Dominent Eye Quiz. Answer. What is the MIDDLE?

[genomachino]

Hi there everyone.

During my travels and lessons with Perfect Aim I have learned many things. Just when you think you know what you are talking about you learn some more.

This middle that I am talking about is there for everyone. To find out which way to move your head and eyes in this area to see every shot as perfect as possible it is very neccesary to identify your dominent eye. And unless you do this properly Perfect Aim would be aimless and appear to not work.

And yes, everyone does have a dominent eye. We just have to look real hard and know a few advanced tests to find it sometimes. This could be the toughest challenge when someone buys the video versus having a private lesson is to correctly identify the dominent eye. Once this is done it goes pretty well and the player can understand what it is they are learning.

To find this middle I want you to set up a shot that is about 5 feet long and straght. It will be easier to identify what I am talking about if you get down real low on the cue. I'm not asking you to shoot this way but just to look. Now move your head and eyes to the right as far as you possibly can and mark this spot in your mind. Now move your head to the left as far as you possibly can and you will see that you can move your head anywheres from a half an inch up to an inch and one half.

Basically what you are doing here is moving your head one way and this might be your dominent eye. The shot should look real good if this is your dominent eye. Then when you move the other way you are basically forcing your non-dominent eye to try and be your dominent eye and you will be able to see the shot but it will not look quite right. You might feel like you are going crosseyed a little because your real dominent eye is still trying to run the show. And it will try.

This area between here is where everyone pretty much has their cue stick. The ability to aim directly corrolates with how well a player positions the eyes in the most perfect position within this middle area. The ones that are the farthest from the right position are the players that have the most trouble making shots.

Some players do this naturally better than others just like some hit a golf ball better than others. Pool is the only sport where you are looking down a stick and experience these types of problems. It does not fit into any type of aiming with hardly anything except a little with a rifle but you are isolating one eye there. With pool you need to keep both eyes open and you have many illusions to deal with.

There is absolutely no reason not to see the shot correctly if your eyes are in the right position. There is only one spot to have your head on each peticular shot. Just like when you are aiming a rifle. But the natural sight when aiming a pool shot is not marked so good so you have to know how to find it on each and every shot.

To teach someone how to get to this perfect spot you have to identify a few things. Dominent eye is a must or nothing will make any sense. Most of the time a player will have this dominent eye close to where it needs to be but in the perfect spot is much better. This is why sometimes we get down on a shot and it doesn't quite look right. We get back up ,and get back down and now it looks better. You just naturally got your eyes in a more correct position the second time.

Once a person learns how this all works they can teach themselves how to get the eyes in the most correct position. It can be fun once you can get to seeing the shots good. You could still miss the shot but you have it aimed right and you know it because it looks good.

Now you can work on all the other aspects of pool that make it the game we love. The stroke , stance, english, mental and many others. And feel more confident and in turn have more fun.

And that's what it is all about.

Have Happy Holidays everyone and a Merry Christmas.

Thanks for participating. Geno.................

 

[Fastolfe]

75% of my beginner students have a problem with the mechanics of their shooting arm caused by a variety of position problems in the hips, shoulders, wrist, grip etc... Once they find their elbow plane, their potting abilities suddenly increases threefold. At that point, every angle they look at when they shoot creates a repeatable result, and their brains quickly associates "this shot = this cueball fullness" subconsciously in a matter of hours. That sudden increase in performances is due entirely to reliable body mechanics. What I teach my students is how to acquire the reflex of rechecking their body position before their brains start "losing the angles", when their performances drop, which happens to all of us, all the time.

I'm saying all this, Geno, because my small experience in teaching these things to beginners tells me your method will not benefit someone whose body doesn't play straight. It would help someone who plays crooked to better see shots they shouldn't be making in the first place.

So I'm curious: who's your target audience for Perfect Aim lessons? is it good players who want to become even better? That would make sense to me. Also, if you advise someone to change, say, from aiming in the center to aiming with the right eye, do you help them reposition their entire body to accomodate their new line of sight? For someone who has been playing for a long time, that would be quite a drastic change to their stance, habits and reflexes, so you must be pretty sure of your method if it requires revisiting such basic fundamentals.

