Walk into the wind

I’m so busy these days I haven’t kept up with the bloggers like I should, but I think it was Kathy Jackson who posted Tam’s article on recoil control which referred to this GunNuts article on the “tactical turtle”.

First, I have been victim of the tactical turtle myself, but have been working to overcome it the past some months (year?). I never intentionally set it to tuck my chin in, it just happened. In fact, I can’t recall anyone saying anything regarding the head position one way or the other, either how to do it, where to put it, or if I was doing anything right or wrong. I came to the same conclusion as Caleb on my own, that it forces you to look out the top of your eyeballs, and that things work out much nicer if you just stay up (but forward) and bring the gun up to you, instead of you down to the gun. I’d be curious to determine why people actually do this, and then what we can do in our instruction to help manage it.

But that’s not what I wanted to talk about.

When I was reading comments on Tam’s article, the phrase “nose over toes” came up. This is a phrase we use all the time at KR Training to help explain good shooting stance. But I think I’ve found a better way to describe it, and I believe credit goes to Tom Givens for it because I swear I heard him toss out this analogy during the Instructor course a few months ago.

“Walk into the wind”

Ask someone, what would you do, how would you position your body if you were walking into a strong wind?

Everyone leans/pushes forward.

Magic.

I’ve tried to relate the “weight forward” concept in a number of ways. “Nose over toes” sounds good, rhymes well, good for memory, but yet it doesn’t seem to really be grasped by people to do that thing; maybe because if I’m just standing straight up, my nose is over my toes, at least that’s how I perceive it. I’ve tried talking about things like how a football player would receive a tackle, and while that’s right, the analogy always fails when I see the blank looks on student faces.

I started using the “walk into the wind” analogy, and people get it. I say it, and they do what we’re wanting of them. When we’re out on the range shooting and I see them falling back in their stance, I just have to say “walk into the wind” and instantly they know how to recover and correct.

So there is your cue for stance: “walk into the wind”. There is your analogy.

Now I’ll have to see how this affects their head position.