The 2022 shooting year started out great! I managed to pick up 6 punches by the end of March on a variety of courses and target types (Super sporting at the East Coast Warm-Up and East coast Championship at Hunter’s Pointe, blue targets at Kidd’s place and all-true pairs at Deep River). I even managed a second-place finish in the 20- gauge hammerless event at Deep River’s Side-by-side championship.
Then the wheels came off! What happened? I was able to self-diagnose that my eyes were not playing well with targets! I am cross dominant (right-handed, but left-eye dominant) so I shoot off of the left shoulder. I have had issues with my right eye taking over on occasion due to eye stress (for example, after doing a lot of computer work or reading) or just plain being tired. However, I had never had my left eye just check out like it was doing!
To counteract this, I tried to come up with work-arounds such as winking down my right (off) eye on more and more shot types. What I found myself doing was spending more and more time at each station worrying and trying to figure out how not to miss targets due to eye issues rather than planning on how to hit the targets! Basically, I was falling back to attempting to control the execution of pretty much every target rather than just letting my sub-conscious execute the shot as normal. This did not end well!
Around the beginning of May, my friend Randy Donovan posed a brilliant question to me.
Randy has been a very consistent user of Phil Kiner’s eye training video for quite some time now. If you missed my previous posts on Phil’s system, you can find them HERE and HERE. Randy asked me if I had ever tried closing or blocking the non-dominant eye while watching the eye-training DVD. Randy wondered if by doing so, the dominant eye could be strengthened and not surrender control on some shots. I had not tried this, but was very curious to know what Phil would think of the idea, so I texted him. I was delighted to get a response back almost instantly. Phil indicated that his eye doctor had suggested alternating using the video with both eyes open and then with the off-eye patched.
Randy was quick to get a patch and try it. He seemed to think it was having positive results. I ordered a patch from amazon myself, and started using it as Phil prescribed. About 10 days after I started the new routine (I did two 15-minute sessions daily – one with patch and one without), I went out and shot a practice round shooting all true pairs (doesn’t allow much time to try winking an eye, etc). I actually had the best round I had shot in weeks if not months! The next day, I shot the fun shoot at Deep River and came away with a respectable score in the am event and a punch (tied for first in class) in the all-true-pairs event in the pm!
What made the difference? It is hard to measure the real impact to the eyes by using the eye-training video, but what I did notice is that my confidence had been restored just knowing I had taken some positive steps to improve my situation. Confidence truly is a king! With the return of my confidence came the ability to shoot in a proper manner (not trying to control the shots) with focus on proper set-up, planning, and execution rather than worrying how I was going to miss!
How about you? Is there something that is rattling your confidence now? What can you do to try to rectify it?
Oh yes, there was one other change I made at this same time! Stay tuned for more info on that change in a future post! in the meantime, here is a hint:
