I am a right-handed shooter with a dominant left eye. I never knew this until an instructor told me. Before I was told this, my father-in-law had labeled me as a natural shooter because I was doing great, even outscoring him, a clays shooter of 30+ years. Now, I’m lucky to get 18 out of 50 and I find that the dot on my glasses is very annoying. Help!
– Tom Malone
I, too, am left-eyed and right-handed. It does not bother me and I am usually able to score right up there with the right-eyed and right-handed folks. I, too, wore a patch over my entire left eye to shoot – but you can’t walk around and the targets look like they are smaller, farther away, and going really fast.
The best solution is not to worry so much about it. As you say, you were shooting really well before. Eye dominance means that one eye focuses first and leads the other eye to focus. The eyes work together to focus on whatever you are looking at.
Try trusting your natural ability to bring the gun up in the front of the target and shoot when the gun gets to your face. The way the eyes works is like this: look beyond the flight path of the target. Focus on something (a bush, a tree, or anything else. But you must keep your eyes still). Let the target come into your view, then start moving the gun at the same speed as the target and insert the barrel in front of the target. Shoot as soon as the gun gets to your face. If the gun comes to the face and the shot is not taken, the eyes will go to the thing that is moving the fastest in the picture – and that is the gun.
The only time eye dominance comes into the equation is when you don’t fire and your eyes go back to the barrel and this causes confusion to the brain. Trust your ability and your instincts; they are always correct.
Just think how you drive a car and merge into the traffic with two eyes. So, why close one with a shotgun? You don’t look at the front of the car to get there; you look where you are going. Look at the front of the target, since that is where it is going. And put the gun in that lead window and pull the trigger.
Did you know that if you don’t tell yourself to look at the front of the target, your eyes will naturally go to the back? So where is the gun going to go? To the back. Try it on the clays range just see where your eyes will go naturally. Always look at the front.
The goal is to make these little 4-inch disks look bigger, not smaller. Don’t worry about the eyes so much. Focus on the target. Just look at it and shoot it.
