You are absolutely wrong about "cupping" with the off-hand.
Whoever taught you that was flat wrong.
The fingers of the off-hand go around the front of the grip on top of the shooting hand fingers. If he's really doing it right he's pushing forward with the strong hand (errr...yeah, "paw") and pulling back with the weak. This tension is what solidifies the Weaver.
Lesse...I'll try and google Jeff Cooper on the subject...
Wait. Bangs head. Before we go there: Ralph drew him cupping his strong-hand WRIST. Sigh. RALPH! That's worse! And now that I look again...dangit, you're right, his legs are crossed up. RALPH! You've got his sword handling down pat, doing great there, time to get your butt to a shooting range and learn something if you're going to show him using that crossbow-thing.
Sigh. Missed that too in all the other coolness of that pic.
Never mind. Back to Cooper...well damn, google isn't showing his tutorial on the Weaver. Found some other references though:
http://pistolsmith.com/viewtopic.php?t= ... b052450efc
This is one of the more professional sources I was able to find:
http://www.nwtccja.com/documents/Daat/D ... 202002.doc
Quoting:
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WEAVER STANCE: A shooting position invented by Jack Weaver in 1959. The stance offers good recoil control, a stable firing platform, and mobility and flexibility in application. Components: reaction side forward, strong side back, knees slightly bent, support elbow flexed and pointing down, strong elbow locked or slightly bent, strong arm pushing out slightly, support arm pulling back slightly.
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You can't pull back on the off-hand while cupping. Note the source on that:
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Defensive and
Arrest Tactics
A Training Guide For
Law Enforcement Officers
Wisconsin Department of Justice
Law Enforcement Standards Board
April 2002
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OH! Hah, here we go, written by Jack Weaver's son quoting his father (yes, the inventor of the hold):
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I remember a "pistol shoot" sometime around 1960 at Big Bear, California. As a boy of six, I was an old hand at shooting competitions having witnessed many shootouts where the targets were balloons wedged into old tires. I was hanging around backstage and overheard two gunslingers talking about how "someone should break Weaver's left arm." Holy cow!! I ran straight to my trusted sidekick, my mother, and revealed the details of the plot I had just discovered. She explained to me that these men were most likely not serious about breaking dad's arm, but were upset because they couldn't shoot straight one-handed and dad was wiping them all out using his two-hand technique.
For myself, from that day forward, the Weaver Stance has meant using both hands. But forget me, here is what my father wrote describing his method in the article entitled "Jack Weaver Speaks" from Handguns magazine, February 1994. "Number one, there are people who for some reason or other like to take something that is very simple and make something complicated out of it. The important thing is the hand position on the gun (no wrist grabbing or palm-under-the-hand stuff). I put my left thumb over my right and squeeze tighter with my left (weak) hand than the right. The rest is up to the individual. Unless you are a Jack Weaver clone, you can't be expected to do everything exactly like I do." For an in-depth analysis of this stance and good information on handgunning, read the book "Shooting Handguns" by Mike Mangiaracina (see link on home page).
Source:
http://weaverstance.com/about.htm
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Bigdude again. OK, now we got it.
Ralph, hope you're reading this. Have the little furball get some training in gun-fu somewhere along the line

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