Transferring the Pistol for WHO Shooting Question

[AlphaCharis]

I'm weak in transferring the pistol over for weak-hand-only shooting, so went to practice it last night in my dryfire session - only to realize that when I grab it from my holster with my normal full grip and then try to pass it off to my weak hand, it is very much NOT fluid. I stopped because I didn't want to practice it the wrong way. In matches, it feels like it takes forever to get it into my other hand. I often get a poor grip on the gun, which ends up getting too much finger on the trigger and/or I'm not fully depressing the grip safety, disengaging my trigger :/

The Power Factor Show mentioned three different techniques in one of their episodes, https://youtu.be/l_A26RIfi4o. 1) Grabbing it lower on the grip so there's room for your left hand when you transfer; 2) grabbing it from the slide; 3) grabbing it with normal grip out of the holster but then breaking your thumb/hand off the backstrap to be able to "wipe" the pistol into the left hand.....I'm thinking the last one is the best way, that NOT changing the way I grab my gun out of the holster is a good thing... and, oh ya - that would also be the same technique if I was transferring to my weak hand when it wasn't from the draw. So, I'm guessing that is the clear choice! lol

I was wondering what technique works the best for you when transferring your gun for weak hand only shooting from the draw?

And do you use the same technique for both WHO shooting from the draw and when transferring from shooting freestyle?

Thanks!

[Sarge]

I grab lower on the grip. I deliberately go for the magwell. Even without a magwell I try to aim lower on the grip. It doesn't take much

[Swanny10]

Draw with a normal grip and slap it into the weak hand. There's a split second when the only contact you have with the weapon is with the palms of your hands. When you get really proficient you're almost throwing it into your weak hand. Which is illegal of course. Speed is your friend here.

[Dr Mitch]

Wipe it. Don't screw up your draw.

[amokscience]

I wipe it. Once you are very proficient you can add a scoop draw to start.

[AlphaCharis]

https://youtu.be/NmN89vcPpn0?t=3m

So, this is last month - and I pretty much adjust the gun into my left hand. Thinking back, I've probably only had to do this a dozen times in matches, so I shouldn't expect to be any good at it since I've never practiced - live or dry fire! Thanks for your replies Now I need to practice.

[NickBlasta]

I grab the magwell or the bottom of the grip with my index and middle finger, bring the pistol up, and assume the proper grip with my weak hand. I find it to be easier to have the weak hand high on the gun this way, which might help you with depressing the grip safety.

[AlphaCharis]

I grab the magwell or the bottom of the grip with my index and middle finger, bring the pistol up, and assume the proper grip with my weak hand. I find it to be easier to have the weak hand high on the gun this way, which might help you with depressing the grip safety.

What do you do when you're transferring it - but not straight from the draw? Do you just use two different methods?

[PatJones]

What gun? Single sided safety? Large magwell? You need to take all of this into account before you can decide the "best" method.

[AlphaCharis]

What gun? Single sided safety? Large magwell? You need to take all of this into account before you can decide the "best" method.

I'm shooting an XDm 5.25 in USPSA Production division. So, no safety and magwell is stock.

[stickboy44]

I draw low on the grip by the magwell which leaves a large part of the grip open to get my weak hand up in position. I have been trying a couple different ways recently and found drawing low on the grip is the best for me

[TimH]

My WH transfer is the same regardless if its off the draw or after a reload. I used to use the "grab lower on the grip" technique but found myself fumbling a bit when I had to transfer after a reload or other times not off the draw. I've since focused on the "wipe" technique as it works for every transfer I've experienced. May I add that another helpful key is to ensure your eyesight is focused on the gun during the transfer and you're not just blindly switching hands while looking at the target. Just like I advocate looking at the magwell during a reload, I also recommend looking at the backstrap of the gun and looking the gun into your support hand throughout the transfer. This helps to ensure a consistent transfer.

[Jake Di Vita]

I'm with Tim on this...

