Anybody have any experience trying to switch your dominant eye?

[ShootingArts]

Just testimony about changing vision, you seem to have good information at hand already.

Unless we block vision in one eye we almost always have binocular vision. One eye will usually be stronger than the other but they can be near equal too. This can be an asset doing some things, a disadvantage doing others. Even with a dominant eye/weak eye situation the weak eye will contribute somewhat, why my vision center is around the inner edge of my iris or the corner of my dominant eye. To be a little clearer maybe, the outside edge of my iris closest to the bridge of my nose.

Here may be some meat for you. Shooting a pistol I wanted a strong dominant eye so I could look through my sights with both eyes open and focus on my front sight or optic(red dot) sight. This let me see my next targets better and I moved the gun to a known target instead of moving the gun in the general direction of the next target and have to find it after I was in the right area.

I simply got out a new number two pencil. Held it out at arm's length with the eraser pointed at the ceiling. Closed my weak eye, lined the eraser up with something across the room, then opened my weak eye. I did this for five minutes to start, up to fifteen or more before I was satisfied. A little hooky at work several sessions a day, maybe a few times a day at home. I strengthened my dominant eye to the point I ran with the big dogs in my local pistol competition, eventually won a few matches and set a few records.

Moving on I started shooting benchrest rifle. Now I still had both eyes open but I was looking through a rifle scope with my dominant eye and looking at windflags from fifteen feet out to 150-180 yards with my weak eye and processing that information in real time. With hindsight I wish I had learned to shoot the rifle with the weak eye looking through the scope. Regardless, I was able to reverse the process when I broke out the pencil again. Difference being now I closed my strong eye, lined up the pencil with something on the wall, and worked at keeping the eraser aligned when I opened my strong eye. This was a little tougher. However, with some conditioning I was able to shoot both pistol and benchrest competition with a year or more overlap doing both things. I'm confident that I would have shot pool just fine too but I was playing very little at the time, too busy shooting guns, building and tuning guns, and reloading ammo. back then I could reload for under twenty percent of new price.

Anyway, this is my story. We can train our eyes and it really isn't that hard. I could see results in a few weeks and it was a done deal in a few months. I did play with the eraser now and then the whole time I was competing with firearms. I mean, do what I am paid for or stare at a pencil eraser for fifteen minutes at a time? Easy choice! I did get my work out though.

Hu

 

[Zerksies]

This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Why the hell would you want to switch what is natural.

 

[bbb]

Just testimony about changing vision, you seem to have good information at hand already.

Unless we block vision in one eye we almost always have binocular vision. One eye will usually be stronger than the other but they can be near equal too. This can be an asset doing some things, a disadvantage doing others. Even with a dominant eye/weak eye situation the weak eye will contribute somewhat, why my vision center is around the inner edge of my iris or the corner of my dominant eye. To be a little clearer maybe, the outside edge of my iris closest to the bridge of my nose.

Here may be some meat for you. Shooting a pistol I wanted a strong dominant eye so I could look through my sights with both eyes open and focus on my front sight or optic(red dot) sight. This let me see my next targets better and I moved the gun to a known target instead of moving the gun in the general direction of the next target and have to find it after I was in the right area.

I simply got out a new number two pencil. Held it out at arm's length with the eraser pointed at the ceiling. Closed my weak eye, lined the eraser up with something across the room, then opened my weak eye. I did this for five minutes to start, up to fifteen or more before I was satisfied. A little hooky at work several sessions a day, maybe a few times a day at home. I strengthened my dominant eye to the point I ran with the big dogs in my local pistol competition, eventually won a few matches and set a few records.

Moving on I started shooting benchrest rifle. Now I still had both eyes open but I was looking through a rifle scope with my dominant eye and looking at windflags from fifteen feet out to 150-180 yards with my weak eye and processing that information in real time. With hindsight I wish I had learned to shoot the rifle with the weak eye looking through the scope. Regardless, I was able to reverse the process when I broke out the pencil again. Difference being now I closed my strong eye, lined up the pencil with something on the wall, and worked at keeping the eraser aligned when I opened my strong eye. This was a little tougher. However, with some conditioning I was able to shoot both pistol and benchrest competition with a year or more overlap doing both things. I'm confident that I would have shot pool just fine too but I was playing very little at the time, too busy shooting guns, building and tuning guns, and reloading ammo. back then I could reload for under twenty percent of new price.

Anyway, this is my story. We can train our eyes and it really isn't that hard. I could see results in a few weeks and it was a done deal in a few months. I did play with the eraser now and then the whole time I was competing with firearms. I mean, do what I am paid for or stare at a pencil eraser for fifteen minutes at a time? Easy choice! I did get my work out though.

