For the first man in? It would be considerably slower to ready the weapon to fire. It also makes it easier to trap the weapon and slows down the support hand for defensive measures.
I’m not saying the Sul isn’t useful, just not for the first man in. Once in and you’re in a position to have to move amongst team members or knowns, whatever, you transition to whatever position that allows for safe movement, and or coverage of threat (s)
Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what I just said.
Now I must invoke your own claim of “missing the point.” The entire idea behind the original thread (the original original thread) was criticism of a specific technique as taught by a certain group, not the group itself as a whole. The reason that this became a minor controversy was NOT simply because the group in question was teaching this Sabrina stuff, it was because they could not readily explain WHY they were teaching it.
Of course there are certain times when Sabrina is appropriate. But the group in question seemed to be teaching this technique as a general way of doing things, and their instructors were not experienced enough (when pressed on the issue) to state the “why” - their response? “It’s A way not THE way” and “It’s just another tool in the tool box.”
This is the elusive “point.”
I kinda see it this way-
There are lots of places to point a weapon safely when you don’t have an identified target or threat area and you have sufficient space to not worry about fighting someone off your gun. You could assume one of the various muzzle-up techniques, a compressed ready, position SUL, whatever. In those circumstances, especially if I need to move or fix something/somebody, I would rather assume position “holster”. Sometimes you really have to ask yourself, “why is my pistol in my hand right now?”
I do not buy it for the post-engagement sequence either. If I shoot somebody to the ground that person was obviously projecting a lethal threat to me or someone with whose life I am entrusted. My gun is staying trained on that threat (or between multiple threats) during my search and assess until the threat has been verified dead or has been restrained. Should the threat not be rendered incaipable of continued hositility I want to be able to immediately engage the threat(s) at the first sign of hostile intent. I am in no rush to take my gun off of someone that just earned lead therapy. There are more than a few incidents of “dead” men rising to reassume hostile action with the good-guys’ backs to them. Sub-optimal to say the least.
Now maybe there is some application I am not thinking about. This may simply be due to the fact that I have not been trained to assume or employ a muzzle-up carry. Now I am not saying that my muzzle never rises above threat level, just not while actively trying to find things to shoot at.
What we really need is someone who instructs this technique to explain the who, why and how. We also need to hear from someone that uses the technique to provide current and relevant real-world experience to validate the technique. It is easy to make assumptions about the technique and applicability (and they may be correct) but it deserves to be intelligently discussed, and is not above dissection.
While it may be a viable technique, only techniques I understand and have mastered go into my bag-o-tricks. There is undoubtedly more than one way to peel an orange, but until a better technique or methodology than my proven skill can be explained, employed, and mastered, it is irrelevant to me.
When working as point, the muzzle of you rweapon should be pointed in the direction that a threat is likely to come from. Also, you work as the security elelment for the breachers and you are responsible for what happens to them while they are getting the door(s) open for you.
When we are doing an entry, point is typically covering the major danger areas as the team gets close. As the team gets closer point begins to focus more and more on the actual point of entry. To do this, you will typically see point use a high ready position while the rest of the team also uses high ready as they pick up danger areas. Once the team compresses as the entry occurs, you will see people move into Sul to limit muzzle sweeps. When the oppertunity presents itself, weapons move back into a high ready.
Around here; we dont go muzzle up unless we are reloading, clearing a malfunction, or covering a danger area above us.
Muzzle-up: Not every muzzle-up position is a Sabrina/half-Sabrina. I agree, Sabrina & her half-sister seem like bad ideas to me and I’ve never had reason to use them for anything. But there are definite benefits to the muzzle-up position as taught by folks like Dieter/CQD. Is it the 100% solution? No. But it provides a stable, secure, fast into action position from which you can make extremely fast and effective weapon strikes, move into a retention position that won’t likely get your pistol trapped, etc.
