Anybody have any experience trying to switch your dominant eye?

I was having a discussion with my friend about dominant eye yesterday, been thinking about it all night.
is it possible that , in the game, you change dominant eye in regards to the shot you are taking and dont even know it?
For example
When shooting to cut the OB on the right side left eye becomes dominant and when shooting to cut the left side, the right eye becomes dominant?

What do you think?
 
1pocket said:
As long as I have been aware, I've been cross-dominant, meaning right handed but left eye dominant for pool aiming. However, in the last year or so my left eye has developed a condition that has diminished its focus, so now I have significantly better vision in my right eye. The problem is, my left eye still thinks it is the dominant one lol. I understand that most right handed people are right eye dominant anyway, so I am seriously wondering about trying to train my eyes to let my right eye take over as the dominant for pool -- and for that matter, everything else.

Anyone try this sort of switch?? If so, did it work and how did you do it??
Click to expand...
My understanding is that pool is using the "vision center" (both eyes open) and not the "dominant eye" like in rifle or archery. I'm not sure if you have seen this before but Dr. Dave has a good video on it. It makes me curious if you would get improvement from any effort trying to switch it. It seems it would be like trying to make your left hand your dominant hand when you are naturally right handed?
 
SlateMan said:
Sometimes I feel like my dominant eye switches. (I'm left eye dominant and right handed as well). So when I am down on my shot, I look down at the cue with my left eye and follow the line of the shaft with my left eye down to the tip and then to the object ball. It seems to bring me back to my normal dominant eye (left). You could try this with your right eye....
Click to expand...
I find that being cross- eye dominant I notice a big difference if my head isn't perfectly square with the shot.
 
I found this in a archery web page. It might help. It talks about using tape.

Eye dominance is established around the age of 6. Beyond that age, it's set and the only way it's going to change is if you have a significant vision issue develop with the current dominant eye.

What you can do is train the brain so that YOU pick which eye is dominant for the situation needed. I'm RH/LE dominant and will use my right eye by choice...simply trained the brain to use my right eye when at anchor.

in order to train the brain, the dominant eye needs to have something to see--just make it blurry so the brain picks the clean image. A patch will just block out all light and when an image is reintroduced it will revert back to that eye being dominant. So, clear safety glasses, scotch tape the dominant eye lens...start reading, watching TV, looking at stuff in the distance all while thinking "right eye, right eye...". Of course you'll want to shoot too but you'll need glasses that are a fit for shooting.
 
Thanks for the link. I must admit i ve seen a lot of dr.Daves videos and explanations, and have to say he doing a great job and hope he keeps on doing it and keeping it real ( as AliG would have said).
But these are all straight shots in the video, guess it applies on the cuts also.

BR
 
Its funny with the dominat eye, when i look to the left(not moving my head), the left eye is dominant, and when i look to the right, the right eye takes over. How ?
Must be the head position.

Thanks
 
1pocket said:
As long as I have been aware, I've been cross-dominant, meaning right handed but left eye dominant for pool aiming. However, in the last year or so my left eye has developed a condition that has diminished its focus, so now I have significantly better vision in my right eye. The problem is, my left eye still thinks it is the dominant one lol. I understand that most right handed people are right eye dominant anyway, so I am seriously wondering about trying to train my eyes to let my right eye take over as the dominant for pool -- and for that matter, everything else.

Anyone try this sort of switch?? If so, did it work and how did you do it??
Click to expand...
I have the exact same problem. I just close my left eye now and then to make sure I'm online like I should be. I'm off once in a while. Good double check mechanism. For me.
 
sorry, but i was never really intrigued by the question of dominant eye, till yesterday, when i played with my friend,and we started a debate.
I just ended a session, and i came to a conclusion that for medium to long range shots i use a right eye as a dominant one, but at closer range for right hand cuts on the OB, i tend to use the left eye as dominant one
I need to ask my instructor😵‍💫
 
mareh said:
sorry, but i was never really intrigued by the question of dominant eye, till yesterday, when i played with my friend,and we started a debate.
I just ended a session, and i came to a conclusion that for medium to long range shots i use a right eye as a dominant one, but at closer range for right hand cuts on the OB, i tend to use the left eye as dominant one
I need to ask my instructor😵‍💫
Click to expand...

For those interested, lots of good info, videos, and articles (from me and others) dealing with these topics can be found here:

 
mareh said:
Thanks for the link. I must admit i ve seen a lot of dr.Daves videos and explanations, and have to say he doing a great job and hope he keeps on doing it and keeping it real
Click to expand...

I plan to keep doing it, while attempting to keep it real, for many years to come. I love it.

mareh said:
But these are all straight shots in the video, guess it applies on the cuts also.
Click to expand...

As long as your gaze direction (face squareness to the shot) and any head tilt is consistent, the vision center is the same for every shot. A straight shot alignment is used in the video, because it is the easiest and most reliable find finding your personal vision center.
 
straightline said:
I'll close one eye to make sure
Click to expand...
I would call that method the blink or wink method. Sounds better than an eye patch. The players that I knew that only had one eye had a problem with depth perception. They could be very accurate just the same.
I would try the wink method as it is more flexible and allows back and forth examinations.
 
mareh said:
I was having a discussion with my friend about dominant eye yesterday, been thinking about it all night.
is it possible that , in the game, you change dominant eye in regards to the shot you are taking and dont even know it?
For example
When shooting to cut the OB on the right side left eye becomes dominant and when shooting to cut the left side, the right eye becomes dominant?

