The effects of having a dominant eye!!!

[Belloz22]

Now i probably know the answer already, but any other opinions and thoughts will be useful.

Ive noticed lately that i dont seem to be sighting the shot correctly when im stood up from the shot.... and as a consquence, im getting down on the wrong line. I also play under my right eye, which im told is quite strange for a left handed player??? My coach however has told me that no matter how strange my head looks over the cue, it doesnt seem to effect my cueing - personally i even feel like im sighting the shot better when im down. Anyway, would the fact im right eye dominate effect how i sight the ball when stood up??? Is there a way of testing if im sighting the right line when stood up, surely if im right eye domiante, i should be using my right eye to sight the shot up when stood up??

Thanks

[KeithinFrance]

If you're right eye dominant, then you should be sighting using that eye, no question. The fact that you cue from under your right eye would suggest that that's what you're doing. Are you sure you're badly sighting the ball when standing? It isn't too clear from your post ... anyway, I'd just try and make sure I used my right eye for the sighting both up and down; the fact you're cueing from under your strong eye is a good thing, as you've got nothing to change then. Thank god for small mercies!

[Bigmeek]

I also play left-handed but am left eye dominant which I think must make it easier. I'd never ever thought about it before but it would feel uncomfortable to sight with my right eye. Maybe you get used to it. I think so long as you feel comfortable one good eye is sufficient. Experiment with a patch over your bad eye. I've been told that I am getting no sight benefit at all from my bad eye. My glasses have only ONE prescription lense and when I tried contacts I only needed one! I have to say though that my standard of snooker is not that great and I often feel that if I had 20/20 vision in both eyes I would be better. Recent eye surgery to improve sight hasn't helped Stephen McGuire so far though!!

[C-J]

I'v the same problem only the opposit;right hand,left eye.

When you go stand with your right eye behind the aiming line you're left foot will be left of the line.Now when you step in you have to place your left foot at angle in order to swing your body out of the aiming line.This angle has to be close to 90 degrees,but at least between 45 and 90 degrees.

You can also stand behind the line looking with both eye's and then bend your head slightly to one side but i don't like this.

You can also look with both eye's behind the line and move your head when down but you have to be very carefull with this one as this can lead to a lot of problems when you're not completely sure of the line.

[Terry Davidson]

Sorry folks but I'm going to have to disagree with anyone who thinks they should cue under their dominant eye. The reason this theory came to pass was because Joe Davis cued under his left eye (as a right-hander) but folks, JOE DAVIS WAS ALMOST TOTALLY BLIND IN HIS RIGHT EYE!!!

Ask yourself this...when you drive a car do you turn your head sideways so you are seeing out of your 'dominant' eye? The only thing I can think of right now where you would normally shut one eye to aim would be a rifle, which is a little different from sighting at snooker and we're not talkning cominant eye with a rifle where it's the right eye (dominant or not) for someone who shoots a rifle right-handed.

Your brain was designed for stereoscopic vision, meaning it's looking for an image from both eyes. Unless you are almost totally blind in one eye you should cue centre-chin and also when standing behind the shot use your nose to aim at BOB, which will get both eyes balanced on the line of sight.

That's my OPINION only (and I'm sticking to it!)

Terry

[C-J]

Another thing to beware of when having a master eye is that you might not line up the shot correctly and blame your vision when down.

If you have an immidiate urge to move your cue a little bit to the left(or right)and back when down this might be the case.

Be aware where your cue is pointing when down.If it doesn't feel good it is not good.Maybe the (slightly) wrong aim is good enough to pot the ball of the sides of the pocket if you cue really straight,but most likely you will adjust your aim and things will start to feel wrong.You will cue across,probably able to pot some balls this way but you will miss more then you pot it will never give you the confidence your looking for.

So be very aware that your aim is spot on before you blame your master eye of urges to cue across.

[C-J]

Sorry folks but I'm going to have to disagree with anyone who thinks they should cue under their dominant eye. The reason this theory came to pass was because Joe Davis cued under his left eye (as a right-hander) but folks, JOE DAVIS WAS ALMOST TOTALLY BLIND IN HIS RIGHT EYE!!!

Ask yourself this...when you drive a car do you turn your head sideways so you are seeing out of your 'dominant' eye? The only thing I can think of right now where you would normally shut one eye to aim would be a rifle, which is a little different from sighting at snooker and we're not talkning cominant eye with a rifle where it's the right eye (dominant or not) for someone who shoots a rifle right-handed.

Your brain was designed for stereoscopic vision, meaning it's looking for an image from both eyes. Unless you are almost totally blind in one eye you should cue centre-chin and also when standing behind the shot use your nose to aim at BOB, which will get both eyes balanced on the line of sight.

That's my OPINION only (and I'm sticking to it!)

Terry

Everybody is entitled to have his own opinion but in the end it's all about confidence and even the top pro's have made changes over time...

[lawrywild]

I'm right handed and cue under my left eye. Quite a lot of people comment on it.. it just seemed to happen.. probably because my left eye is better than my right (on their own) but they work perfectly together too..

Either way, doesn't seem to affect my aiming; I'm known for having a very high long pot success compared to everyone else in my team.

[checkSide]

I am right eye dominant, and for a long time I believed I was lining shots up incorrectly. I experimented moving the cue around under both eyes, and my natural centre chin, all to no avail. I even tried playing shots with one eye closed!!

It was only recently I realised my cueing has been off-line for over a year.

I corrected this very recently, and I am now cueing straighter than ever. I have realised as a consequence of this my aim was correct the whole time.
In fact I now believe that if you have played snooker for any significant amount of time, your brain knows ALMOST ALL of the potting angles. The reason you miss is your cueing, not your aim.