Learning: While I’ve used the old saw “you can learn something from any instructor” myself, and it’s certainly true, it’s also completely reasonable to make choices based on what’s getting you the best return for your investment. Keeping with the Weaver stance example, I’m in agreement that I’d be hard pressed to take a skills-based class from someone who was advocating that stance simply because it’s been disproved by more than a decade of OIS video, etc. And as gotM4 said, it’s something I’ve tried and used for a number of years … I’m not saying it’s worse because someone told me so, I know it’s worse because I’ve been able to compare them both extensively.
But just because someone uses an outdated stance doesn’t necessarily mean he can’t teach you something about trigger control or sight alignment you’ve never heard before, or teach you something about mindset, or teach you something about tactics, or …
Exactly. Worse yet, it’s regress presented as progress.
For the same reasons we don’t do things like this anymore.
There are better and more efficient ways. That “Starsky & Hutch” garbage isn’t a recent development. It was evaluated and discarded many years ago.
I can do any and all of these things from a low ready, one handed if need be.
I believe there is such a thing as “too many tools in the toolbox”. There must be a “line” drawn somewhere.
Disproved may be a bit harsh. Lots of people shooting modified Weaver (as taught by Cooper, Chapman) have done a lot of good work.
I will throw my couple of pennies in the soup here. While I understand the desire to simplify in some areas/teams, I think it is a mistake to oversimplify. So rather than just “keep it simple”, it should really be “keep it as simple as possible”.
I’m sure I will be told that all manner of high speed folks do it differently, etc., etc. I expect there will be lots of disagreement with me. That’s OK. Its been known to happen. But I don’t do something simply because someone else does it.
I think the Low Ready is substandard and the only thing it does well is to get lots of people up to a certain level of skill quickly in a large class. I look at ready positions like I look at anything else. What is the purpose?
I define a ready position as anytime the weapon is in your hands (instead of hanging on a sling or sitting in a holster). A ready position is taken for a number of reasons. You may be expecting trouble for a specific spot RIGHT THERE! You may be walking through a conflicted area and the chance of a fight is likely. Or you may be hauling ass to get to cover as bullets narrowly miss you as you dash to the corner of the 7-11. Then again…you may simply be moving from point A to point B with no direct expectation of a contact.
Will you do those all in Low Ready? You can try, but I don’t think you will do them as well as if you had a more open mind with regards to ready positions.
At my group, we teach several ready positions depending on the tactical circumstances. My premise is to teach to the highest level rather than to the lowest common denominator. I value tactical flexibility, ambidextrous capability, and a relaxed-as-possible fighting manner.
In the context of rifles, I teach the following -
Movement Readies:
Rifle Sul : Identical to Pistol Sul. Rifle is pivoted downward at shoulder until support hand touches the support side leg. Butt stock need not remain in contact with the shoulder. This is identical to pistol SUL concept, and was called Indoor Low Ready at one time. The Sul allows you to move in a 360 environment w/o covering innocents or partners unnecessarily.
I think the use of SUL is very important and if I had one ready position to teach, that would be it. I specially think it is important for civilian use in the after-action phase. In my experience, people waving guns around in High Ready when the police arrive tend to get shot first and then asked things afterwards.
Port Arms: Hardly taught at “gun schools” any more, the High Port, or Port Arms has some great value. If I had you grab up your rifle and sprint 100 yards, you’d probably do it while holding the rifle this way. It is not meant for patrolling or holding someone at gun point. It is meant for hauling ass from one point to another when the purpose is traveling and not shooting.
Each of these positions is useful for moving from point to point when no contact is immediately expected. The weapon can be “mounted” back into the shoulder, or brought into body index in the case of an extremely close confrontation problem in the blink of an eye. Moreover, none of these positions is physically draining for the open ended time frame.
Safety lever may be on or off depending on the operator’s choice.
Contact Readies:
When contact is made, but and immediate shot is not necessarily needed, the muzzle must be moved into position covering the adversary. The idea that you will be issuing commands while standing out in the open with your gun muzzle pointing at the deck in some politically correct low ready is foolish. Point the rifle right at 'em!
