What's Wrong With Tea Cupping?

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Cosmoline

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I've heard for years that one of the great sins novice shooters make is "tea cupping" the handgun. That is, the support hand comes up under the shooting hand. For Weaver, Chapman, Isosceles, Ayoob or whatever stance and hold combination you're using, the doctrine is never let either hand get underneath the grip. This means your supporting hand fingers are lined up with the shooting hand fingers, and your supporting thumb is way up alongside the shooting thumb or wrapped around the hand.

I've tried it for YEARS and I've never been able to make these accepted methods work for me. Maybe it's my stubby little potato-digging claws. Very strong but stumpy and fleshy. My fingers just don't go far enough. So for me, the natural position with revolvers time and again is a standard Weaver only with my supporting hand angled slightly down, lower right quadrant of my palm muscling into the base of the grip. This also brings my supporting thumb down a notch where it sits comfortably below the shooting thumb. The shooting thumb can swing up to cock the action, stay clear of it or release the cylinder as needed. My palm helps counter the recoil and stabilize the platform. Unlike a full teacup, it doesn't "ride up" with shots.

So what am I missing? Why is it so antithetical to have your palm touching the base of the revolver?
 
Well, that is the way I was taught to shoot revolvers. The non-shooting elbow planted against the ribs, to make a fulcrum to pull that "tea cup" into the fingers of the shooting hand. Which was not only isometric (which was the fashion in those days) but it kept thumbs away from hammers and other moving revolver parts.

I was taught this was far superior to the support hand on shooting wrist position.

With auto-loaders, it's hand-on hand in the classic way (never caught the index-finger-to-front-of-trigger guard grip, though).
 
I was in a physics class once where a Professor proved that a bumblebee could not get enough lift to propel it's body weight. As soon as he had done this he stated that bumblebees just do it thier way and are quite succesful at it. Point is Cosmoline what works for you is the right and correct method. Me I'm a point shooter and if I'm in a hurry I never remember seeing the sights at all. For me it involves shooting a rather massive amount of ammo in a new weapon while building muscle memory. I know a couple of people who punch paper and make the shots touch. Me I just want them somewhere in the bull as i bring the gun to bear.

blindhari
 
Tea Cupping is not as strong a two-handed grip as "hand covers hand" (for lack of a better term). The belief is that the strong hand breaks away from the "cupping" hand under recoil.

Grabbing the wrist, ala 1970's Dirty Harry, is even worse. That wrist grab gives no real support.

Tea Cupping isn't a mortal sin, but there are better ways, at least for most people.
 
Teacupping isn't a mortal sin.

But seriously, do it however works best for you. I found my accuracy increased dramatically when I stopped doing it that way, but your mileage may vary.
 
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The Air Force taught that method for a while. They used to get mad at me because I refused to hold the gun that way. One year I was all ready for another confrontation and....nothing. They'd switched.
 
It might support the handgun for better, more wobble-free aiming, but does nothing for stability and control when firing rapidly. Much of the recoil control comes from your support hand, as will be evident when you switch to one hand.
 
Teacup grip is just using your weak hand as a rest to set the pistol on and doesn’t offer any help in retention of the firearm in recoil so you have to grip 100% with the strong hand and that makes follow up shots as well as good trigger control more difficult.

With a proper grip the weak hand acts as a vice clamping the pistol in the strong hand. This lets you relax your grip somewhat with your “trigger” hand. So you reduce muzzle rise while at the same time improve your trigger control, it’s a win win.
 
In Jerry Miculek's instructional series he stated that 70% of his grip strength comes from his support hand, wrapped firmly over his "strong" hand.

So, taking that to it's logical conclusion, the "teacup" grip would be something near 30% as strong as a full two-hand grip -- as your fingers cupping the butt of the gun can't possibly help to control it, just support it in a marginal way.

Is is a sin? Nope. The "Bullseye" stance isn't a sin, either, now is it? ;)
 
I was USAF and I never saw teacupping.

But I did have several instructors say not to use it or the one where you hold your wrist with your support hand. "That's for the movies."

Teacupping is not the best grip for everybody, but if it works for you it's the best for you.
 
It might help you hold the pistol up but it doesn't help at all with control, nor does it aid with recoil absorption. Craig Boddington has a goofy tea cup hold and that's reason enough for me not to do it.
 
I'll tell you what's wrong with tea cupping (besides the fruity name); your left hand hardly does anything. In a proper two handed hold the left hand helps control the recoil of the gun, not only by steadying the right hand, but by applying additional pressure around the gun's grip and transferring some of the recoil down the length of the left arm as opposed to just the right arm in tea cupping.

The only time I use something similar to tea cupping is when using the harries method of holding the flashlight and gun. My gun hand simply wrests on my left wrist. It's far from ideal but better than no support.

That said do what works BEST for YOU.
 
I know the drawbacks of a traditional tea cup grip. I don't use that grip. What I'm doing is more "tea cupping" in that I have part of my palm under the grip, and my support fingers are angled down instead of being horizontal with my firing hand fingers. I'll post some photos later so you can see, but basically what I'm wondering is whether the fact that my palm is contacting the underside of the grip is doing anything bad. You'd think so, the way instructors fuss about it. So maybe I'm missing something.
 
I'll post some photos later so you can see, but basically what I'm wondering is whether the fact that my palm is contacting the underside of the grip is doing anything bad. You'd think so, the way instructors fuss about it. So maybe I'm missing something.
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I was taught that the left palm should apply pressure opposite to the right palm, therein creating 360 degrees of pressure on the gun's grip.
 
I read someplace -- probably here somewhere -- that if an auto-pistol has a kaboom, the magazine can be blown downwards out of the gun. This would obviously cause injury to the support hand if held cup-and-saucer fashion.

