Is Dominant Eye Really What's Important?

2 pennies

Lou,
My first thought was that I envy you.

I played pretty well years ago and was mostly self taught. The only tip I can recall was to get my head over my cue stick shortly after I started playing. For me that meant putting my right eye over it. My right eye was very dominant and was better than 20/20. Now it's 20/20 but with a slight astigmatism.
After shooting for several years, I had someone ask if I was blind in my left eye. He could see how much I favored my right eye when I played. I was a bit shocked. My left eye had always been quite poor, but I saw so well with my right eye that I had quit trying to correct the left. At times it couldn't be corrected to 20/20. And the prescription seemed to vary. Tired of it, I had quit wearing glasses... This was the first time I realized that I was favoring my right eye when I shot pool!
Fast forward to a year ago. I thought I was going blind (at 42). I won't go into all the troubles I had or how freaked out I was. Suffice to say that I had cataract surgery last fall. I went from being far-sighted to being near-sighted and my left eye is now easily corrected. That created some vertical imbalance at first (much less now). I also have noticed that dominance can shift to the left depending on my head position (not just playing pool).
I also starting playing again last fall after a layoff of about 6 years. For 4 or 5 years prior to that, I played very sparingly. I'm glad to be back, but it is very different for me. I thought it would be easy to relearn teh game after such a long layoff, but I over cut a lot of long shots, for one thing.
I spent a couple hours with Bob Jewett a while back. He pointed out that I set up a bit left of center when I am hitting what I think is center ball.
At this point, I think my brain needs time to get used to getting information from both eyes. I also think I had a cataract (to some degree) in my left eye for much, if not all, of my life.
I guess that's a lot to say just to say that there is no rule about how we see things and rather that it's likely many of us see things differently than you do.
Funny thing is, I did some things incredibly well with just one eye, things that are very difficult for me now.
Anyway.............
Karl
 
Here is some information that may be relevant to more than just me.... I cannot physically cross my eyes so I have to depend on extreme dominance now that I am older and can no longer use the actual focus function to create parallax...... As a smoker I started the hardening process of the lens a decade or more before age would have done so.....

The Growing Epidemic of Adult Convergence Insufficiency

March 8, 2011 by Dr. Rochelle Mozlin

Today’s guest blogger is Dr. Mary VanHoy. Dr. VanHoy practices in Indianapolis, Indiana. Her practice is limited to behavioral/developmental and neuro-rehabilitative optometric care. She has been practicing for over 30 years and hopes to practice for another 30 years!

This summer I became acutely aware of a growing number of adult patients, predominately female, either self-referred or referred by other health care offices, with complaints of blurred vision, dizziness, disorientation, double vision, and difficulties adjusting to their bifocals or reading lenses. A careful health history did not reveal any remarkable clues such as a change in medication or recent health challenges. Some noticed an increase in myopia (nearsightedness) along with the need for a bifocal yet they could not adjust to the bifocal portion. Another interesting observation was that their ages ranged from the early 40s to early 50s.

Clinical testing usually revealed unaided or correctable 20/20 visual acuities and good ocular health but in carefully evaluating their ability to maintain convergence, it became clear that this particular population had been relying primarily upon their accommodative convergence rather than utilizing fusional convergence to maintain clear, single, binocular (two-eyed) function.

When accommodative convergence is used, the extraocular muscles are being stimulated to point inward by a neurological link to the muscles that control the crystalline lens of the eye in order to change of focus from far to near. When fusional convergence is used, the extraocular muscles are being stimulated to point inward in order to avoid double vision. Perhaps these patients have relied upon their accommodative systems all their lives and this may account in part for their myopia. However, their difficulties and symptoms arose when they began to lose the flexibility of their crystalline lens due to aging (presbyopia) and their ability to call upon their focusing system to maintain clear, single, binocular vision began to fail them.
 
Despite my less than steady hand and my less than steady nerves, I guess I'm lucky in one respect. I see the same with my left eye closed as I do with both eyes. I have no trouble "seeing the line". I've blissfully ignored all the talk about eye dominance and will continue to do so.

I guess we all look for reasons why we don't make every shot but I've never felt the need to question my visual perception. Here's my list of what goes wrong for me (for center ball hits):

- I aimed at the wrong spot. I hit where I wanted to hit but it didn't go in, therefore I aimed at the wrong spot. Sometimes you just aren't sure.

