Cross dominant eye

[dan03usmc]

Does anyone here shoot cross dominant. I am a righty and shoot my compound lefty. I just can't do it with trad gear. I can shoot pretty well righty with my long bow, but have to do some kentucky windage. It really stinks because I can not achieve a truly instinctual shot.

I was wondering if it is posible to untune a bow/arrow setup so that it throws the arrows opposite of my cross eye instinct.......or am I just peeing into the wind.

[BT]

Tuning like that would be next to impossible and the impact of such a tune would result in massive energy losses as I see it.

Byron Ferguson has a great technique for shooting instinctively that would work for you, provided you shoot both eye's open.

The idea is to train the brain to see without thinking about seeing.

What you do is to pick a spot on a back stop and before shooting, look to see where the end of the arrow is in relation to the actual spot.
once you have taken note of the arrow points location, you shoot and see where the arrow ends up.
The arrows visual relation to the spot is the gap, which will always remain constant.
Adjusting the gap to bring the arrow impact on the mark is what you will need to do
Once you have the gap down, thats how you begin referencing the shot.
If you do not vary distance and shoot many arrows using this method, your brain will instinctively guide your hand to the mark.

I can assure you that although it begins very ugly...it works very very well

[dan03usmc]

thanks BT. That is what I am doing now. It is sour grapes, but I wish I was closer to pure instinct. You know, like throwing a base ball. it is un-nerving to be pointing your arrow torwards the deer's guts when taking the shot. Even after thousands of practice shots as proof that the arrow will hit the good spot.

[BT]

Your absolutely right and I do understand that..... totally!.
Let me ask....do you look at the arrow?.
What I mean to say is that if you want to shoot instinctively, it's totally about not looking.
The Chinese form of archery has the shooter standing with the bow drawn across the chest and arms forward of the chest.
I can shoot very well this way and there is no chance at all that I can reference the arrow being shot.

As you say....like throwing a baseball.
That takes nothing more than thousands and thousands of shots without taking aim.
You will have to start fresh and disregard the act of taking aim.

I shot in this fashion when I first began but lost the ability after years of not shooting the stick.
You can do it ..... with perseverance.

[dan03usmc]

I try not to look at the arrow....I think sometimes I peek though. I will have to look into the Chinese method.

What I do is focus on a spot that is roughly 4 o'clock of the real spot that i want to hit. The one thing that is right, is that distance does'nt seem to matter. The "computer" automatically does that for me.

At the time I was trying to master my longbow, I was an on call plumber. It would allow me many free hours during the day to practice. I would spend hrs walking around the woods stump shooting. (thousands of shots)

As of late, I only use my long bow for small game. A deer I shot last year is a deer I passed two years ago with my long bow. He was at 23 yards, just too far for me. He was a lot bigger this year though

[BT]

Nice!

Hunting with a stick is all about getting close.....so if you really enjoy that aspect of the game, your better off

[BT]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA2EnemzBpk

Check this out.
It is not the Chinese shaolin style but is very close.

[dan03usmc]

Thanks for the vid, I have seen something like that before. Yeah, it's all about getting close. I am not quite at that point in my career where I want to limit myself with trad gear. It was a life-long dream of mine to take a deer with a long bow or recurve and I was able to do that two years ago.

For the first 25 years of my life, I never even saw a deer in my town. I only new one other person who saw one growing up. We spent alot of time in the woods too. Now there are deer all over the place. If you bring up the subject, you will here people chime in on how they have em' in their back yard etc. I was able to shoot two pope and young bucks last year and think it is only getting better. There may be a point when i put the "training wheels" down, but I have too much of a blood lust right now. I will probably mellow one of these days. I don't hunt with a gun, I suppose that is something.

[BT]

Aug 13, 2009 18:02:49 GMT -5 dan03usmc said:

I will probably mellow one of these days. I don't hunt with a gun, I suppose that is something.

I suppose it is

I grew up in a gun shop and dropped that stuff at age 14.
I picked up the recurve for real just a dozen years ago or less.
I had shot the sticks for fun but never for hunting.
I was to afraid of having a huge opportunity pass me by because I wouldn't be able to reach it.
For whatever reason.....I dont worry about that anymore
I couldn't say why that is....it's just the way it is.

I think that what it may come down to is the fact that I really dont miss my mark (by much) anymore and that I am very comfortable with my bow.
It came with me starting to take the recurve out on what I considered to be poor days for hunting.
After a couple of shot opportunities during those sits, I started to loosen up and I became more comfortable with the idea of treating the occasion as a challenge.

Hmmm...maybe I do understand me more than I thought!

[dan03usmc]

I totally hear ya. I almost feel guilty sometimes for not hunting with my long bow. It is just a weird moral dilemma i have. actually moral may be the wrong word to use here. I have an almost romantic/ spiritual feeling about hunting with stick and string. It is kinda funny the more you made me think about all of this the more feelings and thoughts I am having. Maybe I'll pick it back up.