cross eye dominate

[redschietti]

All my kids are cross eye dominate freaks. Youngest has shot right handed one year with left eye dominance. We cover her left eye but she still closes it. Says if she opens it, she cant see the sights, just the blinder. Vision in both eyes is better than 20/20. Keep at it another year or give in to the dominate eye and make her a lefty shooter? She hasn't shot particularly well, but as a first year shooter and just 9yrs, its not about shooting well.

thanks!

[Shooter]

I hate to say it, but she should be shooting left handed. If not she will get frustrated and anxious and stop shooting down the line. Try to find a rifle to fit and see how much improvement she makes in the next year. Good luck. Don in Oregon

[redschietti]

Shooter, You say that because you are a firm believer in the old school thought that you have to shoot with dominate eye, or that we have tried with the weak eye long enough to know its not working?

Thanks!

[mtncwru]

I agree, time to get her shooting left handed; either that or consider a set of outriggers for her sights.

I say this because you've tried a blinder for a year, and she still just sees the blinder instead of the sights.

[Shooter]

There are certain ideas and things that work all the time in the sport.Until someone comes along and proves to me that some method must be changed, the tried and true seems to work for most everyone. Don

[MislMan]

Just another path down the rabbit hole ..... My wife is cross eye dominant and writes left handed. She shoots rifle right handed and closes the non-dominant eye. If her eye gets tired from holding it closed she uses an eye-patch to cover it. It's a full "pirate" patch and she says she sees fine using the patch. She tried blinders but couldn't keep both eyes open and see the sights. Patch might be worth a try. She shoot pistol right handed also and uses her dominant left eye. I don't see how she does it but it works for her so who am I to say it shouldn't be done.

Later ... Larry S.

[Andre]

I'm not a coach, but I believe you are in a tricky spot. We have a few shooters at my club who shoot LH because they are left eye dominant. In some cases it's not always beneficial to do that, it takes a long time to get used to it, and it might limit them in the future. (However my experience is limited to only a few examples.)

If she can not see with her dominant eye closed.....she might need to go to an optical specialist.

[Muffo]

I would get her a set of out riggers. I am hugely right eye dominant. My left eye is almost double as good as my right. Even with that with concentration and after a lot of training i can become right eye dominant. I shoot a lot of different sports and i have learnt to mix and match. I shoot pistol right hand left eye. Rifle right hand right eye shotgun and mg left hand left eye because they are open sights without a scope

[Pat McCoy]

redschietti

Switch her to left handed shooting now. It will just save problems when you have to do it later.

Both eyes should be kept open when shooting, as closing one also causes the open one to change dialation size a little (causing loss of best focus and depth of filed). Her saying she can't see anything but the blinder with the dominant eye open is tellin g you that it is very dominant. Changing to off-handed shooting is just a thirty day exercise in muscle memory. (Set a stick in the corner, and have her pick it up and mount it like a rifle left handed and say bang every time she passes by.)

In shotgun shooting the eye is the rear sight. imagine hitting accurately with the sight offset a couple inches. In pistol shooting you can just put it in front of the correct eye, and make minor grip modifications (never close or patch an ey for defensive pistol, as you give an adversary an entire side of you to come up on without your seeing it.

You can find lots of old Stevens tip-up .22s to get started with, and ambidextrous stocks are available on the after market for Savage and CZ sporters. Using a right handed .22 does not give a huge disadvantage, until shooters reach Elite levels (maybe not even then, but mine have all bought their own equipment by then).

Have her use her current gun and try left handed shooting for one target, and ask her which she likes better. Which way she can see better.

[Dustin Clays]

You're not switching- you doing what is natural.

Pay attention sometime which eye they use to look through a veiw finer on a camera, or a microscope. That's how I discovered my wife's left eye dominance- she was bring the camera up to her left eye. It was natural for her. When I was teaching her to shoot, I remember my wife saying: "I can't it's too hard". I asked how does she know if it's hard if she doesn't know anything else! Learn a correct habit, before the bad habit is formed. She went with it and has never looked back.

For fyi- my daughter, sister-in-law and brother are all right handed- left eye dominate. They all shoot left handed because it's natural for them. All were taught from the start before any bad habits are formed.

I never understand why some people get in such a dither about being left -eye dominate. Own it! It's who you are. And you'll save money by not putting all that scotch tape on your glasses! :)

[Bryan996]

I recently raised this question on a UK forum as I am left eye dominant too. As I'm right handed I've always shot from the right shoulder and wouldnt consider changing just because of my eye dominance (I would also point out that my eye sight is also better in my non dominant right eye although only by 0.5 diopter). My question on the UK forum was how I could sharpen the sight picture due to the left eye image imposing over the right, the same as your daughters. The results were that I now use a black blinder instead of white and go as far as closing my left eye completely if shooting 50m outside. I shot two 60 shot matches back to back yesterday closing my left eye for every shot and it worked just fine.

If your daughter is left handed too then I'd recommend shooting from the left shoulder, if she isn't try a black blinder first, it might just save you a large amount of cash!

Good luck
Bryan

[redschietti]

Lets face it, if your right handed its easiest to shoot from the right shoulder. If it wasn't, every highschool team would have a lot of left handed pitchers, and left handed hitters. The eye is only part of great shooting.

Im right handed, I make my living using my left hand doing a very specific repetitive skill. When I cut my left thumb off I learned the skillset in just a couple weeks with my right hand and was better right handed, within a month, than I ever was left and I'm very very good left. So its not only about the eye.

I have a lefthander shooting right and a righthander shooting left, so I know it can be done, but that's not as easy as some make it sound, even with no shooting experience. There are plenty of elite shooters that do not shoot with dominate eye.

All that said, I was looking for feedback to see if the strong eye dominance would get better with time, and she would quit seeing the blinder with the eye open. Several posters still have the problem several years down the road. I was 75% convinced to make the switch when she starts back up this fall. Now i'm 95% convinced. I think she wants to switch as well. Switching to left shoulder now, seems better than a pirate patch later, if she cant shake it. If she was already an advanced shooter it would be silly to change.

THANKS!!!!

[Pat McCoy]

I was looking for feedback to see if the strong eye dominance would get better with time,

No it will not get better with time, although there have been some cases of it completely switching.

[gwsb]

I am cross dominate. I spent my jr years closing my eye. My first college year I shot left handed and then gave up and began using a blinder. By the time decades had forced me to quit serious shooting my right eye had become dominate. Some have success changing some like blinders and some just quit.

The natural sport for cross dominate people is baseball or softball. This is because the dominate eye is facing the pitcher. A high % of successful baseball players are cross dominate.

[dlinden]

1.) Free advice on the internet is just amazing! Shoot left handed Really?!

2.) Sergei Martynov, Eric Uptagrafft, and Dennis Lindenbaum :) (me) are all left-eye dominant and do just fine shooting right handed.

3.) What color blinder did your daughter try using? Much harder with white than black for example.

4.) Eye dominance has nothing to do with good vs bad eye.

Dennis L

[redschietti]

1) i know
2) i know
3) white and big.. Will try black
THANKS! Nows the time to switch if we are going to need to, thats whats hard

[Ryan Anderson]

I would agree with what a lot of the others have posted, which is that the shooting position is generally determined based on eye dominance, otherwise you are essentially starting with a handicap. I would say to try shooting left handed for a while; after all, you can always go back.

One thing I would warn against that I have seen others suggest is using a black blinder. The eyes are wired to work as a pair, and they just aren't as efficient when they are forced to do things separately. The ideal blinder doesn't change the visual conditions of sight, just the image your brain is receiving. What this means is that when you have a dark blinder over one eye, you are changing the amount of light that is entering, and each eye is having to compensate different amounts because they are experiencing those drastically different visual conditions. When it comes to using blinders, I would humbly suggest you stick to either light colored or translucent (best option) material so that both eyes can work together as closely as possible just like they do in normal everyday life, in order to avoid any potential negative effects on your shooting performance.

Let us know how everything works out!

Ryan

[Bryan996]

Sorry Ryan but I wholeheartedly disagree with your comments on using a black blinder. For me personally it made a massive improvement in the clarity of my sight picture using a black blinder. Its as if it forces the brain to use the right eye image as it doesn't receive an image from the left eye, I'm not trying to use my eyes as a pair! I'd shot with a white blinder for years just because it was the accepted solution.

All I would add is that everyones eyes are differant and what works best for one person wont work for the next, however the only way to find out is to try every option and make your own decision. The cost to change to a left handed rifle and jacket isnt a cheap option and I'd always go with left or right handed over dominant eye.

[rmarsh]

One other suggestion on the blinder. Rather than a blinder on the sight, use a pair of shooting glasses and a blinder on the glasses. This places the blinder much closer to the eye. It may (or may not) help to have the blinder closer, but is worth a try. That is how Elizabeth shoots now, glasses without a lense, just uses them for the blinder.

As for shooting left handed.... Some people are able to switch pretty easily, others not easily. I would try everything possible to keep her shooting right handed. In the end though she may have to switch, closing the left eye is not a fix.

[redschietti]

Follow up. A black blinder seems to be working much much better than white. Worked with her an hr last night dryfiring and had no problems seeing with both eyes open using black blinder and headband. THANKS!!