the best liklihood of scoring.

Over the long term, choosing to duplicate imperfect shots will keep you shooting like a mere mortal.  It doesn’t feel the same, and it doesn’t pay off the same way as harnessing your instinctive skills and learning to make a high percentage of “perfect” shots.

Leading is something that happens when you have made a mistake.

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Youth Shotgun Selection

March 3rd, 2011

You would like to have your new shotgun shooter started safely, comfortably, and with target-breaking success….

Safety and gunhandling etiquette will be talked about elsewhere on this blog or on the safety and etiquette page of our website . For now, I’m trying to address the frequently asked questions about choosing that first shotgun for a younger or smaller person.

The comfort of the new shooter is largely determined by matching the size and strength of the shooter with the shotgun chosen for him (or her!).

It is usually pretty easy to select and fit a first shotgun for someone when they are within an inch or two of five feet tall. The youth model shotguns that are readily available have lengths-of-pull for their butt stocks that will usually accomodate someone in this size range.  Don’t rule out the adult versions of a number of these guns, because their stocks can certainly be shortened, and relengthened as the shooter grows. Being smaller than this doesn’t prevent a shooter from getting started, but all the factors I present will be more critical.

When shopping for that first shotgun, the main concerns are:

The weight of the gun;
The balance of the gun;
The anticipated recoil of the gun;
The fit of critical stock dimensions, such as comb height, and possibly cast;
The flexibility of the gun to adjust and grow with the shooter.

The original butt-stock length-of-pull is of only secondary concern, as it is the most readily adjusted stock dimension.

Weight and balance

We tend to judge the weight and balance of a gun based on our own strength, and how it feels to us. Keep in mind that a smaller shooter will perceive both weight and balance differently… plan for their needs.

Shotgun weight is often less of a factor than balance. The hand on the forearm of the shotgun should be responsible for the primary movements of the gun. A smaller shooter does not have the same strength as a large adult, and can’t handle lifting and reaching with a muzzle-heavy gun, even if the overall weight of the gun is fairly light. Bad posture, discomfort and bad habits result. When evaluating this, place your hand on the forearm where a smaller person is likely to hold, close to the receiver, and then evaluate where most of the weight is carried as you try to move the unmounted gun. Avoid a clunky, muzzle heavy front end, even in lighter guns, and smaller gauges.

Recoil

We all would like none. Again, a smaller person perceives it more sharply than a larger person does. In general, the lighter the gun, the more perceived recoil, so there are tradeoffs to be made.

In general, avoid the trusty old break-open single shot 20 or 12 gauge. They kick like a mule. They are OK for a few shots here and there, but I would prefer to avoid them as a new shooter’s “one gun”.

Gauges

.410s carry few pellets, and are more for experts than beginners. I have seen a few exceptions, with over/unders shot brilliantly by small, very young, but very well-schooled shooters.

28 gauges are wonderful for starting out, with good target-breaking capabilities, lighter weights and minimal recoil. The drawbacks are that ammunition is very expensive and sometimes hard to find, and there are not a lot of models to choose from. They are an excellent choice for a new shooter if you reload ammunition.

20 gauges are the optimal starting guns, with minimal to moderate recoil, light to moderate weights, good target-breaking capabilities, inexpensive ammo, and many models to choose from.

12 gauges are not usually at the top of my list for new shooters. You can find very light recoiling ammunition, but the size, weight and balance of the gun normally make them inappropriate for a smaller shooter. Occasionally I’ll see someone who is very strong and very aggressive for their size, and I’m willing to start them with a 12 gauge auto.

Actions

Avoid the single shots, primarily because of excessive recoil.

Double barrels, whether over/unders or side by sides, tend to have a little too much recoil for most new, smaller shooters, unless you find a 28 gauge.

Pumps tend to have recoil close to the double barrels and tend to be muzzle heavy. It is the second factor which is most limiting.

The automatics are a mixed bag of sizes, weights, and handling characteristics. If you choose correctly, you can find a gun with acceptable weight, balance, and recoil characteristics that is also flexible enough to change as the young shooter grows and evolves. Several manufacturers, including Beretta, Benelli, and Franchi have built in stock adjustment systems that allow the drop and cast dimensions of the stock to be altered to fit the individual shooter, and these can readily be altered as the growing shooter’s face dimensions change… they don’t just get taller, do they?

I hear people express concerns about the safety of starting out a new shooter with an auto, and I don’t buy into those concerns at all. If you start them with the gold standard of gunhandling etiquette as outlined on THE MIDWEST SHOOTING SCHOOL website, a semi-auto is no more dangerous than any other gun.

