Here's a little-something I wrote up on Shotgunworld.com a couple years ago about my experiences with cross-dominance:
No, not cross dominatrix - cross dominance!
Yeah, cross dominance - when you are naturally a left or right person, yet one or more of four areas of physicality is on the opposite side (sight, hearing, hand, foot).
For me, it's the scourge that we shooters talk of mostly: right handed, but left eye dominant. Yep, it sucks to be me in this situation cause this condition just makes things more difficult with sport shooting (as well as other sports & activities).
Well, it all started out innocently enough. Early this season I decided that this would be the year that I become more involved in clay shooting sports. Really started investigating the issue and reading everything I could get my hands on. Obviously one of the things I learned early was how eye dominance plays a critically important role in this sport. So I test myself with any of the many simple ways of doing so. I determined at that time I was right eye dominant - "Excellent" I thought, "no need to worry about that problem!"
So I "get out there" and start doing it (shooting, learning & practicing that is), and I'm not doing so bad I find! Got myself up into the 20's at Trap with somewhat decent consistency pretty quickly, but every so often I'd go right into the toilet with just 12 or so hits. One round I'd be at 21, ten minutes later I'd be at 12 - this really bummed me out for I just couldn't figure what was wrong. Was it being tired, eye strain, too much on my mind, or a host of other potential areas? One thing I was starting to realize though was that there were times that it seemed like those birds were right in front of me, and so damn easy to follow & hit. I was like "Why can't I ALWAYS have vision like that, like the target is just RIGHT THERE?" Just two weekends ago I had this happen again - Saturday afternoon, and man was it a whopper of a hot day (this fact is important, as I'll indicate shortly).
Okay, so after that hot weekend I'm back to the normal grind of the week, which presently includes me and my 11 y.o. Son attending classes to receive our Minnesota firearms safety training certificate. Middle of that week we were doing our homework for the next session, and we just happened to be in the section about eye dominance. So naturally I had to teach my Son how to determine his dominant eye. So here I am demonstrating the procedure to him, yet it doesn't seem to be working properly now for some reason!? I know I'm right eye dominant, yet "the procedure" ain't workin' the way I know it should! Long story short, I misdiagnosed myself early on - I'm absolutely left eye dominant, DANG IT! Thankfully my right handed Son is also right eye dominant though!
So I'm bummin' thinking about what needs to be done to correct this problem. Many things have been written on this subject, which include switching to be a left hand shooter (absolutely the preferred method), to applying assorted types of tape to the lens of your shooting glasses that cover that improperly dominant eye, to shooting with one eye closed or patched, etc., etc., etc. BTW - we may hope that we can "beat" the improper dominant eye thing by exercising the other eye to become stronger. It can be done, especially with kids, but with us "middle agers" and above, this desire is WAY MORE EASIER SAID THAN DONE. Matter of fact, all the pro's that write about this subject indicate that it's actually easier to learn to shoot on your opposite side that it is to change your eye dominance! I believe it too, for trying to make my right eye dominant for just a moment (with both eyes open) is INCREDIBLY difficult. Another BTW - As I understand it from others that I've read about, changing your shooting arm to the opposite side is not nearly as difficult as it may seem. Although I've heard a lot of griping about not wanting to try it, the folks that have truly given it a good shot indicate that just a couple of hours of practice it all it takes to really start to feel comfortable with this. I've gotta' imagine that things would work WONDERFULLY from the side where your eye dominance resides, now that I can tell how BAD it is trying to shoot from the non dominant eye side! Believe me, IT SUCKS.
Okay, so last weekend I head out to the club to try some of these ideas. I didn't try the tape, and I decided that if I were going to shoot on the left that I'd try these other areas first, with the thought that if the gun goes to the left shoulder, that's where it's gonna' stay and that's what I'd do from this point forward. I did try with the left eye closed, and sure enough, the right eye becomes dominant, but WOW, NO DEPTH PERCEPTION AND PERIPHERAL VISON IS OBVIOUSLY HORRIBLE! I didn’t like one eye shooting AT ALL! Well, closing that left eye sure does make the right eye dominant, but one thing I read and learned about this is that you don't have to fully close the dominant eye in order to get the other one to "take over". All that needs be done is to slightly squint that dominant eye and this will make the other eye become dominant. You will loose some clarity of your target, as well as some peripheral vision to the left. Yes, it does work too - it's the way I finished the day at the club and I LIKED THIS A LOT! Holy Mollie Batman, those targets are RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME using this method, which brings me back to the situation I described above about how I shot real well one day at the club when it was REALLY hot outside. I wonder if anyone can tell by my description as to why I might have shot so well that day? It's because I was having a problem with sweat getting into my eyes, specifically my left eye in this case. What does a person do when they get sweat in their eyes, but can't wipe it away immediately? They squint! In my case I was squinting my left eye more, thus my right eye took over dominance for those shots, and EVERY SHOT WAS HIT from that time forward. It's actually amazes me that I was able to put that scenario together and understand why all of a sudden that day those target were "right there". I'm going to continue with this way of shooting for now to see how it goes, and if I can really see CONSISTANT improvement from this point forward. BTW - those last two rounds of Trap were 20 and 19. The consistency is what I like, and the very fact that I was really screwing around trying different things within these two rounds yet still scoring well truly excites me! The first round included four shots with the left eye closed, of which I missed three of 'em. The second round I was really trying different tactics of squinting that left eye. I'm was finding that a way that works really well so far is to leave both eyes fully open, then upon calling for the bird, just ever so slightly squinting that left eye just as the bird enters my field of view. It worked so well for me that I was calling for birds almost as fast as I could get another shell into the gun. I HAVE NEVER SHOT THIS FAST IN SUCESSION, NEVER! And yet I still shot a 19 - for me, I believe that's EXCELLENT! I really can't wait for this weekend so that I can work on this some more, and REALLY concentrate on shooting the most accurate rounds that I can!
It is the strangest feeling standing at a station, firing off a round at a target knowing that you're doing everything right (or so I thought) yet not hitting it, and not being able to "See that bird" right down the barrel most of the time, yet other times doing something that would allow my right eye to become dominant and just "seeing" that bird right there for the taking!
Finally, if you 'd like to experience what this "squint" technique does in all it's glory, just try the following:
Just as you'd determine your dominant eye by pointing to a distant object, closing your non dominant eye, and the object still remains in the center of your vision - now keep both eyes open while pointing at that object, but now go back and forth between squinting and fully opening your dominant eye and watch how your finger tip that you're sighting down moves back and forth. Most importantly, check out how there is an exactly particular amount of squint needed for that eye to lose dominance and the opposite eye to take over dominance. This procedure has taught me SO MUCH as to why I have been having problems in the past. Just imagine your finger tip being your shotguns muzzle while doing this exercise and it's not hard to see why this creates a HUGE accuracy problem.
I'm certain I'll be constantly learning in this sport, so by no means do I think this is my golden find that will make me "Mr. Wonderful Shotgunner" by any extent of the imagination. Yet I do believe this was a HUGE piece to being inconsistent and thought that others might enjoy hearing the story, and maybe learning a thing or two to help them out.
I'd love to hear any other stories or pieces of advice from other concerning this!
Full thread here:
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=3659&highlight=dominance