Another sighting/dominant eye question

[horriefic]

When you are down cueing a straight shot, when you close your NON-dominant eye (i.e. you are only seeing with your dominant eye), does the shot look straight to you? Is having the shot look straight when only looking with your dominant eye mean that you are aiming with your dominant eye?

Because for me, my right eye is my dominant eye (I know this from the tests I have carried out to check my dominant eye), BUT when I close EITHER eye to check the straight shot, NEITHER eye looks straight. The shot only looks straight when BOTH eyes are open. Does this mean that I am sighting evenly?

Basically want to know whether it's the norm when sighting with your dominant eye to mean that the shot looks perfectly straight only when that dominant eye is open.

Because I am still having inconsistency in my potting, and I believe it has to do with my sighting. Not sure whether I should make changes again and adjust my cue position (and thus my stance, cue arm etc) so that it falls directly under my dominant eye i.e. the shot is perfectly straight when sighting with only the dominant eye open.

Thanks.

[laverda]

I have been working through a similar issue. My right eye is certainly dominant and when I would sight with both eyes open and the cue directly under my chin I would miss very slightly but always to the same side. I read up a little and tried closing my left eye and moving the cue to the right side of my chin and immediately my potting improved... If I sight the shot this way then open my left eye I can immediately see the difference in the correct line and the line I would naturally take with both eyes open. I'm not sure where to go with this now as it does feel a bit weird to be sighting with one eye shut but since I only play at home its no big deal until someone suggests how to get around it

Mick

[horriefic]

I have been working through a similar issue. My right eye is certainly dominant and when I would sight with both eyes open and the cue directly under my chin I would miss very slightly but always to the same side. I read up a little and tried closing my left eye and moving the cue to the right side of my chin and immediately my potting improved... If I sight the shot this way then open my left eye I can immediately see the difference in the correct line and the line I would naturally take with both eyes open. I'm not sure where to go with this now as it does feel a bit weird to be sighting with one eye shut but since I only play at home its no big deal until someone suggests how to get around it

Mick

Mick,

After you open your left eye, do you then proceed to pot the ball with both eyes open, or you close your left eye again to make the pot?

[laverda]

I've been playing with both. With my left eye still closed I can pot with absolute confidence but with my left eye open I have to overcome the urge to realign... When previously standing over the shot I could easily identify the correct angle but as I would go down to the shot I would automatically realign based on my previous symmetrical approach and then couldn't understand why I was consistently missing to one side. Its now been a couple of weeks of regular practise sighting with my right eye and I am certainly feeling a lot more confident and that is absolutely evident in my potting. I can feel myself beginning to instinctively pick the right line with both eyes open if that makes sense but I always double check by closing my left to confirm my choice. Its as if my mind is getting used to the right amount of compensation needed...

Mick

[nrage]

If you close an eye, you have to place your cue under the other eye for the shot to look straight (like when using a rifle scope). This is because you've denied your brain the information from one eye, so it has to resort to ONLY using the other eye.

With both eyes open your brain will naturally form an image of the shot using BOTH eyes to varying degrees.

The only, ONLY thing you really need to worry about is whether the shot looks wrong when it is in fact straight and vice-versa - with BOTH eyes open and down on the shot in your normal stance/position.

To test this, set up a honest to god straight shot directly at a specific part of the pocket (the edge of the leather on the top/bottom cushion for example). You will need a friend to help, and ideally a piece of string or some way to mark the line of aim below where the cue will be. Place the piece of string on the table under where your cue will sit on the line of aim. Place a piece of chalk on the table at the end which will be under your grip hand.

Get down on this straight shot and check from your point of view whether...
1. the cue tip appears to be center white.
2. the cue appears to be on the line of aim.
3. the cue appears to be pointing to the center of the object ball.
4. the cue appears to be pointing to the edge of the pocket leather.

Have your mate check the same things from the pocket, from behind you, from above looking at the cue and the string.

