Aiming advice

[gtdyson]

Hi. I have always had a  interest in shooting and archery, and many years ago joined a pistol club. I was a poor shot and the amount of club shoots that had to be done started to make it a bit of a chore rather than a pleasure, anyway after a short illness I had large backlog of targets to shoot and thought this is not fun so I packed it in. I now many years later I fancy having ago a archery, I have just done the dominant eye test as describe in a book and find that my dominant eye is my left and I am right handed, I don't know if this would have affected my pistol shooting all those years ago but what is the best way to overcome this for archery.
Thanks

[Pat B]

If you shoot instinctively your dominant eye doesn't matter. Keep both eyes open while shooting, pick a spot where the arrow will go(confidence is important) draw consistently to your anchor and release.
 Find a good book on instinctive shooting. I learned from G.Fred Asbel's "Instinctive Shooting".

[adb]

If you shoot instinctively your dominant eye doesn't matter. Keep both eyes open while shooting, pick a spot where the arrow will go(confidence is important) draw consistently to your anchor and release.
 Find a good book on instinctive shooting. I learned from G.Fred Asbel's "Instinctive Shooting".

WHAT??!! Of course it matters! Especially if you keep both eyes open. I'm a former national class Olympic style skeet shooter, which involves 'instinctive' type shooting similar to trad archery. Eye dominance is very important. Your dominant eye will do just that... dominate your focus and point of aim, and if you shoot cross eye dominant, you'll have problems. Either learn to shoot left handed of close your left eye if you're going to shoot right handed.

[Atlatl guy]

Don't hesitate to shoot as soon as you draw the bow .Im an reaction shooter.I don't aim i point and shoot as soon as i get on the target.I come up above the poi and then come down to my poi ,i let go.Also shoot with both eyeballs open .
The longer you hold the worse your shot's gonna be .

[Pat B]

Adam, when I shoot I don't see my bow or arrows, I only concentrate on the spot my arrow will go. I don't shoot cross eye dominant but have heard from other hunting archers that are and they tell me t doesn't matter. Does a dominant eye matter when you throw a baseball, basketball or horseshoes?

[gtdyson]

From the little I have read it seems that if your dominant eye and dominant hand are different shooting with both eyes open is the problem but I have also read archers should shoot with both eyes open, I am not sure that I could get used to shooting left handed but if it is as simple as closing the dominant eye, no problem (I don't think). I watched a tutorial on photography recently and it be came apparent that most right handed people  put the camera to their right eye and only very few to their left but did not explain why, now I think I know why my camera goes to my left eye.
Thanks all

[Pat B]

The problem with closing one eye is you loose your binocular vision and depth perception.

[adb]

Adam, when I shoot I don't see my bow or arrows, I only concentrate on the spot my arrow will go. I don't shoot cross eye dominant but have heard from other hunting archers that are and they tell me t doesn't matter. Does a dominant eye matter when you throw a baseball, basketball or horseshoes?

Pat... when I shoot a bow, the only thing I look at is the target too. Same with shooting skeet, throwing a baseball, or horseshoes. Yes, your dominant eye matters!! If it didn't we wouldn't have a dominant eye!!

In normal binocular vision there is an effect of parallax, and therefore the dominant eye is the one that is primarily relied on for precise positional information. This may be especially important in sports which require aim, such as archery, darts or shooting sports.

When I started shooting skeet at a high level, that's the first thing our coach checked... handedness and eye dominance.