Which is your dominant eye/hand

[KYCaster]

I was surfing on the Brian Enos forum and found a thread discussing cross dominance and how to deal with it. Several people replied describing how they deal with the situation.

So I asked if there was anyone else there who doesn't have a dominant eye. So far the only responses say they've never heard of such a thing.

Now, I know I'm a unique individual, (my daddy always told me I'm one of a kind ) but surely I'm not the only one with this affliction. I've never heard anybody else mention it, but I've never asked before.

I'm giving all you "NORMAL" people a chance to participate, but what I really want to know is how many of us don't have a dominant eye. How common (or uncommon) is it?

I'm sure you're all familiar with the tests to find your dominant eye, but I'll describe them in case somebody missed them.

Pick a small object 10 or 12 ft. away. Hold your hands at arms length and make a circle with your thumbs and index fingers so you can look at the object through the circle. Keeping the object visible in the circle, pull your hands in till you touch your face. Most people will end up with the circle in front of their dominant eye.

Pick an object some distance away...the farther the better, but 10 or 12 ft. will work if that's all you have. Focus on the object then extend your index finger at arms length to point at the object with both eyes open. Most people will have the object covered by their finger. Now close your left eye. If the visual relationship of the object and your finger doesn't change then you are right eye dominant. If your finger appears to shift to the left of the object then you are left eye dominant. Repeat, closing the right eye to verify.

I know this doesn't mean much in the overall scheme of things. There are plenty of cross dominant people who shoot very well and there are plenty of right-handed right-eye dominant people who shoot very poorly, but all the left-handed people I know excel at everything they do.

Patiently waiting for your answers.

Jerry

[2ndAmendmentNut]

I am right eye and right handed. However I was always taught in the cases of cross dominance on handguns have the shooter hold the gun in his/her dominant hand and aim using the dominant eye by simply cocking your head a bit. However when using rifles or shotguns use whichever side is the dominant eye, and if the shooter just can’t get the hang of it simply shoot with your dominant hand and close or dot your dominant eye…

My wife is left eye and right handed. She shoots handguns righty and rifles and shotguns lefty, and she shoots good enough for me to not want to make her angry.

[RobS]

The formed circle with thumbs and index fingers pulled in toward the eye and it moves in to the left eye so left eye dominance. Next the index finger held out arms length shows a right eye dominance as finger stays put on object while looking with right eye or finger moves right when looking with left eye.

Right hand shooter and I shoot with left eye shut/right eye open; however I often times shoot with both eyes open when shooting open sights and always both eyes shotgunning.

[nicholst55]

I used to be right/right, but as I've gotten older and my (extremely bad to begin with) eyesight has gotten worse, my left eye became dominant. I'm doubtless an extreme case, because I was born cross-eyed and still have very poor binocular vision.

[oneokie]

Am right/right. My son is right handed, left /left with long guns, haven't let him shoot hand gun yet.

First time I noticed the cross domination was at the local public shooting range. A boy of about 14-15 yrs. age was shooting a revolver right handed, but using his left eye to sight. Was a scary sight to me at first until it dawned on me what his situation was. His face was nearly perpendicular to the line of sight, and his right arm was across his chest.

[jmsj]

I'd have to say I shoot right and am left eye dominant. I found out many years ago that I was left eye dominant. When shooting right handed, I am able to aim using my right eye. I have been doing this so long it feels natural. If I shoot left handed and using my left eye, it takes me longer but my groups tend to be smaller.

[S.R.Custom]

I'm ambidextrous, and I swing a bat or play pool switch handed.

And I have no clearly dominant eye. If I stick a gun up to my face and align the sights with my right eye, the dominance goes to the left eye, the one with the clear view of the target. If I sight with the other eye, the dominance goes right. So I absolutely have to squint through one eye to even be able to use sights.

I'm used to it, so it's no big deal. Except when I'm wing shooting. I can't pass shoot to save my life.

