Weak hand only/ strong hand only stance

[Lesliet]

  Noob questions here.  At my first USPSA match, I observed many people having difficulty with the classifier, which was CM18-03 " We play games'. This one has quite a bit of unsupported strong hand/weak hand firing in it.  I did ok, for a first match, but in the interests of improving an area that needs lots of improvement, I'm practicing heavily on SHO/WHO.  

 

  My big question right now, after trying it both ways, is " Is there a good reason not to use the Olympic style " I'm a little teapot" stance for this?"  Blading the body more towards the target seemed to give me a lot more stability, and the recoil doesn't push me off target. With the upper body fairly locked in, motion comes from the waist and knees. One issue I noted is that in this position, if you were to reholster, the muzzle might get pointed in an unsafe direction, so I included resetting my feet before holstering so as not to break 180. 

 

  It seemed like all the shooters I observed were pretty much square on to the targets, with one hand on the chest. ( And often a very noodly gun!) Is there a reason why this is favored?  

[Tunachaser]

Staying square to the target (or mostly) is faster, less movement BUT it takes a lot of practice.  I am NOT a great shooter but I turn about 45 degrees and use my fist to my chest.  Try out different methods with a timer, and see what works for you now.  Later you can adjust as you improve, it takes A LOT of practice to get really good one handed.

[anonymouscuban]

Not an expert but I've practiced both weak and strong hand quite a bit. What works for is to keep my shoulders sort of square. Hand not holding gun flat against chest just to keep it out the way. Then I have the opposite foot back a bit so I can lean into the gun more. I move this foot back during the draw, careful not to cross any fault line.

Sent from my SM-G930U using Tapatalk

[kneelingatlas]

I turn my body to the target and grab my belt, probably because that's what I did when I shot Olympic pistol.

[rowdyb]

I think the common idea, and I currently follow it, is to change things as little as possible from how you shoot freestyle to how you shoot single handed. Most of the modifications being in the shoulder forward. Why? Because there is a time element. And because the things happening at your elbow, wrist and trigger finger play a greater role in your accuracy when you're forced to make a positional change in my opinion.

[Lesliet]

Thank you all for the advice!

[arkadi]

[Lesliet]

heh heh heh, I watched that vid last night, the tip on elbow positioning seems useful. 

[Lesliet]

After practicing it this way ( like the video) it feels faster and a bit more natural.  Starting to get that good feeling where everything settles fairly solidly, much less bouncing around of the sights. The elbow is weird, but it works. Not needing to change stance much from the normal freestyle is just one less thing to steal my attention from the shooting. 

  Thanks for your help!

[BoyGlock]

I tend to practice all possibilities encountered in matches. Draw Square/bladed, shoot square/bladed etc. In match starts, you may be required to start squared w/ target more comfy to shoot bladed, shoot behind barricade you cannot choose w/c stance to use, the targets usually require you to shoot in a certain stance, etc. 

Also theres no 180 nor sweeping in holstering/drawing at least in IPSC that I know. Like when drawing/holstering while seated, or other stand/draw/move stages, Except in instances when you turn uprange or downrange while drawing/holstering. (Correct me if Im wrong here. ) Maybe the OP is talking about unloading the pistol when bladed toward his weakside, its so easy to break 180, yes its good habit to turn square to the backstop first. Seen a few good shooters got dq’d for it. 

[gnappi]

I wanted to mention this for lefties (like myself) who shoot right handed and are right eyed dominant. Lefties who shoot right handed have less "weak hand" issues than right handed shooters because our "weak" hand is actually the stronger of the two. 

 

But, my shooting unsupported left (or right) hand for me I cannot nudge my left elbow in like the video, especially being right eyed dominant. Maybe it's an anatomical quirk I have.

 

At any rate, I don't change my shoulder angle to the target when switching hands, my right shoulder stays slightly toward the rear. Works for me. 

[IVC]

I'll add a slightly different perspective...

 

It's great to have a technique as long as you understand there's no the technique. There isn't a single technique, only a set of principles that dictate how to find what works for you in order to accomplish a measurable goal. Shooting one handed is like shooting free style in that you will have to learn the "why" not just the "how" because you will not be shooting from your preferred position most of the time and you will have to understand which parts of your "technique" are important in order to get good hits in suboptimal situations, not merely how to execute good one handed combat shooting from your preferred position. 

 

For example, how many videos talk about the free style stance and to "put your foot about 6 inches behind the other foot" and alike, only to forget to mention that in a match you will have no such luxury? You will have to understand the relationship between your upper body and your lower body so that you can create the most stable platform you can achieve under the match circumstances, which might be while moving, while leaning hard, while shifting weight aggressively in order to navigate barriers without moving your feet, etc. 

