Old Style Open Stance Not Often Seen Today

[B Lafferty]

Feet at a 45degree angle as recommended by Hans Standl in Pistol Shooting As A Sport. Seen at the just held Gran Prix in Ruse, Slovenia. Stance used by 48 year old Majda Rausl.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WLaio-veAY

Does anyone know of any young competitors using such a stance?

[CARLFIN]

Javad Foroughi and Vitalina Batsarashkina, both AP 10m gold in Tokyo olympics. At least close to 45 degrees. Correct me if I am totally wrong.

[CARLFIN]

They might not be as young as requested in the question

[Gwhite]

The MEC book says that the "in line" stance will reduce muzzle jump, but they also say that you need to find the position that works best for the individual shooter. That can include stances approaching 45 degrees.

The coaches I work with training collegiate shooters all start the students with a "natural point of aim", completely ignoring any preconceived notion of where their feet "should" be. We let their bodies tell them where their arm wants to be relative to their feet, and then they adjust their feet so the pistol is pointed at the target.

I took a clinic from Brian Zins, and he advocates finding the stance that minimizes your wobble. If you face the target with your feet parallel to the firing line, you will tend to wobble front to back, and have a vertical variation in your aim. If you use a completely in-line stance, you will tend to wobble side to side. He recommends experimenting until you find the position that minimizes your overall wobble, which will be somewhere in between. He uses a laser pointer in his clinics. I suspect an electronic trainer would be better, but it would be too time consuming for the clinic situation. He claims that the position for minimum wobble is not necessarily the same position found by the natural-point-of-aim approach, but I suspect they are close. MEC mentions the variation in wobble with stance, but they seem to think recoil resistance is more important, which I find an odd concern in a section devoted to air pistol...

[robjob]

MEC mentions the variation in wobble with stance, but they seem to think recoil resistance is more important, which I find an odd concern in a section devoted to air pistol...

I'm reminded of a saying one of my coach friends has... "compensated air pistols do NOT recoil in dryfire..." as he had to inform someone years ago...

[Dmaryakh]

Why is this being refereed to as an old vs new style? Both completely open and completely closed stances are perfectly acceptable and have their own benefits and drawbacks but ultimately should reflect shooters body specifics (neck/shoulder/back mobility and past injury, etc).

Regarding original question of young shooters with open stance - i remember recently seeing an athlete from Team Germany standing at 45+ degrees (do not remember the name)

[B Lafferty]

Why is this being refereed to as an old vs new style? Both completely open and completely closed stances are perfectly acceptable and have their own benefits and drawbacks but ultimately should reflect shooters body specifics (neck/shoulder/back mobility and past injury, etc).

Regarding original question of young shooters with open stance - i remember recently seeing an athlete from Team Germany standing at 45+ degrees (do not remember the name)

Writing in 1973 Standl referrers to the 45-degree stance as the "normal" stance. What we see today in top level air pistol, mostly, is what Standl referred to as an "exaggerated oblique stance" which he does not recommend. A relatively small percentage of these shooters today use a stance where the stance is opened up by perhaps 10 degrees. However, it is pretty rare presently at this level to see Standl's "normal" stance being used.

Whatever works and floats your boat....

[thirdwheel]

To really get to the bottom of what stance is best for each individual takes a lot of work and a lot of time and a Gwhite says you need to use the scatt, get it spot on and the result is positive but others can also shoot very well not at their optimum stance but find it more comfortable and their NPA is more repeatable. Try it yourself and see using a Scatt at both extremes and for me that is 45 degrees and in line, give it a good go in both positions and you will see very different movements (as you would expect). Then in small measured increments try the positions between the two and see what is the best. Then try different weight loadings on you feet by transferring weight forward, back and neutral. So that could take a full week but it will be time well spent then stick with the stance that works the best for you and don't change it.

[B Lafferty]

To really get to the bottom of what stance is best for each individual takes a lot of work and a lot of time and a Gwhite says you need to use the scatt, get it spot on and the result is positive but others can also shoot very well not at their optimum stance but find it more comfortable and their NPA is more repeatable. Try it yourself and see using a Scatt at both extremes and for me that is 45 degrees and in line, give it a good go in both positions and you will see very different movements (as you would expect). Then in small measured increments try the positions between the two and see what is the best. Then try different weight loadings on you feet by transferring weight forward, back and neutral. So that could take a full week but it will be time well spent then stick with the stance that works the best for you and don't change it.

Good summary. I've found that 20 degrees off oblique seems to work best for me, although after shoveling snow this morning, nothing may work. As to balancing weight between both legs, I'm thinking about Olena Kostevych's stance which looks a bit more like the stance air rifle shooters take. Feet wide apart and apparently more weight on the rear leg than front. Seems to work pretty well for her....

[thirdwheel]

For support in this order bone, sinuses, muscle, find going too wide is tiring and support from shooting shoes and feet has too much outward pressure but whatever floats your boat, normally feet no wider than shoulders for a start point then using the scatt try out different positions but when trying stuff out I hit the corners first, meaning try the two extremes and take readings then go increments from the better corner taking readings. Takes ages but is rewarding and you learn a lot about what works for you. Or do just what your coach tells you and stick with it, that approach works well over time too.