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Thread: Rolling elbows up and in?

  1. #1
    Member randyflycaster's Avatar
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    Rolling elbows up and in?

    Yesterday I went to the range. When I shot I rolled my elbows up and in. This technique helped me apply more side-to-side pressure on the gun, and I shot much better.
    However, last night I watched some videos of Jerry Miculek. I am surprised at how low his elbows are compared to other top shooters.

    Do the elbows play a big roll in controlling recoil?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFoM8S3JwZU

    I know he is a big advocate of locking his support wrist to control recoil, though I am not sure what else he does.

    Do any of you folks roll your elbows up and in? Do any of you folks shoot with your elbows like Jerry's?

    Thanks,

    Randy

  2. #2
    Member Sal Picante's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by randyflycaster View Post
    Yesterday I went to the range. When I shot I rolled my elbows up and in. This technique helped me apply more side-to-side pressure on the gun, and I shot much better.
    However, last night I watched some videos of Jerry Miculek. I am surprised at how low his elbows are compared to other top shooters.

    Do the elbows play a big roll in controlling recoil?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFoM8S3JwZU

    I know he is a big advocate of locking his support wrist to control recoil, though I am not sure what else he does.

    Do any of you folks roll your elbows up and in? Do any of you folks shoot with your elbows like Jerry's?

    Thanks,

    Randy
    I think this gets in the way of just gripping the gun. The more you roll the elbows and lock them, the weaker my grip seems to get because it causes me to break the angle of the wrist.

  3. #3
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    Rolling elbows up and in?

    I’ve literally been re-developing how I grip which in turn translates to changes “downstream” with how my elbows and shoulders are oriented with some help of some very knowledgeable folks around here.

    My elbows and shoulders are all more down and only as tense as they need to be. Human joints don’t “lock” into place, but you can pre-load some tension to help manage recoil. All this combined with “nose over toes” really has given me some interestingly good results in managing recoil.

    EDIT: Oh yeah, and don’t forget to grip with your HANDS as opposed to with any other parts of your body. Grip hard, but not too hard.


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    Last edited by spinmove_; 12-20-2018 at 11:28 AM.

  4. #4
    https://pistol-forum.com/showthread....ng-About!-quot

    You might take a spin through this thread, OP.
    Jules
    Runcible Works

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Les Pepperoni View Post
    I think this gets in the way of just gripping the gun. The more you roll the elbows and lock them, the weaker my grip seems to get because it causes me to break the angle of the wrist.
    Sensei Les speaks the truth. I've found having my elbows parallel to the ground is less effective than just putting my hand high on the backstrap and gripping hard with the left hand and sorta hard with the right.

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  6. #6
    There will be a hundred different ways that people will answer "how do you grip the gun" if you wait long enough. It has been my experience that there are just too many nuances and differences from person to person and what works for one may not for another. I've spent lots of time chasing techniques because someone else was adamant that that was the only way to run a gun only to discover that what worked for them didn't work for me.

    As an example, many solid shooters are able to get away with gripping with just their hands and forearms only (Jerry is probably one of them with his HUGE hands). What I mean by that is they're able to keep a relatively relaxed posture throughout their bodies up to about their elbows, after which varying degrees of tension and pressure kick in to make the gun do what they want it to do. That doesn't work for me and it doesn't because I don't have the surface area on my hands to mash enough skin into the grip panels in order to have adequate friction for that technique; I'll end up with an inconsistent grip after a few shots.

    Instead - as you're discovering - I tend to let my elbows roll up and out a bit because I want the drumstick portion of my support hand to have firm contact with the side-panel above my strong hand fingers. I don't get any meaningful contact behind the strong-hand fingers with my support hand so I want as much contact above those fingers as possible, and I've found that this is the best way to do it. While that naturally leads to some inward torque on the gun from both of my hands, I often deliberately focus on adding more to really clamp down on the gun.

    As you continue on your journey I'd focus more on defining what you're trying to achieve before you start evaluating different techniques. If your goal is to develop a platform from which you can run your gun consistently, accurately and reasonably fast under stress then it's best to play around with some of the different ideas thrown out there and discover what works for *you*.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ER_STL View Post
    There will be a hundred different ways that people will answer "how do you grip the gun" if you wait long enough. It has been my experience that there are just too many nuances and differences from person to person and what works for one may not for another. I've spent lots of time chasing techniques because someone else was adamant that that was the only way to run a gun only to discover that what worked for them didn't work for me.

    As an example, many solid shooters are able to get away with gripping with just their hands and forearms only (Jerry is probably one of them with his HUGE hands). What I mean by that is they're able to keep a relatively relaxed posture throughout their bodies up to about their elbows, after which varying degrees of tension and pressure kick in to make the gun do what they want it to do. That doesn't work for me and it doesn't because I don't have the surface area on my hands to mash enough skin into the grip panels in order to have adequate friction for that technique; I'll end up with an inconsistent grip after a few shots.