I think it is important to keep as many things the same as possible. If I can avoid adding a special technique for a certain skill I'm probably going to. For me it is pretty much: draw gun, make room to put my weak hand on gun (I hold the gun with my strong hand fingers in normal position and have thumb/base of hand off), wipe gun on weakhand down and back to try and make sure I get as high on the grip as I can.

Absolutely make sure you are driving the action with your vision. Although in my case, I've found more success focusing on my weakhand than the gun. That being said, I think the most important thing is just that you are focusing on something in the action. Problems happen when we inexplicably stop paying attention to what we're doing. Which happens more often than I'd like to admit.

For what it's worth, it took me a LOT of work before it felt smooth, but that's true for most things.

Edited December 30, 2015 by Jake Di Vita

[motosapiens]

Absolutely make sure you are driving the action with your vision. Although in my case, I've found more success focusing on my weakhand than the gun. That being said, I think the most important thing is just that you are focusing on something in the action

wait, what? Are you saying you look at the gun/hand instead of at the targets? For sure I get more consistency with reloads when I look at the magwell, but I've never thought about doing that with my weak hand draw.

I practice drawing to WHO a couple times a week, so it seems to run pretty smoothly without paying any attention to the details.

Edited December 30, 2015 by motosapiens

[lcs]

Draw with a normal grip and slap it into the weak hand. There's a split second when the only contact you have with the weapon is with the palms of your hands. When you get really proficient you're almost throwing it into your weak hand. Which is illegal of course. Speed is your friend here.

Can you say DQ and that technique is dangerous.

[Jake Di Vita]

Absolutely make sure you are driving the action with your vision. Although in my case, I've found more success focusing on my weakhand than the gun. That being said, I think the most important thing is just that you are focusing on something in the action

wait, what? Are you saying you look at the gun/hand instead of at the targets? For sure I get more consistency with reloads when I look at the magwell, but I've never thought about doing that with my weak hand draw.

I practice drawing to WHO a couple times a week, so it seems to run pretty smoothly without paying any attention to the details.

Yeah absolutely. I have no reason to look at the targets until I am engaging them, I know where they are from all the visualization. I want to direct as much attention as possible to every specific action I'm taking.

Not paying attention to the details is likely to bite you in the long run. You also might not be being hard enough on yourself on the quality of your weakhand grip. Hard to say from here obviously.

Edited December 30, 2015 by Jake Di Vita

[motosapiens]

Yeah absolutely. I have no reason to look at the targets until I am engaging them, I know where they are from all the visualization. I want to direct as much attention as possible to every specific action I'm taking.

Not paying attention to the details is likely to bite you in the long run. You also might not be being hard enough on yourself on the quality of your weakhand grip. Hard to say from here obviously.

that makes sense, and it's certainly worth a try. Thanks for the suggestion.

To some extent tho, I think there is value in practicing something enough that you don't need to pay attention to it, but if your attention isn't doing anything else useful at the time, then why not.

[Jake Di Vita]

Well, I can see practicing it with other means of attention. Like for example I've screwed around doing reloads, draws, and transitions with my eyes closed several times, but it's usually because I'm trying to find awareness from a different perspective.

Where do you feel the value is in practicing something without paying attention to it? I can't think of many circumstances in the frame of uspsa competition where I'd be forced to not pay attention to an action I take with the gun.

I think a significant concept here is that attention can be directed independently of vision, but vision is usually our most reliable source of feedback.

[motosapiens]

Where do you feel the value is in practicing something without paying attention to it? I can't think of many circumstances in the frame of uspsa competition where I'd be forced to not pay attention to an action I take with the gun.

I mean practice *until* the action is subconscious, and doesn't require my attention. In a match, there's quite alot of stuff that I don't pay any conscious attention to. It seems like my subconscious is perfectly capable of drawing, reloading, moving to and fro, etc... These things all require attention during practice to some extent, but that's the whole point of practice to me; to repeat correctly at speed until the whole process becomes a programmed unit, and I can just send a message to perform the entire process instead of the various individual parts of it.

