It was critically important that the student stare hard at the center of the first beer can, then pivot to the second can and stare at a point at the same distance but in the opposite direction from where the first shot missed. McDaniel found that his students generally did very poorly later on if they then attempted to hip-shoot at blank cardboard silhouette targets, because when looking at blank targets, their eyes had no specific point to focus and shoot at; and under those circumstances, they might think they were staring right at the center of the target, when in fact they could as easily be actually focusing upon some point off the target. McDaniel discovered that if he wired a beer can to the middle of a blank cardboard silhouette-target, and told the student to focus upon some unique point in the center of it, that immediately solved the problem. In hip-shooting, the eye must have a specific point to focus upon and shoot at.