The Dominant Eye Theory Is Totally Wrong!

[Byrom]

1 x original post
1 x witticism from me
55 x posts basically saying everyone pretty much sights differently. Except for Vmax who is always right and whose posts are gospel (in his own head) - he probably invented eyes in the first place anyway, so we're all wrong.

I dread the minute when Sidd reads this thread.... there'll be an explosion in downtown Islamabad when his brain has yet another pointless thing to try and incorporate into his game.

#justSaying

yes I've been drinking.

You funny:biggrin-new::emmersed::emmersed:

[Byrom]

managed to find footage of various TSF members the day after trying out different sighting techniques after seeing this thread.

[alabadi]

It's very frustrating. Some excellent, some utter rubbish. For example, last night on a clearance I hit a fantastic half ball blue in the middle of the table, into the green pocket from around the pink. Ran all the way around the angles to drop perfectly on the pink (on the spot) just off straight into the middle (the right side off straight to have almost nothing to do to run through and hold for the black). About nine inches from the pink, perfect. Missed the pink far jaw.

Tell me about it, story of my life

[tetricky]

Hmm. I've done a lampost, a signpost, and a hole in the ground. I shouldn't be allowed out.

[Steve748]

My problem is that although I have found I can now send the cue ball exactly where I am looking I need to be millimeter perfect on where I am seeing the contact point.
I have found that when I am playing pool (against myself) by putting marker spots underneath the balls on shots I struggle with I can fine tune where I think the correct place is to aim the cb.
I have found being ocd about pre-prep before making the shot has helped my success rate improve as well.
I think it is called linear path memory that I need to work on so I can think less about the prep and more about the shot and cb path after contact.
Now I can't blame a miss on sighting I have to work on the other stuff as well!

[vmax4steve]

Hi Steve
I agree with you 100% on:
Do not under any circumstances override what your brain has decided just to conform to some coaches ideal of technique, you will only mess up your sighting completely.

However, you seem to be recommending that a player should sight under one eye only? If that is the case, I have to tell you that this advice causes huge problems (and earns me more money that from any other topic in aiming by players coming in and trying to unpick the mess they are in).

The reason snooker players don't wear eye patches as rifle shooters do is that we need depth perception which arises from the 3d vision we get when the brain fuses the left and right 2d images together. This helps to gauge potting angles and plot & plan the cue ball path better.

Otherwise pros would all have concluded that they should be wearing pouches to prevent the second eyes vision interfering with their aiming.

No pro ever looks at the cue when cueing up - although all players see the cue in their peripheral vision. There will be many pros if asked 'how many cues do you see when you are on the shot' who will be genuinely surprised that they see two, because they simply have never thought about it - and never needed to.

By dominant, do you mean STRONGER? Most people confuse the two, and the traditional 'dominant' eye which we discover with the 'find the chalk test' will be WEAKER than the other eye in around 10% of cases.
If one eye is much stronger then the player's vision centre will USUALLY favour that eye, but in some cases the head will remain central to the cue like some (but not all) pros.

I have not recomended having the cue directly under one eye at all, I said only one eye is being used by the brain, those with a very dominant eye will cue under that eye, like Neil Robertson, others will have the cue closer to one eye as the brain uses the info from only one eye to sight along the line of aim although both eyes are open and are being used for depth perception, the brain blocks out the info that isn't needed from the other eye, but switches it on again when needed.

I also didn't say players look at the cue, I simply used this as an example for players to test out what I'm saying is true, if you look at only the cue you will see one, but in your peripheral vision when looking at the balls there will be two, one of which is pointing at the centre of the cue ball, the other outside of it.

As for what you describe as the vision centre, well it isn't the centre at all really, it's where your eyesight percieves the line of aim best and therefore where your brain has decided which eye to use to place the cue on the line of aim.

Do the finger test and you can focus on the finger and see only one finger, look at the target your finger is pointed at and you can see two, one from each eye. In between the two fingers there is nothing at all, the brain will not use this central point between the two eyes for aiming a finger or a single shaft of wood along a line of aim for the simple reason that there is nothing there at all to aim.
This is why only one eye is used, only one eye can be used, so for pity's sake stop using phrases like central when talking about aiming, otherwise beginners will be thinking that everything has to be central and will try to aim along this empty centre between the eyes.

If the head isn't positioned directly over one eye, it will be tilted or turned slightly to one side, or because of the position of the stance, to favour one eye over the other.

Please stop reading things in my posts that aren't there, what I posted was pretty simple and self explanatory and nothing you posted in the above quote has anything to do with it.

[vmax4steve]

1 x original post
1 x witticism from me
55 x posts basically saying everyone pretty much sights differently. Except for Vmax who is always right and whose posts are gospel (in his own head) - he probably invented eyes in the first place anyway, so we're all wrong.