I'm not trying to make you reveal your secrets , just to understand roughly where you take your students with your Perfect Aim method.

Take care and Merry Christmas.

 

[cookie man]

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right, stuck in the middle with you. Thank you Gene.

 

[JAW725]

75% of my beginner students have a problem with the mechanics of their shooting arm caused by a variety of position problems in the hips, shoulders, wrist, grip etc... Once they find their elbow plane, their potting abilities suddenly increases threefold. At that point, every angle they look at when they shoot creates a repeatable result, and their brains quickly associates "this shot = this cueball fullness" subconsciously in a matter of hours. That sudden increase in performances is due entirely to reliable body mechanics. What I teach my students is how to acquire the reflex of rechecking their body position before their brains start "losing the angles", when their performances drop, which happens to all of us, all the time.

I'm saying all this, Geno, because my small experience in teaching these things to beginners tells me your method will not benefit someone whose body doesn't play straight. It would help someone who plays crooked to better see shots they shouldn't be making in the first place.

So I'm curious: who's your target audience for Perfect Aim lessons? is it good players who want to become even better? That would make sense to me. Also, if you advise someone to change, say, from aiming in the center to aiming with the right eye, do you help them reposition their entire body to accomodate their new line of sight? For someone who has been playing for a long time, that would be quite a drastic change to their stance, habits and reflexes, so you must be pretty sure of your method if it requires revisiting such basic fundamentals.

I'm not trying to make you reveal your secrets , just to understand roughly where you take your students with your Perfect Aim method.

Take care and Merry Christmas.

Very good questions Fastolfe. I use Pro One/ CTE aiming which I believe is more then strong, however just a slight change in my approach may throw out my mechanics and perhaps negate the entire aiming method.

 

[genomachino]

I agree. These are very important.

75% of my beginner students have a problem with the mechanics of their shooting arm caused by a variety of position problems in the hips, shoulders, wrist, grip etc... Once they find their elbow plane, their potting abilities suddenly increases threefold. At that point, every angle they look at when they shoot creates a repeatable result, and their brains quickly associates "this shot = this cueball fullness" subconsciously in a matter of hours. That sudden increase in performances is due entirely to reliable body mechanics. What I teach my students is how to acquire the reflex of rechecking their body position before their brains start "losing the angles", when their performances drop, which happens to all of us, all the time.

I'm saying all this, Geno, because my small experience in teaching these things to beginners tells me your method will not benefit someone whose body doesn't play straight. It would help someone who plays crooked to better see shots they shouldn't be making in the first place.

So I'm curious: who's your target audience for Perfect Aim lessons? is it good players who want to become even better? That would make sense to me. Also, if you advise someone to change, say, from aiming in the center to aiming with the right eye, do you help them reposition their entire body to accomodate their new line of sight? For someone who has been playing for a long time, that would be quite a drastic change to their stance, habits and reflexes, so you must be pretty sure of your method if it requires revisiting such basic fundamentals.

I'm not trying to make you reveal your secrets , just to understand roughly where you take your students with your Perfect Aim method.

Take care and Merry Christmas.

Hi there Fastolf,

Your right that these things are so important.

First I want to share a story with you. There was a young lady by the name of Angela Jackson in Eau Claire,Wi. She played pool at a little kids joint called Mini-Putter. A friend of mine, Hal Hawkins called me up and asked me if I could come and help this young lady improve her pool game. He said she thinks she is going to win the Junior Nationals in a month or so but she needs some help.

There was not really anyone that had showed this gal hardly anything. But just from banging the balls around she played fairly well but a far cry from winning a national championship.

I worked with her for a couple of hours showing her how to aim the shots. I didn't call it perfect Aim back then in fact I didn't call it anything. After we were done she thanked me and I went home.

Three days later Hal calls me up. He said your not going to believe this. You know that little gal you worked with. She's not missing a ball. You gotta see this.

He was right. I had to see for myself. After seeing what I saw I offered to work with her some more. Showed her how to play a safe and a few other things. Not more than 5 hours total lesson time if that.

