Close your eyes to improve your draw

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I spend about 10-15 minutes every day dry firing. Some days I solely work on trigger control and other days I only work on my draw without even pulling the trigger.

Today, I’d like to share with you a way to improve your draw so that when your gun comes out of the holster it has a lot better chance of coming up on the target. First off, get in your shooting stance. I prefer the modified-isosceles stance where my feet are about shoulder width apart and my right leg (gun leg) is dropped back about six inches.

Next…

With a safe and empty weapon, practice your draw and bring your gun up on target. (It can be a mark on a wall, or I use a target that is taped to the bulletproof panel on my wall.)

Practice your draw several times until your gun seems to come right up on target every time. What I mean by this is that when the draw is complete your sights are aligned and you can pull the trigger and hit what you’re aiming at without any adjustment.

Once you’re comfortable with your draw, close your eyes.

Then practice your draw again and if all goes well you should have perfect sight alignment on the target when you open your eyes. However, the chances are you’ll be a little off. The reason for this is because when your eyes are open you likely force the gun on target at the last second. In other words, if you’re doing the correct draw with your eyes closed, you know your body is naturally aligning the sites.  

And if it isn’t, this is when you need to adjust your feet, adjust your grip, and move your body if necessary. After you’ve made a few adjustments then draw with your eyes closed again and see if you’re on target this time. Obviously, it may take a few adjustments before you achieve proper sight alignment, but this is time well spent.

The fact is, once you repeat this new draw over and over it will be ingrained in your mind and almost become automatic. And this is clearly a good thing because if the day ever comes where you have to draw your gun to defend your life, you’re newly perfected draw will come right out on the target you’re looking at.

I realize practicing your draw is not as fun as shooting and isn’t the most exciting thing in the world, but if the stuff ever hits the fan, you’ll be more than thankful to have a quick draw that leads to correct sight alignment. Just remember to triple check that you’re being safe when it comes time to close your eyes.