If anyone knows it would be genomachino. Give him a call he's very helpful and super enthusiastic.
Anybody have any experience trying to switch your dominant eye?
- Thread starter 1pocket
- Start date
How to overcome ‘wrong’ eye dominance - Bow International
Left-eye dominant but right-handed, Lucy O’Sullivan has spent a fair amount of time working to overcome the problems that presents. Here, she shares some of the tips and tricks she’s learned
www.bow-international.com
No, I mean work with your doctor on vision improvement/diagnosis, but check to see if your pool line of sight has changed--what Dr. Dave calls "vision center", the place under your face where the cue goes to see a straight shot as straight and cuts at their correct cut angles.
There are many such tests online, you can cue over the table's diamonds and make sure you are seeing the cue atop the diamonds precisely correctly.
Benelli
Well-known member
So after fifteen years of USPSA I can assure you your dominant eye is your dominant eye.
I'm right-handed, and left-eye dominant and it took me four years to learn to work around it.
What I do is put scotch tape over the lower half of my right eye lens of my glasses. That allows me to see the whole table and plan accordingly but when I get into my shooting stance and level my head the left eye has the unobstructed view and is not fighting with the right for focus.
Works on gun sights and pool cues...
I'm right-handed, and left-eye dominant and it took me four years to learn to work around it.
What I do is put scotch tape over the lower half of my right eye lens of my glasses. That allows me to see the whole table and plan accordingly but when I get into my shooting stance and level my head the left eye has the unobstructed view and is not fighting with the right for focus.
Works on gun sights and pool cues...
Thank you, this is exactly what I was looking for!How to overcome ‘wrong’ eye dominance - Bow International
Left-eye dominant but right-handed, Lucy O’Sullivan has spent a fair amount of time working to overcome the problems that presents. Here, she shares some of the tips and tricks she’s learnedwww.bow-international.com
WobblyStroke
Well-known member
Starting out, and not expecting to do anything with pool but have fun, I decided to use playing pool to train my weaker eye and started playing like that. FWIW, my prescription did improve a bit on that eye so mission accomplished on that front. Unfortunately, I got good enough to wish I hadn't made that choice and tried for like a month to switch to my dominant eye. Leaving the cue below my chin was no good because the right angle looked wrong. So I tried cueing outside my right eye where my left would be relative to the cue in my usual setup and that had some success. But I scrapped that after a few weeks as well and decided to just deal with having to wear contacts to see the game with my weaker eye and just continue playing from the vantage point I learned to see the game from.
The best thing to do is ignore eye dominance, find your current "personal vision center" head position, and find a stance that allows you to get your head in that position. The videos and resources here might help:
Last edited:
Just do what seems natural,no need to reinvent the wheel.
... unless what seems natural doesn't work.
Try squinting your left eye. This seems to help switch dominance.
Also if you can try changing your stance so your right eye is in front of the left. This affects the gaze angle and gaze angle can cause a dominance switch.
I personally can switch my eye dominance at will. To do it you sort of are making a tiny motion that is crossing your eyes but there is much less muscle involved. The reason I can do this however may be do to me injuring my right eye during a car crash when I was 18.
The easiest way I know to train how to switch dominance is to take your cue, hold it out in front of the eye you want to become dominant and then focus on it and move it around a little bit and move your eyes a little bit until it looks straight (you want to put the majority of the muscle movement into the eye you want to become dominant). At this point you have switched dominance. The only problem with this method is you tend to switch back when you move your eyes around depending upon the direction you stare at and the further the way the object you are looking (and more often you are looking at it) at the more they will want to switch back dominance.
For example, I can shoot about 5 spot shots with a forced switched dominance and then I start missing every shot randomly because the eye switches back in the middle of the PSR.
BTW: Im right handed, naturally left eye dominant with vision center under my right eye. Before the car crash I suspect I was right eye dominant. I probably needed physical therapy on the muscles in my right eye after the accident and never got it. Now that eye's muscles feel weaker than the left.
Surprisingly I'm known for very good aim and alignment. It took a long time to get it right though.
Last edited:
This and also you might want to look into sightright.
Yes, that too -- but I'm hoping to train my stronger eye to take over the dominance no matter what my center of vision is. I watched your first link a few weeks ago, when I first started to notice how bad the difference had got, and I just rewatched it again -- thank you, you always do a jam up job!!
Anyone tried sightright?? It apparently is a system that uses a laser for training?? Popular with Snooker players, even top pros based on their website anyway.