This little gal won the Junior Nationals that Year. Since then she has been the Wis State Womens champ numerous years.

I don't know if you would call her a beginner but she was pretty green to the game of pool and had very little constructive instructions if any.

Anyway, back to the aiming..........

The aiming process starts while you are standing up straight. We get in the right position for the stance by looking with our eyes. This vision of the shot we see while we are up higher is the one we want to duplicate once we are down on the shot.

For a beginner you do need to work on hips, shoulders, wrist, bridge, stance and many other things for sure and that's great. Even for players that have played a LONG TIME need to work on these things.

Perfect Aim will help a beginner alot because the body will follow the eyes. The body needs to coordinate the information that the eyes are giving it. That's why teachers such as yourself are so important especially for the beginner. But there are alot of players around that need to learn the things you talk about that have been playing a long time.

Your eyes will naturally get close to the right position to see the shot correctly. The ones that naturally get closer to this perfect spot play better than others. The further they are from this perfect spot the worse they shot. Many players just have trouble getting to this perfect spot on peticular shots. They naturally get there well on most shots. Then all of a sudden they miss by a mile. It didn't look right when they first got down. The brain didn't get the right information because the eyes were not lined up right.

There are so many players that are kind of stuck in a rut and can't seem to get any better. They continue to dread the same shots over and over.

Try this yourself on a straight in shot. Get down on the shot and just move your head back and forth about 1/4 inch. You can see how much the aim will change. It is such a fine line from being in the right spot or not.

On an angle shot the target gets smaller because we are only aiming at a part of a ball. Now we have to be even more precise. A little bit this way or that with the eyes makes a world of difference like when we miss the ball all together. It looked like we were going to hit it but the eyes were not in the perfect position.

Even the pros miss the ball completely sometimes. They didn't see the shot right.

Once you teach the basic techniques that a person needs to know there is a reason that one person with the same amount of time and practice plays much better than most. To them the game looks easy because they see the shots great because they are naturally getting the eyes in the more perfect position.

Bottom line. Anyone that picks up a cue stick and wants to play better is a candidate for Perfect Aim. It is the fine tuning for the players that don't do this naturally as good as the next. But they can be taught just like teaching how to aim a gun. There is only one spot to have the eyes to see the shot correctly. If you don't see the shot right and have it aimed wrong it doesn't matter what you do you will probably miss.

Now there are other methods to get the eyes in the correct position. Many are very good. And they help players see the shots better. With Perfect Aim I try to teach a player where to position the eyes and learn how to correct themselves on all their shots.

No matter what method you use the eyes have to be in the right position. You should know which eye is doing the shooting and where this eye needs to be positioned to see the shot the best.

I'll never forget the day I showed Perfect Aim to Rodney Morris st Bullshooters in Phoenix, AZ.

He said it all with this statement. This is something your eyes and body want to do naturally.
If you are missing the ball your not seeing it right.

Signed Rocket Rodney Morris.. SAW THE LIGHT 7/6 09

I asked him what he thought of the name. His reply was Perfect.
Perfect Aim.........

Thanks for the reply. great Question. Geno..........:smile:

 

[genomachino]

That was Perfect.............

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right, stuck in the middle with you. Thank you Gene.

Hi there Cookie man,

I'm still laughing so hard I can hardly type.

That has to be the cleaverest little statement of the year.

Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year Geno.

My Christmas Joke.

What three men go HO HO HO.

Santa Claus, The jolly green giant and Mel Tillis.

Santa is obvious, Jolly Green Giant said HO HO HO Green giant.

Mels agent asked him what took him so long to call him back. Mel's answer was; I was looking for a ho ho ho tel room#@$^%*&^:smile::grin-square:

 

[BGhost]

Geno,

I followed the previous thread for two weeks waiting for the answer and I feel a little bit disappointed with what you've come up. I don't understand if you don't want to reveal how to find that perfect shot alignment without buying your DVD or you think the holy secret lies in moving our heads back and forth on straight shots? My guess is that you sincerely wanted to share something with us, but didn't explain it very well. I am a left eye dominant right handed player and I do have a problem finding the middle, so I would be grateful if you would take some time and explain how to find the middle once again.

