Prediction and Sharp Focus

The core purpose of the visual system is prediction. Our visual processing system, when you combine that with other senses, provides information to the central nervous system to allow a prediction of what is coming next. Our game is based on what is coming next.

Rather than trying to predict where it's going to be, if you can give your brain a much better prediction based on where the target has been, the more it knows about where it's been, the more it's going to know about where it's going to be.

That's where the shots break down, it's because you get involved with trying to guess where it's going to be as opposed to giving the brain the data and letting the brain put the gun where it needs to be. That's where it all breaks down. 

I’ve read a lot of research about trained athletes familiar with the targets that they are tracking. And I’ve learned that the longest that people have been able to be trained to maintain sharp focus on a moving target is one and a half to three seconds. These are 18-to-25-year-olds, prime health, prime conditioning, lots of training.

The part of this equation that we have always used that the same research showed was that everyone's default with respect to how long you can hold sharp focus on the state of the moving object is three-fourths of a second. 

For years, I coached a skeet shooter who always had trouble with low one because he was focusing on the target from the house all the way across the field. He was going to break it where he'd break it on his double. Well, that takes a second. And two-thirds a third of a second or three-fourths of a second after he'd focused on the target coming out of the low house, about the time he was going to break the low house target over by the high house, his brain said, “I got tired looking at it; I'm not going to look at it anymore.”

When I got him to look just to the right of the center stake and put his gun between where he was looking and where he was going to break it and just say “pull” and keep his eyes still, when the bird came out and got in focus, his problem with that long incoming target went away.

So, the longest you can hold focus is one and a half to three seconds. But for a lot of older shooters, those days are gone forever for all of you. It's going to be three-fourths of a second, which is not long.

If I can see the trap, I'm going to be looking at the trap; my nose is going be on the trap. When it comes out, I'm going to look at the target, my nose is going be on it, and as it approaches the gun, I'm going to match the speed. But I'm so comfortable seeing the target to the left of the barrel or seeing the target across the barrel that both sight pictures look the same to me now.

All I have to do is keep the bird coming to me on the correct side of the barrel and match the speed and pull the trigger. I don't have to worry about how long I can see it because I can't see the detail on the target anyway.

 This is an adapted excerpt from the February 2025 Coaching Hour podcast. You can hear it in full - along with more than 20 years of archives in audio and written form - with your Knowledge Vault membership.