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The Sight Continuum

8K views 43 replies 10 participants last post by  Mike1956 
#1 ·
The "Sight Continuum" is merely a guide to which shooting technique you will use in a deadly force situation.

I came up with the sight continuum to explain when to use point shooting and when to use the sights by the urgency of making shot and the distance involved. Other things like movement, and the use of cover are other considerations that play a part in the sight continuum.

The final piece of sight continuum came to me one day while watching simunitions training and I noticed that people A) do as they were trained or B) spray and prey or C) nothing (until to late). Well sometimes people do what they were trained a little to well. No one every told them that they could go from the mind set of I’m going to draw and take a aimed shot to of oh crap I need to make the shot right now. When this happened most shooters didn’t use point shooting and make the shot but rushed the draw stroke which usually threw the gun even more off target and then it took them even longer to recover their sight picture and by this time you could play connect the dots on them.

The distance which most handgun fights take place at are within 10 feet and the victim is usually reacting to the attacker which further puts them behind the reactionary curve. The only way I have found to off set the attackers advantage is for the victim to move, draw and fire the second the gun comes on target and continue to zipper up the body until the attacker is down.

The "Sight Continuum" starts with "hip shooting" and continues to the use of sights and this give a person the ability to shoot at any point within their draw stoke one hand or two handed. In combat, I did not have to think about which method I would use as it just came to me.

The body is amazing as if you keep the weapon with the centerline of the body or the nose with the gun in the peripheral vision the mind will determine when to take the shot. All you have to do is focus on the spot you intend to hit. Your subconscious mind will worry about the alignment of the gun and the spot your focusing on. This is especially useful while shooting and moving fast.

When I attempt to move and use aimed shooting, I have found that if I attempt to aim to make the same shot it slows me down as I have to consciously think about the front sight, the target, and when to fire. This is the reason so many schools teach the groucho walk. While I'm in the process of trying to align my front sight on the target, I tend to slow down my movement in order to keep the front sight from bouncing and begin to get tunnel vision on the front sight.

The shooter’s focus should be on the target with their surrounding in their peripheral vision not on the front sight. Continual focusing on the front sight while moving leads to tunnel vision. Furthermore, on the squared range, there are usually no obstructions to trip over but in the real world there are many hazards one can find themselves negotiating in the middle of a gunfight.

In point shooting, the index is very important just as it is with sighted shooting. The index gets the gun on target and with point shooting eye/hand coordination places the bullet on the same spot that the eyes are focused on and with sighted shooting the index gets the gun on target and the gun is brought a little further up to the point where the eyes pick up the sights and verify the gun is on target. As the distance increases, the effectiveness of indexing and eye/hand coordination decreases.

From 0 to 3 feet, or at what is commonly referred to as bad breathe distance, a retention techniques needs to be employed. These Techniques rely heavily on body index with very little to no hand/eye coordination.

Indexing will only take you so far and with all point shooting techniques there still needs to be some degree of hand to eye coordination. The further away the target is from the shooter the shooter goes from relying on indexing and more to the ability of putting rounds on the spot where the eyes are focused on. It is similar to throwing a punch but only at an increased distance. Your fist is replaced by bullets. Index alone will get hits on the target out to 10 yards however you want your point of focus and your point aim to be on the same point (hand/eye coordination).

From 0 to 3 yards, most people use techniques similar to Fairbairn's "Half Hip". With the Half Hip position, I use my body's centerline as an index with my gun in my peripheral vision. This technique relies on both body index and hand/eye coordination.

For extreme close quarter gun fights with “half hip” the shooter needs to explode off the line. The draw of the weapon occurs while the support arm forearm is driven into the attacker throat. The shooter dives the attacker back and zippers up the attackers body.

From 5 to 10 yards, I use either in one handed or two-handed point shooting, which will be under the line of sight, I use my nose as the index. The person uses the index to get the gun on target and the eye/hand coordination places the on the spot where the eyes are focused on.

NOTE: The above yard estimates are not absolute and will change do to shooter and/or target movement.

Aimed shooting comes at the end of my sighting continuum. Why because I can start to draw my weapon and anywhere in the steps of my draw I can point shoot off of body index/eye hand coordination or I can continue to bring the weapon up to eye level and make a precision shot. The steps of the draw that I use are the same with point shooting as with sighted shooting. Time (the urgency of making the shot) combined with distance will determine which method I use in the Sight Continuum.

In closing, I'm not exclusively a "Point Shooter" or a "Sighted Shooter" I simply use whatever method will allow me to go home at the end of the night.
 
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#2 ·
I'm not exclusively a "Point Shooter" or a "Sighted Shooter"
That to me is it in a nutshell - no need whatsoever to isolate these two aspects. One should flow into the other - during the build of what you call the ''sight continuum''.

Time available will generally determine the duration of the point shooting phase - possibly even rendering it unnecessary. It is tho part of the whole IMO.
 
#3 ·
P95Carry said:
That to me is it in a nutshell - no need whatsoever to isolate these two aspects. One should flow into the other - during the build of what you call the ''sight continuum''.

Time available will generally determine the duration of the point shooting phase - possibly even rendering it unnecessary. It is tho part of the whole IMO.
Yes it is...
Point shooting is another tool in the tool box that compliments sighted fire. It also gives the shooter the necessary eye-hand coodination to make a shot in the event that they become threat focused during a gun fight.

I can tell you from personal experience this happens and having the ability to shoot the moment my weapon came on line but not up to sight level saved my bacon at least once.
 
#4 ·
I have considered the issue of point-shooting vs. sighted shooting for quite some time. I like your idea of a continuum but offer my thoughts for consideration.

1. There is not a "one-size fits all" approach to shooting. The type of shooting an individual uses is contextual. All shots are not just range dependant. They are also time and/or precision dependant. The requirements of an individual storming an aircraft are dramatically different than those of an individual being robbed in a parking lot despite the fact that both are engaging a threat at 5 yards. An individual may spend a significant amount of time practicing to engage targets in the 5-10 yard range using his sights because the circumstances under which he expects to employ his weapon demand a high degree of precision. For that individual, it is counter-productive to develop a seperate skill set (point-shooting) to address threats in this range.

2. I dislike the idea of selecting which "tool" to use based on the distance to the target/time available/degree of precision required for two reasons.