I was thinking of running an occasional rack left handed just to see if I can train my inferior hand to play with it. Do you think it would be a good idea? I'm still a novice to the game and it's not like I'm great with the right hand either.

 

[Fastolfe]

Hey Geno,

Thanks for the long answer. If I understand correctly, your method works on the entire body by concentrating on sighting, that is, line up the eye and the rest will follow. Of course I'm oversimplifying but that's the general gist, if I got the idea. Funny, I teach the exact opposite: I tell my student "if your cue travels very straight, it doesn't really matter what you see and from what eye, so long as the picture you present to your brain is always the same". In the end, I wonder if we don't take different approaches to the same result.

About the young lady you corrected in a matter of hours, I have a feeling she was a natural, meaning she had pool in her blood even before playing. You set her straight and off she was. I've seen those before: they take one or two lessons and end up playing great without efforts. I'm always jealous when I meet someone like this because I'm not a natural, and I have to work to play straight

 

[Fastolfe]

I was thinking of running an occasional rack left handed just to see if I can train my inferior hand to play with it. Do you think it would be a good idea? I'm still a novice to the game and it's not like I'm great with the right hand either.

The question wasn't for me, but I'll answer as well if you don't mind.

It depends on how dedicated you are to the game in the long run. I personally have been training both hands for 20 years. My first teacher, who was a carom champion, told me it's a good investment, not only because you can play any shot from any part of the table without having to assume a stupid position, but also because you don't just train a hand and the other, you train yourself as a whole.

In other words, when you train the left hand, you train the right hand too and vice versa. The best proof of that is, the first time you tried to play left-handed, you could. Not well, awkwardly, but you could. Your brain can transpose skills from one side to the other. Often, when I train left-handed then switch back to training right handed, I play better.

The problem is that it can be frustrating, and it takes twice as long per training set. But there's a way to train left-handed and have fun: when you're alone at the pool hall, play against yourself, one "player" right handed and the other left handed. You'll be surprised how interesting that can be.

 

[LAMas]

When sighting a straight in shot, if I close one eye and then the other, there will be one eye that is on line and the other not - the eye that is on line is my dominant eye. In my case, it is the right eye and I try to line up the shaft of my cue on the right side of my chin right below my right eye an I have good results.

A good shoother Andy Scott, used to close his non-dominant eye when aiming and that worked for him.

What part of what I describe is the "middle"?

Is it that some have about equal eye dominance and that the middle in this case be more usefull?

Thanks for the thread.

 

[genomachino]

That sounds great.............

The question wasn't for me, but I'll answer as well if you don't mind.

It depends on how dedicated you are to the game in the long run. I personally have been training both hands for 20 years. My first teacher, who was a carom champion, told me it's a good investment, not only because you can play any shot from any part of the table without having to assume a stupid position, but also because you don't just train a hand and the other, you train yourself as a whole.

In other words, when you train the left hand, you train the right hand too and vice versa. The best proof of that is, the first time you tried to play left-handed, you could. Not well, awkwardly, but you could. Your brain can transpose skills from one side to the other. Often, when I train left-handed then switch back to training right handed, I play better.

The problem is that it can be frustrating, and it takes twice as long per training set. But there's a way to train left-handed and have fun: when you're alone at the pool hall, play against yourself, one "player" right handed and the other left handed. You'll be surprised how interesting that can be.

Hi there,

What a great way to practice. Anyone that shoots both ways should try that.

Here's something interesting to know. Have someone look at your eyes when you shoot. Wether you shoot right handed or left handed your eyes will be in the exact same position. It might not feel like it to you but have someone look and there they are.

Merry Christmas

 

[genomachino]

The middle of the middle is where you don't want to be.

When sighting a straight in shot, if I close one eye and then the other, there will be one eye that is on line and the other not - the eye that is on line is my dominant eye. In my case, it is the right eye and I try to line up the shaft of my cue on the right side of my chin right below my right eye an I have good results.

A good shoother Andy Scott, used to close his non-dominant eye when aiming and that worked for him.

