Handling the gun while out of holster

This video may help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT96jxPBCqo

It's called "position sul" and is a simple way of keeping the gun protected from grabs, snags, or pointing at friendlies while moving in a potentially dangerous situation.

Very fast back out to a shooting stance, or back in to a muzzle-down safe position.

A video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DtR1bnmGbM

Here's a great thread on that topic over at DefensiveCarry.com: http://www.defensivecarry.com/forum/defensive-carry-tactical-training/61344-position-sul.html

Keep your finger off the trigger. At work, they told use to keep the gun, straightarmed, at waist height, so that when the cops show up, it looks like you have training, and makes you the good guy in those crucial first seconds.

straightarmed, at waist height, so that when the cops show up, it looks like you have training

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What kind of training does that make it look like you have?

I mean to say, who's teaching that position? Seems better than the old Miami Vice routine of running around with it above your head pointed up in the air, but still has shortcomings.

The Averted 2 seems quite naturally a progression from Sul, and what one would naturally gravitate toward if you're manipulating objects or people with your support hand while using Sul.

The Averted 3 looks fine, with the caveats that 1) it seems it would be somewhat easy to relax into an unsafe muzzle direction if you needed to work that way for long, and 2) it is a departure from the general tendency to avoid elevating the muzzle above horizontal that most good range practice dictates.

Low Ready, yes. Description of a technique I've used almost never and never seen through shooting screens is difficult.

Sul.. Averted 3 and 2???? Wow, no compressed #3. How about the walter stance 47 with an inverted #2.5.

Sul is Portuguese for "South" (i.e. down).

Sul.. Averted 3 and 2???? Wow, no compressed #3. How about the walter stance 47 with an inverted #2.5.

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I prefer 'RWP-16oz' (Reclining With Pint) stance.
And what is this? Now I have to learn Portuguese too?
.

Trying to get educated after the fact (gun ownership) makes one wonder.

SUL looks like an acronym; anybody care to expand it?

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If you watch the Paul Gomez video that 9mmepiphany posted, he explains why the Brazilians started using it, and they called it the simplest thing they could, basically "South" or "down."

Sul.. Averted 3 and 2???? Wow, no compressed #3. How about the walter stance 47 with an inverted #2.5.

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And what is this? Now I have to learn Portuguese too?

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Every word comes from somewhere. People from all over the world face the same needs. There's no acceptable reason why only 'mercans get to name stuff.

And really, is a three letter word too complex for ya? Would you prefer to call it, "that-one-where-you-tilt-the-gun-down-while-bringing-it-close-to-your-chest-and-flatten-the-support-hand-under-the-gun..."? Even the Germans would balk at a noun that long!

You've made a point, actually. Those fancy things are possible on the range, but as soon as push comes to shove... In the realm of auditory exclusion and tunnel vision -- one drops everything more complicated than the two-handed grip. Useful rules must be simpler and far more natural than that.

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There's nothing terribly fancy, complicated, or unnatural about any of these positions. You'll fight like you train, though with less skill. If you train to retract the gun into one of these safety stances when you aren't aiming it at someone who might need to be shot, you can get into the habit of not endangering others needlessly. If this is your standard practice, you'll find that you do it when you aren't deliberately thinking about it -- like when you're scared, alarmed, deafened, etc.

Pick a safety or "muzzle aversion" posture that seems natural to you, then do it a few thousand times on the range as part of your regular practice, and you'll do it without thinking when you NEED to.

That's the whole point of training. But if you've convinced yourself that you'll "drop everything more complicated than the two-handed grip," why even ask the question?

Trying to get educated after the fact (gun ownership) makes one wonder.

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I really don't even know what to say to this.

One should know everything there is to know (or even 1/10th of it?) before one buys a gun?

One should STOP trying to get educated once one owns a gun?

The whole sentiment seems precisely backward! I'd rather train a new gun owner who knows NOTHING -- and knows they know nothing -- than someone who thinks their brand new Glock somehow grants them a PhD in gun handling and gun fighting. Where does one learn if they've got to earn all their wisdom before they own a gun?