First, we know that the stress of a gunfight can create visual and/or temporal distortion. Targets may appear bigger (or smaller), closer (or farther away) and time may slow down (or speed up). It is therefore possible that the information we are using to select our sighting method may be incorrect.

Second, it requires additional decisions to be made. Having to discriminate between "shoot" and "no-shoot" targets lengthens the target engagement sequence. To that decision we now have to make a determination as to the distance to the target, the amount of time we have to engage the target and the degree of precision the target requires, "crunch the numbers" and select a sighting method. I firmly believe that this adds time to the engagement sequence.

There is a fair amount of evidence demonstrating that point-shooting techniques are faster at closer ranges. However, if we look at it in the context of Boyd's OODA loop, the savings we gain in the "Act" phase is off-set, to some degree, by an increase in time spent in the "Decide" phase.

3. I have doubts about an individual's ability to move back and forth in the continuum. (I think an excellent test would be on a target system like the one used at Bill Rogers' Shooting School.) I also tend to think that the ability to do this is going to vary from one individual to another.

4. At a certain point, I believe experienced shooters who use sighted fire exclusively have performed enough repetitive movement that they can point-shoot fairly well. Conversely, experienced point-shooters have enough experience aligning the weapon with the target and when they choose to focus on the sights probably require little, if any refinement, of the sight-picture. For this reason, I tend to think the continuum is circular rather than linear. The question being: do you move clockwise or counter-clockwise around the circle?

Thoughts?
 
#7 · (Edited)
Blackhawk,
I agree with you that there is “no one size fits all” approach to shooting the reason for the sight continuum. I also agree with the precision angle.

The following link is my take on moving and shooting and hopefully it will explain how it fits in and some of the training.
http://www.combatcarry.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=10873&page=5

I’ll share a little background with you when it comes to re-taking aircraft. Last summer, I went through Tactics for Flying Armed Class. This class is all about engaging multiple combatants in an commercial aircraft and how to retake it. Without going into details even though our sister agency the air marshals management released a video showing some of the tactics used, I can say that we used both threat focused and sighted shooting techniques in the class. Time, distance and at times precision dictated the method we used.

In the continuum, the use of sight is default mode and are used for precision shots. Time (urgency) of making the shot combined with the distance to the target are overriding factors in the use of sights. I just noticed that I somehow removed that fact when I copied and pasted it on this site. Simply put do not die just to use your sights. I believe if you only practice precision shots and you meet up against someone that mastered both threat focused and sighted fire techniques they’ll never get a shot off. I’ve done it countless times in the shoot house with new agents and ask those who have taken my courses or seen my demos.

Since we are on robberies in parking lots and tactics for such I’ll share some of my thoughts from the above link: Most incidents with handguns occur at less then 21 feet with 5 to 7 feet being the most common. Let face it if you are more then 7 yards away and you have picked up the threat you should move to a position of advantage, i.e. cover, and if a shot needed use your sights. However, threat identification may not have picked up the threat and cover is not always available we are most likely reacting to a threat moving to avoid being shot and using a point shooting technique to return fire.

I believe that to much fuss is made over the OODA loop and most people do not understand it. The simple rule is that action beats reaction. Example, you take someone that has mastered shooting and you put him through the paces the whole OODA loop phases will be almost non-detectable. Then put another person that is just beginning at shooting and you will see the OODA loop in all of it glory. I also see it every day in martial arts. Those who consciously think before they act are mopped up by those guys that act due the position and moves made by their opponent. This occurs because they have experience and have gone down this road before until it is second nature and this is something that is not taken into consideration with 99% of the discussions regarding the OODA loop.

Why do you suppose Boyd created “Top Gun” after discovering the OODA loop? To speed up the loop and make the tactics and techniques used by the pilots second nature.

We have gone past squared ranges and paper targets and use aircraft, houses, building, buses, shooting with PPE, etc and simuntions FX rounds to determine what works and what doesn’t. It is called using the bodies natural abilities instead of fighting against them is the reason it works so well.

Written words in a forum do it no justice and make it sound overly complicated but it isn’t. All you have to ask is someone who has had the training and they’ll tell it works.

Edited to add: I agree with your thought process in number 4. I have found sighted shooters who practice the steps of the draw usually can draw and hit the target blind folded. This is accomplished by hours of practice. All these guy usually need is an hour of hand/eye coordination drills to get pointshooting down. Pointshooting is for close quarters shooting generally 7 yards and closer so thing like trigger pull is not going to play as much of a role as a sighted shot at 15 to 25 years.
 
#8 ·
7677, the information in that post is as invaluable now, as it was the very first time I read it, years ago. You have been on the forefront of this type of thinking and training for a very long time. It has been my pleasure to learn, share, train, and evolve with you over those years.

Once again, outstanding post and it is really good to see you here. This place has rapidly become my favorite forum. There are a lot of very open minded knowledgeable people here....I think you'll like it.:urlaub2:
 
#9 · (Edited)
7677,

I appreciate your comments and have considered them at some length. I also read the link you provided and considered the information there as well. As I disagree with little you had to say regarding movement, I will confine my comments to the original topic of the sight continuum. My thoughts follow.

In the continuum, the use of sight is default mode and are used for precision shots. Time (urgency) of making the shot combined with the distance to the target are overriding factors in the use of sights.
Good tactical shooting requires an understanding of the degree of speed and the degree of precision each shot requires and then being able to deliver both the degree of speed and the degree of precision required. I think we both agree on this point. Regardless of the sighting methodology used, some degree of analysis of the problem is going to be required. What I fail to understand is how requiring more analysis and increasing the number of decisions the shooter must make translates into a faster response. If you explained it, I missed it.

I believe that to much fuss is made over the OODA loop and most people do not understand it.
I would agree that the OODA loop is an over-cited, and often incorrectly-cited, theory. However, I am quite sure I understand the theory. You are welcome to further my education.

The simple rule is that action beats reaction.
Not necessarily true, but true enough for the discussion at hand. The fact is that a shooter is almost always reacting when he identifies a threat, especially a CCW-holder. By creating additional decisions and/or considerations we unnecessarily increase the time needed to implement a response. The best reaction is almost always a simple technique suitable for dealing with a variety of problems. In the sight continuum you have proposed, there is a technique for dealing with a threat at 1 yard or less, another for 1 to 3 yards, another for 5 to 10 yards and another for 10 yards and beyond. A sighted-fire only shooter might use one technique for 3-yards or less and a second for greater than 3 yards. Who has the simpler system? How much more complex does each become when in addition to distance, target size is introduced as a variable?

