One in a row....

Ok…I said I’d be sending out my thoughts on cross-dominant vision and how to compensate for it and here it is. There are several subjects on which I disagree with the “experts,” and some of them are explained below. I don’t consider myself an “expert”….I’m just a guy who has broken a hundred thousand or so targets and formed some opinions along the way. -Len


Shotgun shooting, like all other aspects of life, is subject to the whims of the latest trends and fads. One of the more recent fads is the concept of ‘switching shoulders’ to compensate for cross-dominant vision. Many (but not all) of today’s coaches recommend switching shoulders immediately upon the diagnosis of cross-dominant vision in any shooter, regardless of the shooters’ experience level. In my opinion, this practice will help a select few, but is more likely to produce confusion, discomfort, embarrassment and missed targets. Switching shoulders should not be the only solution to the issue of cross-dominant vision, but one of many possible solutions tailored to the needs of the individual student. Turning out a large volume of “cookie cutter” shooters using “one size fits all” solutions is not and should never be the goal of the BHSC shotgun program. As coaches, it is our responsibility to bring each individual shooter to the highest level of performance they are capable of reaching, using whatever methods work best for that particular student. Each student has his or her own unique abilities and challenges and must be coached accordingly.

Before discussing the various methods of compensating for different types of vision, a review of vision itself is in order. Humans, either through design or evolution (we won’t get into that here) are predators, and therefore have eyes that are pointed in the same direction. This provides humans with binocular vision allowing great perception of visual detail and depth at the expense of a smaller field of view than prey animals which normally have eyes which face in opposite directions. Two by-products of binocular vision are eye dominance and parallax. Eye dominance occurs when one of the two eyes is used by the brain to provide a greater amount of detail or focus. Generally the dominant eye is on the same side as the dominant hand, but occasionally the dominant eye is on the side of the non-dominant hand – a situation known as cross-dominance. A much smaller percentage of the population has eyes which are co-dominant, meaning that both eyes are used equally with neither one “in charge.” A search of internet sites related to shotgun coaching reveals quite a few generalities (“the majority of men that are right-handed are right eye dominant and a large percentage of women that are right handed are left eye dominant”) but no actual statistics as to the true proportion of the shooting population that experience eye dominance issues.

Parallax is the apparent movement or displacement of an object when viewed from two different positions that are not in line with the object, and is another function of binocular vision which is often confused with cross- or co-dominance. Our eyes are only 2 to 2 ½ inches apart, but that separation is essential to depth perception and three dimensional vision…..and also enough to produce parallax. A quick and easy demonstration of parallax is to focus on an object across the room (such as a doorknob or light switch) and alternately close one eye, then the other. You’ll notice a slight change in the apparent position of the object. The object isn’t moving, you are simply seeing it from a different position….that is parallax.


The following picture is the best visual representation of the issue of cross-dominance that I have been able to find (picture courtesy of Clay Shooting Magazine):




In the second and fourth frames, the shooter thinks that he has the shotgun in line with the target, but in reality only his dominant eye and the front bead are in line….the barrels are pointing off to the side. A shooter with co-dominant vision will demonstrate similar tendencies but to a lesser extent. The co-dominant shooter will appear to be aiming the shotgun with his nose instead of his eyes…..or will wave the shotgun back and forth in a figure 8 pattern as his eyes subconsciously “argue” over which one is in charge.

Today’s popular coaching methods would have the shooter in the second frame switch from mounting the shotgun on his right shoulder to mounting on the left shoulder. This method is advocated for all shooters, regardless of experience. This is where my opinion differs from the experts. In my opinion, the only shooters who should switch from one shoulder to the other are adult master level shooters and children who have never fired any form of firearm before. Adult master level shooters who have years of experience will be able to switch shoulders effectively because of their greater than normal motor control and mental discipline. Children who have never shot before can switch because they don’t know any different. It is the “in between” shooters that present the greatest difficulty. People of any age with some shooting experience (rifle, pistol, or shotgun) or adults who have never shot before and are not ambidextrous will have great difficulty switching shoulders simply because it doesn’t “feel right.” They can’t usually articulate exactly what feels wrong, they just know that it does. Adult non-shooters have trouble because they don’t normally use their non-dominant hand for activities which require fine motor control. An example of this would be to write your name with your non-dominant hand. You’ll get something that is identifiable as your name, but unless you are ambidextrous it will appear to have been written by a child. People who have some shooting experience (especially children) will have difficulty switching shoulders because everything they know about shooting centers around their dominant hand. Common examples are mounting the shotgun to the left shoulder and trying to pull the trigger with the right hand or mounting to the left shoulder with the left foot in front. Master level shooters can overcome these “short circuits” by consciously forcing their muscles to duplicate the required positions and actions in a mirror image of their dominant side functions. Inexperienced shooters simply do not have this much control.

Many master level shooters have reported that switching shoulders resulted in an immediate improvement in their ability to shoot a shotgun. Manny is a prime example. My contention is that it usually is not switching eyes that improves the performance, it is the act of re-learning everything else. I believe that re-learning the proper stance, gun mount, head position, muzzle insertion point, swing, trigger control, and follow through accounts for 99% of the improvement experienced by these shooters simply because it erases all of the bad habits that have accumulated throughout a lifetime of shooting. Watch an experienced rifle shooter switch shoulders for an example. Their weak side stance will most likely be absolutely picture perfect because they have to force their muscles into the proper position and they have the control to do so. When they switch back to their strong side stance, they will “fall into” the stance they have developed over the years….their own particular “style.” Generally the two positions are not exact mirror images of each other. In my opinion, the overwhelming majority of problems shooting a shotgun can be traced to the stance, the head position, or the follow through. Only after these things have been corrected should eye dominance or parallax be brought into play. A shooter who doesn’t bring the stock to his cheek will have problems no matter which eye they use. A shooter with a stance that looks like a question mark will have problems no matter which eye they use. A shooter whose feet are positioned so that they cannot swing to follow the target will have problems no matter which eye they use.

