For whatever reason, there has been a great deal of online discussion lately about what to call one-handed shooting. My name has been brought up in a couple of these debates so I thought I’d at least put forth my thought process on the issue.
I’m right handed. We all know what that means: I write and perform most other dextrous tasks with my right hand. When shooting, it means that I prefer to pull the trigger with my right index finger. Sometimes, though, I shoot with just my left hand.
Unfortunately, some poor mutants are born backwards. They are more dextrous with their left hands. And that just screws everything up for the rest of us. Because now we cannot simply say “right” and “left,” we need “the hand you normally favor to pull the trigger” and “the hand you don’t normally favor to pull the trigger.”
Historically — and I mean going way back before people even had guns — we understood that the more dextrous hand was called “strong” and the less dextrous hand was called “weak.” Thus, we have strong hand only shooting and weak hand only shooting. Every decade or so, though, a debate is reborn about what to call the “don’t normally favor” hand. The argument, essentially, is that calling it Weak Hand somehow creates poor mindset or even detracts from actual performance.
The problem with that should be self-evident. No matter what I call my left hand, I know it’s my left hand. Weak, support, Other Strong, Awesome Hand Number Two, George… they are all just code words for “left hand.” So no matter what I call it, I’m not going to trick myself into thinking it’s something it’s not.
Think about it this way: if there were no left-handed people, if everyone was more dextrous with his right hand, we wouldn’t be having this debate. No one would advocate “right hand” and “other right hand” shooting, would they? No. It would be dumb. So in a world where some folks aren’t right-handed, we need a generic term that covers “the hand that you know is less naturally dextrous.” And like I said, historically that’s been “weak hand.”
If you say “weak hand,” everyone knows what you mean. Even people who don’t shoot understand it. Now, walk up to a complete stranger on the street some time and ask, “Which hand is your Other Strong Hand?” Expect to get an odd look. The purpose of language is to communicate effectively. “Weak hand” does that. Other forced terms don’t. So for me, as an instructor, it’s pretty straightforward. I use the term that everyone is going to understand without needing a long explanation or justification.
No matter what you call it, your skill level is based on the effort you put into your shooting… not a name. No one has ever gone from misses to hits simply by renaming his hand. No one has ever seen his speed double simply by renaming his hand. If you want to shoot better with that naturally-less-dextrous hand, you need to practice more.
But what about the mindset issue?
I simply don’t think you can generalize. If someone believes that calling it his “Awesome Hand Part Two” is going to make him shoot better, well, knock yourself out, dude. If that is how you improve your mindset, who has any business telling you to do otherwise? It’s your hand. It’s your brain. Do what you think is best. Anyone who tells you that you’re doing something bad is just an idiot.
On the other hand — pun intended! — don’t tell me that you can assess my mindset based on what I call my left hand. Because odds are, I shoot left-handed a lot better than you do. Even after almost two decades of calling it my “weak” hand, somehow I seem to do pretty well with it. I don’t know why. But maybe, just maybe, it’s the hours and hours of practice. Maybe my mindset isn’t as easily compromised by the term “weak hand” as yours.
As I recently told a friend, when I introduce myself I tell people my name is Todd, not Uber-Aweomse-Shooting-Dude. Does that show poor mindset? Somehow, I don’t think so.
I see a lot of people say, “I started calling it my Equally Awesome Mirror Hand, refused to accept it was weak and practiced hard until I was equally awesome!” Right. You practiced hard until… and that is why you got better. If you need to call it your Equally Awesome Mirror Hand to get self-motivated, fine. But understand that says more about your mindset than mine, buckaroo.
No one ever got to Carnegie Hall simply by changing his name.
Train hard & stay safe! ToddG
Some just call their left hand “the stranger” and that is about as equally useful as decrying the use of “weak hand”…
>No matter what I call my left hand,
>I know it’s my left hand.
Bingo! That’s exactly how I feel.
Because mindset!