The Contact Ready Positions are:
Contact Ready: From shouldered rifle simply move your muzzle up until it is covering the waistband area of the adversary. Those who say that you won’t be able to see your adversary this way have never pointed a loaded rifle at another man with the possible intent to kill him. You can certainly see what you need to see.
Close Contact: The Rifle is brought up under the arm with the muzzle pointed right at them ready to shoot. And you can truly shoot from here if necessary. The only difference between Contact Ready and Close Contact is that with the latter you hold the rifle closer due to a close proximity threat.
That is it. I don’t teach High Ready for anything other than special circumstances.
The High Ready can be traced back to sport shot gunning. When Jeff Cooper was developing his Shotgun Program, he consulted with John Satterwhite, a shotgun magician who could toss seven clay birds into the air and blast them all before they hit the ground using a pump action shotgun! His ready position of choice? The Satterwhite Ready.
This involved having the muzzle pointed toward the targets, and the butt held at the hip. On “go” the shotgunner popped the buttstock into the shoulder and fired almost on contact.
Cooper eventually added the concept to the rifle and had his rifle students hit clay birds on the fly with their rifles in the old 270. When the era of the “poodle shooter” came about (Cooper’s words), they used the mold from the General Rifle class and the High Ready was dragged into the carbine program as well. That is the tale of the travels of the High Ready.
So where is High Ready useful? When moving through an urban environment and you anticipate second or third story threats, you move with the muzzle elevated and pointed at those threats in a ready similar in appearance to the High Ready…conceptually however, it is following the line of thinking as Contact Ready with the muzzle in contact with the anticipated threat.
Now I also teach to hold the rifle (or pistol) up in the line of sight for reloading/manipulating the rifle. My experience has shown that under stress, people want to look at what their hands are doing. Gun down = eyes down. Gun up = eyes up. Understand that very little of my teaching involves static line drills on a square range shooting little groups. We run a physically demanding and dynamic course. When you get people moving and running, it becomes very important for them to be able to see where they are going. Thus guns up = eyes up.
Those are the Ready Positions I teach.
Copy / Paste.
Thank you, sir.
How is the firearm positioned according to him? I recognize the name, but have no expereince with his material.
A reoccuring problem I see when these thread come up is the very defintion of certain positions; in particular “high ready.” I have always been taught that “high ready” is where the muzzle is still below shoulder level, but depressed by only a few degrees. I’ve also seen it taught where the pistol is brought back in to the body and the muzzle is pointed up slightly. However teh gun is still beloiw shoulder level.
For others I see it meaning the same thing as the Satterwhite ready or something similar.
NCPAR – I haven’t been through Dieter’s program so am relaying what I was taught by folks on some of the teams (State and Navy) he’s trained.
Essentially, the pistol is held at about face level to act as a shield against strikes and also to make for fast, straight, powerful muzzle strikes. It provides good retention and control.
When I do it, I tend to keep the gun a little lower because I prefer to have a clearer field of view downrange. It’s in the same place the gun comes to when I dismount to scan, etc.
I agree, lack of common definitions makes the topic really dicey without being in person or having detailed explainations of each position from each poster.
Gabe- good read. Interesting information about Satterwhite and the muzzle-up position.
You know…re-reading the thread this AM, I think NC Patrol is right with the definitions thing.
I think we might be talking of two different animals here after looking at some of the photos, and simply categorizing muzzle up…all muzzle up positions, as high ready.
There is another position for the pistol which I think was popularized by Andy Stanford (I could be wrong on this) that he called high ready. Guys nicknamed it the “Sabrina Ready” in reference to one of the chick’s on te Charlie’s Angels show.
Now…conceptually, you can use this with any firearm, although it was originally taught for pistol (IIRC). Today, I see the similar concept being used for moving, and for scanning. The Satterwhite Ready was a ready-to-shoot position with a target, whereas the “Sabrina” was a scanning position where you are looking for a target.
