R Handed, Have to Shoot Lefty

[Bill Skinner]

I have a nerve pinch and can't shoot right handed.  I am very right eye dominate but I am working on that.  My problem is I will shoot an arrow two feet high at 10 yards and I cannot figure out what I am doing wrong to correct it.  Could I be attempting to gap shoot with a too short arrow?  It feels like I have to hold low so that is my best guess but I am open to suggestions.  Bill

[BowsanAiros]

Try shooting closer ,say 3 yds .You'll be able fine tune and adjust accordingly.. Within an hour or so you'll be back shooting 10-20 yds without problems.
You'll also want to check your anchor point.

[Bill Skinner]

Thanks but I have already done that.  It is not something I do shot to shot, just occasionaly.  It's bugging me because I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.  It may be a concentration problem because if I were really concentrating, I should know what I did wrong.  I'm giving myself a headache, that's why I am looking for fresh ideas.  Bill

[Big Sneaky]

Try squinting your right eye, so that you have to focus the most with your left.  Larry Yein shoots right handed and is left eye dominant.  He squints his left eye to make his right take over.  Might work, might not, but it might be worth trying.

[damascusdave]

So I am guessing that you have the nerve pinch in your right hand which is now your bow hand. For every shot that goes awry because of an issue with your draw hand there are probably 5 or 10 that go haywire because of a twitch in the bow hand. Probably just that nerve damage rearing its ugly head.
DDave

Bill,

I shoot much higher lefty too.  I guess it has to do with the tilt of my head or something.  To shoot the same as my righty “look”, I have to anchor a little higher lefty.

[Bill Skinner]

Thanks for the replies, I have been trying them out, I even went back to 3 yards and started over.  I think my problem is my dominate eye giving the correct sight picture for a right hand shot, except I am shooting left handed, so my arrow goes high and a little right.  As I have been doing this for only about three weeks, I still need to train myself as to what a correct sight picture looks like.  Again, thank you, your comments are appreciated.  Bill

[Kip l Hoffman]

I changed to being a lefty because i lost most of the vision in my right eye.  i have a big black hole in my right eye vision.  i do have a bit of parifral vision but damned little.  when i close my left eye i can't see but a little bit out of the right side of my right eye.  When i changed sides, i had to change the cant of my bow and had to learn to lean to the left.  I suspect that if you are shooting high that you are seeing the point of the arrow and raising it up to your line of sight to the target.  this would make you shoot high every time you do it.  I can't be there in your brain but ask your self this question the next time it happens.  "What was i looking at when i released the arrow?"  it took me a heck of a long time to figure out why i accasionaly threw one high.  I knews that if i was looking at the spot i had picked out on the animal target that i would most of the time hit it or be damned close.  I used to shoot the autumn orage shafts from easton.  one time when i went high and was thinking on what had happened all i could remember was the color orange.  it took me a few minutes between targets to finally figure out that the orange i was seeing was the front of the arrow.  Once i figured it out, it was almost automatic to rememeber seeing orange or what ever color shaft i was shooting or what ever broadhead i was shooting.  I am convinced that this is why guys that shoot traditional shoot high.  after telling guys about this more than one archer has come back and thanked me for being correct.  remember reading a story that G Fred wrote where he said he was all drawed back on a nice mule deer when the deer twitched an ear and he put an arrow through it.  i know that many if not most of the times that i miss what i thought i was shooting at i recognise that i hit the last thing i saw.  in other words the arrow went exactly where i was looking, i was just looking at the wrong part of the target.

I think it may be that your right eye is taking over the aim, it will look like a bigger gap than the left eye.  Instinctive is your built-in computer using all the info available automatically.  When I have trouble shooting left handed or when I am second guessing my aim, I put on a pair of dark sunglasses with the right eye in and the left lens taken out.  I tend to shoot high and a bit right, bow canted, when things go wrong.  Winking the right eye can work as well to give your left eye an idea what it needs to see, just don't sweep into the position your right wants to see before you release.  Yes it is a bit more like gap shooting than you probably want to do, but it will become more automatic with consistency and time.

[Bill Skinner]

Apparently, I have been gap shooting all my life, I am just now realizing it.  It is my sight picture, my last clear thought/focus is checking where my tip is.  It usually happens when I hold a little longer and really try to refine my sight picture.  When I release, confidently expecting a bullseye or something real close, the arrow is high and a little right.  And a sight picture that works right handed does't do so well left handed.  The problem has been identified, now I can correct it.  Thank you for your comments, they helped a great deal.  Bill