EYE DOMINANCE ISSUES: WHAT IS OUR SOLUTION?
Eye dominance is the tendency to prefer visual input from one eye over the other. While roughly ten percent of the world is left handed about 1/3 is left eye dominant. So if you’ve been a firearm instructor for any length of time you most certainly have had students with eye dominance issues. Even if you’re not a firearm instructor you may have experienced your own personal set of eye dominance problems as a shooter.
The most common manifestation of eye dominance issues concerning shooters is cross eye dominance. A common example of cross eye dominance is a right handed shooter who is left eye dominant. One of the most common, and in my opinion the worst possible corrections to this issue is to have a shooter match their strong side shooting hand to their dominant eye. A common example would be a right hander being made to shoot left handed in order to match their dominant eye.
I found out years ago that I am cross eye dominant. I’m left eye dominant while being right handed. The severity of my eye dominance is minimal. I have discovered that in most cases I can simply squint my left eye if the level of shot difficulty requires and I’m instantly right eye dominant. We will get deeper into those details later in this article. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Back to the subject at hand.
The youngest possible age to become a police officer in this country is 18. Imagine doing every physical activity using your right side as your dominant hand your entire life and then being taught a lifesaving / defending skill and being forced to used your left hand. At most you’ll have a few short weeks of training to become proficient at this skill. After that time will you be able to shoot well enough to pass a low level law enforcement qualification course? Maybe. Will you be able to shoot well enough to go head to head with an active shooter or an ambush style attack on yourself and partner? Probably not.
Too many firearm instructors look at this issue as one dimensional. That perspective leads to a one size fits all fix as described above. Taking a deeper look into this problem reveals how poor of a choice for the correction that is. Think of people you may know who wear glasses. Do they all have the same prescription? Do they all have the same eye problems? Does your student have Astigmatism, Hyperopia (farsightedness), Myopia (nearsightedness), Presbyopia (aging eyes), Night blindness, Color blindness, etc.? If there are a multitude of eye problems why would we only have one solution?
There is also the issues of degree. All shooters don’t experience the same degree of eye dominance severity. I personally have coached shooters who have had mild dominance issues with little effect on their skill set as well as shooters who were virtually blind in one eye. One correction will not correct the issue for all shooters. If we don’t have answers to help all of our students many of them will be severely short changed. The consequence in law enforcement work of not giving our students a solution can be devastating to them, their department and the community they serve.
One of the tactical dogmas related to vision and shooting is the theory that everyone should keep both eyes open while shooting. The theory being that with both eyes open you won’t get tunnel vision and will see a bigger picture during a deadly force encounter. Now if we have a shooter who cannot keep both eyes open due to their specific eye deficiency and still see what is needed to see to make an accurate shot with speed what is the point of keeping both eyes open? As law enforcement officers we are accountable for every single shot fired. If I can’t hit my target and rounds hit innocent bystanders how in the hell does keeping both eye open help me?
The true starting point to fix this issue is to teach our students what is an “acceptable sight picture”. For this discussion we are ruling out any type of retention shooting. We are only discussing the type of shooting where the gun is pointed on the same linear path that our eyes are focused. One or two handed grip doesn’t matter. We need our students to understand what an acceptable sight picture is and we start with teaching them what determining factors lead us to the correct answer.
Looking at the example sight pictures below do you use one exclusive sight picture regardless of shot difficulty? If you do you are severly hamstringing your potential.
The answer for what is an acceptable sight picture can range anywhere from a target focus with no focus on the sights to a very hard front sight focus with a blurred target. Some of the determining factors for this decision are distance, time, size of target, level of risk with the shot, and the shooters awareness of their own abilities. These factors are not mutually exclusive. Most shooters could get away with a very poor sight picture and still hit a “combat zone” size target at 4 yards. If we add a hostage to the situation who is being moved about by their assailant that same 4 yard shot is going to need much more caution with a precise sight picture.
A 25 yard shot with a pistol at an active shooter who is in a school with many child bystanders is honestly probably not a shot most law enforcement level trained shooters should be taking. The same distance from an active shooter with no bystanders near them and a solid impenetrable wall behind them is one most could take with an almost zero chance of catastrophe. Once our students understand what an acceptable sight picture is for varying levels of degrees of shot difficulty then they can apply what they need to apply for their individual level of skill.
Shooters have varying degrees of ability and vision problems or lack thereof. We need them to understand that and what it takes for them specifically to be accurate under realistic deadly force situations. If we teach that all shooters shall have both eyes open for every shot we are failing as instructors. If we force right side dominant shooters to shoot with their left side to coalesce with their dominant eye we are failing them. If we can’t come up with solid solutions for individual students we shouldn’t be law enforcement instructors in the first place.
Being an instructor is an honored position to be placed in. One size fits all teaching methods should not be accepted. The easiest method for the instructor is not always the most beneficial for the student. If your students have eye dominance issues give them a thorough examination and find solutions. Anything less effort is not worthy of the position “instructor”.