pmcimagazine.com
10
THE UNIVERSAL COMBAT STANCE
For this issue we are again pleased to be joined by Eli from Project Gecko, this time to give us some
insight as to how and why he and his team train their students the way they do when it comes to
the all-important Combat Stance.
R
ecently during one of our Project Gecko
shooting courses, I heard several students
arguing about whether a tactic or a shooting
stance should be 100% universal or on the
other hand a purpose designated (CQB / LR
context for example) stance that might not be
100% universal but more human behaviour
compliant and flexible.
Back to the students argument; I asked
the student: “What does a universal stance
mean for you?”
He replied that the stance can be used in a firefight, hand
to hand combat, in close quarters or on 200m. In a few
words something that is legit for every task, doesn´t matter
how different the context might be.
This sounds really efficient and simple in the first place
right? It left me thinking quite often about it, because each
fight has different priorities so the stance also has different
tasks to fulfil. Nevertheless, the utilisation of Tactic, Terrain
and Equipment plays a major role in our ability to do A B C….
As a small example you can ask a kitchen chef if he is
using only one knife to prepare his food?
The answer is clearly no, because every meat is different.
So is fighting.
So for those who want a short summary, there is no
universal combat stance, merely indifference’s that are
normally dictated by the designation of your task. Let’s look
into some fundamentals and principles.
STABILITY EQUALS TIGHT GROUPING RIGHT?
When you ask the average shooter why the shooting stance
is so important, he will typically roll up his eyes and will say
“Tight grouping bro.” Not so correct.
A shooting stance, or lets be more accurate, a combat
stance, is a stance that allows you not only to be relevant
to the application of action itself (shooting /punching for
example), but also to what is going to happen straight after
you take the decision to pull the trigger or deliver a blow with
your fist. The combat stance should be one fluent movement
that will allow you to remain proactive and responsive. In
reality, human targets are extremely dynamic.
One of the most important characteristics of the combat
stance is mobility. But what is meant with mobility?