Example, you take someone that has mastered shooting and you put him through the paces the whole OODA loop phases will be almost non-detectable. Then put another person that is just beginning at shooting and you will see the OODA loop in all of it glory. I also see it every day in martial arts. Those who consciously think before they act are mopped up by those guys that act due the position and moves made by their opponent. This occurs because they have experience and have gone down this road before until it is second nature and this is something that is not taken into consideration with 99% of the discussions regarding the OODA loop.
You make a good point. Time spent training and experience are directly related the success. My ability to discern relevenant information from irrelevant information and use that information is increased with training/experience. However, if I have a finite amount of training time, is it better to spend it focusing on two techniques that allow an effective response or on four techniques that provide an effective response?

We have gone past squared ranges and paper targets and use aircraft, houses, building, buses, shooting with PPE, etc and simuntions FX rounds to determine what works and what doesn’t.
I am well aware of how training is being conducted. I have a few thousand hours conducting force on force exercises and a not-too-insignificant amount of time downrange as well. The flat range is not obsolete but it must be used in context. Likewise, there are certain artificialities to any FOF method that must be considered as well. It is important to collectivly assess a technique's value. One is not a substitute for the other.
It is called using the bodies natural abilities instead of fighting against them is the reason it works so well.
I agree that harnessing the body's natural reactions is beneficial. This can be done using sighted-shooting methods as well as point-shooting methods.
Written words in a forum do it no justice and make it sound overly complicated but it isn’t. All you have to ask is someone who has had the training and they’ll tell it works.
I have no doubt that it works. I am trying to understand your assertion that it works better and why.

Based on your earlier reply, I believe we are in agreement regarding points #1 & #4 of my earlier post. However the following issues concerning the sighting continuum remain unresolved:

1. The sighting continuum creates the requirement for a more detailed analysis of the problem, as the shooter is required to evaluate more variables prior to selecting a response.

2. Stress may alter the shooter's perception of the problem and consequently trigger a less-effective or ineffective response.

3. A shooter exposed to two or more problems simultaneously may be unable/find it difficult to transition from the approriate method for one to the approrpiate method for the other.
 
#10 ·
All valid points, I find it difficult to get my thoughts expressed , but here goes.
I try to point shoot close targets, and sighted fire longer distances. By engaging a specific way, diffrent distance targets , I believe I will naturally react As I train. seems to work on targets, luckily I have not had to try it out in real life.
 
#11 ·
I have found that "seeing what I need to see to make the hits" takes zero conscious thought. I know my sighted fire skills inside and out, just as I know my threat focused skills.

The decision when to use them.....takes no time at all. It is like a jab compared to an upper cut. Which one is the best to throw in a certain circumstance? It is as obvious as can be and takes zero effort or time to pick between the two. As a matter of fact I can add hooks, overhand rights, straight rights, and body punches and the time to aquire the information on when to use them is minimal because they are thrown with zero conscious thought.

Any top athlete can perform at a level that is impossible to reach with conscious thought. They have things ingrained so well that they are working at a subconscious level. The use of your weapon systems should be ingrained to that same level.....subconsciously competent.
 
#12 ·
BH,
I would like to point out that threat identification is the most over looked part of shooting. The further out one identifies the threat the more options they have to deal with the situation such as the use of cover, avoidance, etc. This is the logical starting point of all deadly force encounters.

I'll try and explain the decision process better. The system I teach uses the same draw stroke for both threat focused and sighted fire. So when we speak of two systems we are basically talking about the point where the eyes are focused on. Those that have trained in threat focused techniques have built up hand eye coordination to the point where they can make good hits on a target out to 10 yards even though I only teach and advocate out to 7 yards.

This eye/hand coordination gives a person that is focused on the threat the ability shoot without having to transition their eyes back to the front sight (the time equation of the sight continuum). This same hand/eye coordination gives the shooter the same ability to fire from any point along their draw stroke after the gun has come on line with the threat and while moving too.

I think of it as insurance that if I have to shoot before the gun gets up to my eye level (so I can use the sights) that my eye/hand coordination can aim the weapon and I can hit the attacker. In most of these situations it comes down to who is faster and gets the first and/or second round on target wins.

Which method you use is based on your threat is doing (time equation). Since most robberies occur at face to face distances (distance). Again, threat identification plays a big role at what point in the sight continuum a person is going to start.
 
#13 ·
7677,

Originally Posted by 7677
I would like to point out that threat identification is the most over looked part of shooting. The further out one identifies the threat the more options they have to deal with the situation such as the use of cover, avoidance, etc. This is the logical starting point of all deadly force encounters.
I agree. However, threats may appear suddenly and require an immediate response.

Originally Posted by 7677
Which method you use is based on your threat is doing (time equation). Since most robberies occur at face to face distances (distance). Again, threat identification plays a big role at what point in the sight continuum a person is going to start.
This is exactly were I see the issue. Let's remove the distance equation from the discussion and focus on a threat that is 7 yards distant. What the threat is doing (time equation) is certainly a consideration but so is the the amount of the threat available as a target (precision). As I attempted to explain earlier, a fully-exposed threat in a parking lot attempting to shoot me with a gun is a different problem than a partially-exposed threat on an aircraft attempting to shoot me with a gun.

In both examples what the threat is doing (time equation) is the same, yet the degree of precision required differs substantially. Distance alone can not be the determining factor, nor can time nor can the degree of precision when using your sight continuum. All three have to be considered equally before a response can be initiated.

Once again, my concern is that the shooter is required to evaluate more variables prior to selecting a response. Additionally, stress may corrupt the shooter's analysis of the problem resulting in a less-effective or ineffective response. Finally, multiple problems presented simultaneously invlving different distance/time/precision requirements would force the shooter to perform the difficult task of moving from one sighting method to another.
 
#14 ·
Blackhawk6;

The amount of threat [ amount of precision needed ] available is part of the equation 7677's sight continuum addresses. The more precise shot necessary, the more the sights are necessary.

The variable selection you mention is all part of well rounded training for some. Those who are only trained to use their sights in every situation [ and the majority have been trained in this way for decades ] do not have these options available to them.

Threat focused shooters can use their sights to great effect when necessary. That necessity is dictated by the variables you mention which are always present in a SD sitation.

