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Using Your Eyes Properly (Joe Staples, Rosemont, PA) I am a 69 year old beginning Sporting Clays shooter in good health, but about to go crazy over this eye problem. When I started this sport I kept one eye closed and started to average about 65. Then was told I needed to keep both eyes open. I started this and couldn't hit anything. As I am not going to be a competitive shooter what do you think about my "puzzling situation"? I would be satisfied to shoot in the low 70's, have lunch with my friends, come home, take a nap and move on. How important is keeping two eyes open? First, there is no "only one way" to shoot a shotgun. Some ways have more risk than others. Second, shooting has less to do with your eyes being open or shut and more to do with what you are looking at. The basic difference between rifle /pistol and shotgun shooting is that rifles and pistols are aimed and you are very aware of the sights. Also, the target is stationary allowing for precious time to align the sights with the target and the shot to be taken. However, in shotgunning, because the target is moving the more you are aware of the barrel or the sight picture the less you are aware of the target. We call this "shooting the lead". If you are trying to find that lead picture, you will take your eyes off the target and put them on the gun barrel, therefore, you will loose sight on the target. The shot cloud is very forgiving as long as the address is correct. The most perfect "sight picture" in the world is wrong if it is not delivered in the right place! One of the marks of an experienced professional instructor is to always establish with the student his or her goals. Also to be honest with the student about whether or not their goals are realistic--this is the way an experienced instructor determines how much change a person is willing to go through to increase their performance and whether or not the person is willing to make the commitment to practice the change enough to get good results. Sounds to me as though you were told about the "two eyed thing", but you still don't understand it. If I had to guess at the cause of your confusion, you were looking for the one-eyed picture using two eyes. I would guess that the one thing that is giving you the most confusion is that you are being way too precise with lead. The more precise you are with lead the more you have to be aware of the gun. The more aware of the gun you are the less aware of the target you become. The less aware of the target you are the less you know about where it is. If you don't know precisely where the target is how do you know where to apply the lead? The most perfect lead in the world if not applied at where the target is when the trigger is pulled is going to be wrong anyway. If you were to ask me bottom line - one eye or two- two are better provided there is no cross dominance. If you are really averaging 62.5% and you only want to go to 72.5% average and you didn't want to have the slightest chance of getting better than 72.5% keep shooting with one eye. Eventually you might get there. If you were to ask me what should I do to have a 72.5%? First, eliminate the confusion about one eye or two. If your goal is to shoot in the 70's and you want to enjoy your friends, take a nap and enjoy shooting to a certain level--stay with one eye and just shoot to have fun. If on the other hand you would like to achieve a little more in your shooting, go to an experienced instructor who understands the eyes and the brain and how they are connected and in turn how they run the body. You will have to make a commitment to changing and then practice the change. An experienced instructor can give you the tools, but it is up to you to build the foundation. If you are committed to doing that, then change and go to two eyes. It ultimately is up to you and your goals and how badly you want to improve your shooting if you want to make the big commitment to using two eyes. Back to Article Directory How to Get the Most Out of a Lesson! How to get the most out of what you have learned from an instructor? Hopefully, you have come to the lesson with an open mind and a willingness to learn. No matter who you take a lesson from, if you don't take the information and do something with it after the lesson, it will do you no good. The most frustrating thing for an instructor is to put their heart and soul into giving the student all the information they need to improve and the student do absolutely nothing with it. You must practice what you have learned. I had a mom, Paula, and her 2 sons, Charles (14) and Ritchie (11) come on a Monday morning. We had a good lesson- everyone hit some targets. Paula and Charles had shot only 2 times before in a dove field, Ritchie had never shot before. After explaining to them how a shotgun works, how the eyes worked and how to hit the targets, they all hit targets from all directions - hit a few, miss a few. I sent them home with specific practice techniques to do-using the flashlight, pointing at things in the room, using the flashlight to go along the seam between the wall and the ceiling etc. They all came back on Friday for another lesson. The improvement was obvious. They could now all hit 4 in a row, miss one, but recoup and end up hitting the rest. What an amazing transformation for 3 people to come so far in so little time. Did I want to spend even more time with them to give them all I could. You bet! Remember, you are paying for the advice, but it won't do you a lot of good unless you practice what you have learned. Besides, if the instructor knows that you are going to take the information and use it to improve he/she will gladly give you all they have. That way you are both rewarded. Its not what the instructor tells you, its what you are willing to learn and practice that makes the difference. Back to Article Directory Have other questions on other issues? Visit our Clinic FAQs section or submit your own question. How We Teach • Teaching Schedule • Tips & Articles Our Services • Clinic FAQs • Products & Programs • Meet Gil & Vicki Client Comments • More Info/Sign-up • E-mail Us • Home OPTIMUM SHOTGUN PERFORMANCE SHOOTING SCHOOL Toll Free 800-838-7533 P.O. 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