I was always under the impression that the hand preference with shooting went more with corresponding with dominant eye? Why not call it dom hand and non-dom hand or something? Regardless of strength or coordination (which can be learned/improved) we should shot with the hand that most easily aligns with our dominate eye. Right?!
And here I was thinking it was my “off” hand.
agreed, i refer to it as my off-hand.
@GDog
I’ve heard people say that, but personally I’ve never been able to do it. Maybe it’s just because I spent too much time as a kid playing with toy guns, but it just feels so wrong.
@GDog
About 25% of people are cross dominant and most of those people (in my experience) choose to pull the trigger with their dominant hand and work around the dominant eye issue (which with a hand-gun is a non-issue)
@GDog Because some people are cross dominate. I am a lefty but right eyed. It feels much more natural for me to shoot pistol lefty with my left eye then try anything on my right side. However I shoot rifles/shotgun right handed because that is what feels natural to me.
“No one ever got to Carnegie Hall simply by changing his name.”
That’s right;
Practice Man, Practice.
The problem with off-hand is that there is a long history in the shooting sports of off-hand meaning unsupported, i.e., not rested.
“…when I introduce myself I tell people my name is Todd, not Uber-Aweomse-Shooting-Dude.”
I’m sensing a legal name change in the future…
GDog – There are cross-dominant people…meaning people whose most dexterous hand is on the opposite side of their body from their dominant eye.
…although I suppose it should be referred to as having a dominant eye and an ultra-dominant eye to keep with the theme.
Anyway, the cross-dominant people seem to do pretty good using their ultra-dominant eye with their most dexterous hand. They could certainly program themselves to use the other hand, but it would mean many steps backward before going forward.
I thought someone shot this horse a long time ago, but well said.
As long as the audience understands the intended objective, it should be irrelevent whether it is called strong hand/weak hand, dominant hand/nondominant hand, or off hand. Having an issue with ones mind set sounds like a personal problem, and should perhaps be solved internally.
Not calling it your weak hand is just PC bullshit, IMO. The Magpul videos cracked me up, I think they call it your “reaction” hand. LOL.
I like WHO stages, because that’s where I’m a viking!
(Seriously, though, as a natural lefty who shoots right-handed because, hey, it’s a right-hander’s world, I benefit from: A) I still eat and write with my south paw even if I do everything else with my right, and B) I spend way too much practice time shooting WHO. Hey, I have to make up points on Dot Torture someplace! 😀 )
Oh man, Im so confused!!!
WHO / SHO Does the W = weopon or weak, does the S = support or strong…… I remember the days when WHO meant weak hand and SHO meant strong hand…. Oh and I pose these questions while typing only with equally dominant, less used, non- writing, super awesome reaction hand….
“Unfortunately, some poor mutants are born backwards”
We are all born right-handed, only the good ones overcome it!!
Clearly the answer is to have a gun in each hand. 😀
Someone crossed paths with Mr. Defoor
Personally, I do about 95% of my shooting with my weak hand. The sights line up better with my strong eye that way. (damn left eye dominance)
I’m a poor backward mutant. I have always called my left hand “my left hand” in shooting it’s always been my strong hand and my right hand has always been my right hand or weak hand.
It’s your “wrong” hand, not your left hand. There are right handed people and “wrong” handed people. Please learn to shoot righty so our job as instructors is easier.
I have a weak hand, and an other weak hand. Problem is I’m not sure which is which.
Well said. Another point: I suspect that 99.99% of shooters are better with one hand than the other. One could almost says they are “stronger” shooters with that hand. So maybe the other hand is… “weak”! Say it ain’t so!
Doesn’t it just come down to that? If you are in a must-hit situation, you’re going to hold the gun in your favored hand, and support it with the other hand. That tells me you’re a weaker shooter with that other hand, and probably if you need to use it in a critical situation it’s because your other hand is unavailable. So go ahead and practice some with your weak hand.
