There is a mental disconnect with knowing there is no recoil to a gun having one. When I dry fire, 100% of the time, zero flinch. But when shooting for real, the flinch comes. I would assume the same for air pistols with no recoil as well.
My DARE officer told us a story of 1 of his class mates. During dry fire, she was perfect. She has never shot a gun before. Then when they went to the range, she got a bullseye with her first shot because she did everything what she was taught to do. But all shots after that she was all over the target. The recoil bother her so much that she quit the academy later that day.
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This is common.
I help out newbie pistol folks as often as I can, and I actually expect newbie shooters to flinch.
Over the past 2 weeks, I helped out 2 nice fellows just starting out.
After I observed the telltale signs of flinch, I took them off the firing line and used Jedi mind control techniques to eliminate the flinch.
One student caught on in a few minutes. The other one...not so much. But I had more tricks up my sleeve.
I've offered free marksmanship coaching on this forum in the past, and now that the pandemic has subsided and we have new rules to keep us safe from evil cardboard boxes,
it's time to offer the free marksmanship coaching again.
So if you are a beginner that has a hard time hitting the target, just contact me.
I might even be able to provide some ammo for training at little or no cost because I have some generous friends that know about these free marksmanship lessons.