Current Location: Home : Firearms : Juuhoukata Chap. 4-3
The second fundamental is stance, or how your body is positioned. The two
basic stances I support are Weaver and isocoles (pronounced eye-SOS-oh-lees). There are a number of different stances out there; many of them fall
out of favor for a few years before resurfacing in a gun magazine somewhere
as the best thing since electricity. Weaver and isocoles seem to never
fall out of favor, however. If you want to try other stances, be my guest;
but I won't be presenting them here, as I find them to be flawed in one
way or another. Weaver and isocoles aren't perfect, but they seem to be
the best compromises available.
Isocoles is probably the easiest stance to master, and I've found that it improves scores on the range. However, it doesn't provide the stability and range of movement that Weaver offers. It gets its name from the arrangement of your legs and arms as isocoles triangles.
Start facing the target, with your body parallel to it. Place your feet
about even with your shoulders, so that they form a triangle. Now, grip
the gun and hold it out in front of you, with both of your arms fully extended
and your elbows locked. The gun should line up with the centerline of your
body and, since you're standing in front of the target, with the centerline
of the target. Now, bend your knees into a crouch and lean forward. Once
you've done that, stick your butt out and exaggerate the crouch.
Feel silly? You might, but this will keep you leaned forwards. Even a .22
has enough recoil to begin pushing you back at the shoulders, until you
find yourself leaning back and off balance. By exaggerating your forward
crouch, you keep yourself on balance against the recoil of the gun. Try
it with a toy gun in your hand and have a partner push against the barrel
of the (toy!!) gun with the palm of their hand. You should be able to maintain
your balance without leaning back.
Isocoles is the most naturally pointing stance. Every time you bring the
gun on target, it will be roughly lined up horizontally just by the placement
of your body. Remember also to keep your arms straight and your elbows
locked.
The Weaver stance is more akin to a martial arts fighting stance. Your
feet are once again about shoulder width apart; but the support side foot
is slightly forward of the strong side. This puts your body in what martial
artists refer to as a "bladed" stance, as the body is bladed
at around a 45 degree angle to the target. In the classic Weaver, your
strong side arm is slightly bent, pushing the gun outwards. Your support
side arm is bent further and is pulling the gun back in. This creates a
dynamic tension that provides a stronger braced hold than the isocoles,
and offers more mobility to the gun; allowing it to be more easily pulled
into the body while still keeping it on target. The fighting stance position
of your feet offers side-to-side as well as front-to-back stability, and
allows you to more easily pivot or re-position. This is a more tactically
sound, although sometimes more difficult to master, stance than the isocoles.
It is not as naturally pointing, however.
The modified, or Chapman, Weaver stance has the strong side arm locked
out straight rather than bent. Some prefer this as it seems to offer a
little more stability, although it restricts the movement of the arms.
Whichever Weaver you choose, remember to bend slightly at the knees and
lean forwards - same as with isocoles - to keep recoil from slowly pushing
you off balance.