Aiming: One Eye or Two?

AIMING: ONE-EYE or TWO

  • ONE-EYE

    Votes: 68 39.3%

  • TWO-EYE

    Votes: 71 41.0%

  • EITHER WAY

    Votes: 34 19.7%
  • Total voters
    173
Gregma
I'm assuming you don't see double vision normally. Look at a small object 10 - 15 ft away (a doorknob or similar size). Point your gun (after making sure it is empty and knowing there is a safe backstop) at the object. Close one eye and see where the gun is relative to the target. If it is on target, that is your dominant eye. If it is not then that is your non-dominant eye. Don't worry if you see two guns. If you see two objects, then you are shifting your focus. You can use your finger to do this exercise as well.
What some people tend to do is shift their focus which causes them to see two of everything because they are looking crosseyed. Or, they compensate by moving the gun or finger which negates the entire process. The idea is to point at the target in a way that feel most natural, then close one eye without moving your head or hand.
 
Lurper, with both eyes open, I either see two guns, or two "objects" (doorknob) I have to shift my focus from one to the other, there's no middle ground. I know I'm shifting my focus, but it's either one or the other. If I see two guns, how do I know I'm pointing at the object correctly in the first place (with both eyes open)? Do you have any recommendations?
 
jdm
Read the previous posts. If you know which is your dominant eye, try using tape. If you don't know use the tests described earlier. If you still see double, do the test in my last post and see what happens.
 
I have been reading the posts all along, and I was trying your test in the previous post when I was having the problem I described in my previous. I guess I will just wait until the next time I shoot, so I can line up, and shoot, and use gvf's test. I'm fairly certain my right eye is my dominant, however I'm not sure. I've been trying to figure this out since the beginning of this thread; I don't know if my eyes are just different from the majority of people, or if I'm just not doing it right.
 
Olive Drab, when I focus on the front sight with both eyes, the target becomes two, and I can't tell which one is which without hesitation. Oh well, I think I have somewhat figured out my right eye is my dominant. I'm going to go with that.
 
Jdm
You're making more of seeing double than you need to. First, to determine which eye is dominant. Use the test in this post:
Look at a small object 10 - 15 ft away (a doorknob or similar size). Point your gun (after making sure it is empty and knowing there is a safe backstop) at the object. Close one eye and see where the gun is relative to the target. If it is on target, that is your dominant eye. If it is not then that is your non-dominant eye. Don't worry if you see two guns. If you see two objects, then you are shifting your focus. You can use your finger to do this exercise as well.
Click to expand...

Don't worry about seeing two guns. Just make sure you see one object. Point the gun at the object and even if you see two guns, close one eye and see where the gun is pointed. The gun will be way off to one side with your non-dominant eye, either right on or close to the object with your dominant eye. Once you have determined your dominant eye, if you are having difficulty seeing to sights or targets, use the tape technique mentioned earlier.
 
Lurper ~

A guy points directly at the doorknob 15 feet away. Both eyes open.

He closes his left eye. His finger appears to the right of the doorknob.

He then closes only his right eye. His finger appears to the left of the doorknob.

What do you tell him?

pax
 
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I think you explained it closer than I could explain it Pax. I am closer (to the doorknob) when I close my left eye, but I'm still not exactly where I thought I pointed, which leads me to believe my right eye is more dominant, however I don't know if it's completely dominant. and I can't tell if I'm pointing exactly in the first place, but I'm trying instinctively.
 
Pax
I tell him he is shifting his focus. It is impossible to draw a straight line from the object through the gun (or finger) to both eyes. That is why you see double. One image (of the gun or finger) will be more "solid", one will be more transparent. The solid one is the image from the dominant eye. In a discussion about it, not with someone who is trying to figure it out, I would point out that many become fixated on the double vision and it becomes a mental block that is difficult to break. Some even tend to compensate by either shifting their focus, moving their hand or moving their head without realizing it. If you see one target object, point in the way that feels most natural, your finger will be aligned more with one eye than the other. The key is to keep the target object in focus and insert your finger into the image. If you see two target objects when you do that, you are shifting your focus.
 
With eyes sharply focused on the doorknob at 15 feet. Sharp doorknob, only one doorknob.

The guy points at the doorknob "in a natural way" without shifting his focus. The doorknob never goes blurry or double. There's only one doorknob.

Without shifting anything (and with the doorknob rather than his finger still sharply in focus), he closes his left eye. His finger "jumps" to the right of the doorknob.

Without shifting anything, (and with the doorknob rather than his finger still sharply in focus), he opens his left eye and closes his right. His finger "jumps" to the left of the doorknob.

Now what?

pax
 
He is shifting his focus. You can't draw a straight line to both eyes. Whether consciously or unconsciously he is changing the focus. One eye will be way off the other may be off just a little from movement or right on. What happens when one eye is not strongly dominant is double vision. That's why tape is used. In reality, you could cover either eye and train yourself to shoot that way, but it would be more difficult.
 
A tempest in a teapot....

IMO, if you can shoot accurately with one eye closed, then just work on your speed and consistancy and don't sweat the both-eyes-open method.

I have never seen any real undisputed data that proves shooting with both eyes open offers any significant advantage.
After all, you're only closing one eye for a fraction of a second.

I think it would be much more beneficial to practice shooting with one hand and with your off hand.
Using your limited range time practicing two-eyes-open shooting seems like more work than it's worth (little if any net gain...provided you can shoot well with one eye closed).
 
Lurper ~

Interesting. Thanks for answering.

The guy is not shifting his focus. He really is not; this can be seen simply by watching his eyes as he does the drill. But it sounds as though all you've got for what to do next is the flat insistence that he is shifting focus.

So now what?