These variables hold different weightings in all SD situations we'll find ourselves involved with and they are always there. Time/distance/precision needs, to effect an immediate resolution once the gun enters the equation, are what the brain figures out in less time than a computer could once the data was input into it.

7677 mentioned "threat identification". The further out we identify a threat, the more time we have to make decisons and two variables [ time and distance ] is then extended which affects one or both of the other variables. It also will affect the precision variable.

Conversely, if we neglect to identify a potential threat early enough [ or through no fault of our own it just presents itself up close and personal ], the variables weightings change. As these variables change, so do the requirements of what order they need to be weighted.

If, for instance, the threat presents at 7 feet in the open. The heaviest weightings will be time and distance. If that same threat presents behind cover, the variables change again. If the threat is moving, again they change.

If the threat presents with a hostage, threatening to kill them, weightings of the variables change with it. Then the precision variable will weigh more if we decide to act. The threat isn't shooting at us presently, so time is not weighted as heavily in the equation.

These variables can be trained for. When the time/distance/precision requirements do not dictate we neeed to take the time to use the sights and we do anyway, we are leaving ourselves exposed to danger longer than necessary.

Threat focused skills are used to reduce the time equation if and when the other two variable are weighted properly to allow us to reduce the time to threat. If the weighting of the other variables are more prevalent in the equation [ distance and precision requirements ], other skills using the sights become more weighted and necessary.

As for myself, being a threat focused shooter whenever possible, I do not have to take the time to use the sights when they are unnecessary. Another shooter not trained in the skills of threat focus shooting would either have to take the extra time to get the gun up into the line of sight or rush the shots and effectively be "spraying and praying" some of them found their mark.

If you take the time to get to your sights when you don't have the time, you reduce your chances of surviving the encounter and extend the time further for the threat to get rounds on you. If one is not well rounded in their skills they don't have the same choices to determine the weightings of the variables.

It's certainly easier to not have to think about the variables and just always train to go to sights. SD situations present problem solving equations. The more skills [ tricks ] you have physicallyin that possibles bag so that the brain can pick the best solution/s, based on the weightings of the variables presented, the better you can effect an acceptable resolution to the problem in the least amount of time.

On the streets, thats a good thing. Problem solving in the most efficient manner in SD encounters is not difficult. The brain has the ability to pick the best options instantly, but the brain needs to know what physical skills are available to be able to choose the most efficient resolution to begin with. That only requires the physical skills available to be used. If the brain does not have the same amount of choices to make, it picks the best one available from the physical skills it knows, but that certainly does not mean it was the only skill it could have used nor the most efficient.

The more options it has in determining how to weigh the variables, the better it can choose the most efficient resoltion to the problem.

7677 and I train others to have these options available to them through the physical skills training. Once the brain knows the skills are there physically and are available, they can be utilized effectively in an instant [ called upon in time of need ]. If the skills are not there through lack of knowledge and training in those skills, they can never be called upon effectviely nor will the brain attempt to use that which it does not understand or know.

If the brain makes the decision through analysis of the weightings of the variables to try to use a skill it does not know under stress, it will lack the potential proficiency in doing so, and thats where people run into trouble at times and just "spray and pray" under dire circumstances. The brain picked the weightings and the skills were not there through lack of training and knowledge of how to effectively solve the problem. The computer [ the brain ] knew the most proficient solution requirements to solve the problem, but the harware [ physical skills ] were lacking.

Brownie
 
#15 ·
AzQkr said:
It's certainly easier to not have to think about the variables and just always train to go to sights.
This has been my point all along.
AzQkr said:
The more skills [ tricks ] you have physicallyin that possibles bag so that the brain can pick the best solution/s, based on the weightings of the variables presented, the better you can effect an acceptable resolution to the problem in the least amount of time.
More solutions to a given problem do not equate to a faster implementation of a solution. This has been born out in numerous studies on the subject.
AzQkr said:
The brain has the ability to pick the best options instantly...
I do not believe this is true. Consider 7677's earlier comment:
I also see it every day in martial arts. Those who consciously think before they act are mopped up by those guys that act due the position and moves made by their opponent. This occurs because they have experience and have gone down this road before until it is second nature and this is something that is not taken into consideration with 99% of the discussions regarding the OODA loop.
Were the individual "instantly" able to pick the best option, no one would be "consciously thinking" before they acted. As 7677 states, and I agree, training and expereince accelerate the brain's ability to process the information and select a response to the point where it becomes intuitive. I believe that by reducing the number of responses the brain has to choose from we can further accelerate the process. Studies in the field support my position.

This is a commonly observed phenomenon. Consider a shooter who is trained to engage targets that suddenly appear. Now introduce "shoot" and "no-shoot" targets into the equation and watch what happens to his speed. The increased analytical requirements require him to slow down. In time, as he gains experience, he may become quite fast again. But he will never reach the same speed as if he were just able to shoot every target he saw.
That is only introducing a single analytical requirement into the equation. The sight continuum requires the individual to discriminate between three different criteria before selecting a response.

As has been stated previously, while the physical act of engaging a target with a point-shooting method may be slightly faster, the cognitive requirements slow the shooter down. I believe they also introduce more opportunity for shooter error.

Using sighted-shooting almost exclusively may be marginally slower than point-shooting. However, it requires less analysis prior to implementation and provides fewer opportnities for the shooter to err.
 
#16 · (Edited)
Blackhawk6;

The variables are still there regardless. You'll still have to decide if it is a shoot or no shoot situation.

It's when the decision to shoot has been made that threat focused skills will benefit the defender where time requirments are concerned.

The brain is able to compute faster than anyones physical skills at all times. It remains ahead of the physical skills whether you are using your sights or not.

Consciously thinking before acting is not the same as picking the best option once the decision to act is made.

I believe that by reducing the number of responses the brain has to choose from we can further accelerate the process.

That may well be true, I've not seen supporting evidence to deny or confirm this medically. That does not negate the fact the brain functions at speeds that are always faster than the physical response times will ever be. Thus, the brain can determine the physical response long before the hand/arm/ can move to accomplish the request.

Consider a shooter who is trained to engage targets that suddenly appear.

Where in the trainingcommunity is this occuring? Not anywhere even in swat, nor military, nor civilian training that I'm aware of. The highest levels of training like building entries requires the shooter to determine a threat first, not shoot first. Again, the brain is processing visual data and making determinations of courses of actions before the physical skills can be executed.