- I didn't hit where I wanted to hit. My alignment was off and I rushed the shot instead of correcting it, or my stroke was crooked because of the afore-mentioned unsteady nerves.

- And, of course, there can be a combination of the two.

Sometimes I think we over-think things. Do you suppose Mosconi or Greenleaf or Earl or Efren ever gave a moment's thought to eye dominance? Do you think they would have been better players if they had? My answers are no and no.
 
simple answer

Rich93 said:
Sometimes I think we over-think things. Do you suppose Mosconi or Greenleaf or Earl or Efren ever gave a moment's thought to eye dominance? Do you think they would have been better players if they had? My answers are no and no.
Click to expand...

They didn't give it a thought because they didn't have to, or put another way, they wouldn't have been better because they couldn't make an improvement by doing so.
Read about Ted Williams' vision sometime. He was truly blessed.
Some of us do have trouble with how we see and have to work at it. And it does make a difference for us.
Karl
 
Rich93 said:
Sometimes I think we over-think things. Do you suppose Mosconi or Greenleaf or Earl or Efren ever gave a moment's thought to eye dominance? Do you think they would have been better players if they had? My answers are no and no.
Click to expand...

Richard Kranicki wrote book called An Answer to a Pool Players Prayers. I think he cites Mosconi as a source for much of the information so the right answers are Yes and It did...... :yeah:
 
KCRack'em said:
...
I spent a couple hours with Bob Jewett a while back. He pointed out that I set up a bit left of center when I am hitting what I think is center ball.
At this point, I think my brain needs time to get used to getting information from both eyes. I also think I had a cataract (to some degree) in my left eye for much, if not all, of my life.
I guess that's a lot to say just to say that there is no rule about how we see things and rather that it's likely many of us see things differently than you do.
Funny thing is, I did some things incredibly well with just one eye, things that are very difficult for me now.
Anyway.............
Karl
Click to expand...

Try getting a little more left eye into the shot. It will bring your tip to center cue ball. Move your head/eyes very slightly to the right and see what happens. Good luck with your "new" vision. :thumbup:

Best,
Mike
 
I’m a 53-year-old who’s very nearsighted, and always have been. I wear only one contact lens, in my right eye, because that’s the more nearsighted one. I wear only one lens because with two lenses I can’t read a menu with 40-point type and carrying around reading glasses sucks. So my eyes are conditioned to seeing up close with my left eye and distance with my right eye (or maybe both eyes - binocular). I’m a right-hander but strongly left-eye dominant. Confused yet? I hold the stick under my left eye — otherwise I’m off by a diamond. I’m not a world-beater, I’m a B+, but I’m pretty sure I’d suck just as much/little if I were not cross-dominant. Personally, I think the whole left eye-right eye debate is just another excuse for sucking. Mosconi was a righty who obviously was left-eye dominant and he shot pretty well. Eye dominance is not the answer, stroke is.
 
3kushn said:
cleary
I know your a decent player so excuse me fo my unqualified suggestion.
It sounds like you head hasn't found a consistent spot.

Maybe not so but the reason I say that is this experiment. Do the "form a triangle with
the thumbs/forefingers dominate eye test thing." Close one eye then the other and all that stuff.
But now keep your hands up there and move the triangle left to right and back with both eyes open.
You'll see why I said earlier dominate eye tests need to be done several times to confirm.
Depending on how your triangle goes up also
influences the results.
Click to expand...

I actually do this test a lot because this has become a problem. Its very possible you are right but I dont know how to find out.

I first realized this problem a little over a year ago. I was never really good at stop shots. I could never get the cueball to just stop dead in its tracks. It would always drift a little or sometimes a lot. I had just lost a few sets to someone and I was playing terrible... AZ poster "GMAC" was there and started helping me a bit with my game and he noticed I wasn't lining up to center ball with my right eye over the cue like always. I wasn't even close center ball. It looked dead center to me but I couldn't shoot straight at that particular time. He told me to add a tip of left english. Apparently now I was at center ball. I couldn't believe it. My eyes saw a tip of left english.

So sometimes I would play fine but most of the time it took a crooked stroke to get the ball where I wanted it to go due to lining up bad. Once I moved to cue to the left eye, it opened up a whole new world of pool but also its taken a lot of time to fix old habits.

