Most people know if they are right-handed or left-handed. Do you know your eye dominance?
For most people your hand dominance matches your eye dominance; however, this is not always the fact, some people are cross dominant. Assuming you are right-eye dominant because you are right-handed can lead to a lot of undue frustration. In a sport like archery where aim and accuracy is important, if you want to move to the elite level of competition, identifying your eye dominance is very important. If you are shooting with your non-dominant eye, or wrong eye, you will be aiming at the “wrong” target and you will become very frustrated, as you will never achieve an elite level of consistency. Luckily, it can be very easy to determine your eye-dominance.
A simple method that can be preformed on yourself is…
- Cut a hole in the center of a piece of paper
- Keeping both eyes open, center the hole over an object about 15-20 feet away at arms length.
- Keeping both eyes open, slowly move the piece of paper towards your face.
The piece of paper will naturally move towards your dominant eye.
Another method with the help of a friend is…
- Standing 15-20 feet apart and keeping both eyes open, point at your friend and position one of your fingers on your right-hand over your friends eyeball
- Keeping both eyes open, repeat with your left hand finger
- Repeat several times and ask your friend which eye was your fingers over.
Once you know your eye dominance you can select the proper handed bow for you. Remember, right-handed archers hold their bow with their left hand and draw the string to their right eye. Left-handed archers do the opposite. Please keep in mind that very young archers can change eye dominance through natural and normal growth and development, however few ever change back.
Jordan Sequillion 