The sight continuum requires the individual to discriminate between three different criteria before selecting a response.

You'll discriminate it the same way with sights only training. The difference is you don't have the ability to gain time with the threat focused skills.

As has been stated previously, while the physical act of engaging a target with a point-shooting method may be slightly faster, the cognitive requirements slow the shooter down.

Again, the brain is way out in front processing the visual inputs long before the physical act is executed. The cognitive skills are not slower than the physical skills, and if for some reason they are, there is another underlying reason/s for this to be happening.

Using sighted-shooting almost exclusively may be marginally slower than point-shooting. However, it requires less analysis prior to implementation and provides fewer opportnities for the shooter to err.

I disagree for the reasons stated above. The analysis is coming from the brain prior to the implementation of the physical skills. If the brain has determined to shoot, it has already determined a response. It can also determine the type of response necessary long before the physical skills come into play.

edited to add: It's probably time to introduce a term most will have never heard of---- proprioceptive mechanism. :bier:

Brownie
 
#17 ·
AzQkr said:
That may well be true, I've not seen supporting evidence to deny or confirm this medically. That does not negate the fact the brain functions at speeds that are always faster than the physical response times will ever be.
See Hick's Law as it relates to reaction time.

AzQkr said:
Where in the trainingcommunity is this occuring? Not anywhere even in swat, nor military, nor civilian training that I'm aware of.
It happens all of the time. Disciriminatory shooting is frequently introduced after the shooter develops the skill to engage the target successfully. The military, law enforcement and civilain personnel engage in non-dicriminatory shooting all of the time. Check military and law enforcement qualification courses. Civilian courses generally introduce discriminatory shooting in "advanced" classes. Are you telling me that in your Quick Kill courses students are required to discriminate between "shoot" and "no-shoot" targets from the start?

AzQkr said:
You'll discriminate it the same way with sights only training.
Will I discriminiate between targets the same? Sure. Do I have as many things to consider prior to pulling the trigger? No. I simply determine whether or not my sight picture is acceptable.
AzQkr said:
The analysis is coming from the brain prior to the implementation of the physical skills. If the brain has determined to shoot, it has already determined a response. It can also determine the type of response necessary long before the physical skills come into play.
The analysis is coming from the brain throughout the implementation of the physical skills.
AzQkr said:
It's probably time to introduce a term most will have never heard of---- proprioceptive mechanism.
I'll bite. I know proprioception deals with the body's awareness of its own position and affects balance.
 
#18 ·
I'm familiar with Hicks Law, it's been discussed ad nauseum on the net and elsewhere. I don't believe it relates well to this discussion. You may, and we'll just agree to disagree on that subject.

The military, law enforcement and civilain personnel engage in non-dicriminatory shooting all of the time.

Are you aware of the rules of engagement in Iraq? LE circles? Could you give us supporting evidence that either or both are allowed to be non-discriminatory in their actions in the real world without answering for those actions criminally?

As to civilians being indscriminate-well, they can be, but if they are and those actions result in negligence or misfeasance on their part, they suffer the consequences as well.

Are you telling me that in your Quick Kill courses students are required to discriminate between "shoot" and "no-shoot" targets from the start?

The courses teach the physical skills. How those skills are then subsequently used by the student are beyond anyones control but their own at the time of engagement. I don't believe you can teach to discriminate, that would require being able to cover so many variables and controlling their thought processes as to be next to impossible.

The analysis is coming from the brain throughout the implementation of the physical skills.

The analysis to engage or not is performed prior to the physical skills being implemented. I didn't suggest that the analysis stopped once the decision to act was made.

Proprioception deals heavily with eye/hand coordination skills. Eye/hand coordination is part of the body indexing within threat focused skills when there may be no visual reference to the weapon. The research and documentation of this human mechanism is part and parcel to eye/hand coordination training.

Brownie
 
#19 ·
Not to take this too far off topic, but since blackhawk6 brought up Hicks Law in support of his position, here's some research since it was written in 1952.

Many modern instructors just associate a doubling ratio to Hicks-that is, for every two choices, selection time doubles per added choice.Yet, despite all these quotes on times, Hick made no official proclamation on the milliseconds it takes to decide between options. There is a general consensus in the modern Kinesiology community that Simple Reaction Time, called SRT, takes an average of 150 milliseconds to decide to take an action. That’s considerably less than a quarter of a second-or 250 milliseconds. Lets re-establish that there are 1,000 milliseconds in one second-a fact that makes all these time studies fall into proper perspective. 1,000!

Based on the doubling rule with the common SRT average, then choosing between two choices must take 300 milliseconds. Run out the time-table. Three choices? 600 milliseconds. Four choices? 1 second and 200 milliseconds. A mere five choices? 2 seconds and 400 milliseconds! Six? 4 full seconds and 800 milliseconds. Should a boxer learn 5 tactics? That would mean 9 seconds and 600 milliseconds to choose one tactic from another? You would really see people physically shut down while trying to select options at this point and beyond. Has this been your viewing experience of a football game? Basketball? Tennis? Has this been your experience as a witness to life?

One begins to wonder how a football game can be played, how a jazz pianist functions, or how a bicyclist can pedal himself in a New York City rush hour. How does a boxer, who sees a spilt-second opening, select a jab, cross, hook, uppercut, overhand, or to step back straight, right or left? If he dares to throw combination punches how can he select them so quickly?

Under this exponential increase rule, it would seem athletes would stand dumbfounded, as index cards rolled through their heads in an attempt to pick a choice of action. Every eye jab could not be blocked if the blocker was taught even just two blocks. The eye attack would hit the eyes as the defender sluggishly selects between the two blocks.

Athletic performance studies attack the doubling rule. We need not only look to athletes. How can a typist type so quickly? Look at all the selections on a computer? 26 letters-plus options! How can your read this typed essay? How can your mind select and process from 26 different letters in the alphabet? It is obvious that the exponential rule of “doubling” with each option, has serious scientific problems when you run a math table out.

