Right handed Left eye Dominant

[LowtideBob]

How do you overcome cross dominance?  

This will be my first recurve.

It's been been many years since I have shot a bow of any kind and was considering training myself to shoot left handed.

[moebow]

IF, IF, IF you can, shooting with the SAME handedness as your dominate eye will REDUCE obstacles down the road.  That's NOT to say, "you can't shoot cross dominant;" many can and do shoot well with cross dominance.  But IF left eye dominate, shooting left handed is a preferred choice or vice versa.

IF you absolutely CANNOT change "handedness" to fit with eye dominance, you CAN either work on changing your eye dominance by obstructing information flow to the dominant eye.  A piece of scotch tape over the dominant eye lens of a pair of glasses works, IF you wear glasses and if not, get a CHEAP pair of sun glasses and just remove the "shooting eye" lens.

Try to NOT close the non shooting eye and for sure do NOT put on a pirate's patch.  That removes the light signal.  All you want to do is remove the "information" signal, NOT the light to the eye.

This is NOT!!!!! a try this afternoon and see if it works, it won't.  This IS!!! A try it for 2 or 3 MONTHS and see how things work out.

Arne

[LowtideBob]

Thank you for the reply.

After a lot of thought and research, I am leaning towards trying it left handed in the beginning.

I know the target shooters like low weight repetition.

With an eye towards the 2017 deer season, I was thinking a 30# left handed Samick Sage would be an inexpensive route to work on form and conditioning.

That will give me time to shoot other bows and save up for a Gamemaster/Dorado class hunting bow.

[Matt Fowler]

How would cross dominance  this affect your shooting?

[moebow]

Often Matt, It shows up as a left or right error at the target.  Right handed archers shooting with a dominant left eye often have left impacts, etc.

Again you CAN shoot with cross dominance, it is just another obstacle to overcome.

Arne

[McDave]

I ordinarily shoot about 40# for target, 50# for hunting.  When learning to shoot LH, I had the luxury of starting with a 25# LH bow that I use in my classes.  It really allowed me to hone in my form LH without struggling.  I am comfortable now pulling 35# LH, and okay with 40#.  Probably if I shot LH more often, those comfort levels would increase.

For me, a right eye dominant person, the greatest challenge shooting LH was aiming.  I see two arrows when I aim LH, and have to decide which one to use.  After shooting a few shots, I remember, but it is likely in a pinch that I would misaim.  BTW, if I DON'T see two arrows, that means that I am focusing on the arrow tip and not the target, and the vision of the arrows has converged, so that has become a clue I pick up on and can correct in advance of the shot.

[Sirius Black]

I think that I am eye-neutral, because I see two arrows when I shoot right or left handed. I'm right handed, so I just go with the arrow that lines up under my right eye. Trouble is, both arrows are a ghost image, not really solid, so using it in shadow, or low light becomes hard sometimes.