Correct the Eye Sight or Leave it Alone?
- Thread starter Cynabar
- Start date
I'm blind as a bat without my glasses, maybe 20/250 in my left eye and 20/200 in my right. To make matters worse, I almost lost my right eye about five years ago in a shop accident, so even though the visual acuity is slightly better in that eye (during a refractive exam), I have bad double vision and serious glare and loss of contrast in it, so everything looks like I'm looking through fog.
The accident gave me glaucoma in the right eye (which passed to my "good" eye), and to make matters worse, I have a cataract in my left eye due to age (62). So as you can see, I can't really see.
When I started playing again two years ago after a very long time away from the game I found out I shoot great without my glasses. Maybe it's just me, but I can see and feel the angles much better. The only time I could really use them is to see the way clusters are lying from far away, but I just walk around to get a closer view.
If I play long enough to get in stroke, there ain't much on the table I can't make, and what I miss I can tell it wasn't aim because I know I'm off before the balls even collide most times, it's my $2 stroke that gives me fits.
So, I wouldn't worry about playing bad because of 20/40 vision. Keep hitting them balls and you'll get a feel for all the shots and for the geometry of the table. I believe that's what it eventually comes down to anyway, no matter how you learn to aim at the start. But if decide to go ahead and get it corrected, I think contacts are a better choice if your eyes can tolerate them. Glasses cause straight lines to look curved at the outer edges. Not so good for pool since you will be looking out the top of them 90% of the shots you take.
The soul of wit is brevity. Wish I could do it.
When I wear glasses to correct my vision, they are drawing objects in front of my face in different positions then they truly sit, a slight difference that makes scant difference in pocketing most shots.
Wearing glasses with non-prescription lenses is an old hustle--players think they have some big advantage against someone who wears them.
When I wear glasses to correct my vision, they are drawing objects in front of my face in different positions then they truly sit, a slight difference that makes scant difference in pocketing most shots.
Wearing glasses with non-prescription lenses is an old hustle--players think they have some big advantage against someone who wears them.
If I want wit, I'll go to a comedy forum. I'm a whiz with one-liners, and that's often all a guy at my level can provide here, but when one of the reputedly best pool instructors in the country repeatedly fails to provide real substance to our queries on these "ask the pro" forums I have to question their intent for being here.
Sorry, Randy, but that's how I see it.
As far as glasses go, you may or may not have an extreme diopter prescription as I have, or many other myopes have. I have a good friend who needs little correction for distance but he has bad astigmatism. His lenses don't curve straight lines like mine do, but he can't see shit without them.
Then, there is the matter of refractive index of the lens material. The new high-index polycarbonate lens that they sell you because they are thinner and lighter (and much more profitable for the optician) give some folks fits with edge curvature. That's what I have. I prefer glass lenses but they aren't recommended for folks who work with machinery like I do, especially since a disaster in my good eye would leave me in a pretty hopeless situation in the world. Lightning can indeed strike the same person twice.
At any rate, contacts are the very best vision correction you can get, but they really aren't that healthy for the eyes in many people. You need to go to a good ophthalmologist for a contact exam IMHO, not some mall kiosk optometrist.
I saw a very interesting interview with Steve Holcolm this week. Steve's the guy who steered us into two bronze medals in bobsled at the Sochi Olympics. Steve suffered from a severe eye disorder called keratoconus. Keratoconus is a thinning of the cornea that eventually leads to blindness. Steve hid his disorder from the public and even from his teammates until it got to the point where he could barely see his hand clearly in front of his face. That's about how bad my right eye got before my surgery.
Steve decided to quit racing for his own safety, and that of his team. The only option available for keratoconus has been corneal transplants, which restore vision to a degree but not good vision. He was lucky enough to be offered a trial of a radical technique where a special contact lens was installed inside his eye rather than being worn on the outer cornea like a traditional contact lens. Miraculously, he was able to see 20/20 for the first time in his life. In his own words, "It was like life in HD."
Now, here's the really intriguing part. With his sliding career finally back on track (a little wit there for ya
), he set out to train like never before to get ready for a repeat gold at Sochi. Much to his chagrin, he discovered that his vision was now too good for steering the sled. By turning his runs into visual guidance rather than going by feel, he was hitting everything in sight (more wit). The answer? He started wear a scratched up old visor to reduce his visual acuity and he stopped hitting walls and started get smooth, fast runs again.
CJ has been pointing to stuff like this since he arrived here, but it's falling through the cracks with all the hoopla about TOI and "hammer strokes". This is a feel game, and obscessing over perfect mechanics and perfect vision is just not going to get you where you want to go all by itself. You really do need to "be the ball" at the higher levels. Hard to do when your trying your best to see the ball as something clearly and distinctly not you.
Sorry for the lack of brevity. I've always been a man of "however many words it takes to get my point across".
And no offense meant in my comment in the above post, Randy. It's just that I'm a long way from Texas. If I want the answer to a RandyG type question, RandyG's gonna have to provide it for me here.
