Pistol Training In Your Car: Can It Make You a Safer Driver?

Sometimes (actually quite often) I find crossover between what I’m doing on the firearms training front and the rest of my life.

Vision training is one of those areas.  The same exercises that help me pick up my front sight faster also help me keep my eyes on the road more when I’m driving and help me scan a room/crowd faster.

In this case, the drill is one of the drills from http://TacticalVisionTraining.com that I’ve adapted to do in my truck (without a pistol) at stoplights.  It’s easy, quick, and INCREDIBLY powerful.

You’re going to want to turn up the volume on this one.

Once you get in the habit of doing this drill, you’ll quickly notice that you’ll be watching the car ahead of you, flick your eyes to your speedometer and back and be shocked about how clear everything was and how quickly you were able to refocus both times.

I use a metronome and have upregulated my visual cortex so that I have gone from being able to shift clear focus 30-60 times per minute (60 is average) to being able to shift clear focus 150-180 times per minute.

One of the ways that this has played out is that I went from having a lag during my drawstroke while my vision caught up to having my eyes already focused on the point in space where my front sight was going to be, before it got there.  In addition, when you are seeing quicker, it’s much easier to follow your sights through recoil and make quicker followup shots.

When you get back to the range, it might actually take you a little bit to get to where your timing catches up with your newfound visual speed.

A lot of instructors and top shooters will tell you that you need to follow your sights during recoil, but don’t tell you how to actually do it.  Vision training is the key and this drill is one of the quickest and easiest things you can do.

Like I said, this drill is one of the drills from my Tactical Vision Training Course.  I started doing vision training almost 20 years ago and got very serious about it 5 or so years ago because of work I did with Dr. Eric Cobb.  Since vision is arguably 80% of the shooting equation, the work that I’ve done on vision has had a dramatic impact on my ability to shoot at a high level while sending minimal rounds downrange.

by Mike Ox

Mike Ox is an avid defensive and competitive shooter who has co-created several firearms training products, including Dry Fire Training Cards, https://se965.infusionsoft.com/go/dftcmedia/loadout

Dry Fire Fit, 21 Day Alpha Shooter, and See Faster, Shoot Faster.  His brain based training focuses on accelerated learning techniques for shooting as well as controlling brain state and brain chemistry for optimal performance in extreme stress situations.  Learn more about dynamic dry fire training for defense and competition at www.DryFireTrainingCards.com/blog

 

Photo by Rick Dembroski: Trijicon sights on the Ghost Gun Precision slide