If anything does not match up i.e. it looks straight to you, but your mate says it's off to the left etc then you have a problem and you need to figure out what to change to get an accurate view of reality. Otherwise, forget about it - you don't have any problem here.

[throtts]

Close one eye on the pot, guys..Haha, come on, pack up the messing.

[laverda]

^^^ nrage That's exactly what I did to figure out my sighting issue... it was very obvious to the 'observer' that I was not on the right line of aim. I do wear glasses for a slight stigmatism in one eye and an overall short sightedness - even the far end of my 8 foot table is out of focus without my glasses. But even with my glasses (which are setup and suitable for going down on the shot) I still struggled with the right eye dominance.

Mick

[humperdingle]

I tried the 'closing an eye' thing, even just for a second or two to see if it changed things. It did. It made it worse lol... I found I just wasn't concentrating enough on the pot.

I'm right eye dominant and right handed. Whatever your eye dominance, I reckon old Jack Karnehm was spot on in his video with the imaginary line running through OB, CB and the back foot. Even if the foot is an inch out it makes a major difference.

[vmax4steve]

I have been working through a similar issue. My right eye is certainly dominant and when I would sight with both eyes open and the cue directly under my chin I would miss very slightly but always to the same side. I read up a little and tried closing my left eye and moving the cue to the right side of my chin and immediately my potting improved... If I sight the shot this way then open my left eye I can immediately see the difference in the correct line and the line I would naturally take with both eyes open. I'm not sure where to go with this now as it does feel a bit weird to be sighting with one eye shut but since I only play at home its no big deal until someone suggests how to get around it

Mick

Try approaching the shot from your dominant side, either turn your head or your body slightly to your dominant side and sight (look at the contact point on the object ball), step into the shot, get down into the stance and address the cue ball from there.

Once down into the stance and addressing the cue ball, close one eye and then the other to find out with which eye the tip of your cue seems to be pointing at the centre of the cue ball. It should be your dominant eye.
Look up at the object ball and check whether everything seems to be in line and in focus visually.

If so then look down at your feet and take notice of their position as this is your ideal stance and your feet need to find this position every time for every shot.

Those who are right handed with a dominant left eye should find their left foot in front of their right foot (boxer stance) and those who are right handed with a dominant right eye should find their left foot almost parallel with their right foot (square stance).

Reverse this for lefties.

These two different stances naturally put the cue closer to the respective dominant eye and it's important because although both eyes are always open and therefore used to sight the shot, know the angle, depth perception etc, the brain only uses one to address the cue ball, the dominant one, and everyone without exception uses their dominant eye for aiming purposes no matter what sport or game they participate in.

It may be only slightly dominant (Ronnie) or it maybe be heavily dominant (Jamie Jones) but its the way the brain uses both eyes on a subconscious level and those with great or very good hand/eye co-ordination do this without thinking while those who don't need to check it out and do it consciously through trial and error.

If you don't think you have a dominant eye, then next time you use the rest, close one eye and then the other and you will find that the cue is lined up straight and addressing the centre of the cue ball with one eye and not the other.

[ibogine]

Excuse me, but why is there so much hype about eye dominance/head position? Since, as already stated a few times on this forum, the key is to look at the point of the OB while standing and leaning over the table ( supposing no adjustments are made of course) to catch the proper line of aim, shouldn't we just concentrate on delivering the cuestick in a straight line? That's the advice i've been following lately and noticed a major improvement in my potting ( even though, what I see doesnt really look straight ). Could you clarify please? Best regards.

[laverda]

Excuse me, but why is there so much hype about eye dominance/head position?

No hype here, I simply reported what I had found through my own experience without coaching (country New South Wales, Australia has a severe Snooker coaching lack) and have looked to overcome the issue which I can assure you is very real. Fortunately I managed to self diagnose and immediately see vast improvement in my game ie potting success and now hopefully through Steves advice I can continue this improvement without looking like a d1ck while playing I'm sure your coaching advice is absolutely valid and correct especially if its working for you. I personally just needed to understand why I was feeling the need to change my line of aim once I got down on the shot and wanted to stop the second guessing that was going on, again I'm hoping Steves very practical advice will see me clear...

Try approaching the shot from your dominant side, either turn your head or your body slightly to your dominant side and sight (look at the contact point on the object ball), step into the shot, get down into the stance and address the cue ball from there.

I'm pretty sure I saw Mark Selby do exactly that last night in his game against Ian Burns, turning his head slightly to the right as he went down on the ball and I wondered if it was related to what we are talking about. Thanks heaps Steve, this is exactly the next step I have been looking for (sorry if I've hijacked the thread form the OP) and I'll give your suggestions a go today. Cheers

[Sidd]

Well i dont know what to comment on here really.. Throtts is right- you would never be able to sight correct with one eye closed unless you take the cue right under the eye that is open. I am sure you must have taken the chalk at the end of table test to find out your master eye. Also try Terry's test by placing yellow on spot and white behind it to make it a straight pot at some distance. Then aim for the middle of the pocket leather now go in to the address position and then close the eyes one by one and see if the allignment changes. If it changes just by a negligible margin really you can ignore the whole thing and continue without changing your set up. If it really changes then you have to align your set up to favour the master eye. try getting confirm information by increasing the white distance from yellow.

Other than that, as Vmax said, you can simply do this.

Right handed player with right eye master = square on stance
Right handed player with left eye master = boxers

Left handed player with left eye master = square on
Left handed player with right eye master = boxers

other than that there are three ways of favouring the master eye i.e. tilting, moving, turning of the head. You can either tilt your head by the neck or move it to one side or turn it to favour the master eye. However, please make sure first that this is something that really really is your problem and you want to do so. I have been on this road and after much experimentation and ruining my game I am back to my senses as a normal person

SOMETHING TO LEARN FROM MY EXPERIENCE
What happened was this: I am a lefty and have left eye master, which I know. but what I also knew yet did not put heed to was the fact that I am a tall person and use snooker glasses as well. I tried moving, tilting turning but nothing seemed comfortable or natural given that my vision is through glasses and I wear cylindrical number for both far sightedness and near sightedness so its a compound number. due to this my vision goes out fo focus even if I move tilt or turn my head to a few degrees. This meant that I run the cue under my left side of the chin however that felt weird and clumsy so I gave up on that. Hence all I could do was to change from boxers to square on and not knowing that i am tall and square on meant that I had ot go down with an increased bent in my bridge arm and hence I started cueing from up top and not fully down on the table and hence I was making my cue lifted from the butt without having it noticed until i posted my video a few weeks back.

So mate, consider everything before attempting anything in snooker. Hey now this is a good quote yeah Consider everything before Attempting anything in snooker hahahhaa. Anyway, hope this helps!

[laverda]

Not sure if something is getting lost in translation here but at no point have I said that playing with only one eye open is the solution. I did say that it did initially reveal the degree of the problem which in my case was quite significant. I have also said that I have been steadily coming to terms with this issue and after spending several hours today putting Steves advice into practise I can happily say that its working. My stance is indeed naturally square (left foot almost parallel with right) and with the slight turn of my head to the right I am potting very consistently with both eyes open... and because I did originally identify the degree of difference being caused by my right eye dominance, I can now see immediately that as I address the ball with my new head position that the correction is spot on therefore increasing my confidence in the pot... its like falling in love with game all over again
Cheers,
Mick

[Sidd]

WOW ... CONGRATS ... KEEP IT UP DUDE ! good luck

[horriefic]

Can anybody answer this question in the first post of this thread:
When you are down cueing a straight shot, when you close your NON-dominant eye (i.e. you are only seeing with your dominant eye), does the shot look straight to you?

Or does the shot look perfectly straight only when both eyes are open, and not with only either eye open.

Thanks!