Why Are Hand-based Stages Always Biased In Favor Of Right-handers?

[Matt Griffin]

Majority rules, and all that, but why not make stages that force righties to work a bit harder? Doors that open to the right, props that get dropped on the right, etc.

I was reading another thread talking about picking something up in the middle of the course and dropping it at the right end. This forces everyone to run the stage left to right, which is a MASSIVE disadvantage for a left hander. A simple fix would be to have the "receptacle" at either end, allowing it to be run in either direction.\

H.

[HSMITH]

Lots of stages I shoot are set up by left handers, just the way it happens. As a right handed shooter sometimes it is harder for me to shoot the stage. I really don't get worked up about it, local matches are practice and I am positive that it isn't malicious on the part of the guy or guys setting up the stage.

I think most of the time people just don't think to even check if guys standing on the other side of their gun are going to have a somewhat equal test.

[zhunter]

There was a stage, I believe #8 at this past weeks Florida Open, forced you to go Right to left, there was NO other option, the start position was on the extreme right, and for me, it required a reload while moving left.

[uscbigdawg]

Sounds like your home club just got another volunteer to design/build stages.

Rich

[Ron Ankeny]

Majority rules, and all that, but why not make stages that force righties to work a bit harder? Doors that open to the right, props that get dropped on the right, etc.

Our club is small and we have a lot of inexperienced shooters. We generally move down range at an angle from left to right simply for the sake of safety. Yeah, we could let folks DQ and take their lumps, but we are not willing to take the chance of getting someone shot in the process. Besides, we don't have any lefties.

[sargenv]

Oddly enough, I usually build stage that are Left hand biased. I don't design them that way, it just seems that they get built that way. The other side of the coin is I also tend to build balanced stages where the shooter can start where they want to instead of "place hands on X's etc. I tend to like thinking outside the box on my starts (Start position: Standing outside shooting area XX).

Vince

[LPatterson]

I try to design most stages with a central starting point that can be shot left to right or right to left. I occasionally design stages to force right handed shooters to move to the left with a reload involved somewhere. Higher class shooters (GM-A) seem to handle it in stride but the C's & D's try to do things they have never practiced. In fact most of the C's & D's that I have seen practice at all seem do it at 10-15 yards on full targets. The local club is limited in talent but a couple of Masters seem to only practice on partials, SH - WH & 25-50 yard shots. They will occasionally use a full target for draws & splits trying to get below .7-.8 draws & 1.2 splits.

[Jake Di Vita]

Whenever you make any stage because you want to "force" someone to do something...it usually ends up being a bad stage.

[Joe4d]

bad stage design, it is usually not very hard to design a stage to be hand neutral, now if I can only convince my local club to make stages height neutral.

[AlamoShooter]

Whenever you make any stage because you want to "force" someone to do something...it usually ends up being a bad stage.

+1

[AZ38super]

I don't think about it, I am a C class Open shooter on the verge of being a B shooter.

I have no problem going left to right or right to left as a right hand shooter.

I often choose to go the opposte way most other shooter will go when I feel it makes the stage run smoother.

As a shooter you should be able to move either direction without any problems.

[warpspeed]

I think it takes a deliberate effort on the part of the stage designer to make it neutral - handed. We all have our bias.

[ihatepickles]

I don't think about it, I am a C class Open shooter on the verge of being a B shooter.

I have no problem going left to right or right to left as a right hand shooter.

I often choose to go the opposte way most other shooter will go when I feel it makes the stage run smoother.

As a shooter you should be able to move either direction without any problems.

As an Open shooter, you're not making many reloads across your body. When a left handed shooter moves right while performing a reload they're going to be slower than a right handed shooter making the same movement since you must contort your body to stay within the 180.

When stages heavily favor movement in one direction, the Production, Revos, SS, and Lim-10 shooters are going to feel the pinch if their strong hand happens to be opposite the movement. The Limited and Open shooters may not even notice the bias.

If it was solely about the movement, I don't think you'd hear this gripe as much as you do. But when you involve reloads, stage props, barricades, etc... and 6 out of 6 stages favor a particular hand it's annoying.

I've also noticed, that well thought out courses that prioritize freestyle rarely have this problem. Nine out of ten times, the heavily hand-biased courses have "Box A, Box B, and Box C that specific targets must be engaged from" style courses.

[Jake Di Vita]

In my opinion you should be the same speed whether you are going right or left.

[AZ38super]

I shoot revolver also either direction and do reloads there as well with my open gun going either direction.

You just pay more attention to muzzle direction.

[shred]

I see it a lot, but most of the time I don't think it's intentional. A big majority of shooters are right handed and when they're screwing the door onto the hinges, or putting up walls or whatever, they unconsciously put it up where it works for them.

