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Right Handed, Left Eye Dominant


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My wife has expressed an interest in learning how to shoot, however we found out that she is left eye dominant, but right handed.

 

Can anyone give me some advice with the best strategy for sight picture? I know how much I personally hate those left hand stages because I feel like I need to throw my head over the sights or cant the gun to be comfortable. I know she won't be shooting the gun lefty, so it's not as bad, but it's got to be more difficult.

 

I want her to have fun and not be too frustrated, can someone lend me some advice?

 

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Semi-translucent tape over the left eye, just enough to block the sight is what I used for the longest time. When I stopped doing it I found that I was able to align the sights to my right eye without effort. My left eye is still dominant, when I shoot I see the targets with my left eye and there's a red dot floating in front of my right eye.

Edited by BritinUSA
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^^^

Cross eye dominant here and this is what I do, works fine. 

Tried to do the tape thing and even shoot left handed, once I embraced that I draw and index to my left eye I started shooting a lot better.

OF course, YMMMV

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I am cross dominant, just draw to your strong eye, no other changes needed.  Sevigny, Seeklander, and i am sure many other accomplished shooters shoot this way.


Great, thank you. So obviously you are still shooting right handed, but just bringing the pistol up in line with your left eye and away you go?

I know this post seemed silly, but I didn't want to tell my wife to do something a certain way and it be "wrong"

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Lefty. Right eye dominant. Been doing this stuff just fine for a decade. Just move the gun over about an inch at arm's distance and it'll line up with her dominant eye. This is absolutely not a thing worth making into any sort of physical issue.

 

But people who haven't tried the simple solutions make it into this big handicap that it isn't. That's all.

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19 hours ago, jschweg said:

 


Great, thank you. So obviously you are still shooting right handed, but just bringing the pistol up in line with your left eye and away you go?

I know this post seemed silly, but I didn't want to tell my wife to do something a certain way and it be "wrong"

Sent from my Nexus 10 using Tapatalk
 

 

 

Yes, i also turn my head a bit to the right, barely noticable (i just had to "practice" to see how much) but I really dont even notice, it is so sleight.

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I am right handed and left eye dominant.  In my case the dominance is very slight, also my left eye needs slightly less correction to focus on the front sight.

 

The best thing I ever did was quit thinking about it.  If you need to squint one eye, or prefer tape over one eye, just do it and drive on. 

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I was born left handed and forced to do everything right handed as I was growing up so I'm in the same boat as your wife. Not to confuse matters but I think I would tell her just to close her left eye. If she ever expends into 3 gun or clay shooting it will be easier for her to make the transition form firearm to firearm. Trust me you can not shoot clays with both eyes open shooting right handed and left eye dominant. I tried the tape thing, using both eyes and switching to shooting left handed over the past 35 years and always went back to shooting right handed with one eye closed. I was a AA trap shooter using one eye so it seems to work.

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I'm right handed left eye dominant I just draw when I push out the gun is over my left side and I have never had a problem.  My gun while shoot is just to my left side an extra inch or so. 

Same thing I do. Pretty apparent from my GoPro videos but never caused me any issues so far. Other than hard right leans... Hard left leans are easier tho.

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If she is new to shooting, learn to shoot left handed and be done with it.

 

My granddaughter is 9 years old, and left eye dominant. Her dad and I are starting her off the right way . . . left handed.

 

I had a battle of my own, growing up left handed and loosing the sight in my left eye in 1980. It was a hard row to hoe, learning to shoot all over again right hand (at age 31). Especially the long guns . . . UGH!

 

Good luck!

Edited by Reshoot
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While I agree with everyone who advised drawing to the dominant eye regardless of hand, there is also an argument to be made for matching the shooting hand to the dominant eye. I know several people who are cross eye dominant and shoot with their off hand. Benefits are ridiculous reloads because they are doing the work with their smart hand, killing it on weak hand stages when they get to use their dominant hand, and being able to shoot rifles easier (think PCC, everyone is doing it).

 

If you start with your weak hand you never know the difference. Look at guitar players. Both hands are doing different things requiring a great deal of coordination. if they switch to a lefty guitar, neither hand knows what to do.

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When I teach my classes I verify dominance before we go to the range so I know what to look for in each shooter.  When I know there is a cross dominance issue at play, I teach exactly as Rob Leatham did in the video.  I have them slightly move their head so they do not mess up the angle of their stance.  I feel it works much better and keeps them more accurate then them moving the firearm over. YMMV. ???

Edited by R1_Demon
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On 5/20/2017 at 10:16 AM, MemphisMechanic said:

Lefty. Right eye dominant. Been doing this stuff just fine for a decade. Just move the gun over about an inch at arm's distance and it'll line up with her dominant eye. This is absolutely not a thing worth making into any sort of physical issue.

 

But people who haven't tried the simple solutions make it into this big handicap that it isn't. That's all.

