Seems that all of the people who suggest switching hands neglect to consider other aspects off self defense beyond shooting. How does one protect/retain their weapon if it's on their other strong side? MUC/encroaching BG? How does one handle this? Even those who haven't trained any sort of striking have some sort of tendencies. How does that pair of with shooting backwards? Is that even a consideration by those suggesting that cross dominant shooters are invalids?
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Gotcha. I should never write anything before at least one cuppa. LOLOriginally Posted by GJM
What you do right before you know you're going to be in a use of force incident, often determines the outcome of that use of force.
I am right eye, right hand dominant, so my interest is more academic than personal.
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I also wonder how many people have thought this through, outside the lens of shooting mechanics. The more time you spent with martial arts, the more you're going to have an instinctive "startle" position that is hard, almost impossible, to retrain. A RH person has to become a southpaw in stance to effect retention. Not to mention, h2h in general.
I am right handed but left eye dominant. I didn't understand that this was the case until I joined the Marine Corps in 2009. My primary marksmanship instructor identified the issue right away and his exactly words to me were "it's only an issue if you make it an issue". I shot expert using a m16a2 with iron sights with my non dominant eye. I carried this trend throughout infantry school and always took close to perfect scores on all of the table of fires. I then went on to deploy twice to South Helmand where I managed to do pretty decent using my non dominant eye. I think there are some things you have to realize with shooting a long gun with your non dominate eye and they are: Anything other then a magnified optic you have to shoot with one eye closed and stop listening to what other people say. I found 1-4x optics suck my right eye in enough that it makes it a non issue, YMMV. With all of that said, my left hand sucks for anything besides support. While seeing is a really important part of fighting, so is dexterity and being comfortable when it comes to take a shot.
As far as pistols are concerned, I bring the gun to my left eye. While I am not the best pistol shooter, I feel this is the least of my worries.
He pretty much nailed it out of the park with that statement.
/thread
Semper Gumby, Always Flexible
Drill Sergeant Dailey said that you could do everything wrong, but if you did it consistently you could still shoot well. I think that was the same day he told us he never cleaned his competition "guns." It's amazing I lasted 20 years with a start like that.
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It would seem to be just as hard to learn to switch hand sides as it would be to switch eye sides.
I'm in the show them the options and let them decide what works best. Most folks will never spend the time training to become dexterous with their non-dominant hand so are probably best off just tilting their head when shooting a handgun if they're cross dominant.
I have used the tape over the lens trick many times to help shooters try using the other eye or learn to ignore the non-aiming eye to good effect. This would seem to help when a cross dominant shooter is shooting a long gun and having trouble closing the non-aiming eye.
I think we are forgetting what eye dominance means. Eye dominance mostly means that the brain has a preferred eye for visual information. The quality of in the information delivered to the brain by the dominant eye is fuller and more accurate. When we occlude the more dominant eye, we are making a decision to deprive the brain of its best source of visual information. If the non-dominant eye is still pushing "good enough" information to the brain, then we're probably OK. I'd offer that there is a possibility, in some individuals, that the quality of the information is so sub-standard from the non-dominant eye that performance is affected. Given how visual the Rogers experience is, I can easily see why Bill emphasizes the matching of eye and hand dominance in the basic class.
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with a pistol, why would you not bring the gun to the dominant eye....I shoot right handed and with my left eye.
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