It takes work and extra thought to make a handed-neutral stage, and way too many of them end up as mirror-image stages, which isn't all that great in mass quantity either.

It is irritating when somebody sets a tight shot (usually involving a fault line or port) that turns out to be just about impossible for the other-handed shooters-- that's the #1 thing I've been seeing lately at the club level.

[AikiDale]

Are left handed shooters legal?

[DMH]

We all have a few pennies to give, but as a lefty who does just fine in a right handed world I find that it's usually an advantage for me to shoot the stages like a righty. I've learned to move quickly that way and it usually works out fine. Turn the gun on its side when you run and tuck it in close to the body with the muzzle downrange and take off. The only way it ever dings me is a far lean around the right side of a barricade or prop. Work on making a perceived weakness a strength, and you'll be more ambidextrous and better off.

[Tom Mainus]

Lots of stages I shoot are set up by left handers, just the way it happens. As a right handed shooter sometimes it is harder for me to shoot the stage. I really don't get worked up about it, local matches are practice and I am positive that it isn't malicious on the part of the guy or guys setting up the stage.

That's what you think

I am one of the lefty's that Howard is referring to. The only thing that I will purposely do is make all the doors at our club lefty friendly. I have been DQ'd at NAts and then re-instated because of righty friendly doors. Just my little way of getting even with all of you rightys As far as stage design goes, I might take it into consideration a little bit but not that much. We have one bay at our club that depending on the stage is almost always going to favor a lefty due to safety issues. But other than that I will not purposely do anything to screw a righty over a lefty. My only complaint with you rightys is that I will usually work a stage opposite of you , start on the right and move to the left, it makes the walk throughs a bitch because I am always going against the grain of everyone else.

Tom

Edited February 20, 2007 by Tom Mainus

[get2now]

I would imagine it's mostly accidental because the designers don't think about it.

Years ago when we used to use a lot of ports we didn't think too much about the height of them. Then my 11 year old son started shooting. We had to make changes.

If you want to really see stages that are right handed based go to a 3-gun nationals some time. The long gun stages are almost always designed for righties. It makes it tough but I look at it like, if I can beat certain people then I'm that much better than them even though they've handicapped me.

If you run into a lot of this, just suck it up and show em what you can do.

Gary

[davidball]

Are left handed shooters legal?

[bayoupirate]

+1 on the stage design quality issue.

Most stages easily altered to eliminate the issues.

We have an amazingly high number of Left handed shooter down here, and they're some of our best.

FreeStyle with lots of options that's the way I like it.

At the end of the day, if there's a well worn path through the stage because everyone shot it the same way, the design could have been better.

[DMH]

FreeStyle with lots of options that's the way I like it.

At the end of the day, if there's a well worn path through the stage because everyone shot it the same way, the design could have been better.

Couldn't agree more Ray!!!

[CDRODA396]

The Righteous Right, and the Satanic Left:

The left has become nearly universally shunned. The right has been associated with all things good and pure whilst the left has been shunned as unholy, evil and relegated to inferiority [Gregory 1987, Gooch 1984]. Although Gooch says that "the left is universally unlucky in the classical world", Gregory in the Oxford Companion to The Mind says that "this symbolism has pervaded nearly all cultures (except the Chinese)."

"Ancient Greeks and Romans regarded the left side as inferior and profane, and in medieval times use of the left hand was associated with witchcraft" [Gregory 1987]. In New Zealand the Maoris considered the right side to be godly, representing life; the left side is dedicated to demons and the devil, representing death. Muslims believe good spirits speak into peoples' right ears, but evil spirits speak into the left. In medieval Europe the Devil is drawn with its left hand outstretched. Amongst North American Indians the right represents bravery and virility but the left signifies death and burial. In China you must eat with the right hand. The Nuer people of Africa, the Dutch Indies local native populations and many other old cultures bind the left arm to put it out of use 'for long periods', especially in the young and with left-handed people. Throughout the African continent the right is good and the left is evil. In some places wives should never touch their husbands' face with their left hand. The same patterns persist in South America: The right is good, is life, is divine but the left is female, bad, evil and morbid. Pythagoras set out in his Table of Opposites that the right hand side, male; lightness, was the opposite of the left hand side that was female, and darkness. Schools until recent decades used to "correct" (meaning: 'with the right') left-handed pupils.

Its clearly a good vs. evil thing at the subconcious level!

Seriously, I dont believe its a purposeful occurance, just most people designing stages are right handed and as they visualize the stage, it naturally appears to them right handed. At one of the local matches, about half of our stages have two boxes to allow you to shoot from either. These are however generally movement free stages and are therefore hand neutral.

[sslav]

The Righteous Right, and the Satanic Left:

Its clearly a good vs. evil thing at the subconcious level!

Always knew I was EVIL

Edited February 20, 2007 by sslav