Revolver users needn't worry about that, of course, but I agree with those who are in the hand-over-hand camp, for better control.
 
That's funny! I posted about that some time ago when he reviewed the Judge but said it was hard to control -- and the photo of him shooting it shows him using a pronounced "teacup" hold!
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Oh yeah! Not to get off on a tangent but I haven't read G&A in years and their show is just as bad but sometimes I watch it if there's nothing better to do. I absolutely can't stand to watch him shoot a pistol.....among other things. He looks so uncomfortable and incompetent and watching him shoot makes me squirm. Glad I'm not the only one that noticed. ;)
 
I know the drawbacks of a traditional tea cup grip. I don't use that grip. What I'm doing is more "tea cupping" in that I have part of my palm under the grip, and my support fingers are angled down instead of being horizontal with my firing hand fingers. I'll post some photos later so you can see, but basically what I'm wondering is whether the fact that my palm is contacting the underside of the grip is doing anything bad. You'd think so, the way instructors fuss about it. So maybe I'm missing something.
Click to expand...

I really want to see the pictures, because I'm not getting a visual at all...unless you're talking about rotating your palm 60 degrees forward, doesn't that put alot of stress on your wrist. It almost sounds like you are trying to use your support hand to hold the shooting hand down...this is an unfortunate byproduct of the Weaver stance

To answer your original question. No, you're not doing anything bad, you're just not doing anything good. Don't blame your instructors, they don't always understand all the factors of what they are teaching.

The reason you want to keep your hand away from the underside of the grip isn't because it is bad, it is because it mean that you do not have you hand as high of the grip as it can get. Getting your support hand higher on the grip means that it helps control the arch of the gun while it is rising in recoil so that it will return to the same POA as when the last shot was triggered. By having your support fingers parallel with your strong hand fingers allows even sideways pressure against the grip so that you are not tempted to squeeze with your strong fingers while you are also trying to press the trigger...it lets it relax.

I would suggest that if you are having a difficult time wrapping your support fingers around you shooting hand fingers, that your guns grip is too large for your hand

I was taught that the left palm should apply pressure opposite to the right palm, therein creating 360 degrees of pressure on the gun's grip.
Click to expand...
You don't have to apply opposite pressure, but complimentary pressure. Modern technique teaches that the shooting hand applies front to back pressure, while the support hand applies side to side pressure to seat the gun's butt firmly in the pocket, as opposed to palm, of your shooting hand
 
blindhari said:
I was in a physics class once where a Professor proved that a bumblebee could not get enough lift to propel it's body weight. As soon as he had done this he stated that bumblebees just do it thier way and are quite succesful at it.
Click to expand...

Well, obviously the professor didn't take into account every manner in which bumblebees generate lift and propulsive force, which simply means that his "proof" was incomplete and reached an incorrect conclusion. Obviously bumblebees do not defy the laws of physics in any way, shape, or form.

But I agree with what you're saying about people using what's best for them, because we're all different. Like the professor in your example, people can overlook certain aspects of shooting that don't apply to them but may apply to others. For example, the teacup hold, which I find useless myself (in addition to it having a Hollywood stigma), may help some people bear the weight of a handgun, at least enough to hold it steadier and for longer if necessary; maybe the more accepted grips aren't as effective at this for some people. As for the wrist hold, my sister, for instance, uses this to help steady her strong arm in recoil--her wrist needs help less, and her support hand is neither large nor strong enough to help quite as much when gripping the strong hand. It works well for her, although she has to be careful about slide bite, of course.

I'm of the mind that those who have adequate physical strength in every area (or are willing to develop that strength) and are motivated to develop high-level shooting skills would be best served by learning the "proper" grips (although there can be significant variations among those, too) from the get-go, but for others some grips that are often derided as "improper" can help in unexpected ways.
 
If you shoot firearms with really heavy recoil it will feel like someone is hitting your teacup hand with a ball-peen hammer.
 
There is nothing wrong with "tea-cupping," when going slow-fire using any caliber, or when shooting calibers below 9mm rapidly.

But its failings will glaringly appear when you shoot the larger calibers rapidly and still want to hit something.
 
I'll agree with those who've said that teacupping isn't a grip created by the devil. However, here's a little teacupping story that may be of value.

I have a younger brother who did not grow up doing much shooting. Shortly after college he bought a semi-automatic handgun of decent quality but the "darn thing just wouldn't shoot straight" for him. I picked it up once and put several rounds inside a 2" bullseye at about 10 yards and handed it back to him. "Seems to work all right," I quipped.

I had been shooting my own gun and hadn't paid much attention to how he was shooting it and we were basically out of ammo so we wrapped up for the day.

Fast forward a couple years. My brother sold the gun because it wouldn't shoot straight for him. He subsequently bought a .357 Magnum revolver with a long barrel and was able to shoot it fairly accurately.

On a recent occasion, my brother and I were once again doing some shooting. He was doing fairly well with his revolver. I was doing just a bit better with my XD. I suggested that he try my XD. He fired a few rounds and, just like his previuos semi-auto, not a single one of them hit the bull.

This time I watched how he was shooting. Guess how he was holding my XD. ;)

I gave him a little coaching. It took a bit but eventually he applied each of the techniques I had shown him. Sure enough, four or five shots right in the middle of the bull.

Take it for what you will ....
 
9mmepiphany said:
To answer your original question. No, you're not doing anything bad, you're just not going anything good. . . You don't have to apply opposite pressure, but complimentary pressure. Modern technique teaches that the shooting hand applies front to back pressure, while the support hand applies side to side pressure to seat the gun's butt firmly in the pocket, as opposed to palm, of your shooting hand
Click to expand...


Exactly what he said.
 
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