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I found this:
The Evolution of the Modern Shooting Stance
By Ron Avery
There seems to be a great deal of controversy these days in regards to which is best for defensive handgunning; the Weaver stance or the Modern Isosceles stance. Some stylists claim that the Weaver stance is the "gunfighting" stance, offering superior control of the handgun. Others claim that research shows that the Isosceles stance is being used in gunfights at close ranges.
Having been involved with handguns for most of my adult life as a law enforcement officer, firearms trainer and professional shooter, this question is of particular significance to me. What I am interested in is which stance provides the best all around control, under duress, using a defensive handgun without benefit of compensators, porting, weights etc.
Before we begin our comparison of the stances and the various permutations of each, a little bit of the history associated with them is in order to establish the development sequence.
In the mid 1970's, Jeff Cooper helped establish the International Practical Shooting Confederation (IPSC) All competitors were using handguns, ammunition and leather which were deemed suitable for defensive use. Matches were freestyle and shooters were free to solve the shooting problems as fast and precisely as they could.
Cooper used the sport of IPSC as a test medium to evaluate technique, equipment and , to a lesser degree, mindset. At that time, a deputy sheriff by the name of Jack Weaver developed a two handed hold which utilized isometric tension as the basis for controlling recoil and allowing faster follow-up shots. Since Jack Weaver was doing quite well with the technique and a lot better than the folks who were trying to shoot with one hand, his stance became the one that others emulated.
Cooper helped quantify the elements of the Weaver stance as well as others principles and used them for the basis of his world famous training facility, Gunsite.
It is important to understand that the Weaver stance was developed in competition among shooters who were competing in a structured environment. This was one of the more or less scientific ways of testing and evaluating the merit of technique, equipment and, to a lesser extent, mindset.
The basic principles of the Weaver stance are:
Isometric contraction, pushing with the strong arm and pulling with the weak arm with the elbow bent downwards to control muzzle lift.
Body more or less bladed to the target. (Shooter preference)
Upright stance, head up or canted sideways according to shooter preference.
While not really an element of stance, the thumb on thumb grip, popularized by Cooper and Gunsite, places the heel of the support hand well below the axis of recoil.
I was introduced to the sport of IPSC in 1980, by my patrol supervisor and friend, Sgt. Dalton Carr, while working as a deputy sheriff in Northwest Colorado. Having been involved in the martial arts since age 16, I looked at firearms as another form of martial art and viewed the matches as a way of gaining skill with the handgun for defensive purposes. Dalton, an accomplished pistolero in his own right, had just recently returned from Gunsite and he shared with me the shooting techniques used there. I practiced the Weaver stance and the others skills as taught at Gunsite. I went to several pistol schools taught by Ron Phillips and Dan Predovich, both of whom were senior instructors at Gunsite. I learned about the development of the Weaver stance, as espoused by Jeff Cooper. I read as many articles and books on the subject of combat handgunning as I could get my hands on.
At that time, the Weaver stance was king. No one ever questioned the efficacy of the Weaver stance and it was just assumed that the Weaver stance was the defensive shooting stance.
In the early 80's, the tone of IPSC started to change. The use of weighted barrels and then compensators to control recoil came into vogue. I learned about a couple of hotshots by the name of Rob Leatham and Brian Enos who were taking the IPSC world by storm. John Shaw also gained prominence. What separated these shooters was that they were using the isosceles stance.
It was during this period, when IPSC started to drift away from the "street practical" mindset into more of a game that Jeff Cooper and others started to distance themselves from IPSC.
As a martial artist, I did not favor the use of "gadgets" on defensive handguns. It was generally believed that the use of compensators and later, the switch to the .38 Super cartridge, allowed the current crop of top shooters to use the isosceles stance with success. The current thinking of martial artists was that the isosceles stance would not work with a "real" gun, i.e., a .45 ACP. I let myself be influenced by that thinking and continued to shoot the Weaver stance for several more years.
In 1984, I attended my first U.S. IPSC Nationals and got to watch Leatham and Enos in action. They were simply head and shoulders ahead of anybody else in the match.
As a martial artist, I have had exposure to various styles of martial arts in the past and I have learned that the person who can learn from different styles will be able to expand their abilities and those that stay locked in their own belief systems tend to stagnate. I believed there was more to it than just compensators and "wimp loads" that were allowing these guys to shoot so fast and precisely.
I believed that the testing methodology used by Jeff Cooper, i.e., evaluating technique in a controlled environment as well as using observation, personal experience and interviewing other persons involved in lethal force situations was still a valid concept and I directed my research along those same lines.
