There's a bit of confusion and debate about this.
But it's agreed that one of the most important things you have to know
is your dominant eye.
Dominance has a pretty big role in many sports and in life.
If you play a form of football, then you need to know
which of your legs you prefer kicking with.
If you're using your hands,
you need to know which hand you feel more comfortable with using.
And in shooting sports like in shooting or in archery
eye dominance plays a huge role.
The way eye dominance works is that despite having two eyes,
your brain prefers receiving information from one over the other.
The dominant eye provides the focus
the non-dominant eye provides the depth of vision.
Most people have the same eye dominace as their strong hand
But a small percentage of people are cross dominant.
For the most part that means most archers are right eyed, right handed.
There are several methods for determining eye dominance
One method, the Miles test
involves extending your arms and overlapping your fingers
so that you form a small hole with your thumbs.
Look through this hole at a distant object
then close one eye
if you can no longer see the object
then your open eye is the non-dominant eye.
Alternatively you can move your hands to your face
while keeping the object in focus.
your hands will move to your dominant eye.
If your eye dominance is the same as your handedness
you've got it easy.
But if you are cross-dominant you've got a though decision to make.
The question is
should I get a right handed bow, or a left handed bow,
and do I base that decision on eye dominance or handedness?
Keep in mind that most archers, particularly for recurve,
shoot with both eyes open.
It provides for much better depth perception.
Cross-dominant archers however
have this problem of naturally preferring
one eye over the other.
It makes it very difficult to align the string or the sight.
It just looks wrong.
As a right hand, right eyed shooter
when I draw,
I can just see the string,
off to the side of my eye.
Now if I were to close my right eye,
I would see
what a left eye dominant shooter would see.
The string is nowhere near where it should be.
If you're watching someone who may be cross dominant
what you may see
is the archer actually trying to anchor a bit differently.
Trying to get that string alignment in place
So there are some big problems with consistency and alignment
if you're shooting cross-dominant.
Now, if I was a left eyed shooter
the natural choice may be to use a left handed bow.
Which means I can get the correct visual alignment.
The problems is that, if I'm using my non-dominant hand
I'm going to have a harder time trying to control my shot
I simply don't have the strength or the coordination
to control my shot
and that's going to have a big effect on the accuracy.
So we come back to the question,
if you are cross-dominant
do you pick your bow based on your strong hand
or your strong eye?
This is where things get a little confusing
Different guides and coaching manuals will recommend different things.
Some will point out the obvious:
you need to sight the target with your dominant eye.
Others will argue that it's easier to adapt your technique to match your eye
than it is to train your weak hand.
Both sides have fair points
Some people are so exclusively one sided
that they simply lack the dexterity and strength needed
to shoot with their weak hand.
In fact, it's fairly common for introductory sessions
to give bows to people based on their handedness.
It's just easier to teach people to shoot a bow if they are already confortable
using their strong hand.
Some people cannot built that weak hand
no matter how hard they try, no matter how hard they practice.
For some cross-dominant archers
there is a natural tendency to bring the string
to the stronger eye.
And a lot of archers start off learning cross-dominant shooting
see two targets
and it can take a while to merge them back in to one target to focus on.
Archers can be taught to overcome this
Some people actually change eye dominance
after years of practice.
There are other ways to adapt your eye dominance
to your stronger shooting hand
And sometimes archers will use an eyepatch to cover their stronger eye
to force themselves to use their weak eye to focus on target.
Sometimes however
no matter how hard you try
it's simply impossible for someone
to use their weak eye.
And they have chronic form problems.
In which case they will have to switch to their weak hand.
Ultimately, whether you choose a bow based on
your eye dominance or your handedness
depends on how comfortable you are with adapting to either one.
Some people find it easier to use their dominant hand
others can't shoot with their weak eye.
If you're buying a bow this is key reasons
why you should try it before you buy it.
Anyway
Hope this is helpful.
This is Nu Sensei, I'll see you next time.