What About Kneeling/Squatting?

I think most of the time your attacker is going to be too close for you to get into any kneeling position. You will probably have to fire from whatever position your feet happened to be in at that moment. (Which, BTW, is why I am not overly fond of shooting stances that require a fixed foot position.) The one use I can see for it is if there is a crowd of people nearby or surrounding him. Then you can fire upwards into the body or head with a higher probability that a miss or "shoot-through" will travel upwards and not hit a bystander.

Hello friends and neighbors // I don't kneel or squat I sit lol.

I'm a big guy and sitting with my left leg bent, knee pointing up and my right leg bent under me knee to the right, gives me stability.When shooting a rifle I support it on the inside of my left knee. Shooting a handgun both arms are around my knee gripping below the knee with my forearms. Not very mobile but stable.

I'm not very stable when kneeling but more power to you, I'm sure you can get up and move quicker that way.

Good for
1) distance when moving and shooting in groups
2) using a rifle

Probably not great for self defense because, as I would imagine, self defense is "imminent" and "close distance". Hence no need or even time to go into the kneeling position.

The caveat here is if you are engaged in a real firefight and you are moving forward, backward, laterally, etc. and taking cover/concealment behind cars, postal boxes, fire hydrants, etc. But that's more Hollywood or LEO than self defense.

I envision most civilian self defense scenarios taking place in very small area, maybe 30 feet distance, and taking under 10 seconds. Hence no need or time if you have a shotgun to kneel.

Loius Awerbuck covers a little bit of kneeling in his handgun classes. As The Lone Haranguer pointed out, it can provide you with a more suitable back-stop, as long as you remember that what goes up must come down. It can also allow you to make better use of cover. The downside is a lack of mobility. I can see how it's more stable for long range rifle shots, but for self-defense with a handgun there really is no tangible accuracy benefit. I didn't shoot any better when we did it in class and neither did anyone else there. One thing I did remember is that he recommended strongly against the 'proposal' kneel, with your legs parallel. Instead you should sit with your strong side leg under you and your off side knee almost completely bent so that your feet are close together. It's a more stable base.

Cosmoline said:

This got me thinking, the stance also has good tactical merits--which is why the Marines teach it.

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We were taught kneeling for a number of reasons, many of which don't readily transfer over to domestic pistol fights.


The kneeling position is more stable, and more accurate than off-hand at moderate to long-range distances.
It also lowers a profile.

The downsides are lack of mobility and visibility. I've taken more groundhogs in the kneeling position than any other. I'd prefer to be prone, but rarely could I see from it. If I could take the shot sitting, I would. And off-hand shots are very tough. About 70% I take kneeling.


At the distances most domestic civilian shooting scenarios take place, the advantage of movement - specifically movement to any cover - is a far better advantage than lowering my profile. And although I can imagine scenarios where I might need some more stability, they're pretty remote.


Kneeling positions have advantages, but the circumstances are much more situation-specific. And I'd rather have some cover. If I can't have cover, I'd rather be moving.

Kneeling = good for getting behind cover if no better option exists.

Beyond that...

In almost any civilian encounter, your first movement priority should not be to drop to one knee. It should be to get off the "X" immediately while fighting back. If your best and safest path off the "X" leads to a spot where kneeling presents a smaller target, so be it.

-Mark

If you can get closer, get closer. If you can get steadier, get steadier.
-Jeff Cooper

When time and conditions allow, get near the target and go prone. Since this rarely works out, kneeling has its place. For the military, it's the most challenging position in basic rifle marksmanship because it is the least steady. This is compounded by wearing kit while in it.

The trick I've found is to utilize bone structure support over muscle. Fine muscle will twitch after a few seconds in an uncomfortable position, not enough to be visible to an observer but enough to throw off a shot. What I do is sit on my foot, brace my knee up, and rest my non-firing elbow in the "knotch" on just up and inside of the knee.

Did'nt that Airmen use a crouch position when he engaged a murderer on that airbase in the early 90's. I belive he took fire from an AK type weapon(missed) and was able to strike the murderer in the head from 75yrds with his service pistol. (IIRC)

psyopspec said:

If you can get closer, get closer. If you can get steadier, get steadier.
-Jeff Cooper

When time and conditions allow, get near the target and go prone. Since this rarely works out, kneeling has its place. For the military, it's the most challenging position in basic rifle marksmanship because it is the least steady. This is compounded by wearing kit while in it.

The trick I've found is to utilize bone structure support over muscle. Fine muscle will twitch after a few seconds in an uncomfortable position, not enough to be visible to an observer but enough to throw off a shot. What I do is sit on my foot, brace my knee up, and rest my non-firing elbow in the "knotch" on just up and inside of the knee.

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Closer is not usually where you want to be in self-defense. Military applications are not the same as civilian...

The total quote from Cooper:

"Remember the rule of the rifleman, "If you can get closer, get closer. If you can get steadier, get steadier.""

Squatting is the quickest position to get in to and out of in order to shoot under something under about 4' or 5' tall (depending on your height). Kneeling is the quickest position to get in to or out of to shoot under something even shorter than that - bend torso over the knee that's down.