28 gauge autos are great, but expensive to shoot. The selection is limited.

12 gauge autos are usually too heavy for the new, young shooter, but with the right kid, there may be exceptions.

This brings us to the 20 gauge auto, which I consider the ideal youth shotgun… (This is only because the 28 is not as readily available, and its ammo is much more expensive.)

You are looking for a combination of reasonably light weight, a light weight front end, controlled recoil, and the ability to fit the gun to the young shooter. Ideally, you can adjust the gun’s stock dimensions as the shooter grows…

There are several guns that fit this bill, with their own particular characteristics:

The Beretta 391 Urika 20 gauge, with a wood stock

Moderate 20 gauge weight, some weight forward
Mild recoil
Maximum adjustability of stock drop and cast to adjust the fit to the shooter.
Good durability for extensive use.

The Benelli Montefeltro 20 gauge, with a wood stock

Light weight, light front end
Mild to moderate recoil
Good adjustability of stock drop and cast for fit
Good durability for extensive use.

The Franchi 48AL (also available in 28 gauge) & Model 720

Lightest perceived weight (48AL), light front end
Mild to moderate recoil
Good adjustability of stock drop and cast for fit
OK durability for extensive use/Good durability for occasional use

All are available in youth models with shorter stocks and barrels, but may be OK in the standard sizes, depending on your new shooter. If they are already at the 5’ plus range, and you expect a good deal more growth, I might recommend the adult version with a standard 26” barrel, and plan on temporarily shortening the stock.

There are other models I might occasionally consider suitable, depending upon the size, strength and attitude of the youth, or new shooter.

Having the right shotgun to start with is a major part of the equation leading to success, but it also needs to fit correctly, and be moved correctly, to complete the equation. If you have one of the three shotguns listed above, the vast majority of the time it can be made to fit. I’ll talk about actually fitting the gun in another posting, and if you would like an idea about how to start out that new shooter, I’ll try and describe that, too.

In the meantime, feel free to contact me with your specific questions.

If you use the approach I’ll outline, and combine it by teaching the principles outlined in our instructional DVD, A Shotgunning Philosophy, you can’t go too far wrong!

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A tale of two one-eyed shooters

February 26th, 2011

Two of the four shooters who attended a recent school came in with a little prior experience, a little prior instruction, and pieces of tape on the left lenses of their shooting glasses. Both were shooting off their right shoulders.

The similarities ended there, except for the end results.

Shooter number 1 had been told he was left eye dominant. He was not. This happens fairly frequently, usually for one of two reasons:

1. Some of the little tests frequently used are not very accurate, and can be skewed easily with conscious thought. Assumptions are then made about eye dominance, and the shooter gets started on the wrong shoulder, or a dot of something is placed on the off-eye lens of his glasses, or he is told to close his off-eye… If it’s not necessary, handicapping the shooter is all that has been accomplished!

2. Occasionally a mentor, whether volunteer or professional, will have difficulty communicating to a shooter how to keep their focus out at target distance, and avoid trying to see both the bird and the barrel. When the shooter is trying to focus on both, weird things can happen, and the shooter can appear really uncoordinated–maybe appearing to have an eye dominance issue. It is really hard for those two eyes to focus, and have their lines of sight converge at two different distances at once. OK, not hard: impossible!

Interfere with one eye, and “Voila!” the confusion is gone, and if you are trying to see both bird and barrel, it is easier to see over the barrel and line them both up, even if you don’t see either one particularly well. Moderate success can be had this way, reinforcing the notion that there must be an eye dominance problem. The shooter develops a set of habits, but never learns to look at the target in the way that will maximize his long-term success.

Back to the two shooters:

Shooter #1 had the tape taken away in the first few minutes, and and in two days of shooting, he never missed a target where questionable eye dominance could be suspected as the cause for the miss. When run through a battery of quick little test early on, he showed an unclear dominant, but when the gun was mounted to his right eye, it took total control. When the gun was mounted to his left eye, his left eye took total control. He was one of a handful of people I see every year who could learn to shoot off either shoulder, with both eyes open. Since most guns are stocked for someone shooting off their right shoulder, we had him stay with his right side, but took the tape away.