[Bigmeek]

Very interesting. Bad cueing is to blame for a whole host of problems. How did you correct your cueing?

[checkSide]

Very interesting. Bad cueing is to blame for a whole host of problems. How did you correct your cueing?

Hi Bigmeek.

I always thought my natural cue action pulled across to the right, and I constantly adjusted to correct this.
It has turned out that this "pull to the right" is actually the straight line!!!

It is my eyes that have been deceiving me, my body has been trying to cue straight the whole time.

[pottingpinks]

Never given this much thought after 30 odd years of playing, don't tend to get right down on the shot anyhow, though someone told me this had got more pronounced in recent years so trying to rectify that on the long shots in particular, which I have become more erratic at over the years, in keeping with many other "oldies" it seems!!

[C-J]

Hi Bigmeek.

I always thought my natural cue action pulled across to the right, and I constantly adjusted to correct this.
It has turned out that this "pull to the right" is actually the straight line!!!

It is my eyes that have been deceiving me, my body has been trying to cue straight the whole time.

The battle between the eye's and the cuearm........the thing to rely on in the first place is always your timing-from front pause to last pause:snooker:-,thats the shot.The back pause should never cause change the direction(which you will want to if you play with the eye's

[cantpotforshíte]

Sorry folks but I'm going to have to disagree with anyone who thinks they should cue under their dominant eye. The reason this theory came to pass was because Joe Davis cued under his left eye (as a right-hander) but folks, JOE DAVIS WAS ALMOST TOTALLY BLIND IN HIS RIGHT EYE!!!

Ask yourself this...when you drive a car do you turn your head sideways so you are seeing out of your 'dominant' eye? The only thing I can think of right now where you would normally shut one eye to aim would be a rifle, which is a little different from sighting at snooker and we're not talkning cominant eye with a rifle where it's the right eye (dominant or not) for someone who shoots a rifle right-handed.


Terry

I don't know about rifle shooting, but in archery (a sport in which the students are very rigorously coached), If the pupil was right handed and left eye dominant, he would then be taught to hold and draw the bow as would a left hander, so that his dominant eye is looking down the direction of flight of the arrow.
Now it seems to me that archery and rifle shooting are more analogous to snooker than driving a car, because we have to focus close up on the cue and then look down the cue to imagine the trajectory of the cueball.
Or do we? I rarely can actually see in which direction my cue is pointing when I'm down on the shot. I'd love to hear from anybody and everybody if they can actually see where their cue is pointing when they are down on the shot, or if they just see the cue as a blur and rely on the feel and the 'down on the shot routine' to know if it's right.
On a related point, a couple of years ago, I was unsure of my sighting/cueing so I performed a little experiment with a cue: I set up a straight shot, and tried to focus on my cue with centre-eye sighting until it seemed to me that the cue was pointing directly at the centre of the object ball. I then carefully placed the cue down on the table making sure that it didn't change which way it was pointing. I then got up from the shot, and looked down the end of the cue with one eye (either eye) to see where it was pointing. It was pointing to the edge of the object ball, not the centre.
No matter how many times I repeated this experiment, I got the same result, even with differing distances. From that time on I've determined to cue with the cue under my left eye. Now it feels natural, and I can't actually cue with centre-eye sighting. I wouldn't recommend anybody else to try this as it's bit like opening a can of worms.
But I do feel like I know better now which way my stick is pointing.

[noel]

• Now it seems to me that archery and rifle shooting are more analogous to snooker than driving a car

• I rarely can actually see in which direction my cue is pointing when I'm down on the shot.

• I set up a straight shot, and tried to focus on my cue with centre-eye sighting until it seemed to me that the cue was pointing directly at the centre of the object ball. I then carefully placed the cue down on the table making sure that it didn't change which way it was pointing. I then got up from the shot, and looked down the end of the cue with one eye (either eye) to see where it was pointing. It was pointing to the edge of the object ball, not the centre.

• I agree, in sighting, archery is much more like snooker than driving a car.
  Unlike piloting a car, peripheral wide-field vision and perception of spacial location is not crucial in snooker,
  in fact, it's to be avoided.
  [ I did, however, once have my final shot disturbed with a "surrender monkey" cue towel flying into view ]

• Neither can I see the accurately aligned direction cantpotforshíte... and it's not just because I need reading glasses
  which I don't wear as they obstruct my complete view of the object ball which is fuzzy because I need distance correction too.
  It's because way less than half the cue line is visible when you're down on a shot... and the critical aiming portion of the
  shot proposition is way back out-of-sight at your hip. If you shift the butt hand 1/16 inch that translates into something like 1/2" at the cueball! [ contrary to what some believe, chevrons don't really help ].

• Now the cue as a aiming line layed down on the table is getting somewhere...
  only do it in reverse...
  Standing square to your shot... see the correct angle... even place your cue in that line on the table... step into your shot carefully like Tiger Woods does... fit yourself to the cue properly... raise into that position... waggle, whatever... shoot, but...
  Do not re-adjust aiming for what your eyes and mind see at that close-range to the cueball and long-range to the object ball.
  Trust your initial geometry cue-line prediction... if you delivered the cue straight I bet your aiming from above the table is the correct one.
  I observe that pros do a version of this every time they shoot. Over time and years of practice the shot perception, the body moving uniformly into postion, the sure stroke is honed to simple, almost always reliability. Perfection.
  [ eliminate all the variables except the ones that always work for you... also do not play snooker with a head cold which I did yesterday ]

That's my two pence. Terry or Nic or other proper coaches can give you a full pound or more...



=o)

Noel