Closer is not usually where you want to be in self-defense. Military applications are not the same as civilian...

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I never contended as much. The OP was about the merits of the kneeling stance in fighting and hunting, and the Cooper quote as I invoked it was meant to convey that the kneeling position has its place, but that it is not the most steady. That particular rule of marksmanship applies to hitting a target, which is the goal regardless of the context of using the firearm. Certainly there are other considerations (cover/concealment, "combat" vs bullseye accuracy, etc) but the objective doesn't change.

For defensive purposes, I see the need for kneeling and or squatting only after I manage to break contact to find cover, or while establishing a base of fire in my home.

I anticipate a greater need to be able to shoot fast and accurately at close range while moving to said cover, so I give that a higher priority, as I find the skill requirement to be greater than simply firing from a knee or on my keister.

It's typically only when taking cover that a person will have to use a kneeling/sitting/prone shooting position with a handgun, and that's more likely in a police situation than a civilian one. Civilian self-defense shootings are typically belly-to-belly and over in seconds.

FourteenMiles said:

Did'nt that Airmen use a crouch position when he engaged a murderer on that airbase in the early 90's. I belive he took fire from an AK type weapon(missed) and was able to strike the murderer in the head from 75yrds with his service pistol. (IIRC)

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Yes, I've read of that. Such a scenario would be another use for a kneeling or other supported position. But this is a most atypical scenario for a civilian gunfight, and, for that matter, not very common for LEOs.

I have not been in a firefight since 1969 but it will be interesting if my old military training will kick in to hit the dirt prone, fire and low crawl to cover. Standing gives you more mobility to run or move to cover, sideways or backwards or fowards, but kneeling or hitting the dirt, prone offer less of you as a target. In military firefights in the old days with no body armor, the guys who remained standing were usually dead.

Hate to say this, but I don't know
Nor do I practice going low, and I would hate to say that in an out (as in not HD, but rather out and about) I would think more in the way of getting cover and concealment, not really stability. It would have advantages, but when I imagine and what I think through is belly to belly type, not really shoot move and communicate.

If you need to defend yourself in a crowd shooting from a low position can avoid innocents being caught in your line of fire. I'd much rather blow away innocent ceiling tiles than people.

I have done and continue to do plenty of shooting from a low position. I make a larger than average target standing up and going low corresponds with my natural response to loud unexpected noises. If I'm going to be down there anyway there's not much sense in me wasting time to stand up again to return fire. Use your instinct for survival to your advantage. That's what it's there for.

Another consideration is that when people shoot under the influence of adrenaline they will often use the top of the barrel to align the front sight rather than take the time to use the rear sight. I know this because it took me many years to overcome this phenomenon. In the woods you often only have a split second to get off a shot, not much time for aligning sights. It results in only one thing... High shots. Somebody shooting at your center of mass with this sighting technique is very likely to hit you in the head. Ideally your don't want your head to be where bullets may be arriving.

The lack of mobility issue may have some merit but here too there are considerations. For starters nobody can outrun bullets so cover is useless unless it is close. Assuming cover is close... You have to squat to dive. If you're already low a dive/roll for cover is a very natural thing. Why not be a small target while moving to cover rather than a large one? If there is no cover then rolling back to use your leg bones as a shield in order to stop or slow bullets from reaching your vitals is a possibility. Not a very enticing one but it could save your life. This is not a hard position to shoot effectively from.

And to top it all off there is still the option of standing. Going low is simply another tool, not a requirement, it was not my intention to make it sound otherwise.

Most times, on the range, when I go down on one knee behind cover, that knee will find the sharpest, nastiest little stone on the range... bye-bye consentration!

But I have grown attached to my head so I will take cover (and shoot from there) in any position that I happen to land in...

In a stress situation crouching is like wearing an ankle holster better than nothing but not much. Yes a setting or crouching position is steadier but what is BG doing while your getting down even if your were not seen (lots of movement) time is against you as average gunfights last approx.10 seconds and on ground you have no mobility.
The hunting field or battle ground lessons and tactics doesn't convert well in urban violent incounters.

I don't think I will have the time to do more than point shooting, so that is what I practice.

Read Mas Ayoob's Stressfire a while back. He advocated a modified kneeling position for use behind cover. It involved going to two knees, to allow rotation, but did nothing to get steadier.

I recall Jeff Cooper's Art of the Rifle had a "rice paddy squat" position. I've used that one, as you can get into it PDQ.

Both books worth reading. Cooper's is the basics needed to hit with a rifle. It is where it starts.

I especially like MA's illustration of rotating roughly 360deg from each position (with a handgun) and how the physiology played out. Got some funny looks at the range when I faced away from the targets I had set up and rotated into and engaged them. If figure if THR poster sm can go to the range, dress in a bathrobe, lay on an old mattress, and then engage targets; I can endure a few hairy eyeballs from other folk at the range.

Also keep in mind that us jarheads are also repeatedly sitting in these positions for long periods of time prior to hitting the rifle range and then for a week of "snap in" where all you do is sit in these positions dry firing.

If you're going to work on these positions I highly suggest sitting around the house doing the same thing or you're going to find muscles you never knew you had...