Standing in the comfort zone

This is an update to my last post. I put the air pistol aside for a couple of hours so that I could refresh myself, and then got the good idea to stand infront of a decent sized mirror so that I could actually see things. I was looking for the following things.

• Where was my head and eye position.
• Where was my body pointing.
  
• Where was my arm pointing when it was most relaxed.
• Which direction was the barrel now pointing.

1. Head and Eyes. My personal belief is that the eye (I am right eyed/ right handed) should be directly face on to the target looking directly towards it without any head tilt or sideways deviation that can be avoided. The reasoning behind this is so that the eyeball is as close to centred in the socket as possible, removing as much muscular eye strain as possible by having it centered and relaxed. (There will be enough strain as it is focusing)
2. Body Direction. Ideally I would like to be perpendicular to the target so that my locked arm is directly out from my body. Like most sedentry computer operaters, my neck doesn't like to rotate 90 degrees anymore. Instead it ends up with a strain or a tilt to get the eye in line. I can cheat to get it there, but its just hard to keep it in the same position, and subconsiously the arm and wrist try to compensate. My Technique; Starting position is face on to the mirror. Keeping the neck relaxed I rotate my feet position moving anticlockwise towards the right foot first perpendicular position. Keep doing this until you cant move any more without straining the neck to keep looking straight on at the mirror. I found that my natural inclination is only around 10 degrees of perpendicuar. and I am quite comfortable.
3. Arm Position. This really needs to be done with pistol in hand. The goal here is to raise the arm, keeping it locked, and the wrist comfortably straight and inline with the arm (not the target) and when it is at target sighting height see where it is. The goal for me is that the right eye when facing firectly forward is exactly in line with the bullseye of the target. At this point I am trying to get the rearsights inline with my eye rather than the front sights. If I find that the position of the rearsights is not inline with my eye, then I readjust my feet, staying in the neck comfort zone, until a comfortable relaxed raising of my arm puts it inline with my eye. Results. For me I found that my relaxed arm position had my gun pointing off to the left so that I could not line up the front sights unless I made my arm position less comfortable, or by bending my wrist to the side. I wanted to avoid either.
4. Barrel Direction. All things being equal, I can make the assumtion that I now had a very natural shooting position with Feet, Eyes, and Arm, and my only problem was that this made the barrel point nicely in line with my arm to aim 5-15 degrees to the left of my eye position on the bullseye. This is where a match pistol comes into its own with grip adjustments. I am not a fan of creating massive tilts on the grip in relation to barrel direction, because of the sideways force on trigger pull. In my case I loosened it up and twisted the barrel around to the right hand side as much as I could to compensate for my arms left inclination. Note that the grips do not allow a lot of right tilt; Moreso they have a lot of left tilt. (not sure why). I tried my position again and lifted the gun. Hey Presto. I could lift the gun so that my arm was completely straight with no subtle wrist tilting so that the gun barrel pointed down the direction of eye, to sights, to target with almost no visible twitching of any part of arm or wrist.
   

In Summary. The main goal I have now is just not releasing the shot when I know it is not optimal. Its just too much fun, even on the not so great shots, but that doesn't help train a good habit. Each time I raise the arm I do the following.

1. Check body position.
2. Place head straight face on to the target with the right eye perfectly aligned to the Bull (well, as perfect as perceived).
3. Focus on the bull as I raise the relaxed arm to shooting height (This is so that I don't accidentally move the arm position)
4. Check the sights are comfortably straight with the eye and directly in line with the bull. (If the sights are not straight; STOP and adjust feet and body. If the Sights are straight, but not inline with the bull; STOP and move body until they are.)
5. When everything feels perfect keep the perfect picture until the trigger just happens to draw fire.

Finally. These summaries are a lot for myself, and I hope they help you. Remember that all these things are open to personal adjustment so that it feels right.