I started asking questions of Rob Leatham and other top shooters. Most were very open and friendly. I learned as much as I could and then started trying to apply what I had learned. In late 1987, I determined to learn the isosceles position and then thoroughly test it against the Weaver stance. I went to a class with then IPSC World Champion Rob Leatham in the Spring of 1988. I learned a lot of new information that was to prove invaluable to me. In the summer of 1988, I attended Gunsite, to learn from Jeff Cooper and his staff.
I spent the next two years researching the various techniques I had learned. I compared both stances against each other. I looked at draw times, time between shots, dispersion of shots, reloading time, time between targets, precision under stress etc. I fired roughly 60,000 - 70,000 rounds. in that two year period. I attended numerous competitions, interviewed as many top shooters as I could, researched human biomechanics, stress reactions, motor control learning theory and motor behavior as well as spending countless hours on the range researching the principles behind the isosceles and Weaver stance. This research, as well as my own experiences on the street as a law enforcement officer, convinced me that the Modern Isosceles offered superior control over the Weaver stance.
Let's look at the Modern Isosceles and see what it has to offer.
Elements of The Modern Isosceles stance:
Muscles and tendons of both forearms, the elbow joints, wrists and hands are set in a medium to firm static contraction, depending on amount of recoil. The rest of the body is more or less relaxed, based on individual preference.
Both arms are braced behind the handgun with the elbows at natural extension. This allows two pivot points at both shoulders. Shoulders are relaxed and down.
Gun is centered close to midline of body.
Recoil is absorbed passively by the body through both arms. The axis of recoil is roughly through the centerline of the body. The upper body is generally more squared to the target, though the spacing of the feet is a matter of shooter preference. Stability is achieved by shifting the center of gravity forward and keeping the hands close to the same height as the shoulders in order to keep the arms from pivoting up in recoil.
The shooting grip places the heel of the support hand very close to boreline which decreases the leverage the gun has in recoil .as well as putting the tendons of the support hand and wrist in a straight line, resulting in a biomechanically stronger grip. Both wrists are set.
The major difference between the Weaver and the Modern Isosceles is the active use of isometric (push/pull) tension in the former to control recoil vs. an static contraction of the hands, arms and wrists, passively absorbing recoil with the body.
In my research using the Weaver stance, I found that when shooting under different stress loads, the amount of isometric tension I applied varied. I saw this in competition, during tactical training exercises and in actual confrontations on the street while involved in law enforcement activities. When using the correct amount of tension, the Weaver stance is very effective in holding down the gun. However, if your attention is distracted by events, there is a tendency to either relax the isometric tension or overdo it. This directly affected shot placement and dispersion.
Another issue was trying to ascertain how much extension of the strong arm vs. how much bend and angle of the support arm provided optimal control. Ray Chapman had great success early on with his strong arm nearly straight like a rifle stock whereas Ross Seyfried shot a radically bent arm style.
When shooting at high speed, such as performing two shots under a second from the holster, I found, when using the Weaver Stance, that even though my support elbow was bent, I was really just freezing it in place in a static contraction, rather that pulling back with the weak arm.
With the classic Weaver stance, the axis of recoil is mostly through the strong arm, on the right side of the body if right handed. This can cause the body to turn slightly under recoil, resulting in lateral dispersion if the shooter is not braced correctly.
Also, with only one pivot point at the strong shoulder ( the weak arm only assists in providing tension for the strong arm) the gun can move in a circular fashion if strong tension is not maintained.
Shooting the Modern Isosceles, there are two pivot points. What is most important about this is that both arms are braced behind the handgun. The strong arm is set and holding from the right side and the support arm is supporting the gun from the left side. This helps keep the gun from drifting left and right when shooting at high speeds.
The question that most shooters ask next is "What keeps the arms from flying up under recoil like they did in the early days of isosceles?" To answer this question, we must take a closer look at the biomechanics of the stance.
In the pre-Weaver era, the Isosceles stance as promoted by the FBI and others had the shooter squatting down with the back straight, head upright, arms fully extended and weight centered neutrally or even back on the heels.
This put the body weight back and placed the hands higher than the shoulders, creating an upward angle to the arms. When trying to shoot out of this position, the body would rock back under recoil and the arms would pivot up at the shoulders.
With the Modern Isosceles, the center of gravity is shifted forward towards the balls of the feet. The upper body is curled forward slightly. The arms are held more in line with the shoulders. Both wrists are set and the support hand thumb and wrist are held in a straight line, resulting in a very strong grip, which, when set, assists in controlling muzzle flip very effectively. Now when the gun is fired, the arms move in and out like a piston, instead of in and up.
In the early to late 80's, the arms were held rigidly out with the shoulders extended forward as well. Gradually, as the years passed, we learned that the shoulders could be held relaxed and down. This contributed to helping absorb recoil more effectively. Then the elbow were allowed to come to a more natural extension, further assisting in recoil absorption and a lessening of muzzle flip. The head was moved forward to get a clearer view of the relationship between sights and target as well as bringing the center of gravity forward.