Shooter #2 was living in a more grayscale world. He, too, did not have a clear dominant, but it appeared that his left eye did have more pull than his right when reaching out to point. The kicker was that he had a left arm injury which made it impossible to mount the gun to his left shoulder. He needed the tape, or some interference such as a dab of chapstick on his lens to eliminate this left eye pull, but only for a time… we experimented with him, and discovered that his eyes were “trainable”; if we got him to visually lock on to the target before moving the gun, and keep this lock, his right eye would maintain control throughout the shot. He could shoot just fine with both eyes open, as long as he had this “lock on” time. With experience, one could expect this time of seeing before moving to shorten to a more “normal” length, and the right eye would still maintain control. As an instructor, you have to watch carefully, as the onset of fatigue can cause this to breakdown….

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Sometimes life gets in the way…

June 8th, 2010

It’s been awhile since I’ve made an entry, despite the best of intentions. Since early May there have been emergencies for elderly family members, a long road trip to the east coast for the Yale graduation of my third daughter, and her move home. The trip was made longer by teaching on both the way out, and our return.

I’m just finishing a west coast shooting school trip that followed on the heels of that long drive. I do have lesson notes that I’ll use to fill in the gap, and some stories to tell about other experiences along the way….

I’ve also discovered that it seems I have to approve the subscriber/contributor accounts for each of you as you sign up. My apologies if you have tried to contribute, and not been allowed to do so! The blog has been moved to my menu bar, and I’ll try to check for new subscribers frequently, if not daily.

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Shotgunning Lesson 5/2–The Eyes have it!

May 5th, 2010

Your eye coordination or positioning with a moving target can make your hands look brilliant or hopeless…
One of today’s sporting clays shooters had very good mechanics, but was still struggling with certain types of shots, mostly those targets that are best shot quickly, or early in their flight.
He was in a position where he looked good while missing. Not a very satisfactory place to be…

He had learned to control his body, but not the mechanics of how his eyes coordinated with moving targets. When he attempted targets that gave him a bit of time to make the shot, he did very well.

To have the same success with quick, early kill targets, he didn’t need to try to move his hands faster, he needed to train his eyes how to coordinate instantly with the targets as they emerged… once he did so, he was amazed with the results.

Don’t let your eyes (the center of your vision) fall behind the streak of a quick, emerging target! Leap them forward with the streak, and acquire it as a target as your eyes move with it… you won’t remember moving your hands, or deciding to move them, but you will kill the target with a subconscious sense of touch.

There are some “tricks” or visualizations that can help you get control of how your eyes respond in these situations…. they work in all clay target or wingshooting disciplines.

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Gun fitting Observations 4/29/2010

May 1st, 2010

When you have learned to bring your head down to the gun, or to meet the gun, you are not likely to do so the same way each time. The result is, you fit yourself to the gun slightly (or radically) differently each shot, and your gun’s point of impact wanders in relation to where you are trying to put it! You can get away with this on close to medium distance targets, with open chokes, but it will cost you dearly as your targets get more distant.

Did a fitting today in which I used my typical three step process to evaluate the fit of the shooter’s gun(s).

Started with observing his eye alignment while going through a practice mounting sequence, inside. It looked perfect, it looked horrible, it looked OK… let him set the gun down, pick it up again, and you never knew what you were going to get.

Shooting at the pattern board was much the same. At 16 to 18 yards, his point of impact was varying by eighteen inches. Occasionally, he hit the dot he was supposed to be trying for!

On average, it appeared that his gun fit was at least slightly off, requiring the removal of some wood to create some additional cast. I had already bent the stock earlier, to get it close to fitting…

I couldn’t bring myself to start removing wood until I saw him actually attempt some targets in the air. Turned out to be a good move.

His performance on targets started out a lot like his results on the pattern board. On target, low, ahead, off to the left…pretty variable.

His head and upper body were moving around quite a bit…

This was supposed to be a gunfitting, not a shotgunning lesson, but which guy was I going to adjust the gun to fit? Each time, he fit himself to the gun differently. I had to address his technique, in order to do him the most good.

When he went from trying to put his head down to the stock to bringing the stock to his eye, his consistency improved dramatically. We were shooting pretty close, skeet-like targets, and he hadn’t been able to hit anything through his full choke barrel. His only hits had been through his skeet choke. Once he began leaving his head up, and let the gun come to his eye rather than his shoulder, he was able to smoke targets with the full choke barrel. ( I will use a tight choke to evaluate a fit, even on close targets. There is no forgiveness for slop, and pattern centers are clearer.)

The end result was, I didn’t shave the stock today. When we went back to the pattern board with his cleaned up technique, every shot was dead-on or within an inch or two of the desired target. The previous bend of the stock we had done had luckily turned out to be incredibly close to what he needed–after a simple clean-up of his technique.

