Alright, gents
I want to talk about why it's so important to shoot with both eyes open if you go to modern shooting school now the instructors
Are going to tell you a you shoot you need to shoot with both eyes open now a lot of people say oh
I am shooting with both eyes [open], but we catch you we look we stand to the side of you
And we see around the edge of those dark mirrored sunglasses
And we still see a lot of shooters closing one eye
Why are they doing that? They're closing that one eye because it's easier to shoot with one eye closed
It really is makes you more accurate
Big military and law enforcement used to teach the close one eye when I went through basic training when I went through
different Sniper schools
They would teach us to closed that non-dominant eye and that way that whole half of the brain is not being distracted
And allows you to properly line up those sights on whatever weapons system
You're shooting. It allows you to line them up more crisp
so that you can get a more accurate shot makes total sense. The problem with that is you're
Consciously making that decision to close that non-dominant eye, so it's not distracting you
Where that's going to screw you is the moment of truth when you're in that stressful situation
fight-or-flight mode kicks in you get all these
physiological changes that happen to your body glucose adrenaline potassium sodium Cortisol
They all get dumped in your bloodstream and your body just starts reacting you start going into that fight-or-flight mode
Now different things that happen the first thing you see right off the bat is heart rate jumps up
It's going to go
At least a 140 if not higher depending on whether you're orange, or pushed all the way into the red zone yet
But that's not the only one
Hair stand up on the back your head your pupils dilate in both eyes pop open
Why does that happen? The brain is screaming for as much information as possible.
It wants to know everything so that's why the pupils dilate
they want more information coming in both eyes pop open because your brain is screaming for more information to come in so
For you to say well, I'm going to close
My non-dominant eye in a combat situation is the same as you saying I'm going to keep my heart rate at sixty eats a minute
It's not up to you. Moment of truth happens that heart rates going to go through the ceiling and so is everything else
You're not going to be able to close out that non-dominant eye even if you wanted to you see it on news all the time
Five cops go up to the door to serve the high-risk warrant poor guy comes out the door early startles them
He's on his way to go work third shift
law enforcement officers shoot 50 bullets and a pit and hit the guy three times in the leg now
These are the same cops that you take them out to the range and they can shoot [one-inch] dots
At 25 yards, they can group. They are experts with those pistols. So how are they missing?
It's not the guys not running around
It's because this is the first time in their lives that these law enforcement officers have ever shot with both eyes open
All right
[so] if you're going to do training
You're going to spend the money to buy the ammo go out there. You need to do proper training for combat
now
We have guys that come through and they say well. I [just] can't see with both eyes open my sights
Just aren't clear what it is is both of your eyes
Focus really good some people have a more dominant eye than others
But if you're one of those guys that's having a hard [time] with that non-dominant
eye distracting you. It's not that [big] a deal what we do out on the range is we take a little bit of Chapstick
That's it. It's that simple. [take] a little bit of chapstick put it over the lens of that non-dominant eye and
What it'll do is it'll make that vision for that non-dominant eye
Just a little bit blurry just a little bit
But it's enough so that the dominant eye can now focus those sights
And you can shoot. Well you lose all your cool points when you got chapstick on your shooting lenses
Yeah
I got that all right the next [day] you go shoot y ou put a little bit less chapstick
on it the third day you go out you put a little bit less chapstick
and by your fourth or fifth day of shooting out at the range. You're not needing Chapstick anymore
You've trained the brain the subconscious [mind] to take just that one sight picture out of that one eye
and you're now able to train with both eyes open right, so
If you want to focus your training just on competition you want to shoot the tightest shot group
that's fine, close that non-dominant. Tell the instructor all right?
I'm just training for competition that's fine, and you'll shoot a tighter shot group, but if you want to train for
Combat if you want to train so that you can properly
Protect and defend the person to you left to right whether its family or another operator?
You've got to learn to train and shoot with both eyes open because that's what's going to happen at the moment of truth