What these subtle changes did was allow the shooter to relax more behind the gun and allow him/her to concentrate on the shooting without worrying about maintaining active tension in the stance. In addition, both sides of the body were doing the same thing and the resulting symmetry was easier to do, especially under stress.
But the bottom line was performance. With the lessening of body tension, the shooter was able to execute all moves with more finesse and speed. This goes hand in hand with modern motor learning principles and sports psychology, which emphasizes relaxation for peak performance and execution.
Having the handgun at the centerline of the body, with the axis of recoil through the centerline, keeps the gun centered on the target, with less horizontal dispersion between shots.
The recovery time between shots is faster with the Modern Isosceles and muzzle flip is decidedly less. I attribute this to having both the arms and body weight actively involved in absorbing recoil, along with the shooting grip mentioned earlier. The Modern Isosceles, when done correctly, is so efficient in recovery that it has made obsolete some of the concepts used in the early days of IPSC. One such concept is what Jeff Cooper called the "Hammer", where the shooter would take one sight picture and fire two shots into the target at close range. With the Modern Isosceles, you literally cannot outshoot your front sight at the closer distances. It will barely lift out of the rear sight and you can track it all through the cycling of the slide and see it for the second shot. I'm talking about times that can measure less than twelve hundredths of a second between shots.
At distance, this faster recovery, along with less lateral and vertical dispersion means the shooter can engage targets faster and more precisely.
Now at this point, I hear some of the old arguments start to surface. Some advocates claim that since the body is bladed in the Weaver stance it makes you less of a target To which the flip side is, "Is it better to get shot through both lungs or just one? This argument has been around since dueling began several centuries ago and has not been satisfactorily answered to this day. Also, what about when one is wearing body armor? Turning the torso too much exposes the armpit area. I do blade my body when confronting a potentially hostile person at 2-3 yards in order to protect the gun if it is holstered. But, when you are five, ten or twenty yards away, blading is not as important a concept as natural point of aim, which allows you to get on target faster and more precisely.
I tend to find myself agreeing with former Border Patrol pistolero Bill Jordan, who, in his book, No Second Place Winner, had as a photo caption, "Quickness of erect stance could prevent your presenting any kind of target." Amen.
Far too many modern day trainers have turned a blind eye to the Modern Isosceles. In my opinion, they really don't understand how it works so they either choose to ignore it or knock it as a "gamey" technique. It was this listening to this kind of talk that held up my progress as a shooter. Remember, the Weaver stance started in competition and later proved itself in combat. The Modern Isosceles started in competition and has proven itself in gunfights as well.
In fact, there have been some studies done with law enforcement personnel, trained exclusively in the Weaver technique, going to isosceles in gunfights and training exercises. While the data is far from complete, it is interesting and should not be discounted or ignored.
The next question is, "Does it work on standard defensive handguns or just race guns? The answer is a resounding "yes"! Take a standard drill such as the classic El Presidente, where we have three targets at 10 yards approximately a yard or so apart. With back to the targets, the shooter turns and draws, fires two rounds at each target, reloads, and fires two more on each target. A good time back in the early 80's was six to eight seconds. This drill is now being shot in the mid to low four second range with standard guns. Standard guns are essentially the same equipment as those used when IPSC started.
I continue to test and evaluate Weaver vs. Modern Isosceles technique in my shooting school with students and compare notes before and after on student progress. While there are other advancements of technique such as using vision more effectively and mental conditioning techniques, almost without exception, shooters do better with the Modern Isosceles.
Does this mean the Weaver stance is dead? Absolutely not! There are a great number of shooters who have trained with the Weaver stance and simply prefer to shoot it for whatever reason.
You can greatly enhance the Weaver stance by getting the center of gravity forward a bit and bringing the arms more to the centerline of the body. This will assist in recovery and lessen dispersion.
However, for pure performance, the Modern Isosceles is tough to beat. Already, many of the elite military units, FBI/HRT personnel, law enforcement officers, special response teams, and citizens interested in self defense are taking up the Modern Isosceles.
In a gunfight, mindset is still, by far, the most important element. But, assuming that you do have a fighting mindset, if you could improve your precision hitting capability as well as your ability to deliver fight stopping hits faster and with less effort, wouldn't you be interested in learning about it?
I doubt that the debate over which is best for defensive handgunning will ever end. But speaking in terms of performance, the Modern Isosceles has an undeniable edge and is the stance of choice among the top professional shooters in the world.
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December 2nd 2005 9:37 PM
Works great for shooting underneath cover. Like under a vehicle for instance.
