Experiment

At our practice session today we had a very experienced and accomplished shooter demonstrate an experiment. This shooter was willing to test his own muscle memory skills and prove his theory of cock, level & squeeze. At master gunfighter distance he blindfolded himself. (Sounds scary but it was conducted in a safe environment and manner) of course he couldn't see the timer light came on so he reacted to the shot of the shooter next to him. Him his stance he has done thousands of times, lined up to the target the same way he has thousands of times reacting to an audio start he cocked the gun drew out of his holster, leveled the gun and squeezed the trigger like he has done thousands of times. His results were that he hit the target 3 out of 5 times blindfolded. When you subtract the time of the first shooter to his hit times he averaged in the low .400 actually a little faster than his sighted practice shots the rest of the practice session.

There are a few things we can take away from this experiment. First of all, don't be afraid to experiment to prove things to yourself.

Second, trust your muscle memory to work for you. You have done that motion and action successfully thousands of times yourself. Trust that you will successfully do it again every time you cock, level and squeeze.

Not only did the blindfold block his vision but it also took away the need to concentrate on aiming. He was aiming by memory and not sight. He was not sight aiming or trying to place a shot on the target. He was doing what was natural and just let it go when it felt good not caring about the results. 60% accuracy is pretty good without being blindfolded. He achieved that by instinct. The blindfold also blocked out a lot of thought. He knew he had to rely on instinct and just let it happen.

Press on,
Rodeo Romeo