If I want wit, I'll go to a comedy forum. I'm a whiz with one-liners, and that's often all a guy at my level can provide here, but when one of the reputedly best pool instructors in the country repeatedly fails to provide real substance to our queries on these "ask the pro" forums I have to question their intent for being here.
Sorry, Randy, but that's how I see it.
As far as glasses go, you may or may not have an extreme diopter prescription as I have, or many other myopes have. I have a good friend who needs little correction for distance but he has bad astigmatism. His lenses don't curve straight lines like mine do, but he can't see shit without them.
Then, there is the matter of refractive index of the lens material. The new high-index polycarbonate lens that they sell you because they are thinner and lighter (and much more profitable for the optician) give some folks fits with edge curvature. That's what I have. I prefer glass lenses but they aren't recommended for folks who work with machinery like I do, especially since a disaster in my good eye would leave me in a pretty hopeless situation in the world. Lightning can indeed strike the same person twice.
At any rate, contacts are the very best vision correction you can get, but they really aren't that healthy for the eyes in many people. You need to go to a good ophthalmologist for a contact exam IMHO, not some mall kiosk optometrist.
I saw a very interesting interview with Steve Holcolm this week. Steve's the guy who steered us into two bronze medals in bobsled at the Sochi Olympics. Steve suffered from a severe eye disorder called keratoconus. Keratoconus is a thinning of the cornea that eventually leads to blindness. Steve hid his disorder from the public and even from his teammates until it got to the point where he could barely see his hand clearly in front of his face. That's about how bad my right eye got before my surgery.
Steve decided to quit racing for his own safety, and that of his team. The only option available for keratoconus has been corneal transplants, which restore vision to a degree but not good vision. He was lucky enough to be offered a trial of a radical technique where a special contact lens was installed inside his eye rather than being worn on the outer cornea like a traditional contact lens. Miraculously, he was able to see 20/20 for the first time in his life. In his own words, "It was like life in HD."
Now, here's the really intriguing part. With his sliding career finally back on track (a little wit there for ya
The answer? He started wear a scratched up old visor to reduce his visual acuity and he stopped hitting walls and started get smooth, fast runs again.
CJ has been pointing to stuff like this since he arrived here, but it's falling through the cracks with all the hoopla about TOI and "hammer strokes". This is a feel game, and obscessing over perfect mechanics and perfect vision is just not going to get you where you want to go all by itself. You really do need to "be the ball" at the higher levels. Hard to do when your trying your best to see the ball as something clearly and distinctly not you.
Sorry for the lack of brevity. I've always been a man of "however many words it takes to get my point across".
No problem.
I answer many questions in full detail.
The question I answered here only asked for a Yes or No.
randyg
Sounds simple enough. If you don't have glasses, get a pair. If you shoot better without them then just revert to riding bareback.
I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't imagine most people would play better when their vision is worse.
I'm sure there are exceptions but I can't imagine most people would play better when their vision is worse.
Yes and no...........
I played only on bar tables up until I got my eyes fixed in 1994.
I was just barely legal to drive. I had to squint real bad to pass the driving test.
Once I got the eyes fixed I could play on the 9 footer and really liked it.
I couldn't imagine if my eye were a little worse and trying to play.
I recommend getting them corrected with laser. It's cheap now and it will add so much more to life being able to see without glasses sitting on your nose. For me this was always such a nuisance to say the least.
When I had my eyes fixed they first did what they called mono vision. Fixed the left eye for seeing far away objects and left the other eye so I could see close.
I was surprised at how bad it looked to cut a ball to the right. My right eye sights the ball with cuts to the right. It was terrible compared to the left. The left was crystal clear.
After seeing this big difference I went back to the eye doc and had the right eye fixed.
My eyes were about 30-40 if I remember right. They did the RK surgery with the little cuts back then. Now it's mostly laser.
Good luck. I would fix whatever I could so as not to use glasses at all even if it is just one eye.
Open and close an eye when you cut a ball to the right and to the left. You will see that the right eye is actually doing the aiming on the balls to the right. And the left to the left.
This can make a big difference on how you envision shots both ways.
I played only on bar tables up until I got my eyes fixed in 1994.
I was just barely legal to drive. I had to squint real bad to pass the driving test.
Once I got the eyes fixed I could play on the 9 footer and really liked it.
I couldn't imagine if my eye were a little worse and trying to play.
I recommend getting them corrected with laser. It's cheap now and it will add so much more to life being able to see without glasses sitting on your nose. For me this was always such a nuisance to say the least.
When I had my eyes fixed they first did what they called mono vision. Fixed the left eye for seeing far away objects and left the other eye so I could see close.
I was surprised at how bad it looked to cut a ball to the right. My right eye sights the ball with cuts to the right. It was terrible compared to the left. The left was crystal clear.
After seeing this big difference I went back to the eye doc and had the right eye fixed.
My eyes were about 30-40 if I remember right. They did the RK surgery with the little cuts back then. Now it's mostly laser.
Good luck. I would fix whatever I could so as not to use glasses at all even if it is just one eye.
Open and close an eye when you cut a ball to the right and to the left. You will see that the right eye is actually doing the aiming on the balls to the right. And the left to the left.
This can make a big difference on how you envision shots both ways.