Hick’s Law has become barely a sketch or an outline for the thousands of performance experiments in laboratories since 1952. New tests upon new tests on skills like driving vehicles, flying, sports and psychology, have created so many layers of fresh information. Larish and Stelmach in 1982 established that one could select from 20 complex options in 340 milliseconds, providing the complex choices have been previously trained. One other study even had a reaction time of .03 milliseconds between two trained choices! .03! Merkel’s Law, for example, says that trouble begins when a person has to select between 8 choices, but can still select a choice from the eight well under 500 milliseconds. Brace yourself! Mowbray and Rhoades Law of 1959, or the Welford Law of 1986, found no difference in reaction time at all, when selecting from numerous, well-trained choices.

Why the time differences? I conducted an email survey of 50 college university professors of Psychology and Kinesiology. It is crystal clear that training makes a considerable difference. Plus-people, tests and testing equipment are different. Respondents state that every person and the skills they perform in tests vary, so reaction times vary. One universal difficulty mentioned by researchers is the mechanical task of splitting the second in their test-that is identifying the exact millisecond that the tested reaction took place. Many recorded tests are performed by under-grads in less than favorable conditions.

The test-givers themselves have reaction time issues that effect time recording! Milliseconds are wasted as the tester sees the testee react, then reacts with a stopwatch device, either estimating or losing milliseconds in their own reaction process. Common test machinery takes milliseconds to register a choice. Results can get vague and slippery within the tiny world of a single second. Documenting milliseconds in the 1950s was almost impossible even in the most sophisticated labs, yet modern instructors ignore modern research and use the 1950s numbers to base their training methodolgies.

Six decades of performance testing have passed, with new technology and on regular "walk-around" people along with low, medium and high performance sports athletes. New methodologies have been created to increase SRT and selection times. Training like;

<>Sequential Learning- the stringing of tasks working together like connected notes in music, really reduces reaction and selection time.

<>Conceptual Learning is another speed track. In relation to survival training, this means a person first makes an either/or conceptual decision, like “Shoot/Don’t shoot,” or, “Move-In/Move Back.” Rather than selecting from a series of hand strikes, in Conceptual Learning, the boxer does not waste milliseconds selecting specific punches, but rather makes one overall decision, “punch many times!” The trained body then takes over, following paths learned from prior repetition training.

Sure, simple is good. I am all for simple. And reaction time is an important concern when you are dodging a knife, pulling a gun, etc. There comes a point in a learning progression when there are too many reactions/techniques to an attack. On the other end of Hock's Law continuum is the brick wall called "Hyper-Vigilance," the subject of another essay.

For myself, I like to go about three-deep per response as a general rule. Four may be pushing the limit for the moderate student, though I know students who can handle way more. As a professional instructor, I busy myself learning more than three options, so I can teach the best three to differing skill-levels and body shapes.

Before trainers start bringing up Hick’s Law they need to know the rest of the science since the 1950s, that improved training really decreases reaction time, and not use Hick as an excuse to cage us down to one-step, dumb Neanderthals.

It seems like the last 6 decades, Hick’s Law has become a legacy of research. Hick’s Legacy is really telling us to train more and smarter, not necessarily to be stupid and learn less. Remember one of Einstein’s Laws-“Keep it simple…but not too simple.” I like the sound of that much better than stupid instructors KISSING me to keep things stupid.

_________________

These discoveries made in 1990s, decades after the 1950s Hicks law began, blowing the original, antiquated "mental rolladex/task selection" concept out of the water. The brain has a fast track! Below, Martin D. Topper, Ph.D., Jack M. Feldman, Ph.D. write about them...

"...Currently, the best explanation is provided by psychologist Gary Klein in Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. He's proposed that the human brain is capable of multi-tasking. His theory works like this: A visual image is picked up by the retina and is transmitted to the visual center of the brain in the occipital lobe. From there the image is sent to two locations in the brain. On the one hand, it goes to the higher levels of the cerebral cortex which is the seat of full conscious awareness. There, in the frontal lobes, the image is available to be recognized, analyzed, input into a decision process and acted upon as the person considers appropriate. Let's call this "the slow track," because full recognition of the meaning of a visual image, analyzing what it represents, deciding what to do and then doing it takes time. Some psychologists also refer to this mental process as System II cognition. If you used System II cognition in critical situations like a skid, you wouldn't have enough time to finish processing the OODA Loop before your car went over the cliff.

Fortunately, there's a second track, which we'll call "the fast track," or System I Cognition. In this system, the image is also sent to a lower, pre-conscious region of the brain, which is the amygdala. This area of the brain stores visual memory and performs other mental operations as well. The visual image is compared here on a pre-conscious level at incredible speed with many thousands of images that are stored in memory. Let's call each image a "frame" which is a term that Dr. Erving Goffman used in his book Frame Analysis to describe specific, cognitively-bounded sets of environmental conditions. I like to use the word "frame" here because the memory probably contains more than just visual information. There may be sound, kinesthetic, tactile, olfactory or other sensory information that also helps complement the visual image contained within the frame...fortunately, the fast and slow tracks are usually complimentary, one focusing on insight, the other on action. Together they produce a synergistic effect that enhances the actor's chances of survival.

But even though these two tracks are complimentary, we know that some people seem to be much more skilled than others at integrating System 1 and System 2. These especially competent individuals seem to resolve critical situations and also adapt to rapid changes in those situations. They invent routines they have never before performed and act in a fluid, seamless manner without employing full focal awareness.

So at this point in our understanding, we have a model that tells us something about how the brain can operate on two tracks at the same time, but we don't really have a good idea of how the two levels interact, except to say that the interaction is very complex, and some people do it better than others. We really don't know everything we'd like to know. But we do know that specific types of training can help a person develop unconscious competence, and this is enough to make some suggestions about the kind of training that will help make relatively unskilled people more competent in finding solutions to potentially violent encounters.
________________________

The above research since 1952 really does beg the question if Hicks Law applies to this discussion and has any relevance at all here. I don't believe it does based on the subsequent research since that paper was written.

Hence my opinions about Hicks Law having relevance here. This information was easily found on the internet, the article was written by Hock Hockeim with the exception of Martin and Topplers, PhD's, research as noted.

Brownie
 
#20 ·
This discussion has obviously run its course. I will clear up a few misconceptions and be done.