Hu

hu
what hand is your dominant hand and which eye is dominant?

 

[bbb]

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 tell you to do the following:

1. Find your vision center using the pocket SightRight. You hold the pocket SightRight in front of your face and about chin level, and you move the pocket SightRight 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 square to the shot line, feet shoulder width apart, with the shot line bisecting your midline. Then you move laterally 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. They suggest that you put your "chalk pouch" on your belt to mark where the shot line hits your belt. You can then use that mark while you are playing in place of the pocket SightRight.
3. Step in. You step in, starting with your right foot, every so slightly to your left (for a right handed player), 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. If you don't step to the left far enough when you step in, then the tip of your cue will angle across the shot line to your left. If you step 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 your cue on the shot line (by which they mean your whole cue).
5. During the step in, the lines on the pocket SightRight will no longer line up.
6. After you get down on the shot, then 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. 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 "Stance", you can see that his stance is very square to the shot line, and his cue is pretty close to his right hip. I think SightRight would like his stance. Basically, you are assuming a square-to-the-shotline 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.

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....

first of all sight right i dont think will help the op
the gadget would definitely help in finding your vision center
it does a good job at that
but it also forces you to adopt a snooker approach to stance and alignment (not necessarily bad but bad if you stand pool style...ie one more thing to change)
there are other ways to find your vision center
i am right handed and left eye dominant
i bought site right and like 7stud
the step in was a problem for me starting from a square position
my head moved off line and and there was alot of zig zag in the stepping
i have developed for me where i stand angled(like my pool stance) to the shot while back aligning but my head is forward so i am not looking across the shot line
i verified i am not looking across the shot line with the sight right gadget
i emailed them and tried to discuss the pro/con of what i was doing
i even said i would pay for a 1/2 - 1 hour zoom call with stephen hendry to discuss it
they said the way they present it is the only correct way(paraphrasing)
and stephen hendry nor them ever contacted me regarding talking to him
so for the op
i think the sightright would be a waste of your money
for what you are trying to accomplish
if anyone wants to discuss sight right more do it by pm or start another thread so this thread doesnt go sideways and turn in to a sight right thread
jmho

 

[ShootingArts]

hu
what hand is your dominant hand and which eye is dominant?

I am right handed and weakly right eye dominant. My skills with my left hand are pretty poor but with training and effort I can become moderately well coordinated with the left hand.

When I was doing pretty heavy work of various types I deliberately conditioned my left hand until it was stronger than my right. Let it be the one that suffered minor damage if one hand was injured. After being a desk jockey for years when I tested grip at a doctor's office my grip in my left hand was only 2/3 the strength of the grip in my right hand with neither directly injured but possibly some effect from back and neck injuries.

Short version, right/right.(grin)

Hu

 

[bbb]

I am right handed and weakly right eye dominant. My skills with my left hand are pretty poor but with training and effort I can become moderately well coordinated with the left hand.

When I was doing pretty heavy work of various types I deliberately conditioned my left hand until it was stronger than my right. Let it be the one that suffered minor damage if one hand was injured. After being a desk jockey for years when I tested grip at a doctor's office my grip in my left hand was only 2/3 the strength of the grip in my right hand with neither directly injured but possibly some effect from back and neck injuries.

Short version, right/right.(grin)

Hu

thanks for the reply hu..............

 

[pw98]

first of all sight right i dont think will help the op
the gadget would definitely help in finding your vision center
it does a good job at that
but it also forces you to adopt a snooker approach to stance and alignment (not necessarily bad but bad if you stand pool style...ie one more thing to change)
there are other ways to find your vision center
i am right handed and left eye dominant
i bought site right and like 7stud
the step in was a problem for me starting from a square position
my head moved off line and and there was alot of zig zag in the stepping
i have developed for me where i stand angled(like my pool stance) to the shot while back aligning but my head is forward so i am not looking across the shot line
i verified i am not looking across the shot line with the sight right gadget
i emailed them and tried to discuss the pro/con of what i was doing
i even said i would pay for a 1/2 - 1 hour zoom call with stephen hendry to discuss it
they said the way they present it is the only correct way(paraphrasing)
and stephen hendry nor them ever contacted me regarding talking to him
so for the op
i think the sightright would be a waste of your money
for what you are trying to accomplish
if anyone wants to discuss sight right more do it by pm or start another thread so this thread doesnt go sideways and turn in to a sight right thread
jmho

The reason I suggested it is because dominant eye/vision center is known to shift as you age/fatigue. It might help him.

Anyways I'm going to stand by it sightright worked wonders for me and I've tried a ton of stuff in the past with mixed results.