What part of what I describe is the "middle"?

Is it that some have about equal eye dominance and that the middle in this case be more usefull?

Thanks for the thread.

Hi there,

Many players that don't know where the eyes should be drift around in this middle on many shots. Some shots they make and some shots they don't. It usually cooincides with where their eyes are. Depending on your eye dominence you have to be on the edge of the middle. Thie way only one eye is giving you the information.

The secret here is the eye that is doing the aiming will not really be in the middle of the cue ball but on the edge and on the edge of the object ball. Play around with this. You will see this is correct. When you close one eye or the other it will appear not to be lined up with either eye. But one will be right on the egde and the edge. This is your dominent eye if it looks good on this edge of the middle.

Manhy players won't understand what I just said but this is it on the straight in shot.

Merry Christmas. Going to moms and have a Christmas Dinner. Hope you have a great day...............

 

[Fastolfe]

What part of what I describe is the "middle"?

My understanding is that Gene's "middle" is a kind of sweet spot where the lateral positioning of your eyes is optimal over the shaft and you feel it's right.

 

[BGhost]

The question wasn't for me, but I'll answer as well if you don't mind.

It depends on how dedicated you are to the game in the long run. I personally have been training both hands for 20 years. My first teacher, who was a carom champion, told me it's a good investment, not only because you can play any shot from any part of the table without having to assume a stupid position, but also because you don't just train a hand and the other, you train yourself as a whole.

In other words, when you train the left hand, you train the right hand too and vice versa. The best proof of that is, the first time you tried to play left-handed, you could. Not well, awkwardly, but you could. Your brain can transpose skills from one side to the other. Often, when I train left-handed then switch back to training right handed, I play better.

The problem is that it can be frustrating, and it takes twice as long per training set. But there's a way to train left-handed and have fun: when you're alone at the pool hall, play against yourself, one "player" right handed and the other left handed. You'll be surprised how interesting that can be.

Thanks for the answer. I'm taking some lessons and asked my instructor the same question. His answer was similar to yours. He said I should try it if I'm willing to invest time in practicing both hands because it's a good way to practice both hemispheres of the brain which is beneficial for seeing the table better. I think I'll try it once I go through the basics for my right hand.

 

[pdcue]

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[BGhost]

Thanks to additional explanation from Geno, I now know what he meant by the middle. I'll try it next time I'm at the table and I'll post the results.

 

[Fastolfe]

Here's something interesting to know. Have someone look at your eyes when you shoot. Wether you shoot right handed or left handed your eyes will be in the exact same position. It might not feel like it to you but have someone look and there they are.

I shoot with the cue at the center (both hands). I know because the shaft slides on the center of my chin.

I am right-eye dominant, and I definitely line up my right eye when I shoot guns, but when I play pool, I play completely centered. I tried shifting my cue to the left and to the right before, but I cannot for the life of me see anything if I don't play centered. I feel the need to see a symmetrical "V" (my cue seen from both eyes) to aim good. Strange isn't it? I think it's just the way I learned. Now that I'm used to it, no point in changing.

 

[LAMas]

Perhaps you tilt your head a bit so that your dominant eye is right above your shaft - though your shaft is centered on your chin.:smile:

 

[pdcue]

Hi there everyone.

During my travels and lessons with Perfect Aim I have learned many things. Just when you think you know what you are talking about you learn some more.

Can I get some clairification please?

1. Is the overall idea "where do you put your eyes - specifically
your dominAnt eye, in relation to the cue shaft"?

2. Do I understand you to say that you should have your dominant eye
in different positions, relative to the shaft, on different shots,
depending on the angle of the shot?

Dale

 

[Fastolfe]

Perhaps you tilt your head a bit so that your dominant eye is right above your shaft - though your shaft is centered on your chin.:smile:

Nope. I happen to play with glasses, and I make sure my glasses' top frame bar is about perpendicular to my cue I've been bitten by the tilted head syndrome before so now I'm careful.

But I think you may be onto something here: if people played with their cue sliding over their ear, their head tilted 90 degrees, then *both* their eyes would be over the cue. Genius!!