 

Precision one handed shooting with no hard time limit, i.e., Olympic Pistol, has a very well established technique that works well for the goal of very high accuracy, no recoil control considerations and no time pressure (even in timed events, there is no bonus for going faster, so it is still a "what can I do within this amount of time" consideration, and not the "I need to be faster and accept some accuracy loss" deal). So, that technique won't work well in USPSA because the goal doesn't take into account the two core requirements of action shooting: multiple shots and time limit. 

 

Long story short, one handed shooting is similar to free style - learn to pull that trigger without disturbing the sights, learn how much wobble each hand will produce based on different ways you hold the gun, learn how much wobble you can accept at different distances and then know when you have to do bullseye "trigger press" (too much wobble, usually weak hand on hard targets) and when you can do the fast trigger pull as soon as you see your sights settle. A good exercise is to do the trigger pull drill where you have the gun on the target and on beep you try to pull the trigger as fast as you can without missing. Know your limits for trigger pull on WHO/SHO and that's your one handed shooting...

[Boudreaux78]

I believe in the Max Michael method and it works great. I have better control of my gun with either hand and rarely miss. It entails keeping the gun hand leg forward and your body out over the leg. Very stable, helps recoil control and gun recoils straight up and down instead of off to the side like most positions do. Just my opinion 

[pjb45]

3 hours ago, Boudreaux78 said:

I believe in the Max Michael method and it works great. I have better control of my gun with either hand and rarely miss. It entails keeping the gun hand leg forward and your body out over the leg. Very stable, helps recoil control and gun recoils straight up and down instead of off to the side like most positions do. Just my opinion 

Taran suggested a similar technique  in an article in Front Sight.

One recommendation from Mike Seeklander was for me to tuck my head more into my shoulder. It provides more stability for me.

Again, reread IVC's thread.  

[CGoodwin]

Nice suggestions here! I've always shot single hand the same as double. Body square, lean onto the balls of the feet, and send it!

[MattInTheHat]

I was shooting with the squad ahead of the revolver super squad at Nationals and there was a GM shooter on the squad with an auto, so I tried to mentally keep up with him on times depending on the stages, he was very fast and very good. When we got to the very last stage numerically, 20 or 21, he struggled and I noticed that he was standing straight and moving his arm rather than his body. I mentioned it to him as humbly as possible that he could improve it by leaning in, locking his shoulder and arm, and making his transitions from his legs and his waist, and after a bit of consideration he agreed. 

 

When I have to shoot one handed I want my arm as rigid as I can make it and my shoulder frozen into my torso, and then turn the whole platform while I watch for my sights. Kind of like a karate demonstration when they're going to break a piece of wood over someone's extended arm. I guess if I practiced several thousand rounds either strong or weak only I might find a better way, but having chest-up completely locked seems to work the best for me.

[rpm8300]

Whatever you train will feel the most comfortable - for most people, their standard USPSA start position is with their strong hand's corresponding leg slightly to the rear in relation to the other foot.  As such, if you are drawing and shooting SHO, most people take a small step forward with that foot while drawing and then engage with the strong hand and strong foot forward.  If you have a classified where you have to transition the hand to the support hand, same deal, put that foot forward.  Again, many people in USPSA don't dry fire/train SHO - if you put in a few reps each dry fire session, whatever you train will give you success in the rare situations you have to do it for a match.

[UpYoursPal]

I've played around with various SHO/WHO methods for the past six months, and after working them into nearly every dry fire session I've found that for me that the fastest and most accurate method is the bullseye-style stance for drawing to targets, but keeping square to targets when you transition hands after a freestyle reload.  I find that blading your body and grabbing your shirt with the non-firing hand makes for a much easier index off of the draw, but it adds unnecessary time if you take a step back after a reload.  It's not much time, maybe 0.2-0.3s, but enough that you want to seek to eliminate it.  So if I'm doing something like "six shots freestyle, reload, six shot SHO", I'll stay square to the targets after the reload.

 

One other thing I've noticed is that it's slightly easier (for me at least) to shoot towards my body instead of away from it when doing one-handed shooting.  What I mean is that when shooting SHO, it's easier for me as a right hander to shoot targets right-to-left, and left-to-right when shooting WHO.

[bludog]

Yes, shooting into your body(left to right when shooting left handed) WHO helps.  And putting the non-firing hand on my chest seems to improve balance.   I also extend the corresponding leg forward (right leg forward with right hand, left leg with left hand)--helps my stability.  Like anything else finding the dot WHO is a matter of practice and repetition.