How important is dominant eye

[GregD]

My 9 year old son has been shooting right handed for a couple of years. We just discovered that he is left eye dominant. Since he is just getting started should I make him shoot lefty? He always seemed to be RT eye dominant till now, can you change? How many guys shoot cross dominant and do you think there are any disadvantages?  Thanks  Greg

[Bjorn]

Glen St. Charles is cross eye dominant and says it does not matter if shooting instinctively.
Freb Bear switched to lefty somewhere along the line and he was cross dominant too.
There may well be far more disadvantages to shooting as a lefty for your son.

[ChuckC]

I think if he is shooting instinctively, that is, not aiming in the classic manner,  it is not as important.  If he IS aiming,  Point on etc, he needs to close the off eye or change his handedness.  My opinion.  

It is not near as difficult for many of us to change over from right to left handedness, in terms of bow shooting,  but it does take some amount of practice.  I can shoot both ways.
ChuckC

[Ken Taylor]

I'm right handed but left eye dominant. I started shooting right handed as a kid and then switched to left in my thirties.

 I prefer shooting left handed. Besides covering you in case you want to try different ways of "aiming", I have noticed through the years that: most right handed people point with their right arm, most right handed people are stronger to push with their right arm, and most right handed people also usually pull with their left if both arms or hands are to be used.

Shooting left handed is a lot more natural to right handed people than most people who haven't tried it think.

 Jokingly, I wonder why they call holding a bow with your right hand-left handed shooting?

[moebow]

I'm with Ken on this one.  The NAA instructor I had for my intermediate instructor class felt that a righty with left eye dominant should shoot right handed and obstruct the dominant eye.  My feeling is that may be OK for Olympic style target shooting ... but...  Our kind of barebow shooting is totally a hand eye coordination thing.  If we want youngsters to become good instinctive (or whatever barebow aiming method and label you like) Start the kids shooting with their dominant eye over the arrow.  Ken makes another good point about strength a righty shooting left handed experiences.  I feel archery is a hand eye coordination sport not a dexterity sport ie. writing and other fine motor skills.  My experience with 9/10/11 year olds is most of them don't relate to instinctive aiming for a long while so starting them with point of aim or simple gap shoting at close range is the way to lead them to instinctive.  For what it's worth.