    Instead - as you're discovering - I tend to let my elbows roll up and out a bit because I want the drumstick portion of my support hand to have firm contact with the side-panel above my strong hand fingers. I don't get any meaningful contact behind the strong-hand fingers with my support hand so I want as much contact above those fingers as possible, and I've found that this is the best way to do it. While that naturally leads to some inward torque on the gun from both of my hands, I often deliberately focus on adding more to really clamp down on the gun.

    As you continue on your journey I'd focus more on defining what you're trying to achieve before you start evaluating different techniques. If your goal is to develop a platform from which you can run your gun consistently, accurately and reasonably fast under stress then it's best to play around with some of the different ideas thrown out there and discover what works for *you*.

    You beat me with this post. There are a lot of ways to skin the cat, and they vary by where you are in your development, your physicality, what your shooting goals are, and how much you want to work at developing. So, there is no one size fits all solution, you will have to figure it out.

    That said, stance and grip mostly effect recoil control, and trigger is where most of hitting happens at.
    Likes pretty much everything in every caliber.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by ER_STL View Post
    There will be a hundred different ways that people will answer "how do you grip the gun" if you wait long enough. It has been my experience that there are just too many nuances and differences from person to person and what works for one may not for another. I've spent lots of time chasing techniques because someone else was adamant that that was the only way to run a gun only to discover that what worked for them didn't work for me.
    This right here. Take a look at Stoeger, Sevigny and Vogel. There's a gnat's hair difference in performance between the three of them, and yet they grip the pistol differently.

    Vogel is almost radically different in the sense that he tries to get as high as possible and torques the pistol.

    Name:  bob-vogel-grip.jpg
Views: 1833
Size:  62.5 KB

    Stoeger doesn't even seem to be trying to get high on the pistol, nor does he do much of the cant downward with his weak hand.

    Name:  Ben_Stoeger.jpg
Views: 1240
Size:  58.5 KB

    As far as rolling the elbows in, Sevigny does the opposite and rolls them out and gets arms parallel to the ground.

    Name:  davesevigny.jpeg
Views: 1255
Size:  11.9 KB

    Shannon Smith (USPSA Limited National Champ) doesn't seem to care about getting the arms parallel to the ground.

    Name:  Shannon-Smith-on-stage-7-tie-breaker-19.jpg
Views: 1234
Size:  78.2 KB

    What's the point of me looking up all these photoes? It's just to show there's no one perfect way. Experiment and see what works for you.

    Back to your original question. Production shooters seem to favor the arms parallel/elbows out and open shooters tend to go for the elbows in/not parallel. (This may have to do with the dot sight being well above the bore? I don't know.) Jerry is essentially an open shooter in 3 gun. Make of that what you will.
    Last edited by BigD; 12-20-2018 at 02:30 PM.

  9. #9
    Member randyflycaster's Avatar
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    Folks great thread. I probably meant rolling the elbows up and out.
    Randy

  10. #10
    Hopefully I am not mistaken in saying the following: in the photos both Vogel and Sevigny are competing with Glocks, and Stoeger and Smith Tangfolio and a 1911(?) respectively.

    i have to wonder if elbow positions might be at least in part dictated by the weight of the pistol.


    Quote Originally Posted by BigD View Post
    This right here. Take a look at Stoeger, Sevigny and Vogel. There's a gnat's hair difference in performance between the three of them, and yet they grip the pistol differently.

    Vogel is almost radically different in the sense that he tries to get as high as possible and torques the pistol.

    Name:  bob-vogel-grip.jpg
Views: 1833
Size:  62.5 KB

    Stoeger doesn't even seem to be trying to get high on the pistol, nor does he do much of the cant downward with his weak hand.

    Name:  Ben_Stoeger.jpg
Views: 1240
Size:  58.5 KB

    As far as rolling the elbows in, Sevigny does the opposite and rolls them out and gets arms parallel to the ground.

    Name:  davesevigny.jpeg
Views: 1255
Size:  11.9 KB

    Shannon Smith (USPSA Limited National Champ) doesn't seem to care about getting the arms parallel to the ground.

    Name:  Shannon-Smith-on-stage-7-tie-breaker-19.jpg
Views: 1234
Size:  78.2 KB

    What's the point of me looking up all these photoes? It's just to show there's no one perfect way. Experiment and see what works for you.

    Back to your original question. Production shooters seem to favor the arms parallel/elbows out and open shooters tend to go for the elbows in/not parallel. (This may have to do with the dot sight being well above the bore? I don't know.) Jerry is essentially an open shooter in 3 gun. Make of that what you will.
    Last edited by gomerpyle; 12-20-2018 at 04:53 PM.

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