Video: Tips for Breathwork and Trigger Control

Transcript for Breathwork Trigger Control

Kristy Titus, Pursue The Wild: One of the most important aspects in fundamentals of shooting is breath control, and it's really common for new shooters to get behind the pistol or behind a rifle, and they have so much anticipation. Next thing you know, they're holding their breath. Well, pretty soon, your eyes start seeing sparkles, and you're not going to be able to perform and shoot as well.

And so, if you find yourself doing that, the best thing you can do is just break your shooting position. Stop trying to shoot. Take a deep breath. Relax. And where we really want to focus on breaking that shot is what's called the natural respiratory pause.

Jen O’Hara and then Kristy fire a shot at a target, one after the other.

So, it's that place in life where we're not inhaling, we're not exhaling, and we're not taking a deep breath and then blowing out half.

The camera zooms in behind the shoulder of each shooter and shows several more shots being taken at smaller targets.

It's a natural place to be, and that's where we want to break our shots. That's where we're going to have the most control of our firearm, the most control of our body. And we're going to have the best sight picture, and everything is going to function much more flawlessly.

Jen O'Hara, Ruger Ambassador/CEO GWG Clothing: And even as you continue to hold your breath you will get muscle tremors, and your sight alignment—your sight picture—will just continue to start to—

Kristy Titus: Spiral downhill. Things go down fast.

Jen O'Hara: Absolutely. So, another aspect is definitely trigger control, and I think this is a lot of things also that new shooters struggle with.

Jen fires a shot with a pistol in profile view.

And the way that I like to teach trigger control to new shooters is—teaching a lot of kids and women; it's just a really simple thing. You take your shooting finger, and you're going to bite halfway down your nail.

When you bite halfway down your nail, you can see that it's just the tip of your finger in between the top of your finger and your first knuckle, and that is how much you're going to put on the trigger.

And I think what's really important is that we don't get in too much. Now, it is a little bit different for revolvers, but that's another aspect. We are shooting semi-automatics today, so we're just going to teach that way. But it's really important not to have too much.

Jen fires a shot at a small target.

Another thing that's really important with trigger control is press, press, press, press. Constantly, when I'm training, I say that in my head. I come up on target, I put my finger on the trigger, and in my head, it's press, press, press.

Kristy Titus: Not pull.

Jen O'Hara: No.

Kristy Titus: Because then you're going to pull your sight picture left or right.

Jen O'Hara: Correct. And one of the things that I like to always have my students do is take a quarter, and when you're at home with no ammunition in the room, you will take your firearm, and you'll put a quarter on the end of the muzzle.

Shooter places a quarter on top of their pistol and aims at the target.

And if you can press straight back, your quarter doesn't go anywhere, you know that you are shooting—you have a smooth and controlled trigger press.

Kristy Titus: That's a great drill and a great way for new shooters to really start practicing.

Jen O’Hara: Absolutely.