Cowboy Blob's Saloon and Shootin Gallery

I'm not a real Cowboy, but I play one in the movies.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Beat Cross-Eye Dominance

How many of you are Cross-Eye Dominant? I'm very right-handed and left-eyed. Using a pistol, I beat the affliction by tilting my head over my straight right arm to align my left eye with my wrist weld. Learned that from a CCW class instructor (not a USAF instructor or ubershutzenmensch on an instructional DVD). Angling my wrist away from the straight-arm results in sucky accuracy!

With rifle, I'm screwed. Many gun gurus have urged me to shoot with both eyes open, especially when using reflex or holo sights. Uh, no. Although I've got at least 20/20 vision in both eyes, my lazy eye coordination almost kept me out of USAF aircrew status. I've got to close the left eye -- and not so tightly that things are initially blurry when I have to switch to pistol. They need to develop a bionic eye patch that will go transparent on command -- this would be especially useful on Dark House stages where some gun-gamers squeeze the shooting eye shut to prevent the momentary blindness that occurs when stepping from Arizona daylight into a dimly lit room...trading the eye's light disparity recovery for eyeball stress recovery.

Ya know, this post was just an excuse to post the Leela pic; I didn't mean to get all scientificky all over y'all.

7 Comments:

  • At 2:55 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I know the felling. I am the same way buddy. Left eye dominate and right handed. Life for is a pain in the ass. I just gave and went right hand and right eye. It has been tough but much cheaper.

     
  • At 3:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I am the same too. I suggest you learn to shoot a rifle left handed. Your accuracy will greatly improve. It's very easy to do if you start with bench rest or prone shooting.

    As for pistol, I find using an isosceles stance will enable me to use my left eye.

     
  • At 4:20 PM, Blogger GunGeek said…

    From my own personal experience, I can confirm that it is quite possible to switch which eye is dominant.

    Yes, I've done it. I've even switched back.

    I am right-handed and right-eye dominant. Through what is basically just trying to change which eye is being used to focus on objects, I gradually switched to being left-eye dominant. I swear that things actually look just a little different when you look at them with the other eye.

    It bothered me enough that I intentionally switched back. This was way back in junior high that I did all this, so older eyes might have a little more resistance to it.

    Now, even after all these years, with just a little effort, I can make it switch at will. Probably not while doing anything more involved than just trying to look at something. It takes about 10 seconds to flip over.

    I'll bet that spending some time each day with an eye patch on the dominant eye would also help to cause your brain to switch over. Perhaps it would take having the patch on for an extended time, but I wouldn't go doing something like that without checking with an eye doctor first.

    Now that I'm into shooting, if I were cross eye dominant, I would intentionally switch over to being same eye dominant.

     
  • At 4:41 PM, Blogger AlanDP said…

    I can switch eye dominance also, if necessary. But I'm naturally left-eye dominant and mostly left-handed, so I do this little trick only when I try right-handed rifle shooting at the range.

    I switch hands often during handgun practice, but I usually just stick with my left eye no matter which hand I'm using for handguns.

     
  • At 6:17 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    I'm lucky; I can't hit shit with either hand or either eye.

     
  • At 12:51 AM, Blogger trainer said…

    Well that was interesting.

    I tried it, and was able to switch over without any problems in a second or two.

    I've always been a right eye - right hand shooter, but left eye dominant.

    I wonder if I've been switching over without realizing it when I shoot.

     
  • At 12:25 PM, Blogger GunGeek said…

    It might be easy to tell if you've been switching over when you shoot. Next time, aim at a fairly close target and when you're all lined up ready to shoot, close one eye.

     

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