Head stays up… gun comes to your cheek and eye, not your shoulder–unless you want a different gun fitted for every target elevation, and each day of the week!

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Shotgun Lesson Observations 4/27/10

May 1st, 2010

Shot with an 80 year old shotgunner today, who does a little wingshooting and sporting clays, but mostly low-gun skeet. Even starting low gun, he would tend to crouch a good bit before calling for his birds, putting his head forward and down. The gun butt was crushed into his body in his ready position. Over a few minutes of shooting, I asked him to stand up in his normal posture, let the gun butt start with the weight of a feather on his chest, and start his move with the hand on the forearm of the gun. Along the way, his breaks became more consistent, he shot his birds earlier without trying to, and his targets were more centered. I changed a number of things for him, and they all contributed to his success, but the best moment in the whole lesson was when he turned around to say, with a little surprise in his voice, “It seems like I can see the birds better now!”
The lesson for all is: Leave your head up in its normal posture, and let the gun come to your eye!
Putting your head down compromises your vision, and creates an unnatural position for your head and neck. This encourages you to subconsciously lift your head to see better, and relieve the physical stress created by putting your head down in the first place!
Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?!

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Shotgun Lesson Observations 4/23/10

April 24th, 2010

How do shooters with good mechanics still have bad days?

The intelligence system providing the information that guides those mechanics provides faulty or incomplete intel… or it is ignored by the shooter.

One of today’s clients was a Master Class shooter who had gotten into a slump, and had a recent practice session where he was missing crossing and outgoing tower targets that he would normally have no trouble with.

As the lesson started, his move was inconsistent, and he missed in a variety of spots–low, low in front, a few behind, but there was not much that was predictable to his pattern.   I gave him a few suggestions during the first box of shells, but it was one key instruction that fixed the problem:

” I want your eyes to move first, before your hands.  Don’t commit to your move until your eyes have control of their relationship with the target.”

He had heard it before, experienced the truth in it before, but the concept had just slipped away…

Once said, he didn’t miss more than a few in the next 75.  His eyes had been very well trained in the past, so it only took a reminder to restore him.

How did he overlook this?  When our eyes send bad information to our hands, they react accordingly.  The shot feels bad–jerky, rushed moves, mis-mounts, even flinches.  Because we feel the bad move, we look for the solution in our mechanics, and take our attention away from the guidance system that produced the moves.

By the way, shooting a target very early requires training the eyes (over time) to have instant coordination with bird.  The fraction of a second between seeing and moving is indiscernable.  When to move is not chosen or forced, but is determined by the early eye move and the conscious choice you make ahead of time to touch the target at an early point in its flight.  Think about when to move, and you have either been too slow, or over-reacted….

Whether you are shooting early or late in a bird’s flight, good early eye coordination with it makes the entire shot easier.

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Sporting Clays Lesson Observations 4/21/10

April 24th, 2010

It can be a tough situation if you are working on a particular target presentation, and don’t know where you are missing….

A lot of shotgun shooters have difficulty in “calling” a missed shot.  It can be especially difficult to call your own.  In fact, when someone references their barrel at the last moment, they often transpose the bird/barrel positioning!  They think they were high, and really were low…

There are a couple of things you can do to help get a feel for where you miss.

1.  Know human nature, and how it could lead to missing a specific target presentation.  In one of today’s lessons, we were shooting a relatively flat, edge-on crosser; something the shooter had worked on alone, with limited success.  It had appeared to him that he was over the top, when in fact, he was low.

Fact:  An edge-on crossing target is harder to see than most, and it is human nature to pass underneath it, so as not to interfere with your sight of it.  Many of these are missed underneath.

Solution:  Choose to keep your center of  vision up with the bird, possibly even with the sensation of looking at his top, or top of his nose.  This will tend to draw your hand up with it….

If you have ground-in the habit of looking a little low, and passing underneath, you may actually need to feel you are looking a little over the target.  Your previous practice has created a habit where it has become “normal” to center your vision under, and to break the habit, you will need to choose to keep your center of vision what you feel is too high….

2.  Try to recall where you were looking in relation to the target, as you felt the gun go off.  There is no barrel in this visualization, just a memory of the area or “snapshot” you could see as you felt the recoil, and where the target was in that picture.  What space around the target do you remember most clearly, or being largest?  Where was the target in the picture?  High?  Then your center of vision was low, and you gave your hand a choice between going to the target, or going to where you looking.  Guess which is likely to win out…  Change where the target is in the picture, and change the result.

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