AzQkr said:
Are you aware of the rules of engagement in Iraq? LE circles? Could you give us supporting evidence that either or both are allowed to be non-discriminatory in their actions in the real world without answering for those actions criminally?
Am I aware of the ROE in Iraq? Yes, I am aware of the ROE in Iraq and elsewhere. I was not referring to how military personnel are conducting operations when I discussed non-discriminatory practices. I was referring to how personnel are prepared to operate in an environment such as Iraq. The typical progression in skill development is to first have the individual build proficiency in the skill and then begin to exercise discrimination of the target to determine whether or not it is appropriate to engage the target. (You will note that there are no friendly targets in any of the service's qualification courses nor are they present in the majority of law enforcement qualification courses) In virtually every instance once an individual goes from engaging a target without having to discriminate to having to determine whether a target is a "shoot" or "no-shoot" target there is an accompanying delay in engagement time. This decrease in speed can be mitigated with training but never fully removed. Law enforcement follows a similar model of training.

I am sorry but it is a fact. Having to discriminate between "shoot" and "no shoot" targets increases reaction time. Honestly, I am not sure why this is being debated... :confused:

AzQkr said:
The analysis to engage or not is performed prior to the physical skills being implemented.
Perhaps that is how your mind works, but not mine. I know several individuals who have made the decision to engage, begun to engage the target, even going so far as to apply pressure to the trigger, and then observed a change in conditions that caused them not to engage. I have done it myself. None of this would have been possible were we not continuosly analyzing the threat throughout the engagement process.

I found the article you provided interesting. However, as it relates to Hick's Law, the article you cited is incorrect. First, Hick's Law deals with Choice Reaction Time not Simple Reaction Time. Second, Hick's Law does not double reaction time for each response. Hick's Law simply states that reaction time increases in logrithmic proportion to the number of choices.(other studies have actually indicated a greater increase in reaction time.) One has to wonder what other mistakes/mischaracterizations the author made with regard to reactions time studies and their conclusions.

You may feel that Hick's Law has no bearing on the issue. I disagree. As in all matters relating to personal defense, it is best to do the research yourself. A good summary of the literature regarding reaction time can be found here:

http://biae.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm

I appreciated the discussion and even learned a few things. Stay safe. :wink:
 
#21 · (Edited)
The comment I made was:

The analysis to engage or not is performed prior to the physical skills being implemented. I didn't suggest that the analysis stopped once the decision to act was made.

Thus, when you state that:

Perhaps that is how your mind works, but not mine. I know several individuals who have made the decision to engage, begun to engage the target, even going so far as to apply pressure to the trigger, and then observed a change in conditions that caused them not to engage. I have done it myself. None of this would have been possible were we not continuosly analyzing the threat throughout the engagement process.

I'm in agreement with that not disagreement.

I've done some considerable research in reaction times [ lag times ] in years past myself. The research was on the lag times of pilots who had to multitask within short frames of times due to the speed with which they were traveling and how long it took to make decisions once they became aware of something. There is much research on this subject which can be well worth the read and research.

Hick's Law simply states that reaction time increases in logrithmic proportion to the number of choices.(other studies have actually indicated a greater increase in reaction time.)

According to the authors who were given mention, those increases are recorded in milliseconds and happen long before any physical reaction could possibly take place.

"Larish and Stelmach in 1982 established that one could select from 20 complex options in 340 milliseconds, providing the complex choices have been previously trained."

Seems one can decide to stand by research from the 1950's or more updated research with better testing equipment than could possibly have been used by Hicks. Ongoing and more recent relevant research should not be discounted IMO.

It comes to training. One either has that training or they do not. That would suggest that one can use that training or one can not, solely based on the training provided which is what I was suggesting in previous posts. You can't use something you don't have, and time is never on the side of the defender. If a situation dictates one can save ANY time with a skill, when time is of the essence, it would be prudent to have the training that allows that savings.

Where we may be differing the most here is the mindset of being proactive and it's training and reactive training in our actions.

Brownie
 
#22 ·
I hadn't planned to discuss this further, but I found my copy of Joe Ferrera's 1996 study entitled A STUDY OF REACTION AND RESPONSE TIME IN SUBJECT CONTROL TRAINING.

From the conclusion (my emphasis added):
We know reaction time is the time it takes between perception of a threat and initiation of an action to counter the perceived threat. Response time adds to this the time it takes to complete the initiated action. This study demonstrates that with only two choices, i.e. forearm block or wrist block, the time it takes for humans to perceive, evaluate, formulate a plan, and initiate action increases by as much as 23% over a single choice. The more choices in response techniques the mind has to evaluate for a given threat the longer it takes to initiate action. This study supports the theory of teaching fewer response techniques to cover a wider range of threat cues. By providing the officer the least amount of choices in responding to a threat you increase the officer’s ability to respond faster. As instructors we should be teaching effective techniques that apply to many situations thereby reducing the number of choices an officer has to evaluate. Teaching fewer techniques and using the limited training time for more repetitions gives an added advantage of increasing the officer’s confidence in his, or her, ability to perform the techniques under stress. Confidence in their ability coupled with faster reaction time provides the officer with increased safety for a given situation.
He summarizes my position regarding the sight continuum nicely.
 
#23 · (Edited)
So, to summarize your position, we should have one trained response for the gun, including one draw, one way to get the gun to our line of sight, one way of using the sights, one way of using the trigger, only one way to hold the gun [ one or two handed ], etc?

I suppose that various defensive edged weapons training should include one line of attack, one line of defense, one technique for defending stabs, slashes and overhands?

That won't really work in the real world. One specific technique for defense against attacks with a knife will of course leave you vulnerable to the other lines of attack the one technique does not cover.

We see in the gun business, we can train in the high retention positions, the low ready, the two handed techniques, the one handed techniques, front sight press, full alignment of sights as in bullseye shooting, cross draw, strong side, IWB, OWB, etc etc.

Is it your position that they all be thrown out as there are too many options to think about how to perform different tasks based on differing requirements?

I'm not sure that option is one I'll ever train for. The difference between front sight press and full sight alignment is time on threat. Which one do we then choose if we are to make one choice as two choices slow us down? There are more people who make choices based on circumstances than people who choose one technique to resolve every problem in this world with a particular tool.

I'm not being facitious in the questions, just trying to determine how we decide which one technique will cover ever situation encountered as when we make choices we slow ourselves down. Personally, I don't feel thats an option anyone really feels is viable or safe where our personal defense is concerned.

You want to rely on one study to support your position?, I'll rely on many sutdies that counter that as well as my own experiences in the real world which suggest one can have options and through training enhance the appropriate responses needed to solve any particular problem presented on the streets.

edited to add: Which one technique do you use yourself for every situation you'll encounter? Front sight press? Full sights alignement? More importantly, do you think that the one you have chosen to use as the one [ as two would slow you down ] is appropriate in every situation based on the variables discussed previously?

