Southpaw or Orthodox for Law Enforcement

Training
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I’m a little late to the party, so I’ll just add a little here.

First, I always taught isoscele for shooting, baton, OC, and H2H. One stance for every tool, so you have only one muscle memory that needs to work in an emergency. Makes transitioning easier too, you’re ready to go hands on, lethal threat appears, you’re already in your shooting stance you’ve practiced 10000 times. Bonus: keeps ballistic plate towards threat, although in shooting situation the larger target surface offered offsets most of the protective benefit. I got punched with a SAPI plate on once, you could hear the bone crunch as he shattered his hand.

Second: I would encourage you to train outside of sport with your boots and gear on. Not instead of sport (I was a sport fighter while sworn too), but in addition. Preferably with an instructor who works for your agency/department or at least has access to your use of force policies. We had about 5 or 6 at my office who were academy instructors at one point and always happy to go to the mat room and throw down for a bit.

Final plug: shock knives. Train against them, turn them up all the way. It should HURT when you get hit with a knife, because it’s going to if you ever really get cut.

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[quote]batman730 wrote:

[quote]cycobushmaster wrote:

[quote]batman730 wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
generally you want a weapon in the rear hand if engaging someone who is unarmed (for same reason as above)
-you will likely learn to shoot from either an Isosceles stance (squared stance), or Weaver stance (with weak side leg forward), so if you practice fighting unarmed with a southpaw stance, you will have to switch to an orthodox or squared stance if you want to use your firearm, which is going to require extra time and/or distance which you may not have

[/quote]


This was definitely an initial problem for me. Holding the gun in my left hand is quite impossible, but standing with my weak (left) leg forward while shooting “righty” also felt strange, since I do everything athletic - from swinging a bat to playing golf - from a southpaw stance.

As a result, I’ve adopted much more of a squared-off stance. Although it’s not as comfortable as having my left leg back, it’s doable.

That being said, the friend that I’ve learned to shoot from - who is a cop and veteran of multiple branches of the service - uses a pretty squared-off stance, and he is very accurate.[/quote]

Isoceles (squared) shooting seems to be gaining popularity right now, both for pistol and (perhaps more surprisingly) long gun.

Part of the reason, as I’ve heard it explained, is that the vast majority of shooters will default to a square stance when shooting at close range, dynamically and under stress (as in during a gunfight). This includes Weaver trained shooters. It’s involuntary, not unlike how trained boxers will often end up squaring up toe to toe and just hammering away when it’s for real. Training has a way of going out the window in a hurry when the lizard brain’s in charge.

So, if that’s what you’ll almost certainly do when it counts and you don’t have 100’s of hours to devote to training that response out, why not train to shoot that way? I agree that it feels awkward as ass at first (especially with a rifle/carbine), but it gets easier.

The other argument, I believe has, to do with your ability to brace against the recoil to stay on target for quick follow up shots. The thinking goes that you are more able to do this if the weapon is pushing straight back into your centre of mass as opposed to on a diagonal across your body, or at least that’s how I’ve understood the firearms guys who’ve tried to explain it to me. Any of the guys with more in depth firearms backgrounds, feel free to set me straight, of course.[/quote]

i think this has to do with LE and military folks moving away from the “modified isosceles” because they’re ignoring the inherent advantages/disadvantages of their body armor… [/quote]

Yeah, if you’re wearing a ballistic plate I guess you may as well point it at whomever is most likely to be shooting at you.[/quote]

shit, i was off on my last post… what i meant to refer to was the weaver stance vs. the modified isosceles stance… i’d go with the mod iso for most things. the weaver is too bladed for my taste (and opens up the side panel), whereas the regular isosceles is to straight up, and limited in movement. i personally would recommend the mod iso, for most things…