How do you stop beginners from obsessing over the sub 6 hold?

[Grippy]

I occasionally teach courses and introduce beginners at my club and this is the single most common "hangup" almost every new shooter seems to have. There is the part where they are convinced a center hold would be so much easier and are trying to get "permission" to do so. Then they get obsessed with how much space EXACTLY should be between the sights and the dot etc. (there are even two relatively recent threads on this forum about this)

I get that it's initially surprising to them that they are supposed to "not aim at the target" but the second part where they hyperfocus on the details of the hold always has me at a loss. They are clearly wobbling all over the target, barely manage to stay inside the five. But the only technical aspect they seem to actively focus on is whether their sights should be at the 6 or 5 ring. As if they could even tell the difference while aiming?

I sometimes fold a used target in half and hold it next to the "aiming area" to show them that the differences they seem so worried about are between hitting a low or a high ten. I was thinking of maybe setting up a scatt and let everyone have a go to demonstrate how their wobble pattern is wildly larger than the difference they are worried about. But then I'd expect them to just see that while observing their sights?

So what are your teaching techniques around this? How do you reduce the "mental space" this occupies in a beginners mind to make room for the actually relevant things?

[Rover]

I recall a method occasionally used while I was a Marine.

A sharp slap to the back of the head, and "SNAP OUT OF YOUR CHEAP SHIT!", screamed into the ear seemed effective to the dense.

[PirateJohn]

One way is to have them shoot only on blank targets until they start getting reasonable groups

[Grippy]

I usually start them on blank targets and have them do so at the beginning of each training session. But you can't exactly do the "you must meditate in the monastery for a year"-thing if you want them to also stay interested.

[Gwhite]

It's a battle. Especially with anyone who has shot before. For the college team I help coach, we show them the pictures, and tell them what they should do and why. There are always a couple students who either don't listen, or "know better", and shoot either center hold or 6:00 hold. The ex-cop who teaches basic pistol marksmanship PE classes still uses the NRA material that preaches a 6:00 hold. We get students that took the PE class, and the first thing we tell them is to forget about that.

Although not really suitable for a basic pistol class, there are three things that help the beginning team shooters a lot, not necessarily related to the sight picture:

1) Put an orange chalk mark on their front sight to give them something interesting to focus on. DO NOT mark the entire sight orange. They will quickly learn to ignore that just as well as a black sight. If they get used to the mark, change it. Tell them every detail & speck needs to be in sharp focus every time the pistol fires.

2) Get them _0.5 Diopter shooting glasses or clip-on lenses. That makes it harder for them to look at the target.

https://shootingsight.com/?product=safe ... ng-glasses

https://shootingsight.com/?product=clip-on-flip-lens

3) This isn't so much a sighting problem, but we get this with a couple students every year (always guys...). They are convinced that the only way to shoot is to start by crushing the pistol. We bought one of these grip force meters:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A8K4L84

Andrew Berryhill (PrecisionTargetPistolGrips.com) 3D printed right handed & left handed pistol grip accessories that slip over the back to make it feel more like a pistol. We measured the grip force of a bunch of our best shooters, and for air pistol, it was right around the lower limit for the meter, which is 2 pounds. We had a student who was gripping at 9 pounds, and when we got him to chill out, his groups were immediately cut in half. We've got a student now who measured over 20 pounds! He's relaxed a bit, but he still knows more than we do, and shoots like crap. You can often tell when students are over-gripping and trying to CONTROL the pistol. Instead of wobbling around smoothly & slowly, the pistol is constantly being jerked about in small fast movements.

The biggest remaining bugaboo is trigger control. We haven't come up with a good way to get that quickly under control with many of the students.

[thirdwheel]

Take the pistol out of their hands sit them down and explain why it is best not to use the black as an aiming mark / point and why looking at that black blob will stunt their progress - can you list them yourself? To show them how it works - put a large target on the wall and make a silhouette of the sight picture, put this silhouette on the sub six on the target aim area and move it about (wobble) in the aim area at about the speed you would see normally. Get them to close their eyes and tell them to shout fire, you then stop they open their eyes and mark off the distance from the top or the "front" sight that is the equivalent distance from your poa and poi and plot the shots they call with a dot.
Scatt - it is a very good idea to put beginners on it so they can see their movement and trigger and it gives a base point to come back to in say a month and compare - I find it a real eye opener for them and me.
Out there on you tube is a brilliant French animation on the importance of sight alignment against worrying about being in the right place on the target it is superb if you find it please post it on here.
If they have good eyesight and do not wear glasses I make them wear a pair of +0.75 reading glasses with a small blinder on the non used eye made from translucent plastic - now they should not be able to fixate so heavily on the black as it will be out of focus and the sights will be in focus without them trying.
Rover is so near the mark on this but the constant sobbing would annoy other that are shooting.

[thirdwheel]

Found the French animation that is realistic to movement of poi relating to the movement of sights over target vis movement of front sight to back, it is after the short introduction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCBlLpXMp9U

[Gwhite]

It doesn't have the fancy animation, but I did the math on sight alignment vs sight picture a while back.

Sight Alignment vs Sight Picture Analysis.pdf

(53.83 KiB) Downloaded 125 times

I've assigned it as "homework" in the past. Not sure how effective it was...

[thirdwheel]

Splendid sight alignment explanation homework Doug and very clear and easy to understand, also thank you '1963 for the insight of how you approach the task once you can keep your eyes on the sights, this I'm trying over a period of time to see if I can get it to work.

[Mike M.]

Over the years, I've shot both center hold and sub-six. And gotten good results with both. Let the students work with both, allow their experience teach them.

[alpineboard]

1) Have them shoot at a blank white 8 1/2 x 11" piece of paper, and tell them to simply shoot for the middle.
This will be easy and relaxed, then look at the group sizes.
Another spin on this method, to try after the first method has been thoroughly practiced, is draw a small black sharpie circle
in the middle of the paper, I use either a dime, nickel, something small enough to see but not to get all wound up tense that you may
not hit it or not. Tell them to relax and just shoot at it like it is not there. Then look at your group sizes for this method.

2) Another method is to adjust sights appropriately, for a 6 o'clock bottom edge of the target hold.
What this does is eliminate any "try to hard" and screw up your follow thru situation. Just kind of pretend
you are not shooting at any black at all, you are just shooting at the edge of a pc of paper. There are not any scoring
rings, just dry fire pretend, that you are shooting at the edge, this eliminates tense try to hard , bad follow thru,
and encourages more relaxation.

Do all these without scoping the shots, and see the results at the end.
These methods work for all levels of shooters.

Also , try dry fire only for a few, then do live fire, mix this up.