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As I’ve continued my training journey, I’ve noted an interesting new trend: Instructors are establishing their own definition of words or phrases to bolster their lesson plan. There’s nothing wrong with this, but I prefer to know the dictionary definition for any word because it’s usually succinct and to the point. If a writer or trainer offers a definition that’s a paragraph long, they probably made it up.
Why I call this to your attention is the varied number of “ready” positions that are currently taught by schools and instructors around the world. Every school program I’ve attended has a signature ready position—or at least one that’s heavily favored—on which the shooting doctrine is based. The problem? No single ready position will work for all potential threat situations. Moreover, is the phrase “ready position” even the correct terminology for what we’re trying to teach and do in the field?
My old, worn-out, dog-eared version of the Webster’s Dictionary defines ready as “prepared to act or be used immediately, available at once.” Prepare is defined as “to make ready, to put together, to make oneself ready,” while confrontation is defined as “to face defiantly, boldly face threats and deal with, engage.” I proceed here with great reluctance because I’m a firm believer in simplicity in training, but I also believe that clarity should be established when teaching students to shoot from confrontation, ready and preparatory positions. Although the stances may appear similar in how the hands and arms position the handgun, their use isn’t the same and it’s highly advisable that students of the combative handgun understand the difference.
As a general rule, “ready” is thought to be the position the gun is in anytime it’s out of the holster and not being fired. But is this really the case? Doesn’t it depend on the situation at hand—on what’s happening at the moment? The orientation of the gun’s muzzle should be based upon what’s transpiring—not on square range doctrine. And if the gun is out for no reason, then why? Any combative handgun should be in one of the following stages: in the holster for potential use, preparation for combat, ready for combat, confrontation/engagement in combat—anything else (except practice, of course) is unnecessary, superfluous and unsafe.
Confrontation Position
Although being involved in an actual gun fight is certainly confrontation, it’s possible to be in a human-to-human confrontation and not be shooting. It’s called threat management and it occurs when an officer uses the handgun to compel a certain action from a suspect. For example: Maybe a suspect has been caught in the act of a violent crime or a situation has deteriorated and a suspect is going for or drawing a weapon and you point your service sidearm in the direction of the suspect as a visual warning: If you don’t immediately stop what you’re doing, I will shoot you. Verbal commands would be of no use without the threat of the gun’s muzzle pointed in the suspect’s direction. The suspect is being “covered” and little movement of the gun is needed to fire an accurate shot.
The two primary confrontation positions are the guard position, also known as low ready, and the chest ready position. In the guard position, you hold the gun away from your body in a firing grip with the muzzle low enough to see the suspect’s hands, usually at ground level off their feet. To fire an accurate shot at 15–20 feet, the gun is raised a mere 12 inches or so, and the muzzle movement is minimal with a wide field of view. The guard position is the best threat management position because it offers the greatest level of intimidation and requires very little movement for a fatal shot. Unfortunately, the gun gets heavy quickly and lowers toward the ground. When this happens, substantial motion is needed to lift the pistol and position it back on target.
In the chest ready position, the gun is close to the chest and the muzzle is pointed straight ahead, which would seem to violate the “never point the gun at anything you aren’t willing to kill” rule, unless a threat is present. However, pointing the gun straight ahead just to be fast is an unwise practice. That said, chest ready is very fast on target and is an excellent confrontation position in close confines, but shouldn’t be thought of as a routine ready position due to muzzle orientation. Chest ready is fine on the competition range, but can be hazardous on the street.
Ready Position
The goal of the ready position is prepardness. At the same time, the muzzle needs to be in a position in which non-hostiles can’t be shot inadvertently. Movement to a confrontation or shooting position should be minimal because little time to react will be available. To maximize this minimal motion, both hands should be on the gun in a shooting position. If a threat is seen, the gun is directed to the target and the trigger depressed. There are two ready positions: compressed low ready and high ready.
The compressed low ready position keeps the gun’s muzzle off target, but also relieves the weight experienced when the gun is fully extended. In this position, your elbows are resting on your rib cage with your forearms parallel to the ground. Due to locked wrists, the pistol’s muzzle is oriented toward the ground away from non-hostiles. To get the gun on target, merely straighten the elbows, which will bring the gun to the eye/target line.
The high ready position is nothing new. It was introduced in the mid-1980s by shotgun shooter/trainer John Satterwhite. Here, the elbows are in tight at the torso and the gun’s muzzle is pointed upward with the front sight just below the eye/target line. To shoot, merely push the gun toward the target, dropping the front sight into rear notch as they line up on target. The gun can go from high ready to compressed low ready by bending the elbows. High ready is a great position when moving quickly and is preferred by military special mission units. The obvious downside is anything under the hands/arms is blocked from view.
Preparatory Position
This stance is used during situations in which the gun is out but there’s no immediate threat. In preparatory situations, you may have to maneuver around non-hostiles or other officers. In which case, you need to have the gun pointed at the ground in such a way that it would be difficult to point it dangerously at another person as you move. Such situations would include getting into position for an entry, moving around others at a crisis event or exiting a vehicle.
Position sul is the most popular preparatory position and is extremely effective in certain situations. It’s described as having the support hand flat on the chest with the thumb pointed up. The shooting hand is wrapped around the gun’s grip with the thumb flagged. The middle knuckle on the middle finger of the gun hand rests on the same knuckle of the support hand. The thumbs engage each other point to point and these two contacts act as pivot points when the gun is moved from sul to a two-hand shooting grip. In reality, the support hand folds on to the open space on the grip as the gun moves forward.
Summary
All of these positions are useful and the serious student of combative pistol craft should be familiar with all of them. Admittedly, I believe compressed low ready and high ready will handle the vast majority of threat situations and should be the default positions when the situation faced is tenuous and not clear. In reality, all are fast on target with the guard position being the fastest and Sul the slowest. To test this, I shot one round at an 8-inch steel plate 20 feet away three times using a Ruger SR-9. Here are the results in tenths of a second. Note: There’s a delay of approximately ¼ second as the mind processes the beep of the electronic timer.
Spaulding’s Position vs. Speed Test
Position Time (3 shots) Avg.
Guard / Low Ready .61 .57 .52 .57
Chest Ready .66 .66 .63 .65
Compressed Low Ready .65 .59 .61 .62
High Ready .64 .62 .61 .62
Sul .88 .84 .82 .85
Considering that a blink of an eye is measured at approximately .32 seconds, the difference between these positions is minimal. However, there’s no way to know what will be “too slow” in a fight. It’s wise to have the gun oriented in such a way that the response time to a threat is minimal. Does this change how combative pistol craft should be taught? Hell no! It’s merely to help teach officers to be truly ready on the street—not just safe on the range.
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