Author Topic: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?  (Read 3002 times)

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Offline beartail

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sorry for my sucky spelling but I just found out I am left eye dominant. im right handed and was wondering if I could improve my aim by knowing this.

Offline le0n

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2015, 12:06:41 pm »
if you know this you can now compensate for it, but you may want to try a left-hand bow to see if aiming feels more natural for you.

Offline bubbles

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #2 on: September 13, 2015, 04:12:32 pm »
I am left eye dominant and right handed - I shoot lefty.  I do not shoot instinctively though

Offline sleek

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2015, 04:24:27 pm »
It can help but it doesn't have to. Meaning, you can use it to your advantage or compensate for it.
To your advantage,  teach yourself to shoot ambidextrous.  Im teaching myself. It takes a weaker bow to shoot well as a lefty but im not bad, just as an example. 

Compensation,  spine your arrows over or under spined ( not too much under mind you ) to shoot more left or right to hit your dominate eye point of aim.  File in the handle some to help bring your arrows further or build up with wood or leather to push em out.

Teach yourself which eye to use in either situation. Close one eye and slowly open tje otjer concentrating only on tje image of the open eye. And shoot. You will eventually learn to switch eyes for point of aim depending on if you want to shoot left or right handed.
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Offline DC

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2015, 04:38:12 pm »
Apparently you can train the other eye to be dominant, but it involves dressing like a pirate for a year >:D >:D

Offline bubbles

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #5 on: September 13, 2015, 05:42:45 pm »
Hahahaha.  Amazing.

Offline JackCrafty

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #6 on: September 13, 2015, 05:47:49 pm »
I believe it does matter.  I'm left-eye dominant and right handed.  Currently, I'm training to shoot lefty.  I've always shot righty until this year.
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Offline Knoll

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #7 on: September 13, 2015, 09:25:43 pm »
Yep, left eye dominant. Am learning to compensate.
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Offline Pat B

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2015, 10:06:06 am »
I have read on a few occasions and from reliable resource that if you are shooting instinctively it really doesn't matter which eye dominance or whether right or left handed.
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Offline Pappy

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2015, 04:49:49 am »
I am left eye dominate and shoot right handed, maybe could shoot better if I switched but to old to try, I will say if I had know from the beginning I would have went left handed. ;) :)
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Offline DesertDisciple

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Re: can knowing witch eye is dominant help with shooting instinctively?
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2015, 01:42:55 am »
Beartail, Im right hand/left eye too and have found left handed shooting to feel very natural. However, I have also found a form of aiming to feel more natural than what most would consider pure, instinctive shooting.

That being said, Ive found that I can shoot my wife's right handed bow quite well and lack the ability to aim that way since my right side vision is so bad. So in your current situation, youre shooting about as "instinctively" as you can. Id go so far as to say that if I truly wanted to be a pure instinctive shooter, Id probably switch to right handed shooting. 

As Sleek mentioned, your arrow spine will be different. If you shoot the arrows that are spined to your right handed bow out of a lefty the same weight and shelf cut depth, they will be too stiff and shoot to the right. Reason: your arrows have had to deflect more to match your dom. eyes trajectory to the point of impact.. Now youre putting the arrow roughly parallel to that line of sight and deflecting the shaft the other direction.

Bottom line, try it, but do what feels natural and gives you the results you desire.
Best Regards,

Andrew