By Massad Ayoob<\/a><\/p>\n A misunderstood shooting technique turns out to have a purpose for both competition and self-defense.<\/em><\/p>\n M<\/span>any a modern shooter in a handgun class has been told, \u201cDon\u2019t lean your darn head forward when you\u2019re shooting! Stand erect in a neutral posture and keep your head up! What do you think you are, a Tactical Turtle?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTactical Turtle\u201d became a derogatory term for the shooter whose head was forward of centerline of erect posture. Long before the old man writing this was born, a tenet of marksmanship with the handgun was \u201cDon\u2019t bring your head down to the sights, bring the sights up to your eyes!\u201d It was as if it had been written on the stone tablets when Moses came down from Firearms Instructor Mountain.<\/p>\n As a young \u201ccombat shooting\u201d competitor in the 1970s and one of three people (along with Frank Behlert and the late Tom Campbell) to have shot in all of the first 10 Bianchi Cups, people would show me pictures of me shooting and comment that the faster the stage, the more forward my head was. My answer then was \u201cYeah, I know, I\u2019m supposed to keep my head straight up. Dammit, I guess I\u2019m an old dog who can\u2019t learn new tricks. Too late for me; save yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n What turned me around on that was the week in the early 1980s when Mike Plaxco took my LFI-I class when I was lead instructor for Lethal Force Institute. That was the year Mike had become the first \u2014 and to my recollection, still the only \u2014 man to win the IPSC National Championships, the prize-rich Second Chance bowling pin match (now known as The Pin Shoot<\/a>)\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0the World Speed Shooting Championships at the Steel Challenge, all the same year.<\/p>\n Now, let me be the first to tell you, there was not a darn thing I could teach J. Michael Plaxco about how to shoot a pistol. The reason he came was that he was starting to carry on his own time and he was looking for the legal and tactical side. But the LFI-I class then, like my MAG-40 class now (massadayoobgroup.com<\/a>), also included 500 rounds of defensive pistol live-fire.<\/p>\n There was no way I was going to have a world champion in my class and not have him do a guest lecture and a shooting demonstration. You have to understand, Mike Plaxco was the guy to beat in the early \u201980s, the man who was only unseated from that title by Rob Leatham, who deservedly was nicknamed \u201cTGO,\u201d The Great One<\/a>, by his peers. Plaxco was awesome to watch in action. His .45 auto was like a 9mm submachine gun, and delivered all hits.<\/p>\n And, I couldn\u2019t help but notice, his head was forward and down as he shot.<\/p>\n One does not gig another instructor, especially in front of a class, and most definitely one does not gig a world champion doing a free lecture and demo to one\u2019s own class. But when that class day was over and we were having a beer together before dinner, I said in private \u201cMike, I see you have the same shooting problem I\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n Live The Armory Life.<\/strong> The latest content straight to your inbox plus an automatic entry to each of our monthly gun\u00a0giveaways!<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n The words stopped Mike\u2019s glass of beer halfway to his lips. He answered, \u201cProblem? I\u2019ve got a\u00a0problem<\/em>, Massad?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah,\u201d I answered. \u201cYou know, with the head forward and down, and we\u2019re supposed to keep the head up?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHell, Massad,\u201d Mike answered. \u201cThat comes from old-fashioned bullseye shooting, where you\u2019re trying to hit a tiny circle 50 yards away and you\u2019ve got lots of time and you couldn\u2019t even see the bullet holes without a telescope. You do that in close, especially with reaction targets, and you\u2019re gonna start looking over the gun and you\u2019re gonna miss high.\u201d<\/p>\n I could have slapped my own face, because I realized he was right.<\/p>\n It won\u2019t show up so much when you\u2019re shooting at paper or cardboard. Where you\u2019ll really see it is on reaction targets \u2014 steel plates, bowling pins or, worst-case scenario, some living thing you desperately need to stop in its tracks with defensive gunfire. In those moments your conscious mind might be thinking \u201cwatch the front sight,\u201d but your subconscious is screaming \u201cFront sight, hell! We gotta see if that thing we\u2019re shooting at\u00a0goes down!\u201d\u00a0<\/em>This causes the head to subconsciously lift.<\/p>\n A basic truth of physiology and martial arts:\u00a0Where the head goes, the body follows!\u00a0<\/em>And as the head lifts so, to a small degree, do the hands. What now kicks in is Geometry 101 applied to the handgun: as the muzzle lifts with the hands, the shot goes disproportionately high and over the spot you wanted to hit.<\/p>\n With the head forward and down, the shooter would have to consciously, deliberately, unlock the neck muscles to look over the sights. The problem of high misses? SOLVED!