But the left eye, as I said, isn't always working. It took a long time to realize I needed to switch eyes. Costing me a lot... I would go for a while playing my normal speed and then hit a wall and cannot make a ball. I can think of several times this has hurt me when I was deep in a tournament and several times while gambling.

But now that I understand the problem, I can adjust but I don't always adjust in time.
 
Lou,

I think your analysis of the methodology to play this game at a high level is, for sure, correct! A straight stroke is what I've wanted for Xmas for many years. Add a repeatable PSR and staying down on the shot, you've got milk.

This is probably achievable with some instruction early on, and being nurtured by better players around you as you progress. Having the right tools is the luck of the draw to add to the mix. We are not all created equal and what one finds easy, another struggles with and never quite gets "it".

One of these issues is a subtle, yet frustrating one. It is switching eye dominance which is what your brain is supposed to do. In everyday activities, it takes the best visual input and uses it to blend, yet favor one eye over the other. When you look left or right, you effortlessly switch dominance until you have a specific task in front of you. Detail work is given to your more dominant eye.

Most players never even know they have a dominant eye and don't care about it because they have never had any problems relating to it. I've never understood why people can't catch high pop ups or hit a curve ball. It has never been a problem for me. They are only seeing things differently than I am. With proper training, they can improve their abilities, but will they surpass me? You can go on and on about situations where one person's forte is a nightmare for somebody else. Suffice it to say that unless a careful amount of research is given to this frustrating issue, one would not understand.

Ninety per cent of my misses on makeable shots is because I get a false picture from my eyes. If I notice it before I shoot and reset, I can easily increase my potting ten fold. If I pull the trigger, I will dog the ball 9/10 times. The problem being I am looking at the contact point with the wrong blending of the eyes. My body sets up in a slightly incorrect alignment. The subconscious mind picks up on this incorrect alignment and does it's correction... steering the cue to pocket the ball. But the shot looks good initially.

After many years of an incorrect alignment from an improper visual input, and conscious and unconscious compensations for these errors, your stroke becomes a steering wheel. The lucky ones are those that line up correctly from the git. The game is easy when you are lined up right from the start or are corrected by a helping hand along the way.

It took me years to figure out why I could run 100 balls one night and struggle with a single rack the next night. I'd run ten balls and drive an easy shot into the rail. It just didn't make sense. I wondered who was going to show up every night I went out to play. I still don't have the absolute cure, but I know what my nemesis is. I need a foolproof method of keeping my dominant eye, dominant. Or more correctly, a way to ensure my visual perception is the correct one. This view matches my natural alignment and allows me to pocket balls without any compensation from my subconscious mind.

And don't say it's because of an improper PSR. Undeniably, your PSR is set up by the information you receive from your eyes. You need a routine to set up your correct visual input first and your brain undermines this in some players naturally. If you don't believe or understand this failing, every instructor should at least be aware of it as a possible solution to some players' woes. Dismissing it limits their ability to help a student solve a very elusive problem that comes and goes like an electrical problem in your car.

Best,
Mike
 
Last edited:
lfigueroa said:
I just came to discover that this is Joey's idea of a practical joke.

A few moments ago I went into the bathroom with a ruler and stood there like an idiot, looking at my reflection in the mirror with a ruler running across my face and it dawned on me: "Sum-of-a-be-atch. He got me."

Nice one, Joey :-)

Lou Figueroa
Click to expand...

So what did you measure? ;-)
 
Rich93 said:
Despite my less than steady hand and my less than steady nerves, I guess I'm lucky in one respect. I see the same with my left eye closed as I do with both eyes. I have no trouble "seeing the line". I've blissfully ignored all the talk about eye dominance and will continue to do so.

I guess we all look for reasons why we don't make every shot but I've never felt the need to question my visual perception. Here's my list of what goes wrong for me (for center ball hits):

- I aimed at the wrong spot. I hit where I wanted to hit but it didn't go in, therefore I aimed at the wrong spot. Sometimes you just aren't sure.

- I didn't hit where I wanted to hit. My alignment was off and I rushed the shot instead of correcting it, or my stroke was crooked because of the afore-mentioned unsteady nerves.

- And, of course, there can be a combination of the two.