As well, we should recognize that the best shooters in the country utilize more than one technique to solve varying problems posed to them.

Brownie
 
#24 ·
AzQkr said:
So, to summarize your position, we should have one trained response for the gun, including one draw, one way to get the gun to our line of sight, one way of using the sights, one way of using the trigger, only one way to hold the gun [ one or two handed ], etc?
That is not my position. I believe that when he said "the least amount of choices" he neglected to add the word "necessary." My position is that we should adopt the minimum number necessary.
AzQkr said:
I'm not being facitious in the questions, just trying to determine how we decide which one technique will cover ever situation encountered as when we make choices we slow ourselves down. Personally, I don't feel thats an option anyone really feels is viable or safe where our personal defense is concerned.
Again, I never advocated only limiting yourself to one technique nor do I believe the author did.
AzQkr said:
You want to rely on one study to support your position?
I posted a portion of the conclusion from the study because I thought the material was relevant and the author expressed my views better than I was able.

AzQkr said:
I'll rely on many sutdies that counter that as well as my own experiences in the real world which suggest one can have options and through training enhance the appropriate responses needed to solve any particular problem presented on the streets.
If you are the serious student you claim to be, then you know there is adequate material to support both sides of the issue. That would be why the issue exists.

As to experience, we are all shaped by it and you are not the only person with it. Yours holds no more significance than anyone else's, except for you, just as mine is significant only to me. Its all been done before, by plenty of people, plenty of different ways. Nobody has all the answers.

I am not opposed to attempting to draw some benefit from another individual's experience, even when it differs or contradicts my own. By the tone of your last post, you evidently are and I am not sure why.

I have no ego invested in this discussion. I simply hoped to gain some perspective and draw some benefit from 7677's experience by exploring some of what my experience tells me are deficiencies with his sight continuum. I had hoped to learn something, which I did.

Obviously the value of this thread for me is long gone. Were I a wiser man, I would have departed the discussion as I intended to earlier. I'll now rectify that mistake.

Stay safe.
 
#25 ·
I am not opposed to attempting to draw some benefit from another individual's experience, even when it differs or contradicts my own. By the tone of your last post, you evidently are and I am not sure why.

Quite the contrary Balckhawk6. My tone was only in asking for clarification of your position, based on your considerable writings on this subject, which you have now answered.

Limiting the choices is good. Deciding which choices to keep and use will of course be an individual decision.

Stay sharp, I appreciated your thoughts and think everyone may have learned things from the ensuing discussion here.

Brownie
 
#26 ·
Blackhawk6 said:
7677,

I agree. However, threats may appear suddenly and require an immediate response.
Here is my question back to you?
What is the status of your weapon in this situation?
Is it in the holster?
Is it at low or high ready?
Or, at sights?

From the holster I draw and fire throughout my draw stoke as I close the ground; from low or high ready I would simply shoot; from sights I place my front sight on the target and shoot.

I hardly call this giving someone a bunch of choices. It is simply based off of where you are in the draw stroke and when you need to shoot.

This is exactly were I see the issue. Let's remove the distance equation from the discussion and focus on a threat that is 7 yards distant. What the threat is doing (time equation) is certainly a consideration but so is the amount of the threat available as a target (precision). As I attempted to explain earlier, a fully exposed threat in a parking lot attempting to shoot me with a gun is a different problem than a partially exposed threat on an aircraft attempting to shoot me with a gun.
You know there are not many places on a aircraft I would call cover, and if in that situation I would drill the SOB through whatever he was attempting to hide behind not try and hit whatever was sticking out.

I hate to say this, but if a tango has managed to get behind cover and gets the drop on you stopping and attempting to use sights is not the answer because if he has any marksmanship skills what so ever he is going to hit you before you ever get to your sights. In my day this was called an ambush. I'm sure you were not taught to stop in the middle of a ambush and aim in? We were taught to attack the attacker to move towards the threat while firing and hide behind our bullets and take out the threat. Well the reality of this is if the enemy is worth a damn it will be over after the first 30 seconds of the ambush.
In both examples what the threat is doing (time equation) is the same, yet the degree of precision required differs substantially. Distance alone can not be the determining factor, nor can time nor can the degree of precision when using your sight continuum. All three have to be considered equally before a response can be initiated.

Once again, my concern is that the shooter is required to evaluate more variables prior to selecting a response. Additionally, stress may corrupt the shooter's analysis of the problem resulting in a less effective or ineffective response. Finally, multiple problems presented simultaneously involving different distance/time/precision requirements would force the shooter to perform the difficult task of moving from one sighting method to another.
The problem is you are looking at on a forum and not evaluating how you would react in a real situation. At close quarters you are going to be threat focused. Why are you going to take the time to use your sights? Like you have already said to make a precise shot or you had time to get to your sights. Think of it like this if you and I were the exact same speed with our draws and time to sight and first shot. If I could shoot the moment my weapon comes on you and you have to wait until you get to your sights I'm going to get at least three shots on you before you get to the end of your draw stroke. Just ask Sweatnbullets about this.
The more choices in response techniques the mind has to evaluate for a given threat the longer it takes to initiate action. This study supports the theory of teaching fewer response techniques to cover a wider range of threat cues. By providing the officer the least amount of choices in responding to a threat you increase the officer’s ability to respond faster. As instructors we should be teaching effective techniques that apply to many situations thereby reducing the number of choices an officer has to evaluate.
I would hardly say that Hick's or any law applies here because to make a precise shot you only have one choice...to use your sights. If I draw my weapon and I will not get it to eye level to use my sights before my enemy does I only have one choice to fire before he does which means using point shooting and shooting him before I gets to sights.
In none of the situations I have been in have I ever had to make a conscience choice other then when I was going to pull the trigger.
With your method of sights only the only choice in the above situation is to hope that the other guy misses or take rounds and attempt to shoot him, which is a tie at best. If you ask me, I'll take my way.

Fighter pilots are taught several different techniques to use against an enemy pilot given their position, and the pilot has to monitor his altitude, his air speed, etc. while performing these techniques but you say if I give a shooter more then one choice they suddenly will go to mush and lock up in the OODA loop which is not true.
 
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