Cross dominance at work. Your Humble Correspondent is shooting this pistol right-handed, but I have turned my head slightly so that my left eye lines up behind the red dot sight.
I am cross-dominant. No, that doesn’t mean that I am engaged in some sort of weird fetish. It means, instead, my dominant hand is on one side of my body but my dominant eye is on the other side. In my case, I am right handed but left eyed.
According to the US Concealed Carry Association website, www.usconcealedcarry.com, a study of 5,000 people in the 1960s found that 28.6 percent were right handed but left eyed, while only 3.9 percent were left handed but right eyed. Less than 1 percent are thought to have no dominance by either eye while the rest presumably have hand and eye dominance on the same side of the body.
I didn’t even know that I was cross dominant until an archery-related shoulder injury forced me to try shooting archery left handed. Part of that experiment involved determining which was my dominant eye, and that’s when I found out that I am cross dominant. To this day, I shoot a bow left-handed.
It easy to determine which is your dominant eye. Point your finger a light switch 20 feet away. Now, close your left eye. If your fingertip stays over the light switch, you are right eye dominant. If the fingertip jumps to the left, you are left eye dominant. If your dominant eye and dominant hand are on the same side of your body, you are not cross dominant.
But what if you are cross dominant, what does that mean for shooting airguns? For shooting air pistols, it is pretty easy to accommodate cross dominance. Simply hold the pistol in your dominant hand and then rotate your head on a vertical axis or tilt your head so that your dominant eye lines up with the sights. That’s how I shoot pistol, and it appears to work pretty well.
But what about shooting air rifle? There is no easy way to get your left eye behind the sights if you are shooting a rifle right-handed. Experts generally agree that it is best to shoot from the same side of your body as your dominant eye, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. I won the New York State Hunter Class Field Target Championship in 2004 shooting a Beeman R1 equipped with peep sights, and I was shooting right-handed and right-eyed. This was before I knew that I was cross dominant. I still shoot rifle right-handed and right-eyed.
Some experts say that if a shooter is young – less than 20 years of age – it is best to force them to shoot from the side that their dominant eye is on. Others report trying to force older shooters to switch the side they shoot from with mixed results. I tried it when I was having problems with a cataract in my right eye and found shooting from my left side to be incredibly awkward, so awkward in fact that I just gave up. Now that I have had a cataract operation on my right eye, I don’t even bother trying.
I have spoken with one shooter who successfully switched from shooting right-handed to shooting left-handed. Hans Apelles, now 78 years old and part of Team Crosman, made the switch in his 60s because of problems with glaucoma in his right eye which is also his dominant eye.
“Over one winter, I decided I needed to shoot left handed,” he says. “You have to teach your brain what you are going to do. For instance, when I was going to take a kneeling shot, I had to think three times what knee to put down for left-handed shooting.”
He adds, “The first year was very awkward, and I have a couple of holes in the basement ceiling from stupid things happening. But as soon as I started competing in the spring, my scores went up because I could see better.”
He says, “You have to put your mind to it when you switch because it doesn’t come automatically in the beginning. It takes many years of shooting to get your brain trained that way. Even now, if I have a lay-off for a while, I will sometimes put my kneepad on the wrong leg.”
So, are you cross dominant? There is about a one in three chance that you might be. Take the simple test above and find out. If you are, you might consider adjusting your shooting style to make best use of your dominant eye.
Til next time, aim true and shoot straight.
– Jock Elliott
Yep, Left-handed, but right eye dominant. Have known this for years (decades?) now. To add to this, my eyes suffer from strabismus. http://www.geteyesmart.org/eyesmart/diseases/strabismus.cfm
Fortunately, I am left eye dominant and a left handed. However, while in law enforcement I trained and used a right handed Sig P226. By the time there was a left hand version available fro me, I had already trained and shot thousands of rounds with my given weapon.
Don’t get me started on my long gun…try pricing out a lefthand version of an AR platform
I am left handed and left eye dominant (sometimes). I was always taught to shoot right handed. When I do your little test, I see two fingers pointing with the right eye version being the one on the switch. My left I is trying to dominate, but with all of the years of training, when I “point” something the right eye takes over.
It became more of a pronounced issue when I started wearing glasses. I use a blinder on my peep sights and stick an index card in my hat band to cover my left eye when I shoot pistol and scope
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By the way, your blog is improving. Keep up the great job.
RidgeRunner,
Thanks for the kind words.