The reason for the square position is it is objective. Its easy to verify that you are square so you are starting from the same point every time. If you are 'angled' then it is much harder. If your gaze angle is off a little bit then your perception totally changes and this is well documented.

Are you able to keep the shot picture constant from the time when you are square to when you go down in your stance to when you are down? To me this is an easy thing to do but it might be because I was taught by Geno to do it years ago so I've spent a lot of time on it already.

To keep the shot picture constant it helps to make sure you only move one muscle group at a time. For example when i go down i bend my knees and then my back. If i do both at once then the shot picture is modified. Even if im shooting without sightright i have to pay attention to this or I'm extremely erratic.

So work on preserving the shot picture. If you arent already doing that when you go down then you might want to practice that with how you already go down then try sightright in the future when you have that mastered.

"Preserving the shot picture' means when you go down there is zero horizontal movement of the balls. All you see is a change in vertical plane. If the horizontal plane moves the tinyest bit then you just missed the shot.

If you havent done so then working with Geno first might help.

 

[bbb]

The reason I suggested it is because dominant eye/vision center is known to shift as you age/fatigue. It might help him.

Anyways I'm going to stand by it sightright worked wonders for me and I've tried a ton of stuff in the past with mixed results.

The reason for the square position is it is objective. Its easy to verify that you are square so you are starting from the same point every time. If you are 'angled' then it is much harder. If your gaze angle is off a little bit then your perception totally changes and this is well documented.

Are you able to keep the shot picture constant from the time when you are square to when you go down in your stance to when you are down? To me this is an easy thing to do but it might be because I was taught by Geno to do it years ago so I've spent a lot of time on it already.

To keep the shot picture constant it helps to make sure you only move one muscle group at a time. For example when i go down i bend my knees and then my back. If i do both at once then the shot picture is modified. Even if im shooting without sightright i have to pay attention to this or I'm extremely erratic.

So work on preserving the shot picture. If you arent already doing that when you go down then you might want to practice that with how you already go down then try sightright in the future when you have that mastered.

"Preserving the shot picture' means when you go down there is zero horizontal movement of the balls. All you see is a change in vertical plane. If the horizontal plane moves the tinyest bit then you just missed the shot.

If you havent done so then working with Geno first might help.

I’m about to go play tennis so I don’t have time to debate you
but as I said I don’t think this thread is the place to discuss the merits of site right
I’ll send you a PM later and we can discuss it further

 

[1pocket]

So a little update. I watched the sight right videos and maybe that would help.

I tried the mesh patches but did not like them and felt like they didn’t help either. Maybe if I wore them everywhere for a week or do my mind would adjust, but I did not go that far.

What I finally stumbled on that seems to actually help is so simple it’s sort of embarrassing lol. Because my left eye always sees things blurry (not correctable w lenses) but my right is clear (up close anyway), when I get down on the shot I look for the clear cue ball, clear cue stick, and clear object ball. If they look clear, that’s using my good eye

 

[3kushn]

Too much to read in these three pages.
I haven't attempted to change eye dominance Permanently but successfully switch when needed.
Of course I have to think about it. Fairly hard to get the switch. I don't have to think hard about recognizing the situation
when I need or prefer the switch.

 

[jtaylor996]

Eye dominance issues held back my game forever. I wore contacts, and the correction was so close, and had issues with lipid buildup, that my eye dominance would switch from eye to eye and back over the course of an hour without me noticing it consciously.

The only thing for it was learning to aim with my whole face so I stay in binocular mode. I used to have one eye over the stick. Now you can draw a vertical line from the stick through my chin and nose, with my whole face squared to the shot line.

Took quite a bit to get used to that neck position, but the adjustment was well worth it in the end.

 

[Dunnn51]

I'll fess,...... imma rare-bird.
I'm anpi,...... ambie,..... anmpi,..... I can use both hands.
I can do archery,firearms ,fist-fighting, bowling, and pool with both hands.
For handwriting and throwing a baseball, I am left-handed. (I throw a BB like a girl right-handed.)
I am cross dominant which makes it a bit tricky, but not impossible.
Going to be honest here:
If you are losing vision from something like cataracts, get the eye surgery done.
Switching your eyes to the strong eye is a big "If" that can happen. (you may need the parrot)
Likely you will lose further ability in the troubled eye, and lose depth perception. I have run across 2 ppl in my life time with severe vision loss, neither had their dominant eye change.
Pls consult a professional, there are options in many cases.

 

[Welder84]

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??

Before possibly going down a rabbit hole, you might want to get a eye exam.

 

[straightline]

Just to post something, broken record time...
I find pool doesn't GAF what I'm looking at so I defy all that dominance crap and look straight and centered down the stick. With chin on the stick and focusing on the cue ball, I have a convenient double cue to align the stroke.