Vmax says trust your own eyes and let your brain do its thing, how is that wrong ? Shame I have to go into all the minutae of how the eyes work to actually spell it out, and BTW I have nothing I'm trying to sell, no money making schemes or devices or coaching courses, just saying it like it is for me, and as I'm as human as everyone else on this forum, it must be the same for all you two eyed homo sapiens as well.

[Shockerz]

I think that the analogy of a golfer looking at the ball at strike and what you say about striking a football cannot be used in the same context as snooker.

for one reason you only have one target which is usually large. a footballer only has to hit a target that is hundred time the size of a football, a golfer has to hit a fairway or a green which again are large. ok once on the green they need to putt, and most golfers i have seen look at the hole when they putt.

in snooker we are trying to send a ball to hit another ball and sending that ball into a pocket not much wider than the ball itself. we need to work out the angle the OB will travel to the pocket and then the angle and the path the cueball will need to take too, the margins for error are very small.

i'm sure a complete beginner at snooker could send the cueball from the baulk area into any one of the top pockets 10/10 but would struggle to pot an OB that is 2 feet away.

I think I probably didn't explain myself very well.

When a person is on form you don't always have to see something with your eyes, your brain knows where it is somehow; on good days in snooker you haven't yet sighted the shot and the balls already in the pocket, your minds eye as some people call it, some players have it and some struggle.

I can tell you that after many years of football it's tougher to score in the top left hand corner than get a snooker ball the length of the table in the corner pocket.

My point was just about we don't just see things with our eyes (maybe not the best example from me).

And, for the golfers on here (please tell me if you disagree); once you take your putt you should be looking at the ground and may lift your eyes toward the hole after the ball has been hit (and only then) or you will drag the putter face offline, If your seeing golfers look at the hole then the balls already left the putter face or they're doing it wrong, you should just rock the shoulders in a pendulum motion (have a golf pro in the family that used to scold me over this for years).

Stop Stop Stop! You got me onto golf.

Back to snooker......

I think the brains a wonderful thing and we sometimes suppress some great things by too much technique.

[vmax4steve]

I think I probably didn't explain myself very well.

When a person is on form you don't always have to see something with your eyes, your brain knows where it is somehow; on good days in snooker you haven't yet sighted the shot and the balls already in the pocket, your minds eye as some people call it, some players have it and some struggle.

Quite wrong, you have seen it because you have looked, you just don't realise it as it was a subconscious thing. You can't hit anything without looking at the target.

[vmax4steve]

if you look at only the cue you will see one, but in your peripheral vision when looking at the balls there will be two, one of which is pointing at the centre of the cue ball, the other outside of it.

I practised today and tried this, what I discovered was strange and quite profound, I looked at the cue to address the tip to the cue ball and could see only one cue, while looking at the cue ball I could see two cues in my peripheral vision, one of which was quite clear and pointed at the centre of the cue ball, the other one though was ghostly and ended at my bridge hand, the final twelve inches as seen by my right eye was completely shut out by my brain.

[Byrom]

I practised today and tried this, what I discovered was strange and quite profound, I looked at the cue to address the tip to the cue ball and could see only one cue, while looking at the cue ball I could see two cues in my peripheral vision, one of which was quite clear and pointed at the centre of the cue ball, the other one though was ghostly and ended at my bridge hand, the final twelve inches as seen by my right eye was completely shut out by my brain.

Eh ----those double doubles in yer drink at the club there buddy??

[tedisbill]

The forum goes a bit quiet for a bit, and then threads like this pop back up and make it all OK again.

[vmax4steve]

Eh ----those double doubles in yer drink at the club there buddy??

Try it yourself Byrom, tell us what you see.

[Byrom]

I'm teasing - I don't usually like messing with my sighting or even being aware of it - I prefer the natural approach - last time I did it really messed with my marbles my timing went and I could not pot a ball but I will give it a go and report back if you explain further - I am not really sure what you mean here though buddy?

[MattB147]

As I said previously, I totally believe if you are standing somewhat 'correctly' with a good technique, your 'natural eye' will find itself. I had an hour on the practice table earlier and although I started off (because of this thread) thinking about sighting, I had within 10 minutes completely forgotten about this whole sighting fiasco.

My advice. Look after your technique and your sighting will look after itself. Who am I to speak.....only 1000's of centuries to my name and originally terrible eyesight....?

Food for thought.

Also, many of you might remember Cliff Wilson from Wales. 100% blind in one eye. Used to pot everything. Bob Chandler from Bristol, unbelievable player, terrible eyesight....coached me as a kid and he had a pretty decent 147 against one of his students. When I asked him as a young teenager how he does it as an older badly sighted person, he replied, "I play from memory, can barely see the balls past 6 feet".

He never played with glasses on and when I tried his reading glasses on, I realised that his eyes were even worse than mine. Tell me now where sighting comes in!