Left eyed dominate right handed child ?

[JParanee]

Just  got my 2 smallest daughters 9 and 7 new bows

Both are doing great

7 year old I just tested she is right handed left eye dominant

I know the basic school of thought is to have her learn to shoot left handed but she does not like it and wants to shoot right handed

What would u do ?

Getting a left handed new bow is no problem I really want her to get started right

Thanks

[banjo]

just let them have fun!  

[scedvm]

I would switch her if she doesn't fight it too badly.  One of my younger daughters started shooting a little before 5yo as a rightie.  After she started getting her form down I could tell she was fighting "aiming" so I tested her eyes and sure enough strong left-eye dom. so I switched her and within 2 weeks she was shooting very comfortable lefty and much more accurate.  Well 8 months later she started having the aiming issues again and when tested she had switched eye dominance so I switched her back to right hand and rapid improvement once again.  She is 7 now and shooting righty and doing very well although switching hands twice.  Just an opinion but seemed to make a difference for her.....Shawn

[JParanee]

She does everything righty and she is shooting both eyes open and hitting well  

She seems to be fighting shooting left hand

Thanks guys for the comments like I said just wanna do what is best for her

This will relate to shotgun shooting later on as well

[macbow]

The key is to have fun. Since she is hitting the target I don't see any reason to change. I have a grandson that is right handed but left eye dominant. He hits way left right handed so he is glad to shoot lefty where he hits the target.
Ron

[KellyG]

I had the same problem with my son. I taught him to shoot everything left handed when he was about that age and have not regretted it. He now shoots left handed just fine with out thinking about it.

I see in the army where they try to get soldier to shoot off dominate hand verses eye and it really sucks trying to get them to qualify.

[wood carver 2]

I'm right handed and left eye dominant. I shoot my bows right handed with both eyes open - no problems hitting the target. I shoot a shotgun with my left eye closed and I do as well as the rest of my friends. Maybe we're all bad shots.    One guy I know taught himself to shoot left handed because of his left eye dominance. I shoot way better than he does.I guess we're all different and there are no hard and fast rules.
Dave.

[Al33]

I agree with those who say the priority is letting them have fun. At age 7 she will have plenty of time to figure out later if she wants to switch but I can guarantee you that if shooting the bow no longer becomes fun it will not matter.

Good luck!!!

[JParanee]

I think you guys are right  I don't wanna discourage her in any way

Thx

[David Yukon]

let her be, I'm right hand left eye dominant, and I shoot good...I think, I wouldn't be able to shoot lefty. She might just do great. It is better to have here have fun, than having her quit shooting.

[Autumnarcher]

eye dominance is irrelevent shooting instinctively with both eyes open.

[Hud]

If you shoot instinctive, it doesn't really matter. Case in point, Howard Hill was obviously a great shot, Glenn St. Charles, & Fred Bear, yep all the same. Hill was left eye, the others switch to left hand and were right eye dominant.

[YORNOC]

Eye dominance is absolutely relevent in kids. I know the instinctictive principle tends to make you believe otherwise, but my olympic archery coach taught us all about developmental shooting in children, whats going on in their growing minds, and it unfortunately is relevent. It's not going to make or break her ability to shoot, but it does interfer.

   I agree with others, let her have fun, fighting it now will frustrate her.
My son was the same, he eventually tried a left handed bow and never went back. Everybody's different, she may slide into that righty position just fine..

[David Mitchell]

I absolutely do not agree with the idea that eye dominance is not important. My experience says otherwise. Fred Bear thought so too--I have a friend who was a sports caster for ABC back in the day and knew and was taught to shoot personally by Fred.  The first thing Fred did was to check his eye dominance.  One day Dave called me and wanted to drop off "a couple of bows Fred gave me."  I figured this was an awesome opportuinity to latch on to a bit of history but also figured they would be useless to me since I am a lefty shooter (after many, many frustrating years trying to shoot right handed because I am right handed).  To my great surprise, they were left handed Tamerlanes!  Seems old Fred told Dave he needed to shoot left handed since he was left eye dominant (even though right handed).