Trust me, when someone's been "trained" by Jean-Claude van Damme, Steven Segal, Bruce Willis, Sly Stallone, "Ahnuld," John Wayne, etc., up there on the big screen, it is IMMEDIATELY clear.

Sav .250 wrote,
Trying to get educated after the fact (gun ownership) makes one wonder.

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Sam1911 wrote,
I really don't even know what to say to this.

One should know everything there is to know (or even 1/10th of it?) before one buys a gun?

One should STOP trying to get educated once one owns a gun?

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Excellent point, Sam1911. I would think it is much easier to learn gun handling skills when you have a gun to train with. Don't Gunsite and Thunder Ranch (and others) make you take their classes with a gun?

Here is some stuff from Dave Spaulding. He has a series of "stuff" with Ruger.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oATKlh_UKR4&list=PL2079FFD4A567CD2C

Spaulding has some good points about gun handling positions. What he doesn't get into there are the details that matter to the folks who came up with Sul, or the various other "muzzle aversion" positions that Paul Gomez showed in 9mmepiphany's video.

That is to say, how to move in and around structures with a gun -- AND with "friendlies" or team mates that you NEVER want to cover with your muzzle. If you watch Spaulding's movements, at no point in his video could you safely stand in front of him. He'd either be pointing at your head, your chest, your stomach, groin, thighs, etc, with every one of his stances.

Sul, the raised "3," or the exaggerated "2," all are intended that you can very deliberately and completely prevent sweeping a person who's very close to you while you have your gun drawn. If you move down a hall behind a LEO team partner, or your wife or child who you're trying to shepard to safety, and you use Spaulding's "3rd Eye" position, one trip or flinch would put a bullet right through their back.




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A note on the terms: We keep saying "2" and "3" and that seems to be confusing folks. What we're doing here is referencing the steps of the best-practice "4-count" draw stroke.

Watch Mr. Gomez explain again: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NKngkVXMGg You can start watching around 3:00 if you don't need the historic context.

Basically a best, fastest, most secure gunfighting draw is broken down into 4 steps:
1) Establish a firing grip on the gun, in the holster.

2) Draw the gun straight up the side of the chest, while rotating it 90 deg. to point at the target. It stops beside the pectoral muscle, but not much forward of the front of the chest. From here you can fire from a solid "retention" position, including using the support hand to guard or fend off an attacker's advance and blows -- using your body index to roughly aim -- or you can continue to ...

3) Gun is moved to the body centerline and support hand establishes grip on the gun as well. Still held horizontal, pointed at target. Gun may be fired from this position or continue to ...

4) Extension to normal firing position. Gun fires as it reaches your comfortable extension point.

(Developing in yourself the universal use of the 4-count draw stroke will make you faster on target and much more consistent, as well as building the fundamentals of a sound fighting-with-a-gun paradigm.)

So these guard, or "muzzle aversion" positions are all variations on the 2nd or 3rd point of the normal draw stroke.

"Sul" is just the 3-count position flattened against the chest to conserve room and to make the muzzle point at the floor, not your buddy's back, butt, or thighs.

Averted 3, or raised 3, is just that same 3rd count modified to hold the angle of the gun above most likely danger areas.

Averted 2 is simply the 2-count of the draw, but with the elbow lifted to rotate the muzzle back toward the holster. Said another way, Averted 2 is just stopping the normal draw stroke a split second before you rotate the gun toward the target -- or returning to that position from extension later on.

I certainly understand that jargon can get folks confused but if we didn't choose a few terms to use for some of the common principles, it would lead to terrible complexity as we have to explain each detail every time we want to illustrate a point.

^^ Excellent points, one should always continue to
Learn and train !

Semper Fi

Are you saying that training can CAUSE mistakes? What alternative do you propose? And, again, why ask the original question at all, if that's your belief?

Of course you can make a slip (mistake). Training is designed to produce worn-in paths of action that reduce how much brain power you have to apply to solving the more mundane, "process" parts of the problem you face. The less you have to think about the mechanics of what you're doing, the more brain power you can apply to getting yourself out of harm's way.

Am I misunderstanding what you're saying?