The one thing all of the “experts” agree upon is that it will take at least 1000 targets to truly master shooting from the opposite shoulder. A dedicated competition shooter can do that. The kids we are working with won’t wait that long. They’ll lose interest and quit. We need solutions that will help them now.

Other ways of dealing with cross-dominance are closing the dominant eye or obscuring the vision of the dominant eye with a piece of tape or a smudge of chapstick. These methods are actively discouraged by the “experts” because they reduce the visual capability of the shooter. Generations of shooters have learned to shoot with one eye closed (including myself), so I still consider this a viable option. In fact, I would highly recommend trying one or both of these solutions before switching shoulders simply because they are small changes that have less chance of “freaking out” the student. Some people are not able to close one eye independently of the other, so partially obscuring the vision of the dominant eye is an option for them. According to the “experts,” these last two solutions are the “only” options available to shooters with co-dominant eyes.

An issue which I have never seen discussed by any of the “experts” is the shooters’ self image. We are dealing with kids…..not adults. Kids have fragile egos, embarrass easily, and are still developing their self image and self confidence. ALL of the “approved” methods of dealing with cross-dominance and co-dominance involve CORRECTING something that is WRONG with the shooter. No matter how much we sugar coat the subject, that’s what it will be seen as by most children. Heaven forbid that we ever get a student who has been teased about being different and we confirm all the bad things that have been said about them by telling them that they actually ARE different, especially if we’re wrong. We are in the business of building kids up, not tearing them down.

This is where we come back to the subject of parallax. In the previous demonstration, we were working with an object across the room. In shooting clay targets, we are dealing with an object at a distance of 10 to 50 yards. Positional distortion of the target resulting from parallax is minimal at that distance, but positional distortion of the shotgun itself IS an issue. Close one eye and point at something across the room. Now open the other eye while remaining focused on the object. If you are a normal human being, you now see two images of your finger pointing at the object that is in focus. If you focus on your finger, you will see two images of the object in the background. Focus on the object again and there will be two fingers pointing at it. This is because there is one object in focus, one finger pointing at it, but two eyes seeing everything from two different points of view. The same thing happens when mounting a shotgun with both eyes open. If you are focusing on the target, there will appear to be two shotgun barrels pointing at it.

This all seems perfectly normal to us because we’ve been shooting for years. The kids haven’t. They don’t know it’s normal, and they don’t know which shotgun image to aim with.

Think about that for a moment. They know that there is only one shotgun in their hands and only one target in the air, but they either see two shotguns or two targets. This confuses them, but they don’t ask about it because it sounds silly and they don’t want to be embarrassed. Watching a student trying to figure out which shotgun image to aim with can easily give the impression of cross-dominant vision. This leads to switching shoulders and now everything is backwards and they still have two shotgun images to deal with. The result? A really confused kid who can’t hit the broad side of a barn while standing inside it.

I’ve thought that Kathy had cross-dominant vision for quite a while and have been putting tape on her shooting glasses because she can’t close her left eye by itself. Tonight I stood across the room from her and asked her to point at my right eye. She held her finger up and then moved it back and forth instead of pointing directly at me. I asked her why she was doing that and she turned bright red. That’s when the realization hit me that she didn’t understand about parallax.

I sat down with her and said, “Let me tell you what I see when I do that. If I focus on your right eye and point my finger at you, I see two fingers in the air. Does that happen to you?” She was very surprised to find out that I had the same “problem” that she had. That’s the way she thought of it: a problem with her eyes. I explained parallax to her, had her perform some simple exercises with her eyes, and told her what I saw when I did those same exercises before she told me what she saw. This helped convince her that she’s not a freak and that she doesn’t need special glasses or anything like that. Then I asked her if she saw two shotgun barrels when we were shooting clays. She said, “Yes, and it really sucks because I never know which one to aim with.”

I told her to point with the image on the left (she’s right handed) and then demonstrated by having her point at a light switch with the “finger on the left” and then covering/uncovering her left eye several times.

She hit me with a pillow.

“That’s it? That’s all I have to do? Why didn’t you tell me before?” Now she wasn’t embarrassed, she was pissed. It’s like I had been hiding something from her.

Reflecting on all this over the last few hours has lead me to the conclusions I explained earlier. Why put the shooter through the discomfort and wasted time re-training their muscles when you have a chance to fix the issue by simply telling them to “shoot with the one on the left?” Ten minutes of practice pointing at objects around the house had Kathy trained to be right eye dominant.

Will this work with every shooter? I doubt it. Is it something that I think we should try before we start shifting shooters to the other shoulder? Definitely. Eye dominance can be trained. I would even go so far as to include a discussion of parallax with all of our new shooters and explain to them that what they see is normal. Shoot with the one on the left. I’ll bet lunch for everyone that if we explain parallax and spend a few minutes pointing at things, most (if not all) of our cross-dominant vision problems will go away.




Summary:
- Explain parallax and “shoot with the one on the left” at the very beginning
- Make sure all the elements of stance, swing, and follow through are as good as possible before worrying about dominant eye issues
- Have the student close one eye if possible ( or obscure the vision of the dominant eye with tape or chapstick ) instead of changing shoulders. This will also re-train the dominant eye. After a few hundred shots the strong side eye will be hard wired into the sight picture.
- Don’t assume someone is cross- or co-dominant after a few misses. Everyone misses, especially on days when it’s cold and wet. Pull the bolt out of a shotgun and perform a test similar to the pictures above and then get a second opinion before making any really major changes.