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Discovering Eye Dominance

It’s always fun to hit the bullseye of a target, and it can be really fun when you hit it time and time again. Eye dominance plays a huge role in shooting accurately and is the foundation that you will build upon as an archer, marksman or hunter. You may be asking “what is eye dominance and how do I figure out my dominant eye?” Let me take you back to freshman science class real quick. 

Because our eyes are on different planes, meaning one eye is to the left and right of your nose, they take in different data. If each eye is different, the brain must decide which eye gets preference for certain tasks. Now imagine your freshman science class (you don’t have to remember the braces and your huge crush Justin T.) where you are all using microscopes. Now I may be old school, but the microscopes we used only had one eye piece unlike kids today. Imagine putting a slide on your microscope, getting the proper magnification, and bending to see what streptococcus you have to identify. Which eye did you close? The eye you kept open will usually be your dominant eye. 

A silly analogy, but one I hope you can relate to. If you can’t, here’s another easy way to determine your dominant eye.

Extend both hands away from your face, turn your hands so thumbs are parallel and index fingers are touching- you should see a large triangle. Make the triangle smaller by overlapping your hands. Next find an object some distance away and look at it through your triangle. Keeping your focus on the object, slowly move your hands toward your face. Ta-dah!! Your hands will naturally move to your dominant eye. If you’re still unsure, close one eye and then the other. Does the object still stay in the triangle?  Watch our Determining Eye Dominance video here.

Why is this important? Your eye is a pivotal part of the aiming process. Essentially, it is the anchor in which the firearms sights are bound to. Now for most people, eye dominance corresponds to hand dominance. But for some, it’s slightly more tricky, meaning they are cross-dominant (right handed, left eye dominant, and vice versa). The good news is, while shooting a handgun, you can easily move the pistol to your dominant eye. However, if shooting a bow or long gun, you will either have to close your dominant eye, have an eye patch or tape over shooting glasses, or need to learn to shoot with your off hand in alignment with your eye dominance. If you’re a brand-new shooter, I suggest learning to shoot in alignment with your eye dominance since everything feels awkward already, much like freshman year, but I digress. 

Eye dominance is one of the first things we check in the SLG trailer because it is so important to success in shooting. Knowing it is the first step to hitting that bullseye time and time again. 

 

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