Sometimes I think we over-think things. Do you suppose Mosconi or Greenleaf or Earl or Efren ever gave a moment's thought to eye dominance? Do you think they would have been better players if they had? My answers are no and no.
Click to expand...

I was playing a medium sized local tournament and had a shot that was just a little off straight in on the money ball. Picture the cue ball maybe ten inches in from the side pocket and the money ball about halfway between the cue ball and the corner pocket and just off of straight in. The kind of a shot that every bar room banger makes without a thought and I normally do. I got down on the shot three times and couldn't see the angle any time. I saw it standing but things looked wrong down on the shot. Felt so silly I finally took the shot and missed.

The interesting part, although I don't remember if it was before or after I did I saw Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamonte miss pretty much exactly the same shot on the money ball in one of the biggest events in the world in separate matches. Not only would I bet on either of them making the shot a hundred times out of a hundred, I'd bet on me making the shot a hundred times out of a hundred. Yet all three of us managed to miss the shot when it counted. I can't know why Efren and Francisco missed, I know exactly why I did. The shot didn't look right and I felt too silly to keep getting up and down on a shot Ray Charles could make. With hindsight I should have used the technique I use on reverse angle shots when I was having trouble. Find my aim spot standing and fire at it when I am down on the shot regardless of how the shot looks. Next time this happens when it counts . . .

Hu
 
same thing

Mikjary said:
Lou,

I think your analysis of the methodology to play this game at a high level is, for sure, correct! A straight stroke is what I've wanted for Xmas for many years. Add a repeatable PSR and staying down on the shot, you've got milk.

This is probably achievable with some instruction early on, and being nurtured by better players around you as you progress. Having the right tools is the luck of the draw to add to the mix. We are not all created equal and what one finds easy, another struggles with and never quite gets "it".

One of these issues is a subtle, yet frustrating one. It is switching eye dominance which is what your brain is supposed to do. In everyday activities, it takes the best visual input and uses it to blend, yet favor one eye over the other. When you look left or right, you effortlessly switch dominance until you have a specific task in front of you. Detail work is given to your more dominant eye.

Most players never even know they have a dominant eye and don't care about it because they have never had any problems relating to it. I've never understood why people can't catch high pop ups or hit a curve ball. It has never been a problem for me. They are only seeing things differently than I am. With proper training, they can improve their abilities, but will they surpass me? You can go on and on about situations where one person's forte is a nightmare for somebody else. Suffice it to say that unless a careful amount of research is given to this frustrating issue, one would not understand.

Ninety per cent of my misses on makeable shots is because I get a false picture from my eyes. If I notice it before I shoot and reset, I can easily increase my potting ten fold. If I pull the trigger, I will dog the ball 9/10 times. The problem being I am looking at the contact point with the wrong blending of the eyes. My body sets up in a slightly incorrect alignment. The subconscious mind picks up on this incorrect alignment and does it's correction... steering the cue to pocket the ball. But the shot looks good initially.

After many years of an incorrect alignment from an improper visual input, and conscious and unconscious compensations for these errors, your stroke becomes a steering wheel. The lucky ones are those that line up correctly from the git. The game is easy when you are lined up right from the start or are corrected by a helping hand along the way.

It took me years to figure out why I could run 100 balls one night and struggle with a single rack the next night. I'd run ten balls and drive an easy shot into the rail. It just didn't make sense. I wondered who was going to show up every night I went out to play. I still don't have the absolute cure, but I know what my nemesis is. I need a foolproof method of keeping my dominant eye, dominant. Or more correctly, a way to ensure my visual perception is the correct one. This view matches my natural alignment and allows me to pocket balls without any compensation from my subconscious mind.

And don't say it's because of an improper PSR. Undeniably, your PSR is set up by the information you receive from your eyes. You need a routine to set up your correct visual input first and your brain undermines this in some players naturally. If you don't believe or understand this failing, every instructor should at least be aware of it as a possible solution to some players' woes. Dismissing it limits their ability to help a student solve a very elusive problem that comes and goes like an electrical problem in your car.

Best,
Mike
Click to expand...

Mike,

I typed and deleted most of a long post while you were posting but we are talking about exactly the same thing. Sometimes the visual information we are getting is false, not the same as we usually get when looking at the same shot. If we act on this false information we either miss or somewhere below the conscious level we are aware of the false information and try to make corrections on the fly. While the corrections on the fly may work for one shot the results are ugly when it starts to become a habit.

