Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

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dcludwig
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Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by dcludwig »

I have found that I have "growths" or lumps growing in both my left and right hand. It's worse in my left hand as they are now pressing down on the tendons on my thumb and palm. One first appeared several years ago and when I showed my doctor, he kind of shrugged it off. Now they are becoming a real problem in the left hand and just starting to bother me in my right hand (though not nearly so much). I'm going to see the orthopedic doctor on the 14th and I have a feeling he will tell me that the only treatment is to have them removed. If so, I think I will have the one in my right hand removed as well. I assume it should be fairly "minor" surgery, but when working around tendons, anything can happen.

Questions: 1.) I'm right handed, would you risk the surgery on that hand? I think of it as "preventive maintenance" and would rather not wait until I HAVE to have it done. 2.) Do you practice with your weak hand and if so, how often and how good are you with it?

I think I will start doing this the next time I'm at the range, regardless of the surgery. Even without any surgical issue, a situation could arise where I am wounded/disabled with my right hand and would have no choice but to fire with my left. I guess the more prudent of you do this anyway, I've just never given it much thought until now. I don't normally care a BUG (yeah, I know I should) but when I do, it is in an ankle holster on my right side. Maybe I really need to start carrying a BUG on my left side and practice drawing with it.

*sigh* at things that happen to your body as you get older...
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by Whirlwind06 »

I try to shoot 10 or 12 rounds with my left hand I also do a fair amount of dry fire practice with my left. Slow fire I am pretty decent, rapid fire not so much. I still get them on the paper but not great group. I figue it would be good enough to stop an attack. I'm sure if I devoted more trigger time I would get better.

Good luck with your hands. Hope all turns out well.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by Mrs. Daspirate »

I practice with my weak hand a little bit every time we're at the range, for fun mostly, not necessarily because I'm worried about having to use it in an emergency.

There are other benefits to practicing with the weak hand. When you get habitual about training, it becomes harder for your mind to concentrate on improving, rather than just doing what you've trained it to do. Practicing with the off hand breaks up the muscle memory enough to concentrate on improving.

I would also say that putting off a surgery that seems rather important to your health because you may or may not at some point in the meantime have to fend off an attacker seems counter-productive to a healthy life. My thought has always been that if I'm going to put effort into protecting my life and body, then I ought to take proper care to both enjoy life and take care of my body, else why bother?
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by Cruiser »

I have always thought that if one practices with his weak hand that you should not involve the strong hand. Simply that your strong hand/arm is likely to out of commision or you would not be useing the weak one!
Good luck with the growth removal.
Last edited by Cruiser on Sun Feb 24, 2013 12:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by Imcrazy »

I can switch hands pretty well. I've actually shot some really nice groups lefty... I think its just that I don't have as many bad habits LH. I also can use either eye with either a rifle or a pistol.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by NERES »

Yes, I practice with my weak hand and actually do quite well doing so.

Regarding your problem with your hand I cannot give medical advice but I can tell of my experience. I had lumps which the doctor called "ganglia" and the treatment required no surgery. There are other conditions which cause lumps and my best advice is to get another opinion from another doctor.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by TSiWRX »

Hope you heal fast. :) That's what I hate about getting older. I no longer heal like I used to. :P :oops:

That said:

Yes, I practice my reaction/support/"weak" side. As with everything martial, it just makes sense to do so, for a number of different reasons.

Marksmanship wise, I'm definitely not as fast nor as accurate/precise as with my dominant hand (or two-handed), but it more than gets the job done. I continue to practice it, though, in the simple hopes that I do continue to get better at it. :)

And this year, I'm committing another 3 days and quite a bit of dollars to doing things like:

Image

(not me, not my picture)

and

Image
(not me, not my picture)

...while under the careful eyes of instructors.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by bones »

after quite a bit of practice i feel i dont have a weak hand anymore.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by dcludwig »

NERES wrote:Yes, I practice with my weak hand and actually do quite well doing so.

Regarding your problem with your hand I cannot give medical advice but I can tell of my experience. I had lumps which the doctor called "ganglia" and the treatment required no surgery. There are other conditions which cause lumps and my best advice is to get another opinion from another doctor.
I haven't been to the orthopedist yet, but I will certainly keep this in mind. Hopefully this is all that it is, but tell me what is the treatment? Shots or pills? Thanks for the info.
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5th SFGA, 1st SF
Republic of Vietnam, March 1969 to May 1971

ALWAYS be aware of the letter of the law, because THEY may not be! --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWLxPC6YKlA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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dcludwig
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by dcludwig »

TSiWRX wrote:Hope you heal fast. :) That's what I hate about getting older. I no longer heal like I used to. :P :oops:

That said:

Yes, I practice my reaction/support/"weak" side. As with everything martial, it just makes sense to do so, for a number of different reasons.