<\/p>\n From that day in the early \u201980s onward, I taught the Plaxco Technique. Problems arose with the name. New shooters didn\u2019t know who Mike Plaxco was. Then Mike retired from the pro shooting tour due in large part to microfractures in his hands and wrists from a training regimen of 100,000 rounds a year of major caliber pistol bullets.<\/p>\n He focused on gunsmithing (my Plaxco Custom Compensator Springfield Armory 1911A1 is still my favorite comp gun for pin shooting) and as a sales rep for a gun manufacturer, on whose factory team he was a valued member for many years. He passed away all too soon.<\/p>\n I changed things up. Just about everybody remembers the image of Snoopy the beagle in the \u201cPeanuts\u201d comic strip, pretending to be a vulture with his head forward and down. I started calling it the \u201cVulture technique,\u201d and that was easier for students to remember.<\/p>\n \u201cTactical Turtle\u201d? The critics got the wrong critter. Telling the student \u201cVulture Down\u201d brings their body posture where Nature wants it for fighting.<\/p>\n \u201cFight or flight\u201d was named more than a century ago by Dr. Walter Cannon at Harvard Medical School. He explained that a human, a primate or a bear on its hind legs would, when threatened, bring its head forward and down, the shoulders rising instinctively to protect the head, and the body weight coming forward. This is the true natural fighting posture. It keys in perfectly with what the human body is programmed to do when threatened, and works great with a gun in hand, one-handed or two.<\/p>\n With iron sights, the only people who\u2019ll have a problem will be those with multi-focal eyeglasses. The reading plane, which is what you need for iron front sights, is traditionally put in the bottom of the lens; with such bifocals, you have to tilt the head\u00a0back<\/em>\u00a0to focus on the front sight. Simply tell the optician you want that close plane at the\u00a0top<\/em>\u00a0of the lens. When you \u201cvulture down\u201d in that natural fight or flight posture, the front sight will come into focus. You can order those shooting glasses from SSP in Washington state, by the way.<\/p>\n Do you prefer the currently popular red dot sight? Well, have you ever noticed that the shooter new to carry optics has trouble \u201cfinding the dot\u201d?<\/a> If you have, then you\u2019ve already figured out that when they finally find that dot, it usually wasn\u2019t hiding to the side or down below, was it? No, it was hiding at 12 o\u2019clock high \u2013\u00a0and the vulture technique will bring the new carry optics shooter right to that critical aiming dot.<\/em><\/p>\n Sometimes, conventional wisdom (such as \u201calways keep the head straight up\u201d) doesn\u2019t work all the time, for everyone. Don\u2019t be afraid to try something new or different, so long as it\u2019s safe. The object isn\u2019t necessarily to do what your instructor or advisor does. The object is for\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0to do the best\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0can do with\u00a0your<\/em>\u00a0particular handgun.<\/p>\n Give the vulture technique a try. I don\u2019t call it that to disparage the man who taught me to do it; the late J. Michael Plaxco was one of the finest gentlemen in the history of our sport. I call it that so students can get a visual image of where their head should be to perform this technique.<\/p>\n This article is respectfully dedicated to the memory of a good friend, a great shooter, and an exemplar of handgun sportsmanship and skill, Mike Plaxco.<\/p>\n Editor\u2019s Note: Please be sure to check out The Armory Life Forum, where you can comment about our daily articles, as well as just talk guns and gear. Click the \u201cGo To Forum Thread\u201d link below to jump in and discuss this article and much more!<\/em><\/p>\n Go to forum thread<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"Tactical](\"https:\/\/www.thearmorylife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Tactical-Turtle-demonstrated-by-Massad-Ayoob-edited.jpg.webp)
\n<\/picture>![\"one](\"https:\/\/www.thearmorylife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/one-handed-shooting-using-Tactical-Turtle-edited.jpg.webp)
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<\/p>\nThe Too-High-Hit Problem<\/h2>\n
![\"Gail](\"https:\/\/www.thearmorylife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Gail-Pepin-demonstrates-Tactical-Turtle.jpg.webp)
\n<\/picture>A Problem of Nomenclature<\/h2>\n
Head, Body, and Fight or Flight Response<\/h2>\n
![\"prescription](\"https:\/\/www.thearmorylife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/prescription-glasses-designed-to-work-with-the-Tactical-Turtle.jpg.webp)
\n<\/picture>Bottom Line<\/h2>\n
Join the Discussion<\/span><\/h5>\n
Featured in this article<\/span><\/h5>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t9mm<\/sup><\/span><\/span>
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<\/p>\n1911 DS Prodigy\u2122 3.5″ Compact AOS<\/span><\/h3>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t![\"SSP](\"https:\/\/www.thearmorylife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/product-ssp-eyewear.jpg.webp\"\/)
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<\/p>\nSSP Eyewear <\/h3>\n
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