I struggled horribly for years with cross dominance until  Mike Fedora sent me a left handed riser for one of his bows I had--fortunately his limbs fit either way.  From the very first arrow I knew this was the way I had to go!  And yes, I was trying to shoot with both eyes open.  But the sight picture is SO much better, clearer and crisper when shooting dominant eye side.

I would absolutely make sure to get a youngster started shooting dominant eye side--especially since they still have no habits instilled in them.  Why risk years of frustration?  And yes, I realize there are people who successfully do it, but my opinion is that they are in the minority.

[Lamey]

Joe  I had the same issue when I was a kid,  when we would shoot (guns) my dad just put a patch on my left eye.  After a few sessions I was right eye dominant.  

That may sound a bit extreme,  but it worked.  In retrospect I dont think it much matters, especially if the child can shoot well left eye dominant.

[KentuckyTJ]

I would start her out shooting lefty. My brother is 44 years old and shoots right handed and is left eye dominant. He has struggled with it all his life as he didn't make the move early. Once she builds up her muscles she will do better in my opinion.

[bornagainbowhunter]

I just changed my right handed/left eye dominate son to left handed.  At first he did not like it much, but now says it is the best!  He says it is much easier to hit the targets now, and he is a ton more accurate.  I would say change her early.

God Bless,
Nathan

[Bowwild]

The first thing we do in NASP with 2.3 million kids this year is to determine eye dominance. We then strongly recommend but don't insist, they use a bow that matches their draw hand to the dominant eye.

This allows the archer to keep both eyes completely open for better depth perception, peripheral vision, and balance. If a person shoots "wrong-eyed" they often have to fuzz up or close the dominant eye to avoid windage misses.

I've witnessed many teachers and veteran archers switch from RH to LH during our trainings who do much better in just a couple of hours.  Not everyone will put their heart in this dramatic change though.  In archery, both hands do something important, and for the new archer, completely foreign to both hands. Matching the eye and string is more important than which hand holds the bow.

I'm RH and left-eye dominant. I shot RH for 28 years. I've shot LH since 1996. I switched not because I was having trouble with accuracy due to the eye/hand issue, I had extreme target panic. I tried a LH bow and the panic was and remains gone (thanks to God because I thought archery was soon to be lost for me.)

When I shot RH I had to shut the left-eye. I thought (maybe?) I was an instinctive shooter in the late 60's through about 1983. I think I was a gap shooter though. I didn't have any trouble being accurate. I used to shoot pennies off my sister's troll dolls at 33 yards with a RH Bear B Mag (the length of our sub-division backyard).

I check my grandchildren's eye dominance as soon as they put down the bottle. I get the bow that fits their eye dominance. They won't know any difference. (I need someone to hand my LH recruves down to!)

By the way, I'm pretty strong Left-eye dominant.  However, during some shooting sessions that dad-burned right eye wants to chip in too much and I miss. Some times I have to wink the off-eye, let the dominant eye do its job and then open the right eye. I suspect sometimes, with certain bows the riser blocks a bit of my left-eye vision and the right eye takes over.

[**DONOTDELETE**]

At 7 & 9 years old i wouldn't worry about it and keep it fun for now....

When the left eye dominant child starts getting serious about wanting to be more accurate, I'd keep a left hand bow on hand for her to try out.

just keeping it fun, is most important at that age.

[Smithhammer]

Originally posted by JParanee:
She does everything righty and she is shooting both eyes open and hitting well  
 

I'm also in the camp that thinks that people make too big of a deal about eye dominance (and I would still love to see non-anecdotal evidence that correlates dominant eye with bow hand). The end product > accurate arrow placement, is all that matters. There are many ways to get it there.

But as others have said, the important thing at that age (or at any age, arguably) is just that it's fun.