Marksmanship wise, I'm definitely not as fast nor as accurate/precise as with my dominant hand (or two-handed), but it more than gets the job done. I continue to practice it, though, in the simple hopes that I do continue to get better at it. :)

And this year, I'm committing another 3 days and quite a bit of dollars to doing things like:

Image

(not me, not my picture)

and

Image
(not me, not my picture)

...while under the careful eyes of instructors.
OMG!!! This screams of lost toes!!! Gosh, I don't know if I could even get in that position, much less doing so without shooting myself (or someone next to me). I'd love to see of video of this. If you're going to be doing this, maybe we can get a pool together with some new life insurance on you! :-)
U.S. Army 1968 - 1971
5th SFGA, 1st SF
Republic of Vietnam, March 1969 to May 1971

ALWAYS be aware of the letter of the law, because THEY may not be! --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWLxPC6YKlA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by TSiWRX »

dcludwig wrote: OMG!!! This screams of lost toes!!! Gosh, I don't know if I could even get in that position, much less doing so without shooting myself (or someone next to me). I'd love to see of video of this. If you're going to be doing this, maybe we can get a pool together with some new life insurance on you! :-)
:lol: :lol:

Toe insurance.

Maybe I should.....

:lol:

People harp sometimes on why much of Costa's HE02 is run without a clock. ^ That is why.

It's enough pressure, without time - particularly as for most people, it's literally the first time that they've done anything even close to that kind of manipulations (I know that for me, it was the first time I'd run such skills in such an intense manner). To put people on the clock would just be irresponsibly dangerous (not to say that, eventually, one shouldn't train to that level: I think one should - but it's just that in an open-enrollment class like that, it's the right thing to do, to not run such drills on the clock). After the initial skill-set was taught and drilled-in towards proficiency and safety, Costa wanted the students to work any malfunctions/manipulations using whatever hand(s) that happened to be shooting - in whatever position was called - during the drill, as long as the student felt he could safely manage the process. It was really eye-opening.

:)

His stated goal for the class was to make the student "unstoppable" - that we fall out of the fight only if we mentally/physically stop: not because we do not have the skill/know-how necessary to execute the manipulations. To-date, it's the hardest I've run the pistol.

Although absolute marksmanship was not a hard focus of the class, an acceptable level of performance was expected of each student, and we self-policed to insure that we were meeting our own individual goals and marks. I really think that it was much more of a thinking/mindset/skill-set class. :) It definitely emphasized the other hand not just in terms of shooting, but being able to actually "run the gun."
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by whoownsyou »

Wouldn't upside down interfere with the feed of the gun? That bottom pic looks like it would be an enlightening exercise, but one I'd rather engage in alone. That many people beside you, doing something that could easily lead to a fumble.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by TSiWRX »

whoownsyou wrote:Wouldn't upside down interfere with the feed of the gun?
^ Both no and yes.

No in that the gun will still work - but yes is that it may be more prone to feed/cycle/ejection issues.

For me, shooting from different positions, what I saw was an increased sensitivity to my grip, with respect to ejection/extraction. I'm still a fairly new shooter, and I haven't shot from a lot of the positions before those 6 days last summer, so from time-to-time, I'd let the position dictate my shooting :oops: , instead of actually *shoot* from the position. That's where I saw some interesting behavior of my gun.

Basically, as long as you properly execute the fundamentals and are mindful of what can potentially impede the operation of your gun (i.e. is there tall grass or other vegetation adjacent to where your gun is going to be chucking spent cases? will those cases fall back into the ejection port?), you're golden. :) Part of the goal of that particular class (HE02) is to get your body/mind accustomed to such positions of advantage/compromise, so that your mind has something to reference in a time of need.
That bottom pic looks like it would be an enlightening exercise, but one I'd rather engage in alone. That many people beside you, doing something that could easily lead to a fumble.
Ah, that's actually in the process of getting the gun into the proper shooting position with reaction/support/"weak" hand (the left hand, in the case of the individuals in that photo). They're doing a groin/belly/chest-roll, to get the gun into position. Most shooters are probably actually familiar with using this technique to get the gun into the non-dominant hand when upright - this is simply doing just that, but laying supine.