I suspect you believe you haven't encountered anyone who can't learn to shoot well with both eyes open simply because you deny such people exist. The guy "has to be" doing it wrong, or battling a mental block, or maybe he simply doesn't really want to learn to shoot well.

Just like the frustrated left-handers who dropped out of school back in the bad old days, it's possible that your students are self-selecting for the ability to shoot with both eyes open. And again, that ability is the norm, and is the way the vast majority of people are wired, so it's not as though we're talking about huge numbers of neither-eye-dominant people in the first place. They're rare. But the ones who are really-and-truly unable to do it your way just aren't coming back to you, and (when they do), you believe that they're just being stubborn or battling a mental block, and all you've got in your bag of tricks is the flat insistence that they're not doing it right.

To my way of thinking, the actual shooting event is a very, very, very small part of the entire encounter. Firing the gun literally takes only fractions of seconds. If you can train the student to keep both eyes open until he is actually pulling the trigger, and also train him (and everyone else) to immediately get both eyes open and physically turn his head to scan the surroundings the very instant the shooting has stopped, you'll have done far more to keep these rare students safe than you would by insisting that everyone can do it your way, and possibly running them off when they discover they actually can't.

pax
 
Amen Sister:rolleyes:

We would all be more fun to be around if we remembered that our way is not always the way

As Pat Rogers puts it "I teach A way"

We are all victims of our own experience
 
Pax
No offense, but you can say all of the nice things you want and make all kinds of excuses, but you can't ignore fact. The fact is that you cannot draw a straight line through two objects to both eyes. That is indisputable fact. Therefore, one eye will be more in line than the other. What you have to determine is which one. You cannot tell if someone is shifting focus by watching their eyes, only they can tell you. What happens is the images become confusing to the mind. So you have to get them to pick an image set and try it. It is easy to do in person, but difficult on line.

As I mentioned in previous posts:
It is not a question of "the way" there are lots of ways, but there is always a "best way".
In reality, it is almost a moot point because you can teach someone to hit targets at SD ranges without aiming (even though I always advocate using the sights).
I have yet to meet someone who cannot be taught to shoot with both eyes open.
I was one of those people, so my experience comes from the perspective of both student and teacher.
Being left-handed is far different than eye dominance.
 
depth perception

when you close one of your eyes, you loose 35% depth perception......obviously one ye with a scope but try for two eyes using the shotty, or the good ole' irons. It also gives you a wider field of view!
 
Being left-handed is far different than eye dominance.
Click to expand...

Ummm, no, it's not. Eyedness and handedness are pretty well exactly the same thing, only with different body parts. Similarly, people usually have a dominant foot and a dominant ear. All of these are brain wiring issues and they are all closely related.

Handedness and eyedness are pretty well hard-wired into the human brain at birth, and become both more evident and more difficult to affect as the child grows.

They can be slightly affected in a growing child, with a great deal of effort. As an extreme example, a child with an extremely dominant right eye is often diagnosed as having "lazy eye" in his left eye. The usual treatment is to patch the dominant right eye, forcing the "lazy" left eye to do more work. If caught soon enough, this generally works to save the eyesight in the left eye. If not caught soon enough, that left eye will never, ever work properly again -- no matter how much time the child spends with his right eye behind the pirate patch as an adult. That is because after a lengthy period of disuse, the neural connections to the "lazy" left eye simply do not work any more and the brain can no longer process images that come from that eye, even though the eye itself literally has nothing wrong with it. It's all a wiring issue.

In less extreme cases, kids of school age experience blurred or double vision as they struggle to read because their eyes are not working together properly. The optometrist gives the kid a pair of glasses that help a bit, and sometimes assigns exercises that -- in some but not all cases -- assist the child's eye dominance to even out a bit, making it easier to read. The exercises do not always help because sometimes the difficulty is diagnosed after the child's brain has adapted too well to the situation, making it impossible to rescue the neural pathways he's lost.

Now you have repeatedly asserted that any adult -- any adult -- including those that experienced such eye issues as children, including those who have spent a lifetime adapting to and overcoming such eye-dominance issues, with great frustration and with the help of professionals who could be of little assistance with a fully developed brain -- is definitely able to overcome these issues as they relate to shooting in a few afternoons on the range. And if such a person cannot, he's making excuses and being stubborn.

Lurper, I'm not trying to bust your butt here and I'm pretty sure you're not trying to bust mine. I do take exception to the idea that one-size-fits-all is good enough. And I am offended by the notion that, when your students fail to learn, it is always the students' fault. But my only real point here is that it is always good to have more than one solution to any shooting problem in your back of tricks.

pax

"Always" is always a lie. "Never" is never the whole story.
 
Pax
You're right, I am not trying to bust your butt. The written word is sometimes stark and harsh.
However, there is a big difference between handedness and eye dominance. It is much easier to teach someone to shoot with their non-dominant eye than with their non-dominant hand. Finding eye dominance can be as simple as standing behind the student and covering one of their eyes when they shoot. It can also be more than that. I'm sure that if we looked hard enough, we could find someone who couldn't shoot w/both eyes, but it wouldn't be because of eye dominance. It would be because of lack of control over one of the eyes. Even so, that person could be trained because you are training them to disregard one image set. It really has little to do with eyesight and everything to do with perception and the mind.

There are plenty of cases where people have overcome so called dead neural pathways; Morris Goodman is a prime example. I have my own experience in that area as well. There are those who have taught themselves to be ambidextrious or use the opposite limb becuase of amputation or other injury. The problem is when someone tells a child that this is how it will always be, the child believes them and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. But I digress.

When a student doesn't learn, it is because someone has not found the right key. The harsh reality is that some students lack the motivation or belief in themselves. That is just human nature. But, I have yet to meet a student I couldn't teach.
 
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