Hu
 
You just flunk the test sometimes.......

cleary said:
This is actually true. My grip hand changes, I know that. I have to hold the cue slightly different over my right eye to stroke the ball straight. But I don't understand why its a temporary fix to why things look different. I do the dominate eye tests and it really does switch. I've only heard of one other person who has this problem.
Click to expand...

Many players that are opposite eye dominant are used to aiming many things with their non dominant eye. For instance, if your right handed but left eye dominant you still probably shoot a gun under your right eye. Also many other things such as bowling, the ball is on the right side of your body so your right eye tends to work as the dominant eye even though your are truely left eye dominant.

If you are standing back 5 feet from your pool shot you can move to the right and make your left eye work as dominant or to the left making your right eye dominant. The shot looks just as good both ways. This does not mean that your eyes are switching dominance but you are making them switch.

The worst thing is to switch them without knowing it. This is why when you get down on some shots and they don't look right because the wrong eye is working as dominant alot or maybe just a little. It doesn't take much.

The only time a shot really looks good is when the dominant eye is in the truely dominant position. Without knowing how to keep it there many pool players continue to accidently let the other eye try to be dominant.

I'm working with alot of players that are having problems with their eyes and seeing the shots correctly on AZ here.. Almost all players have these same problems but just don't know it. Kind of like the blind man saying. I can't see what I'm missing.

Cleary, give me a call and I will run you through the process. I will clear things up for you in about 15 to 20 minutes on the phone. Just be by a pool table when you call.

Looking forward to working with you.

Geno........
 
Andy Scott was a good shooteer that closed the non dominant eye while aiming. I know of a one eyed pool instructor that shoots lights out. The dominant eye in both cases is important.

How does the dominant eye affect/effect a change when one shoots upright like Mosconi or down with the cue under the chin. I find that when shooting over a ball jacked up where I can't visualize the cue normally, I need to move my grip outward a bit to shoot straight.

Is so much of aiming with or without a dominant eye a matter of adjustments based on memory of past success - deja vu?
 
binocular vision is necessary to a pool player. at a young age i was on the fast track to becoming pro. i had a partial blinding in my right eye and it destroyed my game. i set down the cue when i was 18 and just picked it up a month ago(30 now). what i have learned is; your brain can be trained to work with a visual handicap. at the time they said i wont have the same visual abilities in everyday life as previous. i missed on opportunities for this reason. bottom line is: the brain will adjust for the visual handicaps you may have if you put in the work.
 
ShootingArts said:
I was playing a medium sized local tournament and had a shot that was just a little off straight in on the money ball. Picture the cue ball maybe ten inches in from the side pocket and the money ball about halfway between the cue ball and the corner pocket and just off of straight in. The kind of a shot that every bar room banger makes without a thought and I normally do. I got down on the shot three times and couldn't see the angle any time. I saw it standing but things looked wrong down on the shot. Felt so silly I finally took the shot and missed.

The interesting part, although I don't remember if it was before or after I did I saw Efren Reyes and Francisco Bustamonte miss pretty much exactly the same shot on the money ball in one of the biggest events in the world in separate matches. Not only would I bet on either of them making the shot a hundred times out of a hundred, I'd bet on me making the shot a hundred times out of a hundred. Yet all three of us managed to miss the shot when it counted. I can't know why Efren and Francisco missed, I know exactly why I did. The shot didn't look right and I felt too silly to keep getting up and down on a shot Ray Charles could make. With hindsight I should have used the technique I use on reverse angle shots when I was having trouble. Find my aim spot standing and fire at it when I am down on the shot regardless of how the shot looks. Next time this happens when it counts . . .

Hu
Click to expand...

Lots of time we miss shots because
1. The tip shifted during stroke and hit either lift or right unknowingly
2. The cue ball condition changed when it hit object ball (slide/roll)
3. Forgot to consider bridge length, and deflection of CB
4. Some chalk at the exact point where white hit OB
5. Took too long aiming while down, and shifted from peripheral vision to cue / tip aim style (your tip aiming at point at OB not CB)
6. Cue shaft not smooth, or hands wet
7. If shot near a rail, CB swerve
 
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