For example, in drawing to difficult targets, I seem to have the best results when I simply focus on the target, and place my attention where the sights are going to be, and start picking them up as early as possible. The draw happens on its own, with no thought or attention to the details on my part. It happens because I practiced it alot, sometimes paying particular attention to parts of the process.

Not really just a shooting thing either. I find the same thing for every endeavour I try to get good at. If I need to pop the front wheel of my motorcycle up in the air to climb a ledge, I don't really pay any attention to anything except the goal beyond the ledge. My subconscious knows how to pull in the clutch, shift weight back, rev the engine, pop the clutch out long enough to loft the wheel, and then pull the clatch back in and ease of the gas to shift weight forward so that the rear wheel will glide up the obstacle instead of deflecting. That process would become more difficult and time-consuming if I had to actually pay any attention to anything except the goal, but it all happens in a fraction of a second on the trail, without conscious thought.

None of this is intended to be an argument against what you are saying, btw. Maybe just a different way of looking at it. I'm quite certain that if I practice watching the gun when switching hands, that the 'watching' will also become part of the subconscious process like it is with reloads. I'll have to try it out for a bit and see if it seems helpful.

Edited December 30, 2015 by motosapiens

[Jake Di Vita]

Where do you feel the value is in practicing something without paying attention to it? I can't think of many circumstances in the frame of uspsa competition where I'd be forced to not pay attention to an action I take with the gun.

I mean practice *until* the action is subconscious, and doesn't require my attention. In a match, there's quite alot of stuff that I don't pay any conscious attention to. It seems like my subconscious is perfectly capable of drawing, reloading, moving to and fro, etc... These things all require attention during practice to some extent, but that's the whole point of practice to me; to repeat correctly at speed until the whole process becomes a programmed unit, and I can just send a message to perform the entire process instead of the various individual parts of it.

For example, in drawing to difficult targets, I seem to have the best results when I simply focus on the target, and place my attention where the sights are going to be, and start picking them up as early as possible. The draw happens on its own, with no thought or attention to the details on my part. It happens because I practiced it alot, sometimes paying particular attention to parts of the process.

Not really just a shooting thing either. I find the same thing for every endeavour I try to get good at. If I need to pop the front wheel of my motorcycle up in the air to climb a ledge, I don't really pay any attention to anything except the goal beyond the ledge. My subconscious knows how to pull in the clutch, shift weight back, rev the engine, pop the clutch out long enough to loft the wheel, and then pull the clatch back in and ease of the gas to shift weight forward so that the rear wheel will glide up the obstacle instead of deflecting. That process would become more difficult and time-consuming if I had to actually pay any attention to anything except the goal, but it all happens in a fraction of a second on the trail, without conscious thought.

None of this is intended to be an argument against what you are saying, btw. Maybe just a different way of looking at it. I'm quite certain that if I practice watching the gun when switching hands, that the 'watching' will also become part of the subconscious process like it is with reloads. I'll have to try it out for a bit and see if it seems helpful.

I think attention can be directed without taking control of the action from your subconscious. For me the practice is to refine what I'm doing with the intent of maximizing economy of motion. I don't look at it as I have programmed this skill and can now hit play whenever, I look at it like I have made this motion as efficient as I can and that makes it easier for my subconscious to execute it with the aid of my attention. I get what you're saying about not thinking your way through it and I totally agree.

I have found the same thing when drawing to difficult targets. I do that for pretty much all draws though. While our action is the same I feel the attention to the details is what enables me to take that action effectively and consistently. I'm not thinking my way through it, I'm just trying to provide my subconscious with as much information as I can to complete the task. Most of my attention needs to be on where the sights are going to be, but I still have the awareness of where everything is through feel until I'm extending the gun.

Ultimately I think we are talking about the same thing but using the words differently. Good stuff.

Edited December 30, 2015 by Jake Di Vita

[AlphaCharis]

My WH transfer is the same regardless if its off the draw or after a reload. I used to use the "grab lower on the grip" technique but found myself fumbling a bit when I had to transfer after a reload or other times not off the draw. I've since focused on the "wipe" technique as it works for every transfer I've experienced. May I add that another helpful key is to ensure your eyesight is focused on the gun during the transfer and you're not just blindly switching hands while looking at the target. Just like I advocate looking at the magwell during a reload, I also recommend looking at the backstrap of the gun and looking the gun into your support hand throughout the transfer. This helps to ensure a consistent transfer.