Sightright is great. If you go to a sightright instructor they might use a laser but the video version doesn't use one. It uses a plastic gadget about half the size of a cigarette pack instead.
Sightright combined with what geno taught me has worked wonder for my game. Along with a bunch of other stuff of course. I can now pocket almost all but the harder shots on a 4 1/8th inch diamond consistently playing rotation. At this point I no longer use a lot of what geno taught me but the parts I still do use are very important. I went to Geno about 2 years ago. I found that genos stuff does have validity and works to a certain extent (it did bring a good amount of consistency I never had) but a lot of it doesn't work near as well as sightright. Basically there were some shots with genos methods I never could get right, and if you put me on a 4 1/4th inch Diamond forget it. With sightright I can sight almost any shot correctly and consistently.
Basically sightright is an alignment system. Its not going to change your vision center but your vision center might not even be where you think it is anymore. If you get the gadget and do what they say in the videos it might become very apparent why you are missing shots and you might not need to change your eye dominance afterall. I know I always wanted to change my eye dominance then after using sightright for a while I learned no change was needed.
Sightright uses an objective way to measure vision center at different angles and teaches strong methods to align to it. For me it along with Dr Dave's SAW's (you need to be good with numbers for this to work well) and a tiny bit from Dr Dave's HAPs (I found small bits very useful but the majority of it was useless to me) and improving my stroke (for which sightright helps a ton, but other work is needed) worked wonders.
This stuff really does work along with select parts of what geno teaches. Combined along with a ton of practice it's been a godsend for me. And I've improved from about roughly 550 to around roughly a 650 fargo in less than a year at 43 years old.
BTW: The squinting thing does seem to have some merrit. I learned about it in the kornicki book and never put much into it. There is an older shooter at one pool halls around here who apparently had one of his eyes severely damaged in a construction site accident and you will see him squinting while he is above shots and aiming. He also plays pretty good still and a 50 in straight pool is no problem for him. I never asked him but I assume it has something to do with changing his eye dominance.
Last edited:
I signed up for the pocket SightRight and the video tutorials based on Shuddy's recommendation-no lasers involved. I'm not having good results because when I follow their instructions, I can't get my cue on the shot line.
The SightRight video tutorials cover the following:
1. Vision Center. You find your vision center using the pocket SightRight. You hold the pocket SightRight in front of your face at about chin level, then you move the pocket SightRight side to side until the lines line up. You can find your vision center using other methods, too, see: https://billiards.colostate.edu/faq/eyes/vision-center/.
2. PSR. You place the pocket SightRight on the pool table on the shot line. When you stand behind the shot to aim, you stand with your chest square to the shot line, feet shoulder width apart, with the shot line bisecting your midline. Then you move side to side until your vision center is in line with the shot line, i.e. so that the lines on the pocket SightRight line up. My vision center is directly under my left eye, so I move to my right until I see the lines on the pocket SightRight line up. Then they suggest that you put your "chalk pouch" on your belt to mark where the shot line hits your belt. You can use that mark while you are playing in place of the pocket SightRight.
3. Step in. You step in angling slightly towards the left (for a right handed player). You move your right foot first, then you step in with your left foot so that you are just past square to the shot line, i.e. your left foot is slightly ahead of your right foot. Both feet turned outwards, more than shoulder width apart. Just like you see with snooker players.
4. Cue on shot line. If you don't step in to the left far enough, then the tip of your cue will angle across the shot line to your left. If you step in to the left too far, then the tip of your cue will angle across the shot line to the right. The PRIMARY purpose of the step in is to get the butt of the cue on the shot line.
5. Vision center when down on the shot. During the step in, the lines on the pocket SightRight will no longer line up. After you get down on the shot, you move your head so that the lines on the pocket SightRight line up again. I have to move my head back to my right.
My problem is that I have to angle my step in pretty far to the left to be able to get the butt of the cue on the shot line, then I have to crane my neck back in the opposite direction to get my vision center back on line. My cue ends up such that my thumb brushes my hip on the backstroke, i.e. I have very little clearance with my hip. I mark the shot line with tape on the floor using a 360 degree vertical laser, and my right foot is on the shot line. If I step even farther to the left to give myself more clearance, then I have to crane my neck even farther to my right, and all my weight is on my right foot, and I feel like I am almost falling over to my right. If you watch Dr. Dave's video on How to Find the Perfect Pool/Snooker/Billiards Stance you can see that his stance is very square to the shot line, and his cue is near his right hip. I think SightRight would like his stance. Basically, you are getting into a snooker stance with your cue on the shot line and your vision center on the shot line.