[lwknight]

Being left handed and right eyed means that it aint easy being cheezy.
If I cant the pistol to my right , my left eye takes over without squinting my right eye.
I can go Perry style and use my right eye left handed.
The eye switch is automatic and quick.
I do shoot a rifle right/right most of the time but go left/left when bench shooting.

[geargnasher]

I was left/left until Pars Planitis started affecting left eye vision with vitreous floaters/anterior cells/epiretinal membrane, now dominance is shifting to the right very gradually. Didn't notice how much until I got to where I couldn't hit anything with a shotgun. Put dots on the central-vision are of the right shooting lense and forced dominance shift back to left. Works ok for shooting clays if I put the glasses on when I get up on a shooting day and wear them until I'm finished, it takes a while for the brain to tune back to the left with all the garbage/glare/haze in the left eye. Have to make it choose between the less of two bad vision inputs, and some days I have to increase the density of the dots on the right lens to exceed the floaters in the other eye.

Anyway, I checked shoot with both eyes closed because that's what it seems like sometimes, especially with open-sighted rifles.

Gear

[troy_mclure]

i too had a change of dominance this year.

used to be right, but could use my left just as well(am ambi with any long gun), and could shoot any gun with both eyes opened.

but now i am left eye dominate, and really have to concentrate on using my right eye for hand guns, and i can no longer keep both eyes open and shoot, it just gets too blurry.

[mooman76]

When I was young I was so left eye dominate that when I shot right handed, I couldn't close just my left eye. I got an idea to put a patch over my left eye to shoot. Eventually I got used to closing my left eye, and that's how I learned to shoot.

[462]

Left-handed, right-eyed, shoot right-handed.

[RayinNH]

I'm a left handed individual. I write left handed, throw a ball, shoot archery, play pool , swing a hammer all left handed. I hit a golf ball, swing a baseball bat and cast with a fishing rod right handed.

I'm right eye dominant, I shoot a hangun right handed but shoot long guns left handed. Just last week I tried to shoot a rifle right handed. It felt very unnatural, I couldn't crane my neck to align with the sights...Ray

[Johnch]

Right handed , almost ambidextrous as I can write with both hands (but not as well left handed )
Left eye dominant

With handgund I shoot right handed normaly
But I can shoot left handed quite well also

Shotguns I normaly shoot right handed , but in a pinch
I can switch to the left side
As if a turkey comes in on my right side
I simply change shoulders and shoot

LOL I shoulder the shotgun and look at the target
For the most part , I can't see the rib
So some how my brain works it out

Rifle
I shoot right handed
I must use a scope or reddot sight
As I can't see the sights well enough to hit anything right or left handed

John

[starbits]

Right handed left eye dominant. Shoot long guns left handed and pistols right handed. I can sight with my right eye, it just takes 30 seconds of complete concentration and the game usually doesn't stick around that long.

Starbits

[old turtle]

Interesting! I am right eye dominant and shoot right handed but when using a camera I use my left eye. I also have tried to keep both eyes open when shooting but I can't do it. Oh well! my wife just says I am weird and she may be right. In fact she is never wrong.

[longranger]

Left handed for writing,eating,ball throwing,fishing,Right handed for guitar playing and shooting anything,archery,handguns and rifles.Both children are absolute ambidextious.Funny to see little people switch from R to L while writing,amazing theres no difference in their writing.

[Ajax]

I am right eye, right hand dominant but i have trained hard to be able to use both hands to shoot pistol and shotgun with.

Andy

[Doc Highwall]

I am right handed but blind in my right eye so for handgun I prefer right handed but can shoot left handed and with a rifle or shotgun I shoot left handed only and the hard part was teaching myself to write with my left hand while laying down in the prone position with a rifle in my left shoulder and a sling on my right arm maintaining a NPA and plotting my shots.

[Firebricker]

I must be a real odd one my catagory was'nt up there. Left handed right eye dominant the twist is I shoot all handgun's left handed but rifle,shotgun and bow right handed. FB