This. I remember as a kid, getting my first BB gun, and Dad teaching me how to shoot. He didn't tell me to put it to my right shoulder, use my right eye, or really anything else. He told me how to pull the trigger, and told me to shoot however I could shoot it the most accurately...which happened to be on my left shoulder using my left eye, even though I am right handed.

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  • 5 weeks later...

There are certainly a bunch of "cross eye dominant" people out there.  I too, am left eye'd and right handed.  Never made much issue about it.  I personally feel (I get hammered every time I say this, but here goes) I personally feel that having both eyes open is more important than worrying about which eye you are using.  

My same thought process goes into just drawing the gun to your left eye rather than tilting or moving your head to make it line up.  

I developed a weird head-tilt for a bit and things were much better when I got that worked out. 

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I also bring the gun to my left eye rather than tilt the head.  Jerry Miculek says move the gun, not your head.

My right eye is weak, so I trained myself to shoot rifle left handed when I was a teenager (didn't want to wear glasses)

Now, right and left handed rifle feels natural, although left hand is more natural for me now.;

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I also bring the gun to my left eye rather than tilt the head.  Jerry Miculek says move the gun, not your head.
My right eye is weak, so I trained myself to shoot rifle left handed when I was a teenager (didn't want to wear glasses)
Now, right and left handed rifle feels natural, although left hand is more natural for me now.;

I find that the pros all think about it differently. If I remember correctly bob vogeol says to tilt the head and keep the body square. I find I do much better bringing the gun to left eye than tilting the head.

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11 hours ago, DukeEB said:

This is the video, the point where he says this is pretty early.  I do keep my body square, but no head tilt,

 

 

 

 

Cool video.  I hadn't seen it before.  Good stuff.  I'm very old school and shoot Weaver because I was taught that way forever ago.  However, I have been trying to break that habit and train myself to shoot isosceles but it feels very, very weird to me.  However, when I teach my classes, I do teach the isosceles stance to my students.  LOL  Now I just have to adapt it for myself.  Plus, I'm sure it will help me in USPSA.  I'm also trying to figure out what he is talking about regarding the lock over of the left wrist (I'm a right handed shooter) as well.  I understand the grip (even as presented in the picture of the video), but the lockover of the wrist is what I'm having trouble with to try and keep recoil down.  Of course with the Weaver stance, I'm used to the push/pull method with my arms.  However, you don't have that with the isosceles stance.  So, now I have to look more to my left wrist to lock down the recoil and that is where I'm having trouble trying to get it right.  Maybe I can find other videos that may show it better.  I'm only half way through this video though. :) 

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I also just noticed (after going through the entire video now) that he even suggests that you can try putting your finger on the front of the trigger guard.  I would only say to do this if you have some practice at it or have very good control to begin with.  A LOT of my students try and do this to begin with and they are all over the map/target because that finger is actually pulling the muzzle of the firearm to the right or left (mostly to the left because it is the left first finger) and they wonder why they are shooting left.  They can't keep it consistent.  So, that surprised me a bit when he said to do that, albeit with skateboard/grip tape.  Then again, he shoots a heck of a lot better than I do.  LOL!

 

However, I was very impressed with the high speed camera footage of the locked vs. unlocked wrist at how fast the firearm comes back on target or really doesn't even leave the target area.  As I said in my previous post, that makes a lot of sense and now I just have to find better shots/angles to see how exactly to lock the wrist to do this and practice the heck out of it so that it becomes natural.  Like he mentioned, if you shoot 200 rounds and your left (or off hand) wrist isn't tired, then you aren't doing it correctly.  Again, good stuff.  I'll have to watch it again a couple of times before going to the range and make notes so I can be sure to try those different things that I'm not used to at the range and practice them. :) 

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I've only been shooting pistols for about 4 years now (3rd year in uspsa/idpa and a mid C now), before it was all rifle.  I started with a modified weaver, but I do the isosceles now, much better results.  I have tried the trigger guard hold, but my finger keeps slipping off, so I don't use that method.

This video made a big impact on me, that's for sure!  Glad you liked it!

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I also just found this video that goes into detail about the grip on the pistol.  I think it is very good and reinforces what Jerry was talking about:

 

https://youtu.be/KJrA7wMXuuQ 

 

Everyone else just "talks" about locking the wrist and the grip.  This guy, Shannon Smith, actually shows you, step by step, on the action and how exactly to lock the wrist out and such.  I'm a visual person, so it helps when I can see stuff and how it is done.  Now it makes sense to me and a light bulb went off in my head.  LOL!  So, now to add this practice to my change in stance and see where it takes me.  These are going to be huge changes for me and we will see what happens.  Ya, I can't hold the front of the trigger guard either.  I move the firearm too much.  I'd rather just practice these two changes first until I get them down as "natural" for me and then go from there. :) 

Edited by R1_Demon
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