"The Modern Technique" and "Competition Driven Shooting"

[BaiHu]

First, I'm learning a lot reading this thread, so thanks for everyone's input.

Second I'd like to weigh in from a professional/expert side of my own craft (it is irrelevant what I do, b/c we're all experts in our chosen craft and understand efficiency/proficiency).

If I teach someone, I teach them a) the best I know and b) the IDEAL PERFECT TECHNIQUE of what I know. I don't give them 99 versions of a single technique for all of life's possibilities. I simply teach them the 'in a vacuum' method first. Once they are proficient with that, I move on to other variables (out of the vacuum) so that they will become efficient with the technique no matter the scenario. I might even show ideal transitions so that they can become proficient in transitioning within said technique.

To remove any vagary, it seems that no matter what someone teaches as an 'ideal', there will come a time where you cannot possibly perform the ideal, but all the practice that you put behind that ideal technique will allow you to be spontaneously efficient at that very moment when it counts.

This, IMO, is the essence of a technique evolving and becoming organic for a practitioner. My teacher taught me his way, I teach my students my way and so on and so forth. None of us were 'wrong' and none of the techniques were 'wrong', but with every new variable and piece of information there will be an evolution to better fit each successive generation of practitioner.

[Odin Bravo One]

T

......... put down 5 BG's using his .45 1911, and a Weaver stance. Only had to shoot each of them once or twice. That is pretty good work. I would like to see a similar example of the same efficiency using the modern isos. technique and a 9mm.

Documented case where an assaulter ended up engaged with four men armed with rifles (AK's & M4/M16). After being shot multiple times (27 impacts IIRC), through armor, extremities, through his carbine (rendering it inoperable), assaulter draws 9mm pistol and kills all 4 rifle wielding men. He was then engaged by one additional threat armed with a rifle, and dispatched him as well. With his 9mm pistol.

[DocGKR]

But...was the victorious assaulter using iso or weaver???

[JodyH]

But...was the victorious assaulter using iso or weaver???

He was using the "Force".

[SLG]

Documented case where an assaulter ended up engaged with four men armed with rifles (AK's & M4/M16). After being shot multiple times (27 impacts IIRC), through armor, extremities, through his carbine (rendering it inoperable), assaulter draws 9mm pistol and kills all 4 rifle wielding men. He was then engaged by one additional threat armed with a rifle, and dispatched him as well. With his 9mm pistol.

I was hoping you'd bring that up:-) Of course said assaulter was only able to accomplish that because it was a wimpy 9mm. If it had REAL recoil, I'm sure he would have used weaver;-)

Obviously, one example does not prove a techniques validity, but there are many more examples, over the last ten years, of guys using their pistols based on "competition techniques". Much of competition is not useful for fighting, but some of it is, and it is that "some" that has been winning fights for our warriors for some time now. As others have pointed out, MT came from competition. So does our current stuff. You just have to sort through the chaff to find the wheat.

On another point that some one brought up, little of the MT is still being used by current high level shooters, whether they are competition or combat oriented. I'm a serious fan of Cooper. A devotee, you might even say. However...the weaver stance? Nope. The flash sight picture? Nope. The compressed surprise break? Sort of. Th presentation? Not the way that Cooper understood it. The heavy duty self loading pistol? Of course, but not in the original sense either. I carry a gun that Cooper would certainly agree with, but given the ammo available today, our understanding of terminal ballistics, and our understanding of training, a better definition of the HDP would be a pistol in 9mm (or greater caliber) that will shoot and shoot and shoot, while needing very little maintenance. See pistol-training.com if you don't know what I'm talking about.

[NETim]

If your shooting stance is good, you're probably not moving fast enough or using cover correctly.

[jstyer]

Siddle, along with PPCT Research Publications, published a study in 1995 that revealed that officers trained strictly in the weaver stance, during spontaneous shooting scenarios under ten feet, defaulted almost exclusively to an isocelese stance.

With the distribution being: 96.7% of shooters instinctively defaulted to an isoceles position while only 3.3% retained weaver.

In spontaneous shooting scenarios over ten feet that number only changed to 92.6% iso and 7.4% weaver.

So it would appear that like it or not, in a gunfight you're gonna shoot isoceles

[SLG]

Siddle, along with PPCT Research Publications, published a study in 1995 that revealed that officers trained strictly in the weaver stance, during spontaneous shooting scenarios under ten feet, defaulted almost exclusively to an isocelese stance.

With the distribution being: 96.7% of shooters instinctively defaulted to an isoceles position while only 3.3% retained weaver.

In spontaneous shooting scenarios over ten feet that number only changed to 92.6% iso and 7.4% weaver.

So it would appear that like it or not, in a gunfight you're gonna shoot isoceles

Though I happen to agree with the above (mostly) I will say that Siddle has some, ahem, interesting, ideas on what constitutes research, as well as some bizarre conclusions that are not supported by the reality that I've seen. A few years ago, after a teammate and I talked to him for about 5 minutes, and explained that everyone we worked with was capable of doing things that he said were physically impossible under stress, he then said something like, "Well, my research is for the average person, not guys who train as much as you do." He also said that Rob Leatham was an exception as well, so I took that as a compliment:-) If there are all these exceptions, why say it isn't possible? What's the value in that?

[jstyer]

Though I happen to agree with the above (mostly) I will say that Siddle has some, ahem, interesting, ideas on what constitutes research, as well as some bizarre conclusions that are not supported by the reality that I've seen. A few years ago, after a teammate and I talked to him for about 5 minutes, and explained that everyone we worked with was capable of doing things that he said were physically impossible under stress, he then said something like, "Well, my research is for the average person, not guys who train as much as you do." He also said that Rob Leatham was an exception as well, so I took that as a compliment:-) If there are all these exceptions, why say it isn't possible? What's the value in that?

Many thanks for the value added info SLG. I'm not really familiar with Siddle, I read an excerpt of this study in "Warrior Mindset" by Asken, Grossman, and Christensen. A pretty good book about the effects of stress in a combat situation.

[beltjones]

Good discussion. Are there any Center Axis Relock instructors here who can speak to the efficacy of this technique at ranges of 6 feet and under? I've seen a lot of videos on youtube of British lads who are able to put together some really good groups on 2 yard targets using this method.