Shooting stances - Isosceles

Proper shooting stance is a very important thing for every shooter. Good stance makes shots more accurate and consistent while keeping stability.

There are three main shooting stances:
- Isosceles
- Weaver
- modified Weaver
In this and the next post I'll approach each of them.

As the first one I'll write about Isosceles. The name comes from shooter's hands, which create an isoceles triangle. Currently the Modern Isosceles stance is the most popular stance in sport and combat shooting.

A little bit of history. The primal version of Isosceles has been taught in police and FBI academies in the mids of XX century. As the time passed by, it started to be departed from as in this stance shooter's silhouette is quite a big target. In the times that booletproof vests weren't in common use it was a serious problem. Today the modern version of Isosceles, fixing most of the issues, is in use.

In the classic Isosceles shooters body has been straight up and stiff. Legs were parallel in low wide stride. In result - it hasn't been the most stable stance. Modern version assumes that the body is slightly reduced in the knees and swung forward. The leg at the strong side of the body may be slightly withdrawn (for a better balance in the case of pull/push), while maintaining the trunk sent to the front. In the era of buletproof vests silhouette's size is not a concern any more. In the shooting sports legs are rather not withdrawn as situation where someone pushes us basically should never happen. Hands can be straightened and locked at the elbows or slightly bent. Personally however, I suggest not to lock elbows. In AIPSC it doesn't matter but in the case of real firearms burden on the arms with locked elbow joints are much larger. In this stance the right hand pushes while the left one pulls the gun ensuring stability during aiming. Here's an example how it should look like.