This is issue, trainer & author Ken Murray shares with us an excerpt from his book TRAINING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE.  The book is encyclopedic in scope.  Enjoy.  TB
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Point Shooting vs. Sighted Fire

The quest for the ultimate shooting technique has caused a pervasive rift in the firearms training community for years - Sighted Fire vs. Point Shooting.

Argument “A” contends that reliable hits cannot be achieved without awareness of the front sight. Mounds of anecdotal and scientific evidence show that it is possible to be involved in a life-or-death battle and still maintain situational awareness and sharpness of faculties, allowing complex motor skill engagement and sighting system awareness. Further, one of the last things the bullet passes on its way to the target is the front sight. If it is not in line with the target, the bullet will miss the target.

Argument “B” portends that during sympathetic nervous system activation, sighted fire is not likely or is perhaps even impossible, therefore it is necessary to train without using the sights.
Neither the Argument “A” camp nor the Argument “B” camp are necessarily wrong. In fact, both sides provide scientific and anecdotal data that show two sides of the same coin.

The reconciliation of both arguments lies in the fact that if your mind interprets the stimulating event as fearful and you undergo sympathetic nervous system activation, then the physiological arousal factors may have a negative effect on performance. In the absence of training to counteract these factors, complete failure is possible.

However, if your mind does not process the event as fearful and your sympathetic nervous system is not activated, then many of the detrimental physiological factors may either be inconsequential, or possibly not even present. Time, distance, cover, superior skill, and confidence in your abilities (all of which can be quickly developed through the use of high-quality simulation training) will go a long way to ensure the sympathetic nervous system does not take a heavy toll on performance.

As for the actual physical skills required for the delivery of accurate fire, “Sighted Fire,” or training to confirm your sights are in line with the target, and “Point Shooting” actually have a lot more in common than many of the faithful followers of each system would care to recognize. Either way, if the travel path of the bullet after it leaves the barrel doesn’t intersect with the intended target, it doesn’t matter which “system” you believe in. Whether or not you train for point shooting or sighted fire, the only way to ensure this intersection reliably happens is through practice.

Weaver vs. Isosceles

Just as is the case in the battle between point shooting vs. sighted fire, success in gunfighting has less to do with any type of shooting stance, and much more to do with physical and mental preparation for the gunfight. Once again, the point shooting camp chimes in, indicating that it has been demonstrated that during spontaneous, life-threatening encounters, human beings will experience a flinch response causing them to square their bodies to the target, crouch down, and put their arms out in front of them in a defensive manner, over-riding any training that has been undertaken in a particular shooting stance.

Tony Blauer’s S.P.E.A.R. SYSTEM teaches participants how to convert the “startle-flinch” response from the primal state (unconsciously activated by the body as a protective reaction) to the next two states that he terms protective and tactical, where skills that have been integrated at the UC level may become useful.

Believing that you will automatically drop into your practiced “shooting style” (Weaver or Isosceles) during a spontaneous life-threatening encounter is naïve. The Ultimate Fighting Championships proved a similar point when highly trained martial artists from different styles squared off against each other in a fight to the finish. Each stylist began the encounter in his traditional form, which then quickly deteriorated into a formless brawl when the punches and kicks started flying.

The harsh reality is that perhaps too much time is being spent on enforcing shooting stances that are incompatible with gunfights. When the Weaver System was the preferred and taught shooting platform for law enforcement, the hit ratios were roughly between fifteen percent and twenty percent during close combat.

When Isosceles was all the rage, the hit ratios were about the same. A target doesn’t care whether or not you are square to the target, bladed at an angle, or standing on your head. The delivery of accurate fire depends on one thing, and one thing only ... where that muzzle is pointed at the time the projectile is released.

After the basics of gripping a pistol and controlling the trigger have been integrated into an effective torque profile (aka muscle memory,) shooting accurately is nothing more than an eye/hand coordination skill.

By the way, in case you haven’t heard, if you have been training to close one eye to shoot, you’d better start training to shoot with both eyes open because during a life-threatening encounter the brain will not allow the closing of an eye, thereby ensuring a maximum amount of visual data will be gathered.