[ In the lower-level class, HE01, Costa did demonstrate one component of "screwing up" (as well as to demonstrate what a good shooter can get away with, by countering that screw-up with reinforcement of other aspects of the fundamentals) by taking the pistol, turning it upside-down, and shooting it with his pinkies - the gun still shot just fine, and yes, he still got his hits. It's like classes where, for example, the instructor will have a student establish a really dominant grip, sight-in, and then the instructor will shoot the gun with a screwdriver jammed through the trigger guard so as to show what a good grip can do to make up for sub-optimal trigger control. However, that is *not* what is happening, in that photo. ]

I at first thought that the chest/belly-roll would be my LEAST favorite method of getting the gun oriented properly in my left hand (my dominant hand is my right) - at least that was how I felt, going into the class, having done dry-runs in my own practice. However, coming out of the class, that method actually became my FAVORITE method of getting the gun in my other hand, simply because when properly executed, it is actually very, very, very safe and very, very, very controlled. At first, I favored the static-position knee-pinch switch, but it quickly became apparent to me that when executed properly, the chest/belly-roll was every bit as safe, and it would also afford me the ability to stay mobile. For me, because of my body shape (think Kung Fu Panda :oops: :P :lol: ), my lower-chest/upper-belly naturally causes the muzzle to point away from me, whereas with a "holster spin" technique, because again of my body-build, I'm much more prone to potentially accidentally sweep someone off to my strong side when I execute that technique. The key to safely executing the draw is to be sure that your fingers are not in the trigger guard (easy to do correctly when you've got a good holster), and the key to safely executing the roll is to simply keep your finger out of the trigger guard, which is again easy to do when you burn-in a high-index of your trigger finger on the slide.

As for doing the technique in a firing line, this is where you both have to understand that you're going to be responsible for your safety as well as that of your line-mates' - Costa ended his safety brief with a reminder that should anyone not feel comfortable with executing any skill, they should simply not do it: that this wasn't a contest - as well as realize that while this kind of practice has with it inherent danger, but that it has direct applicability to real-life in that it may well be your child or another innocent standing next to you, when you're pressed into needing to execute such a technique, in the real-world. Part of the goal of classes like these is to help the shooter develop an instinctive awareness of his or her surroundings - and to deeply ingrain the Golden Rules of firearms safety, without putting anyone at truly unnecessary risk (i.e. downrange!)

And although it is a firing line, skills like these are not a skills that were immediately put into play: the drills you see pictured were started on day two of a three-day class, an upper-level class, at that. By then, the instructors will already have picked out who are the students they may need to watch more, and they'll literally watch them like a hawk (and physically intervene, if-necessary) to prevent accidents.

But yes, you're right, training is not without some inherent dangers. "Is gun. Is not safe." :)

That said, again, good instructors - including Costa - are very, very aware of such potential dangers. That first of all, in an "advanced" class, complacency could lead to disaster: hence not only a comprehensive safety brief, but also a reminder to be safe before the students step up to the line at any evolution and even in-between drills. Second, the instructor(s) will also take the time to explain to the students what he/she has seen, in terms of the most common foul-ups as well as specific tips on how to avoid such. And finally, in our class, a reminder that we were -NOT- on the clock, that instead of speed as a measure of proficiency, we were asked to focus on proper and safe technical execution and shot-delivery as the mark of our proficiency, that the goal was to ingrain that primacy. What further impressed me was that Costa took the time to even tell the HE02 students that no-one would be dismissed for losing control of a gun and letting it hit the ground: that he understood that, sometimes, particularly when it was that hot and everyone that sweaty, things like that *can* happen, despite our best efforts to not to - rather, he wanted to remind everyone to NOT grab for the gun if it was on its way out of their hand(s), in that was where the true dangers really came into play in such a scenario.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by whoownsyou »

I just meant that should somebody begin to drop or otherwise lose control of the gun, they might instinctively scramble to regain control instead of just letting it drop. In the scramble, you might catch the trigger unexpectedly and while it's pointing in a direction you didn't choose.
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Re: Do you ever practice with your "weak" hand?

Post by NERES »

dcludwig wrote: I haven't been to the orthopedist yet, but I will certainly keep this in mind. Hopefully this is all that it is, but tell me what is the treatment? Shots or pills? Thanks for the info.
I don't want to mislead you so I won't go any further than to suggest that some conditions don't require surgery and being in no position to assess what you have I can only suggest that you pursue this with a doctor. Sorry to leave you wondering but I think this is best.
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