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Physical Pointers, Shooting Pointers
Stability: Japanese Lessons for Sport Shooters
Živa Dvoršak
Sep 1, 2025
Last month, I had the privilege of travelling to Japan to coach shooters at three different ranges. It was a rewarding yet challenging experience. When you only work with athletes for a few days, the hardest part isn’t what to teach – it’s what not to teach. There’s always so much to share, but limited time to do it.
To make my coaching clear and helpful, I had decided that it would revolve around one word: stability. Stability in body and position. Stability in rifle and its settings. And stability in the mind. With that as the foundation, everything else could fall into place.
And while I was invited to Japan to share my knowledge, the exchange went both ways. I also learned valuable lessons from the coaches and shooters there – primarily through two powerful concepts that deepen the idea of stability: antei-kan, the feeling of stability, and tanden, the physical and spiritual centre of balance.
安定感 Antei-kan – A Feeling of Stability
In Japanese, antei-kan translates roughly to “a sense of stability”. On the range, it’s not only about how good your hold is, but how stable you feel as a whole system. When antei-kan is present, movements shrink, breathing slows, and confidence rises. Shooters often try to chase this by tightening up, but that usually backfires. Instead, think of antei-kan as a byproduct: it happens when posture, breathing, and attention are aligned. In other words, instead of fighting to hold your gun still, you allow stability to emerge naturally.
丹田 Tanden – The Source of Balance
The second concept, tanden, is harder to translate directly. Located a few inches below the navel, it’s considered the body’s physical and spiritual centre – the source of groundedness, balance, and inner calm. In martial arts, meditation, and even traditional performance arts, focusing on tanden is essential. For shooters, tanden is where true stability begins. If you try to shoot with energy held in your shoulders or chest, you’ll feel top-heavy, unsteady. However, if you allow your awareness to drop into the tanden, your body naturally grounds and steadies.
I experienced this firsthand with a Japanese coach. She asked me to tense my upper body first. She stood behind me, wrapped her arms around me, and lifted me easily. Then, she told me to shift focus to my tanden, breathing and grounding myself there. When she tried again, she couldn’t lift me. By shifting my centre of gravity inward and downward, I became immovable. That was tanden in action. Same body, same weight – different centre.
Connecting the Two Concepts into Shooting Practice
Think of it this way:
- Tanden is the root
- Antei-kan is the result
By centring your energy in the tanden, you create the conditions for antei-kan. And when that sense of stability is present, every other aspect of shooting – technique, rhythm, and even confidence – becomes easier to manage.
Next time you’re on the firing line and settling into position, ask yourself: Do I feel stable? If the answer is no, don’t force it – adjust. Sometimes it’s a slight shift in foot placement, a deeper breath, or sometimes a different grip hold. Train your awareness to notice the difference between “holding still” and “being stable”.
To take it a step further, before each shot, take a breath where you consciously let your focus sink into the tanden. Imagine your stability coming from below, not above. Can you lift your gun while still holding the stability in the tanden? Try it out. Over time, this practice creates a calmer, steadier platform, which further translates into greater rifle or pistol stability.
You can combine these drills with your normal dry-fire or aiming practice. After centring in the tanden and perceiving antei-kan, take the shot. Over time, this builds stability that translates directly to better precision. The goal is that such awareness becomes a clear step in your shout routine. For example, ground yourself after loading and hold that inner feeling of stability while lifting the rifle or pistol. As soon as you look through the sights, make a short pause to recheck your stability, and only then start your slow and controlled descent towards the black.
Stability as Part of Inner Position
Stability is not something you force – it’s something you cultivate. Much of it is invisible from the outside. It’s an inner position, a quiet awareness that sits alongside your physical stance. By rooting yourself in the tanden and allowing antei-kan to emerge, you create stability that’s felt rather than seen.
Even though it’s hard to describe, it’s essential to write it down in your Strelski zvezek. Make it a clear step in your routine – mark exactly when you check for stability. That way, this inner awareness becomes just as real and repeatable as any technical action, and over time, it turns into the quiet strength behind every accurate shot.
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