Thank you, great points I was leaning toward not switching it up from the draw as from after a reload, so your input is very helpful. I'm not sure what I have been looking at during the transfer, so I will definitely make sure I'm paying attention when I practice.

[TimH]

moto,

Yes, I advocate leading every facet of what we do with the eyes. Table starts? Focus on the gun and picking it up (lead with the eyes). Transitions (lead with the eyes), reloads (look the mag into the magwell), WH transfers (look the gun into the support hand), spotting the position you want to be in a stage (look to the point you want your feet to be and get there)......See a pattern? Lead with the eyes. They feed every bit of information to allow you to comprehend and compute (with more time) on what to do.

Ever fumble a mag change? Were you looking it into the gun or did you take your focus off the task? Overswing a target during a transition? Did you lead the gun with your eyes first or did you just try muscling the gun to the next target? Bad grab on the gun during a table pickup? Were you focusing your eyesight on the gun throughout the pickup or did you avert your focal attention to something else before you completed it? Overstep a position on a stage? Did you spot on the ground (or spot on a wall or barricade) to exactly where you wanted to be with your eyes first to ensure you get to just the correct position or did you avert your attention elsewhere and miss it?

LOL, see the theme here? If these are things that a shooter is having deficiencies with, I strongly challenge and encourage them to pay more visual attention to the individual task. More times than not, they're losing visual acuity to the task needing the attention and that's when bad stuff happens.

[motosapiens]

moto,

Yes, I advocate leading every facet of what we do with the eyes. Table starts? Focus on the gun and picking it up (lead with the eyes). Transitions (lead with the eyes), reloads (look the mag into the magwell), WH transfers (look the gun into the support hand), spotting the position you want to be in a stage (look to the point you want your feet to be and get there)......See a pattern? Lead with the eyes. They feed every bit of information to allow you to comprehend and compute (with more time) on what to do.

that makes alot of sense in that context, however....... i bet you don't look at your holster for your regular strong hand draw, and I bet you don't look at your hands/gun as you build your grip on the gun during the draw. I think there has to be a good reason to take my eyes away from the next target. Empirical testing has shown me that table starts and reloads are good reasons, and that a normal freestyle draw is NOT a good reason. I am not convinced that it makes much difference in a transfer to weak hand.

I don't see anyone having any trouble missing their weak hand with the gun when transferring, whereas most people do have some trouble finding the magwell at speed.

If these are things that a shooter is having deficiencies with, I strongly challenge and encourage them to pay more visual attention to the individual task

Ok, I think I understand what you are saying now. use more visual attention if you need to, but if it's not a deficiency then use your vision for something else. Perhaps we are in agreement. When initially learning to draw and grip a pistol freestyle, it would make sense to observe that process too.

Edited December 31, 2015 by motosapiens

[Jake Di Vita]

Well, your holster is always in the same place (or at least it should be) and people usually rest their forearm on the magwell as a point of reference. With all the draws we do, getting the gun out of the holster probably unintentionally becomes the thing we practice more than anything so you don't really need to look when establishing a grip out of the holster (although there was a pretty good M class shooter around me who did that on every stage when I was B class, so I have seen that lol). If you're doing a table draw, I guarantee (at least I hope) you look at the gun because you don't have those aforementioned points of reference.

I'm surprised you don't see anyone struggle with their weakhand grip after transferring, I've made all kinds of mistakes. Next time you dry fire, take the gun with your strong hand and put it in the most ideal position you can in your weak hand with no time pressure. Then do 10 or so draw transfers under time pressure and see if all 10 are as good as the first one you placed perfectly.

Ultimately we are in the business of minimizing mistakes. Using your eyes for as many things as possible does a lot towards that end.

Edited December 31, 2015 by Jake Di Vita

[TimH]

Jake took the words out of my mouth LOL