Who knows, if you practiced exclusively long enough with your weak hand, maybe it would become your preferred shooting hand. Then your other hand is your weak hand.
This reminds me of a guy from work, football player/body builder type guy.
One day we are running the qual, get the the SHO course of fire, and I look over and see that he shot the string with a two handed hold.
I yell at him about how he was supposed to shoot the string strong hand, to which he replies “But both my hands are strong”.
>Someone crossed paths with Mr. Defoor
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
Todd has good shooting skills and all, but I have to give DeFoor more cred on the mindset issue. He’s been in battle for real, killing people with his gun. I don’t think Todd can say the same. But Todd’s trained as a lawyer, so he likes to argue a lot.
Todd should stick to skillsets and let the guys who have fought for real be the authorities on… how to fight for real.
HJS — Nope. I don’t think I’ve spoken with Kyle in about two years. As I said at the very beginning of the post, it was based on some comments some folks made about me in relation to this topic.
“Mindset” is not the sole purview of face shooters, sorry. Much like the whole “gross vs fine motor skills” debate, the entire concept of so-called “neuro-linguistic programming” finds its genesis far outside the shooting/combat world. And much like the gross/fine thing, it’s been misunderstood and misapplied. In this case, that’s not such a big deal because as even wikipedia can tell you, neuro-linguistic programming is a widely debunked pop psychology pseudo-science with no legitimate evidence to back its new age claims.
Furthermore, for every “been in battle for real” guy you can name who thinks what I call my left hand matters, I promise I can find a dozen who will say it doesn’t.
I’ll say it again: if you think it helps you to call it Mr. Awesomo, knock yourself out. I can’t crawl inside your head and make that determination for you. Just understand that if simply hearing the words “weak hand” really has an impact on your confidence and performance than perhaps you’ve got a bigger issue with your mindset than just nomenclature.
To further muddy the waters, I recall reading many years ago about a study that claimed that a majority of the population had a stronger grip in their non-dominant hand. No memory of how much of a difference might have been noted.
Well, after reading all that, I think I will go with George.
GHO and SHO will be the basis for my next practice session.
Great write up. While Todd and I argue like old women on many issues, he hit the nail on the head on this one. Haven’t a clue what some of the other “face shooters” (those must be like “operators” and other extra special soldiers and policemen) do on this, but I have hunted far more bad people than most, and my left hand is in fact my weak hand. It is the hand that I only use to shoot with if I have too, not because I want to. It is the Canon fodder I send in first when dealing with bad people who are trying to hurt me, so my strong hand can put something in it to hurt them worse. It is the hand that does some tasks really well (like running a flashlight and catching a baseball) so the strong hand can do things that the strong hand does better (like shooting or throwing the baseball).
This is all about efficiency to me. I am going to spend my time training for the most likely events. My strong hand does most of the shooting, my weak hand supports that. My weak hand training is wholly geared around my strong hand being out of the equation (emergency). A good analogy was when working as a TFO in a L/E helicopter. I spent most of my time training and working on the important things on my side of the aircraft (Infared camera, light, L/E radios, etc… My partner’s were often instructor rated pilots who concentrated on flying. I could fly and land the thing in an emergency, and my pilots were functional on my equipment so we could help each other, but the reality was that we tended to really stick to what our primary job was so that we could really excel at what our designated tasks were.
In Finland we call “weak hand” with finnish term “tukikäsi”, wich is directly translated to “support hand”. “Strong hand” is called “asekäsi” wich translates to “weapon hand”.
This is commonly used when training in law enforcement community, even when we are training with hand-to-hand or less lethal use of force, not only shooting.
So it’s easy to both left or right handed people to understand that wich hand we are talking about and it shouldn’t offend nobody.
It doesn’t mean to your psyche that the other hand is worth of sh*t, it’s just normally supporting the hand that normally uses the weapons.
“No one ever got to Carnegie Hall simply by changing his name.”
Great line to end the post! Short, memorable, and poignant.