The Importance of Eye/Hand Coordination Regardless of how you stand, if you don’t practice lining up your weapon with the target and fire a lot of ammunition to confirm that alignment (or use some form of simulator that aids in that confirmation) accurate fire will for the most part be attributable to luck.

The human body is extremely capable of quickly learning how to perform eye/hand coordination skills. Humans complete every manipulative task based on this ability. We don’t answer phones or scratch our noses without engaging the operating system in charge of eye-hand coordination, and we are capable of amazing feats once conscious resources are directed toward programming it to achieve specific results.

John Foy, one of the innovative firearms trainers at the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Academy, points out that trick shooter Ed McGivern could fire five rounds from his Smith & Wesson .38 into a target the size of a playing card at eighteen feet in two-fifths of a second. In his book, Fast and Fancy Revolver Shooting, McGivern did not specify any specialized shooting system, but he did mention that he had put approximately thirty thousand rounds through that revolver. All of his skill comes as a result of lots of practice.

A trained eye can break down rapidly occurring events to the extent that professional baseball players can track a ninety mile per hour change up pitch, swing a bat, adjust the position of that bat during the swing, time the swing to hit the ball at the exact moment it exists in a certain place in space, and occasionally direct the ball where they want it to go.

Compared with the complexities of hitting a baseball, accurate shooting is easy. Both are eye/hand coordination skills. The big difference lies in the training philosophies of the participants.

I had the rare good fortune in 2001 to be in San Diego during a Chargers game. A close friend of mine worked for the Chargers and we ended up at a social gathering following the game. I noticed Mark McGwire, who had happened to be in town watching the game, sitting over by himself. I ambled over to him and introduced myself, at which time he rolled his eyes and reached for a pen.

I told him that I didn’t want his autograph, just the answer to a question. I explained that I was a law enforcement trainer and that I used the baseball analogy a lot in my training when discussing skill development with firearms.

I asked him how often he practiced to be as good a hitter as he was. He told me that until I had wandered over to bother him, he had been knocking them out of the park in his head in anticipation of an upcoming game.

Definitely the right answer ... even when you don’t have the resources to actually practice a skill, positive mental imagery is a tool that those who are at the top of their game use to maintain and improve proficiency.

What are professional baseball players doing during their non-game hours? Swinging at fastballs ...

What are cops doing? Not likely firing handguns or even dry firing their pistols.

 In order to build a skill, it’s necessary to do the repetitions. How many home runs do you think Mark McGwire would be hitting if he only played one or two games a year, or never went to batting practice, and didn’t use visualization techniques?

Given the time and financial limitations faced by agencies, integrating the complex motor skills associated with accurate shooting will ultimately rest with a level of personal commitment on the part of the individual officer.

Fifteen minutes a day of dry practice (under safe and controlled conditions of course) will make an immense difference in the ability to deliver highly accurate fire during a life-threatening encounter.

Fifteen minutes a week would easily make the difference in terms of weapon presentation, sight alignment, and trigger control. A firearms instructor can only do so much to help someone improve his skills.

It’s up to the student to do the training. A strength coach can teach you the exercises necessary to make your muscles bigger and can observe you to ensure correct form, but he can’t lift the weight for you. If the student doesn’t do the work, the result (or actually lack of results) is predictable.

It’s a safe bet to say that purely from the Skill perspective, law enforcement personnel are no where near the level of proficiency that will ensure success in a close combat gun battle or life-threatening physical confrontation.

It’s up to you to do the work. As Tony Blauer has been known to say in his classes, “I’m not going to test you … the guy that decides he is going to try to kill you is the one that will test you, and in that battle he doesn’t care who you got your certificate from.

All that will matter is whether or not you have the skill to defeat him.”

Do the work. There are LIVES in the balance.
 
For more info on Ken's important book TRAINING AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT, visit his website at www.armiger.net/home.html  *The book is 8.5 X 11, 368 pages and includes a CD of preformatted training forms.