When used for dynamic moving, I see some good value in muzzle up. We run a number of dynamic team drills in some classes, and we have the guys run it muzzle up for a number of reasons:
1). The eyes-up muzzle up thing is immediately evident. Most guys’ eyes will be drawn to the gun. (Even high speed guys)
2). You need to see where you are going or you’ll fall.
3). Muzzle up will not cover your partner as you are running past his position.
4). Muzzle up will allow you to reload on the run without losing sight of your objective.
5). Muzzle up will insure the gun doesn’t trip you up (don’t laugh…I’ve seen it happen).
6). Muzzle up will keep the gun from hanging up on ground vegetation.
I would NOT use muzzle up to scan before or after a fight unless I had a real concern about higher angle threats (second story balconies, etc.)
Using the Sabrina or “High Ready” for scanning does a number of undesirable things.
1). It covers your scanning area. We rely a great deal on peripheral vision and even teach methods to enhance it in the scan. If you put a gun up there cobvering up your scan you need to work extra hard to see what is out there. And guys…all you may get is a fleeting glimpse of movement as an indication of a threat so this is a big deal in my opinion.
2). Not so much with rifles since there is nothing low profile about a rifle fight, but with a pistol, the muzzle-to-the-sky position presents a very high profile “man with a gun” image. After a shooting and scan, you may be presented with one of four contacts.
a). Another bad guy to shoot,
b). A non-shootable bad guy (I’ll explain),
c). A curious, but uninvolved good guy
d). A responding cop with no info other than there has been a shooting.
You need to be in a position to handle the need to quickly shoot again if another “shootable” bad guy pops up. Your awareness of him will be based on your ability to see him and respond before he takes you out. Not as easy as on a shooting range (try it force on force).
You also need to be able to handle a non-shootable bad guy. This is something we saw alot back in SoCal in gang arrests. You’d have “Puppet the Robber” zip-tied when his brother would pop into the picture, stripped to the waist, emty-handed, yelling, “Yo dog…you ain’t takin my homey”. I would argue that for some this may be a shooting situation, but not for everyone. This is where the Dieter, alternative force, etc. stuff comes in.
You need to be aware of the curious idiot that acts like this is an episode of scare Tactics and wants to get on TV.
You also need to be aware that the cops will likely be on their way as well. All the info they have is there has been a shooting and maybe a description. This may take an hour…or a minute. Think of the one-year dude who has a great deal of education maybe, but the life experience of a turnip, wanting to make a name for himself by being the first guy on scene and then the first thing he sees is you standing tall in the sun in a sabrina pose. In the real world, there is alot of “shoot first - ask questions later”. The sky-high ready in this case is a potentially catastrophic error.
I hope I clarified this a bit. In the end, i think you need alot of different ready positions to match the demands of the mdern environment. And then use the right tool for the job.
(1) Is the ready position you are using endangering yourself or someone else (i.e. direction the muzzle)?
(2) Are you able to get on target quickly enough to make good shots?
(3) Is the ready position you are using putting you in any kind of disadvantage (ie: blocking vision, etc.)?
If the answer to all of these questions are in the negative, who cares which technique you use. As long as it works for you in that situation. JM2CW.
You’re right. As I was taught many moons ago, the “high ready” and “Satterwhite ready” are the same thing. What you described as a “high ready” was called “the hunt”. “Low ready” was low ready regardless of how far down one had to lower the muzzle to be safe. Someone apparently felt the need to coin the term “indoor ready” for a very low “low ready”.
Good post, Carlos!
Here’s my take:
With the “sky high” ready position as seen in the photograph, the operator would have to move his body around three anatomical points of motion in order to obtain a correct sight picture and engage the target.
All of those elements would have to be moved into position before obtaining a correct sight picture and engaging, thus creating the possible need for minute (and time-consuming) adjustments
With the “low-ready” position, one would only have to move one anatomical point of motion to obtain a correct sight picture: the shoulder. By keeping the forearm straight and maintaining everything below it in line, it allows the brain to
Just my $0.02
Isn’t that Mr. Yeager’s background? If so, that makes sense as to why he might be advocating this particular position.
I do believe his background is LE and could very well be the reason.