“See More”
In a recent class, I took with Brian Hill with The Complete Combatant, this was the term that he used to help us “focus” and help build speed and accuracy. Other instructors have stated similar phrases like “focus on your front sight”, “slow down” or “only shoot as fast as you can see your sights”. While, those terms are perfectly adequate and used a good bit in the training world, the term “See More” took on a much deeper meaning, at least for me.
One of the goals in Brian’s class was to help improve your speed and accuracy and he uses a couple of timed drills to measure improvement over the course of the weekend. For example, time to first shot, shot split times, and a timed failure drill, etc. There a couple of ways to increase speed such as reducing unnecessary motions and trying to pick up the front sight with your dominant eye while prepping the trigger on extension. Combining these techniques will allow you to get the gun out of the holster quicker and allow you to take the first shot the instant your firearm gets to full extension. While it sounds simple, trying to put all these things together in a split second can be challenging, especially if there are subconscious motions that are hindering your ability to efficiently meld all these tactics together.
Brian has a unique way to help diagnose small inefficiencies and help students, or at least me, “See More.” One of the first things he noticed is that when the shot timer went off, I immediately crouched lower while drawing my firearm from the holster. He encouraged me to change my preparatory index (the position I started from when the timer when off) to the position I naturally crouched too. While it felt uncomfortable, I noticed that I was able to see my front sight much quicker. That small change reduced the need for me to try to find my front sight while my body was moving down (crouching), and my arms were moving up during extension.
The second eye-opening revelation came during a discussion of hard focus on the front sight, especially and extended ranges. As I approach 50, my eyesight isn’t as keen as it used to be and out past 10 yards, the front sight starts to get fuzzy. The issue is that my eyes are unable to quickly transition from a far sight focus (say a target at 15 yards) to a near sight focus, the front site of my pistol. So while at the 15-yard line, as I am standing there looking at the target, my eyes adjust to that particular distance and as I draw my pistol and switch to focusing on my front sight, my eyes are not able to adjust quickly enough.
The results were undeniable. On day one, my time to first shot was about 1.5 -1.7 seconds from concealment. With a few changes in my draw-stroke and preparatory index I was able to get my time to first shot down below 1 second and by day 2 was consistently putting 2 shots on target quicker than a single shot on target prior to the class.
Updated: August 2022
Recently Brian released an excellent video on this concept of “Seeing More” and it is worth watching!
This will change the way you think about seeing your sights, and this is what makes Brian Hill an incredible instructor.
