Eye dominance vs dexterity

FACE AND NECK REGION RELAXATION

BALANCE

The balance in the shot expansion must be 50/50. An imbalance of this ratio will affect the center of mass. If there is an imbalance, either the front will go forward or, more likely, the dominant drawing side, being the strongest, will take over and the archer will lean backwards away from the target. On release, this would result in the bow arm coming across the front of the body.

Generally, the drawing side will be the more dominant side, which will be proportionally stronger than the bow arm and front shoulder assembly. Therefore, if it is apparent that an archer's dominant side is taking over, then the archer should be told to use more bow arm side to maintain proper balance.

The face and neck should be fully relaxed throughout the shot, which can be facilitated by making a smile and conscious relaxation of the neck muscles part of the preliminary set-up of the shot. If the shot is properly executed there should be no head movement at all.

23 HIGH GRIP / LOW GRIP

The high grip requires more strength and under competitive pressure tends to put more tension in the wrist causing pressure point variances, resulting in high and low arrows.

With a low grip the bones of the hand and arm are in a more efficient configuration which will aid a more relaxed bow hand. Refer to Chapter 2, Cl.10, Grip Pressure Point and Wrist Position for more details.

Research by Geraint Griffiths, Clinical Director of Sports Vision Service UK shows the following break down amongst elite international archers which show the following (Sample 70):

• Right hand/Right eye - 84.3%

• Left hand/Left eye - 10%

• Right hand/Left eye - 2.85%

• Left hand/Right eye - 2.85%

This particular research indicates that there is approximately a cross dominance of 5.7%.

Conventional wisdom in the past has advocated that if an archer is cross dominant then the dominant eye determines the handedness, e.g. Right handed person being left eye dominant should shoot a left handed bow. There has been a lot of debate on this, but the pendulum seems to be swinging the other way. Some of the top coaches, both in archery and pistol shooting, now advocate that a right handed archer, being left eye dominant, should shoot with the dominant hand, rather than the handedness being determined by eye dominance. Biomechanically this is better, as the dominant hand side is the more coordinated side.

FITA states, in their new Entry Level Coaching Manual, albeit cautiously, "To date, good results have been achieved using either criterion. Hand gives a better manual ease, control and strength".

For a cross dominant archer the dominant eye might need to be occluded by an opaque lens, to still allow light to enter the eye. If, for instance, an eye patch is used to totally block out the light from the eye, the pupil of the other eye will open more and could cause eye fatigue during the course of a tournament.

However, an archer can learn to aim with the non-dominant eye by wearing an eye patch over the dominant eye for a period of a couple of months. This will train the brain to aim with the non-dominant eye, which should continue after the eye patch is removed. Even though there are no left-handed archers in Korea, there are cross dominant archers, which have included archers on the Korean Olympic Team.

Дата добавления: 2015-06-25