What do you think?
Click to expand...
You're onto something but the definition sticklers will say that's not the definition of dominate eye. You can purposely (or subconsciously) focus more with another eye and it can work out well.

You have two eyes, learning to use them and how eye focus and convergence works is a very powerful tool.

I've recounted this here several times on the forum, but get something like a two wooden matchsticks or pencils. Stick one in something like silly putty or tape it standing vertically a few feet away (OB distance). Hold the other in your hand at arm's length. Line the two up in your personal vision center. Focus on the red match head in your hand. You will see two/double on the far match head. Now focus on the distant match head, you will see two of the ones in your hand. Play around with this. Get one of the doubled images lined up directly with the far or near one. Close one eye... what happened? Close the other eye... observe. The ghost images align with each eye.

Binocular vision can be tuned to a scary degree of accuracy if you mess around with it a bit. Most people never notice this stuff, even less practice/experiment with it.

Play with this some, turn your head slightly and see what happens. I'll give you another hint, if your vision has tilt to it things get screwy. Try to keep your head level with the world, tilting causes a plethora of optical illusions on the pool table.

When the focused match head is in the middle of the doubled one, you're dead straight. I used to do this at work if I had a minute or two of downtime. It sounds silly but there is some powerful stuff in just this exercise.

When I'm aligning parts to the cart I inspect them on I use vision tricks like this to get a part straight. Very often I can get a 10' part within 1-2mm of being straight to the edge of the cart. That's pretty insane if you trig it out. If I'm off 2mm it's less than .04 degrees off.

Again, word definition sticklers will come out in droves about this not being dominate eye, but you can make either eye dominate depending on what you're trying to do, and you can train this just like anything. Taking the lead in focus might be a better way to say it. "Dominate eye" or "Personal Vision Center" terms are already taken and decently well defined so it ruffles the fur when spoken out of context. :)
 
Instead of referring to it as, “changing my dominant eye” I would refer to it as, “focusing with my non-dominant eye.” And you absolutely can do it probably should do it occasionally.

I’m right hand dominant. Throwing with my left hand doesn’t change which hand is dominant. If I was facing North and a dart board was directly to my West, I would likely be more accurate using my non-dominant hand to throw a dart at the board. Situations come up in pool that require similar adjustments.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I also shoot right handed and I'm left eye dominant, when firing a rifle I'm left handed same thing with a bow but i shoot a hand gun right handed weird.
 
mareh said:
I was having a discussion with my friend about dominant eye yesterday, been thinking about it all night.
is it possible that , in the game, you change dominant eye in regards to the shot you are taking and dont even know it?
For example
When shooting to cut the OB on the right side left eye becomes dominant and when shooting to cut the left side, the right eye becomes dominant?

What do you think?
Click to expand...

With the cue ball and the object ball almost lined up for a straight in shot into the corner pocket I couldn't see the shot one day. I got up and down a few times, finally decided this was stupid and tried to brute force the shot. Lined up dead straight then moved over slightly on the object ball. Managed to miss a shot I have made hundreds or thousands of times, usually without more than a glance. I think everything lined up just off straight was causing me to swap eye dominance.

Oddly enough I was watching a big tournament on video a few weeks later and saw both Efren and Francisco Bustamonte miss the exact same shot with the balls lined up roughly between the side pocket and corner pocket but slightly off straight. I would bet either of them would make that shot 99 times out of a hundred but they both missed when they were on the hill in different matches.

I have trained the strong eye to be stronger than it naturally is, I have trained the weak eye to be stronger depending on what I was doing. The eyes don't really see what you are looking at. They look at something, send a stream of essentially ones and zeroes to the brain, and the brain converts the information into an image. This can be proven by the rare individuals that get their signals crossed. There have been people that could literally see music! They saw what other people hear. I don't remember if they heard what other people see.

Hu
 
1pocket said:
As long as I have been aware, I've been cross-dominant, meaning right handed but left eye dominant for pool aiming. However, in the last year or so my left eye has developed a condition that has diminished its focus, so now I have significantly better vision in my right eye. The problem is, my left eye still thinks it is the dominant one lol. I understand that most right handed people are right eye dominant anyway, so I am seriously wondering about trying to train my eyes to let my right eye take over as the dominant for pool -- and for that matter, everything else.

Anyone try this sort of switch?? If so, did it work and how did you do it??
Click to expand...
Steve,

I think I am left eye dominant but a right handed player. For me, a head position that is centered on the cue seems to work well. I haven't undertaken to "change" my eyes yet, but who knows what will happen in the future.

kollegedave
 
1pocket said:
As long as I have been aware, I've been cross-dominant, meaning right handed but left eye dominant for pool aiming. However, in the last year or so my left eye has developed a condition that has diminished its focus, so now I have significantly better vision in my right eye. The problem is, my left eye still thinks it is the dominant one lol. I understand that most right handed people are right eye dominant anyway, so I am seriously wondering about trying to train my eyes to let my right eye take over as the dominant for pool -- and for that matter, everything else.

Anyone try this sort of switch?? If so, did it work and how did you do it??
Click to expand...
You should try shooting left handed and see what happens. It’s not for everyone but you might be surprised.
 
dr_dave said:
As long as your gaze direction (face squareness to the shot) and any head tilt is consistent, the vision center is the same for every shot.
Click to expand...
I guess thats why Mark Selby always moves his head a bit to left and right, to allign vision center.
Thanks for helping out.
Br
 
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