I think the video tutorials are hokey and pretty terrible. They review and repeat everything so many times that you have to watch three videos to get to the next new thing, which in my opinion is a complete waste of time. And, you are unable to skip ahead, so you have to watch the same drudgery over and over again.
When you order the pocket SightRight, delivery time is something like 5 weeks to the US--unless you upgrade for speedier delivery, which is around 2 weeks and costs an additional $12. I think shipping is much too slow, and they should try to improve things. For instance, they could ship 20 pocket SightRights to one of their instructors in the US, then when US orders came in, the pocket SightRights could ship from a US location. As it is now, I think some people may just exclaim, "Five weeks delivery time. No thanks!"
Last edited:
Repeating everything a bunch of using different words for the same thing is an effective teaching method. One of my best professors would always review the last class at the start of the next one by doing this.
Anyways, the sightright step is definitely easier when you have a vision center under the same eye as your dominant hand. Since I can change my vision center at will (just by moving the muscle in my eye I can change where the sightright looks straight) I've messed around doing both steps with either eye. I have found that under my right eye the step is easier and there is less strain on my back and I tend to stroke better. Therefore, I have chosen I will use the vision center under my right eye.
As for getting the butt of the cue on the line you need to mess around with the squareness of your body. It takes some practice. You can try using masking tape to put a line down the table. Then put a little strip of masking tape on the rail on the same line. You want the butt of your cue to line up with this tape.
If you are feeling back or neck strain you should start bending your knees while down in your stance if you arent doing this already.
Also, if you are trying to get your chin touching the cue you should forget about this and stick to a more upright stance. Sure going down this way ensures the cue is in the proper spot but it can also change where you vision center is located (it does for me) and it introduces significant strain on the body that really isnt necessary: there is no doubt you can aim and cue very consistently without going this low.
The sightright step is a different length depending upon how far away you are from the cueball and the angle of the shot. Basically as each increases so does the length of the step. With a cross-dominant vision center and a relatively straight shot with the cueball close to the shooter the sightright step is about an inch further than a for non-cross-dominant player.
I recommend getting as close to the cueball as possible when you do the step as the further away you are the longer the step is and it can get to a point where you can't do it in just one step. For example 9-ball on the spot and the cueball close to it with a sharp cut, with this shot I have to take one huge step, and even further variations of this shot I need to take more than one step. I can imagine the length of the step on this type of shot is significantly is amplified by being cross dominant.
When you do the step you should be moving your head at the same time as the step keeping the vision center on the shotline so the shot line 'picture' moves the minimum amount possible. The vision center should only come off the shot line for a small fraction of a second and even then its barely coming off the shotline. I consider it more of a bounce than leaving the shotline. It happens so fast that your brain is able to quickly correct it by moving the head back to where it was. Basically you are trying to stabilize the shot picture the best as possible when taking the step.
In a conventional dropdown its easier to keep the shot picture stable but you tend to be less accurate because you are either trading off the cue being on the shot line and the eyes being off it or the eyes being on the shotline and the cue being off it. In the first case you have to learn to aim goofy through memorization of a faulty picture. In the later case your brain makes a last second adjustment while the cue is in motion to put the cue on the shotline which causes huge inconsistencies. Sightright when done properly does seem to mimimize these problems as they advertise (at least for me it does).
So keep messing around with it. I saw dramatic results in a day or so where I was able to consistently fire in shots I never was able to make before in my entire life, even if you gave me 100 tries every try would go into the rail and it seemed hopeless. Meanwhile I would keep hearing the same BS from people about how you only miss shots from stroke and never from aim which I knew as false (Seems 99 critical shots written by an author who didn't have perception issues perpeptuated this myth and since then some players have repeated it ad-nausem). Stroke instructors also seem to repeat this same myth to sell instruction.
Once you get it working you will be able to refine your aiming compensation for things such as throw significantly because there will no longer be erratic data being thrown in when you miss the shots. Hence its much easier to understand what is actually going on.
So don't give up. The step is not an easy thing to do. It takes a lot of practice and trial and error until you can do it consistently. Once you do get it working consistently you will be very pleased with the results and people will be shocked at how easy you make sinking balls look....
Last edited: