Dominant Eye/Opposite Hand

[Master Blaster]

Dominant Eye/Opposite Hand

Listening to Glen McGrath about bowling and batting coaching. He was told that folk should bat with the opposite hand to their dominant eye. This aligns the body so that the dominant eye is over the ball and bat, helping to avoid a lot of nicks to the slip cordon. It keeps the dominant eye forward of the passive eye as well , so that the optic nerve receives an image of the ball at its largest and most detailed. Do this trick; close your passive eye, look at something 12ft away on a wall, twist your head so that the image is just in the inside corner of your vision (near the nose) and rotate your head so that is straight ahead, then rotate again, so that it is in the outside corner of your eye. The image should be larger and clearer when focused perpendicular.

Most folk are R eye dominant (2/3) and most people are right handed (9/10), so we can deduce that 60% of players probably play R eye, R handed. The body alignment of R/R isn’t elegant either, have a look at Dennis Taylor on youtube! Can this be 60% playing incorrectly!? Why? Because to play R/R most will play centre chin and twist their heads so that their passive left eye is ahead of the right eye, such that the R eye sees the cue straight. A good trick but it means the image of the cue and balls isn’t perpendicular and it isn’t at its largest. What is true in cricket is also true in snooker.
Top potters/break builders who use their dominant eye and opposite hand:

Ronnie, Judd Trump, Neil Robertson, Ding.
Mark Allen is a player who uses the same hand as his dominant eye: a player who I think has underachieved, is it down to him playing L/L?

Most RR or LL players suffer with long potting.

*Nic Barrow, TD, your thoughts please chaps?

[tetricky]

I'm right eye dominant, and left handed, and I'm rubbish. Although I do struggle to see properly very far, and have astigmatism.

[Master Blaster]

I'm right eye dominant, and left handed, and I'm rubbish. Although I do struggle to see properly very far, and have astigmatism.

Would you play even worse R/R? It's an interesting question. The only problem with playing L handed and this is why many folk play with the R hand when they are R eye dominant, is writing and printing. The way the paper page was set up makes folk use their right hand and teachers and parents encourage it. Everything is designed for the right hand because maybe a lot of folk are naturally inclined towards their R hand but I do believe left alone, more people would use their left hand for holding things. For young players, even if they write R-handed, I would encourage them to hold the cue with opposite hand. This won't be easy but being ambidextrous isn't a bad thing to learn; very useful in snooker as well as life.

[Terry Davidson]

I play right-handed and sight with my left eye. I believe using the opposite eye makes for a better set-up and perhaps more consistency.

I believe you'll find Nic teaches centre-chin however I think this was decided before we all realized that a player will only sight with one eye. I sort of fell into using my left eye after I had surgery which made my left eye 20/20 and my right eye 20/40 but I believe my alignment is better and the other bonus is turning the head slightly to the right relieves strain on my lower neck. For players over 40yrs I think this should be a consideration.

[GeordieDS]

I play snooker with my left hand and i'm right eye dominant but i'd been playing for twenty years before i new one eye was better? than the other.
Another thing is snooker is the only thing i do left handed everything else i do right handed

[David Pleym]

Hi Folks

I am an archer and cross dominant (right hand left eye). You draw a bow with your dominant hand and hold it with the non dominant. I have to wear a patch or close my left eye to sight when shooting or I end up seeing two targets. However the South Koreans (generally accepted as the best archery country in the world ) would tell you to swop and use the same hand as your dominant eye. I never do......!!!! I know I sight with my left eye playing snooker and don't do too badly! I think this is one of these things where you shouldn't worry about it and just play. IMHO address poor eyesight issues obviously but don't get caught up in the eye dominance thing. It will only tie you up in knots LOL. Look at ROS and his ambidexterous play. Bet you he has a dominant eye.

[markz]

Hi Folks

I am an archer and cross dominant (right hand left eye). You draw a bow with your dominant hand and hold it with the non dominant. I have to wear a patch or close my left eye to sight when shooting or I end up seeing two targets. However the South Koreans (generally accepted as the best archery country in the world ) would tell you to swop and use the same hand as your dominant eye. I never do......!!!! I know I sight with my left eye playing snooker and don't do too badly! I think this is one of these things where you shouldn't worry about it and just play. IMHO address poor eyesight issues obviously but don't get caught up in the eye dominance thing. It will only tie you up in knots LOL. Look at ROS and his ambidexterous play. Bet you he has a dominant eye.

Totally agree, so many posts on here meant with all good intentions but they just confuse the game so much. Just enjoy playing and see how far that gets you and if you show promise and want to improve put the hard work in and possibly see a coach who may help you.

[tetricky]

Some coaches tell you to set up with your dominant eye sighting over the cue. Are you saying that you should not learn good technique ourselves, but play with bad habits, and if you show any natural aptitude pay a fortune to a coach to sort them out? Or are you saying that coaches who teach this are wrong?

There are things that can help you play snooker. Should you try to learn them, or see how 'natural' you are, and get a coach to tidy up the baggage you give yourself?

I suppose it depends on your point of view. It might be that you can bend over a snooker table and be a natural, or there's no point. For me, I played for years, and only got better when I started to look into learning more about the game. I wasted twenty years, not naturally getting better. I was never going to be getting a coach and trying to be the next Ronnie. I'd like to have had the understanding that I have now, then.

Why on earth wouldn't you try to learn, if you can, and that makes you better?....

