You’ve probably heard many things about the Weaver Stance. Most of them are wrong.

The truth is that Jack Weaver simply put two hands on the pistol and brought it to the eye/target line. That’s it.

Here’s a quote from Weaver himself in a 2010 article:

“No thought was given to foot position, recoil control or pushing with one hand and pulling with the other,” Weaver wrote. “I found out all kinds of things about myself that I didn’t know until I read them in gun magazines. I had to go out and fire a few rounds to see if I really did push the right and pull the left arm–sure enough!”

Here’s a video interview with him:

Did you note that when Weaver demonstrated the Weaver that he didn’t do many of the things often wrongly attributed to him?

Did he make any mention of an injury forcing him to adopt a certain arm position?

I had the opptortunity to interview Jeff Cooper’s daughter, Lindy, shortly after writing this piece. I asked her about the injury myth as it is sometimes applied to him.

Here are her exact words as she wrote them,

“He smashed his right elbow in a fall on the ice while holding my sister when she was a baby. He went through some very painful rehab and had a dent in his right arm where the elbow bone normally resides.

This had NOTHING to do with the Weaver Stance. The Weaver Stance is what Jack Weaver used and he kept winning so Dad and John Plahn analyzed why this was so and came to the conclusion that an isometric balance is achieved when the strong hand pushes outward and the weak hand pulls inward…………….and this push-pull effect enables a shooter to better control recoil and regain his sight picture more quickly. That is it.”.

The bent support side elbow had nothing to do with an injury as is often interjected. The bent elbow didn’t come from Weaver. It came from Jeff Cooper and John Plahn as they codified the Modern Technique and added isometric tension as a means of recoil control. The bladed stance was an adaption by law enforcement agencies to integrate a popular interview stance.

Go to the 41:30 mark in this interview that I did with Jerry McCown who began a formal affiliation with Gunsite and Jeff Cooper in 1983 and who is a legitimate subject matter expert and a primary source:

When I trained with Larry Mudgett, he told me that “Jeff and Jack” got tired of trying to correct everyone about all of the Weaver misconceptions, and they just quit trying.

I probably should too.

Update:

After I wrote this piece, a video popped up in my YouTube suggested videos. It’s of Cooper explaining his version of the Weaver Stance. Please take note that he states that one should be square to the target. He also states a preference an unlocked stongside elbow,