 

[tomatoshooter]

Right handed person, right eye dominant, left handed pool player. Pre-shot routine and alignment are paramount to keeping right eye aligned with the shot. Fatigue can result in mis-alignment if not careful...

How did that happen? My experience as left eye right hand dominant mirrors yours with regards to alignment. What's interesting is that I don't seem to miss to one side, I just lose accuracy. I often don't realize careless alignment is the problem, I just wonder why I can't make shots.

 

[1pocket]

Before possibly going down a rabbit hole, you might want to get a eye exam.

Oh I got eye exams for sure -- two different docs And new glasses too -- one pair specifically for pool (trifocal progressive like 12" -12' range overall). What I have is not cataracts, but macular scarring (not macular degeneration), and they only want to operate if it is a lot more serious than my condition. I do have it bad enough that if you are standing talking to me and look at my eyes, you will actually see the cloudiness in my left eye just standing near me.

Honestly I am not sure I have fully solved my problem (my play certainly hasn't suddenly jumped way up lol), but at least I am seeing the balls much better. The trifocal progressives are really good for pool it turns out. I hate the "seasick" feeling I get wearing around progressives, so my regular glasses are normal bifocals, but for pool where all I'm actually focusing on is supposed to be the balls and the table, the progressives are excellent!

Next step would be to try to verify my "vision center" like Dr Dave was talking about -- meaning checking to see if my new vision center is actually new or not. So far I am just gong to the alignment that feels right, based on the clear view I am now focusing on (which being clear, has to be predominantly my right eye -- because there is always blur in my left eye).

 

[Welder84]

Oh I got eye exams for sure -- two different docs And new glasses too -- one pair specifically for pool (trifocal progressive like 12" -12' range overall). What I have is not cataracts, but macular scarring (not macular degeneration), and they only want to operate if it is a lot more serious than my condition. I do have it bad enough that if you are standing talking to me and look at my eyes, you will actually see the cloudiness in my left eye just standing near me.

Honestly I am not sure I have fully solved my problem (my play certainly hasn't suddenly jumped way up lol), but at least I am seeing the balls much better. The trifocal progressives are really good for pool it turns out. I hate the "seasick" feeling I get wearing around progressives, so my regular glasses are normal bifocals, but for pool where all I'm actually focusing on is supposed to be the balls and the table, the progressives are excellent!

Next step would be to try to verify my "vision center" like Dr Dave was talking about -- meaning checking to see if my new vision center is actually new or not. So far I am just gong to the alignment that feels right, based on the clear view I am now focusing on (which being clear, has to be predominantly my right eye -- because there is always blur in my left eye).

Gotcha, I am working through eye issues myself. Good luck, Im sure you will figure it out.

 

[boogieman]

Just to post something, broken record time...
I find pool doesn't GAF what I'm looking at so I defy all that dominance crap and look straight and centered down the stick. With chin on the stick and focusing on the cue ball, I have a convenient double cue to align the stroke.

I'm sure you've noticed that you can get dual OB to the single pocket target, and also dual cb/stick to the OB. Knowing how to center your vision is like a cheat code. You get rifle sights for your pool game.

Am I seeing this right? Well, the OB is in the center of the dual CB and the CB is also in the center of the dual OB... Yep, I'm aligned/sighting with no visual distortions/optical illusions. I'm not saying I do this 100% of the time, but you bet your butt I am when it's a must make tough shot.

 

[straightline]

I'm sure you've noticed that you can get dual OB to the single pocket target, and also dual cb/stick to the OB. Knowing how to center your vision is like a cheat code. You get rifle sights for your pool game.

Am I seeing this right? Well, the OB is in the center of the dual CB and the CB is also in the center of the dual OB... Yep, I'm aligned/sighting with no visual distortions/optical illusions. I'm not saying I do this 100% of the time, but you bet your butt I am when it's a must make tough shot.

Actually haven't gone beyond aiming at the cue ball. Will give it a try. Testing for humorous content as well. Get back within the week.

 

[George the Greek]

I'm sure you've noticed that you can get dual OB to the single pocket target, and also dual cb/stick to the OB. Knowing how to center your vision is like a cheat code. You get rifle sights for your pool game.

Am I seeing this right? Well, the OB is in the center of the dual CB and the CB is also in the center of the dual OB... Yep, I'm aligned/sighting with no visual distortions/optical illusions. I'm not saying I do this 100% of the time, but you bet your butt I am when it's a must make tough shot.

I was doing that aiming technique on long/tough shots for years on a 6x12 with good results . Call it the Zen/Zone or whatever and I called it how'd you like that shot.