# Both eyes open



## sp33d3rific

Practice. Same thing with pistol shooting. Took a while to get used to. Start with your eye closed to get your sight picture, then gradually open it. I had to squint my left eye until my right eye figured things out. Same thing will happen with your eyes.

Open your non dominate eye just enough to let light in, gradually open it more and more as you practice. You will train your dominate eye to focus on the pins.

I hope that's understandable. If you shoot a pistol you'll understand what I mean, it's the same concept. You have to train your dominate eye to overpower your non dominant eye when yard focusing on something. 

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## Mike83350

sp33d3rific said:


> Practice. Same thing with pistol shooting. Took a while to get used to. Start with your eye closed to get your sight picture, then gradually open it. I had to squint my left eye until my right eye figured things out. Same thing will happen with your eyes.
> 
> Open your non dominate eye just enough to let light in, gradually open it more and more as you practice. You will train your dominate eye to focus on the pins.
> 
> I hope that's understandable. If you shoot a pistol you'll understand what I mean, it's the same concept. You have to train your dominate eye to overpower your non dominant eye when yard focusing on something.
> 
> Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G891A using Tapatalk


This makes sense. I'll keep working in it with a squint until my right eye starts to take over more. Hopefully I get it figured out.


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## dajogejr

Yep, same here.
I always shot Pistols both eyes open, but I shoot a lens and clarifier in my bows.
Took a while of squinting my left eye (non dominant) to get the right sight picture.

Some people just can't do it, they put a blinder on their hat or a blinder on their scope to blackout their non-dominant eye.


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## laur

I was just reading about this. I have always closed the non-dominant eye. I saw a video where a guy had some kind of training aid that looked like a bead on a string so you can practice anytime, not just with your bow or gun. I figured I could try it by holding up a pencil at arms length with the eraser being the "pin" and focusing it on a point far away. At first I was like cross eyed trying to focus on it, double vision, the whole bit. But after doing it a few times, it is becoming more natural. I wasn't sure I would be able to do it because I wear glasses and have strange astigmatism problems. But I think with more practice I will be able to shoot that way. We'll see.


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## kfili

I think it just take times, I made the switch last year from one eye to both open. Just took some time to get used to but 100% worth it


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## EC9

I shall be trying this tomorrow, thanks for all the great tips!

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## bluegrass1

Can someone explain what the benefits are of shooting with both eyes open? Thanks


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## 1/2 Bubble Off

I usually keep both eyes open so I can see where my pin is in relation to where I want to hit. When I know I'm in the ball park, I close my non-shooting eye, confirm sight picture/alignment and shoot...


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## Lucky_sometimes

bluegrass - late post but I just found this thread. I find shooting both eyes open gives me better situational awareness. Maybe it's the prior military in me but I don't like having my left side blind. Also, I hunt from a stand and weirdly one eye closed throws off my balance for some reason. Go figure. I get a better overall sight picture. Also, I can see if something is coming in from the left side; I partner hunt and once had a deer come across my field of view. If I'd had my left eye closed I never would have seen the second deer following the first. I let the first go and harvested the second and my partner harvested the first one. Just my thoughts.


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## CTrick

I've went back and forth with both eyes open shooting. From experience I am able to keep my sight picture centered more consistently with one eye shut, however, tracking arrow flight and awareness seem to be better. Like others have said prior, it is similar to pistol or shotgun shooting, which are commonly done with both eyes open. It comes down to training your dominant eye to take over and trusting in that sight picture.

The biggest change I noticed for me, was being more relaxed when shooting. No closing one eye and possibly introducing facial changes based on how hard you squint or not, it's just eliminating variables and creating consistency. Those are just the technical things I've noticed, but with that being said, as I started shooting both eyes open I was consistently hitting low, so something changed with how I anchored or angled my head, so I went back to one eye open and just opening my other eye once arrow is gone. For the practical reasons others have said, I will be re-visiting practicing with both eyes open because it is eventually where I would like to get, but I'm always going with the method that makes me most accurate.


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## TUNAFISH

following


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## Lucky_leftie215

This is a very timely thread, I just tried this out today and I'll be darned if it didn't tighten up my groups at 20 yards as well as vital zone hits on the 3-D targets at the same distance. I'm actually cross dominant, right eye shooting left handed, so I think I'll continue to experiment and see what happens. 

The true test will be if I can continue to get consistent hits in the field and low light hunting situations.


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## M1bowhunter

This might help since I have the opposite... never been able to shoot with one eye on anything (pistol, rifle, bow). The trick I sort of found when showing someone else was to look through the peep. Yes sounds obvious, but what I mean is use the peep to "get in your way" and focus on the pins. Think of it like shooting a red dot: Many try to look into the scope housing to see the red dot when you should look beyond it and pick up the red dot. it makes the "scope" disappear. Same with the peep. focus on the pins with both eyes open and allow the peep to float around it. With both eyes open I found it doesn't force you to look so hard at the peep and have to squint. Just a suggestion.


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## makassiouk

I would try to not forget that eye dominance just like hand dominance is not always 100% to one side. For me personally the right eye is very strongly dominant and I have no trouble eliminating whatever comes in through the left eye without closing it physically. For other people it is more difficult, so I would recommend just going with what is more comfortable. If you have to squint hard, that might be less optimal, so maybe I would then consider a cover f.ex. hung from a hat or even an eye patch (some people like to use them, for me it would be unthinkable). In any case I wouldn't say that one way is right and others are wrong on this issue.


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## williamhd2

If this can be my 2 cents help, like a few others, I have no problem to shoot with both eyes open, rifle scope, peeps, or sights. 

I am not born with both eyes open. It tools sometime and decision to train. I mean you have to decide to open your eyes, then everything will fall in place. I always use this comparison: your eyes is much closer to your brain than any other muscle, if you can control your body to do shot process, you can control your eyes to give the image that you want. 

The fact is: your eyes will always give your brain 2 images. But you never thought like that until you really come to aim. Now the non-dominate image bother you when you align 3 different things in dominate eye. It just take less than a week to train your brain to ignore the not aligned picture. And you will get it.



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## bcane98

Started doing this with my pistols after watching American Sniper followed by some YouTube videos about it. I decided to try it out, and it came fairly natural after about an hour of retraining my mind. I did the same thing shooting my bow in the backyard about a month ago... after about an hour it is now the routine.


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## Fdalebowhunter7

Good ideas


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## subconsciously

I’ve seen cross dominant shooters when national championships. I shoot right with a left dominant eye. Nothing works better than a cap blinder to fix the problem. Keeping even light in both eyes is what is important. If your worried about depth perception, you should know how far it is before you pull your bow back. If you have well tuned equipment and good form it is irrelevant. 


.02


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## alasj57

I am right handed and started out shooting right handed but I found out that I am left eye dominant so when I was shooting right hand I would have to close my left eye. I changed over to shooting left hand so I could have both eyes open.


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## injanear

I feel like my eye dominant changes depending on how tired I am


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## dcalvert

Seems like this takes for ever to learn but is does happen. I feel that it is a bit over rated when shooting sights or pins. more relevant shooting shotguns and red dots scopes.


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## Vovchok

try to focus your vision on objects at home, close your right eye and try to see objects at different distances


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## bobcat102

I shoot both eyes easy peasy


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