Now I agree, you can't just take on board every idiots with an opinions ideas and expect to get better. I use the Frank Callan stuff, because I understand it, it makes sense to me, I can see what it is helping me to achieve...and crucially...for me, I improve if I do it that way.

[OmaMiesta]

Im right handed, left eye dominant but am better at pool/snooker left handed. So my set up is left handed, left eye dominant when originally Im suppose to be right handed left eye dominant. Coincidentally enough I really do suck at long pots but can sight pretty well when I'm in amongst the balls. As a consequence I'm always changing and experimenting with different set ups and my games all over the place at the moment lol.

[Terry Davidson]

Forget about the dominant eye and the theory behind it. What is important is the eye a player uses for SIGHTING and that is not necessarily the dominant eye. I am dominant right eye and always have been and I play right handed but SIGHT using my left eye.

This automatically means a more compact set-up plus less strain on the lower neck or in other words more comfort in the set-up.

Every player will use just one eye for sighting and it will be the eye where everything looks straight when you close the other eye. I suppose there are players out there who can sight out of either eye but I guarantee you even that player will use just one of his eyes when sighting a pot.

It really doesn't matter which eye you use as long as you adjust your set-up to match that sighting eye and then PLAY ONLY ONE WAY AND DO NOT TRY AND SWITCH AROUND looking for some kind of improvement because it just ain't gonna happen. I'm constantly amazed by the type of questions which come up on here on those little tiny nitty-gritty aspects of a players technique and those players that expect INSTANT improvement (usually by copying some little quirk one of the better pros has). It just doesn't happen that way and there is no silver bullet.

Every player will have his own technique and as long as it's near enough to decent technique and AS LONG AS HE USES IT CONSISTENTLY AND STICKS WITH IT he will improve. The reason is you have to 'train your brain' to match your technique and that takes time and lots of practice. That's the reason some pros can play very well with those odd quirks in their technique, because they've been doing it for years every day.

[Terry Davidson]

A very good example of what I'm talking about above ^^ is the topic about Nic getting down into the shot. That's the way Nic gets down into a shot and he's been doing it that same way for years and even though he says you should push your hand into the shot that might not be the way everyone learned to play.

Besides which no one has been able to say how far you push your bridge hand into the shot. I know I don't really push at all but I do move my hand forward as I get into the address position but it's maybe 1/2" or so at most.

You can also see from that string that a few players have decided that pushing the hand forward is the 'silver bullet' they've been looking for. BOLLOCKS!!! THERE IS NO SILVER BULLET.

[golferson123]

gives em something to talk about terry, it's a quite spell on the forum

[tetricky]

I'm confused. To me your description of what a 'sighting eye' is, is exactly what a 'dominant eye' is. The dominant eye is the one your brain uses for 'sighting an object'. The other eye follows it. your dominant eye is the one where your sighting of an object remains in place when you close the other eye. This seems to be what you are describing as the eye a player uses for sighting.

I would consider your "sighting" to be how you align your eyes in line with the cue/shot, and your dominant eye the one your brain uses to line up the world. To avoid an offset, these need to be one and the same thing. It's possible to play without doing so. It's not possible to have your dominant eye be exactly in the line of the cue - after all the cue is in the way...but the close it is, the better your "sighting".

..or am I missing something? Do you disagree?

[Terry Davidson]

I'm confused. To me your description of what a 'sighting eye' is, is exactly what a 'dominant eye' is. The dominant eye is the one your brain uses for 'sighting an object'. The other eye follows it. your dominant eye is the one where your sighting of an object remains in place when you close the other eye. This seems to be what you are describing as the eye a player uses for sighting.

I would consider your "sighting" to be how you align your eyes in line with the cue/shot, and your dominant eye the one your brain uses to line up the world. To avoid an offset, these need to be one and the same thing. It's possible to play without doing so. It's not possible to have your dominant eye be exactly in the line of the cue - after all the cue is in the way...but the close it is, the better your "sighting".

..or am I missing something? Do you disagree?

This has been discussed over and over on here. In 70% of right-handed men their right eye is the dominant one. Now think of baseball players or even cricket batters who bat right-handed and because they're standing to the side with their left side facing the pitcher (bowler) they will sight the incoming ball with their left eye but most of these players are right eye dominant. They have trained their brain to use their left eye for sighting.

The statistics are exactly the same for snooker players. I will say it again, even though most right-handed players will be right eye dominant quite a few of them (including a lot of pros) will sight using their left eye as that will make for a more compact set-up. As long as their vision is good in their left eye they will use it.

A 'sighting' eye does not have to be the player's dominant eye and in fact in a lot of cases it's not.

But with all that said I'm not trying to convince anyone to change and start using their opposite eye for sighting in snooker. As long as you stick with one eye, whether your dominant eye or not, and consistently use that eye then there shouldn't be a problem. Also, in case you get the wrong idea I am NOT offering this as something which will improve a player's skill but it will place him in a more compact set-up and will also relieve strain on the lower part of the neck when compared to using their same eye as their grip side.

For a right-handed player it's simply a matter of turning the head to the right a bit to get the left eye nearer the cue but for that same player to turn his head to the LEFT is harder to do and will eventually strain his lower neck.

[tedisbill]

How would you even change how you do it?

I mean, my brain just tells me how to correctly line up a shot. I didn't deliberately get down a certain way, I just got down able to see the line of the shot correctly.