Both eyes open

[John D]

Can someone please outline a simple, straight-forward technique for training to shoot handguns with both eyes open? I carry daily and would need to have both eyes open if that situation ever arises. Have not had a great deal of success doing this on my own.

[ShootistPRS]

John,
I'm right there with you! I was taught to shoot pistols and rifles with my weak eye closed. I have a heck of a time keeping it open. It doesn't seem to affect me when shooting multiple targets like falling plates, steal challenge or three gun but I can't swear that both eyes are closed because I never remember seeing the sights other than when I line up on the first target. After that muscle memory takes over and as the gun starts to pass in front of the target I am on the trigger. I don't stop my swing to aim at the target.

[tynman]

I too am having problems trying to train myself to shoot with both eyes open. I learned to close my weak eye also. But I have 2 problems 1 I dont train that much due to the state I live in. And 2 I dont shoot competition so I again dont shoot enough. But I do want to be able to shoot with both eyes open.

My young kids are just starting to shoot (bows and rifles) and Im trying to start them aiming with both eyes open. Only problem I found with them is I took them out a couple of times to shoot the rifle and I didnt stress aiming with both eyes open and like with all bad habits they are fighting me with it already.

[g.willikers]

You could try just shooting at dirt.
No target, just shoot at the backstop.
The idea is to be aware where the bullet hits.
The sights are still used but not concentrated on so much.
It's supposed to help to keep both eyes open until the brain gets the message to do so.
But the technique requires being able to see where the bullets hit and doesn't work too well on indoor ranges, though.
Sorry about that.

Another method is to squint the errant eye, rather than closing it.
Just enough to yield a decent sight picture.
A perfect sight picture isn't needed to practice this.
And progressively squint less and less, until shooting is possible with both eyes open.
It actually does work and easy to practice with dry fire at home.

[K_Mac]

I'm right-handed and left eye dominant. It has taken me years to learn the method g.willikers mentioned, i, e., squinting a bit with my left eye. I'm now confident with this technique and am much faster on target as a result.

[Lohman446]

This is the "off the wall" approach that some of you are going to laugh at. Go play paintball for a few days. Or rent one of the paintball markers and shoot on the target range if the place you go has one. For various reasons you learn to shoot with both eyes open (there is no sight picture and one has to learn to shoot with just the barrel as the sighting system for one). It is much easier, once learned, to transfer back to firearms.

[walks with gun]

If you can find a range where you can quickly shoot steel targets, maybe even while your on the move, or as a previous poster said, shooting into a dirt bank once in awhile, pick a spot and shoot-see the impact. If nothing else, you could try band-aids and tape your eyes open. (might just make you wish you tried harder) The only other options I can think of is to use Clint Eastwood movies as training videos, maybe a squint will eventually lead to both eyes open. And lastly there is the Groin Tug method, where you can set up a video camera looking into your eyes as you shoot, tie a length of string to your privates and every time you attempt to close one eye when you shoot, your significant other gives the string a tug. This might be best to use a empty gun and dry fire or a air soft gun.

[g.willikers]

For various reasons you learn to shoot with both eyes open, there is no sight picture and one has to learn to shoot with just the barrel as the sighting system

Aha, now we're getting into my preferred method.
Archers have been using it for millennia.
Form and skill rather than depending on sights.
Then it matters far less what your sights are like.
But it's a hard sell and harder yet to accomplish.
Once done though, life gets easier, even for those with old and fuzzy eyes.
That's a whole 'nuther subject, however.

[T. O'Heir]

Find somebody who trains 'point shooting'. Playing one or more of the shooting games might help too. You shoot centre of mass in those games so precise bullseye shots don't matter. So will dry fire practice.
The idea really is to just not close the eye you normally close and concentrate on the target vs the front sight. It's actually a mental discipline/concentration thing.
"...Archers have been using it for millennia..." Nope. Except for long range area targets, like a horde of French knights all riding very close together, English/Welsh archers aimed using the arrowhead as the front sight, usually with a 6 o'clock hold. Being required, by law, to practice every Sunday after church helped a whole lot too.

[straightshooterjake]

Shooting with both eyes open is generally considered the preferred technique, but it doesn't necessarily work for everyone. Some people have a very hard time seeing the sights with both eyes open. One theory is that if the dominant eye is not strongly dominant, then it is difficult to shoot with both eyes open. I do not know if that theory is correct, but I do know that some people learn to keep both eyes open quite easily, and others don't.

I also know that some people shoot very well with one eye closed or squinted. They may not reach a championship level, but they are competent and effective with a handgun.

With that said, keeping both eyes open is an advantage if it works for you. Other posts in this thread have some useful training tips, and I'll add one more. You can put a translucent spot on your safety glasses that blocks your weak eye from seeing the sights. You can do this with a piece of scotch tape or a smear of chapstick. The spot needs to be translucent so that both eyes see the same amount of light; this insures that both pupils adjust correctly to the ambient light. The spot should be small, maybe one half inch in diameter, so that your weak eye can around you and can aid your balance and situational awareness. It can take some fiddling to get the spot in exactly the right place on your glasses.

This technique is most typically used by target shooters, but it can be useful in other domains also if it helps you get used to having both eyes open.

[James K]

Unlike some other posters, I have never achieved national championship status in any shooting sport, so this is FWIW.

If the shooting eye (the right eye for right handed shooters and vice versa) is the dominant eye, there is no advantage either way. It is only when the shooting eye is not dominant that closing the dominant eye may offer some advantage. As to being faced with multiple enemies and having to keep both eyes open to prevent a bad guy from sneaking up on you in the "blind spot", folks who worry about such things should find more likely concerns.

I see no reason to work hard to train oneself to keep both eyes open, if that does not come naturally.

Jim

[lefteye]

I am right-handed and left eye dominant. I learned to shoot long guns (starting with a .22) left-handed with both eyes open. I hunt with left-hand compound bows with bowth () eyes open. Shooting handguns with both eyes open was very easy from the start. Learning to shoot with both eyes open may take some time and patience if the shooter has been closing the non-dominant eye for many years but it is an advantage if vision in both eyes is good. I suspect closing an eye with very poor vision is better than trying to keep it open.

[pax]

Human eye dominance comes in the same spectrum as human hand dominance.

For hand dominance, people can be

1) strongly left- or right-handed,
2) mostly left- or right-handed,
3) mixed dominance (doing some tasks with the right hand, others with the left)
4) truly ambidextrous (rare! -- doing all tasks equally well with either hand)

It's pretty much the same for eye dominance. People can be

1) strongly left- or right- eyed
2) mostly left- or right-eyed
3) mixed dominance (sometimes one eye takes precedence, sometimes the other; which eye takes precedence will vary with conditions)
4) truly ambiocular (can keep both eyes open while consciously choosing which eye takes precedence for any given task)

For people who are in category 1), it is easy to learn to shoot with both eyes open. Might take a little bit of practice, but mostly all it takes for these people is hearing that it is possible. Even for these people, however, eye dominance can sometimes switch depending on the lighting conditions and angles. When that happens, they will have a shot that goes off to one side of the target.

For people in category 2), it will take a lot more work. And frankly, the amount of work it takes may not be worth it, especially since when the eyes are more evenly balanced it's even more likely that the 'non dominant' eye will suddenly take over.

For people in category 3), keeping both eyes open is asking for trouble. Because these people do not reliably know which eye will take dominance at any given time, their eye dominance jumps on a regular basis. They can't even practice both eyes open at the range on a calm day, let alone learn to trust it in chaotic, rapidly changing self defense conditions. Again, when eye dominance shifts, the shooter will often erratically and unexpectedly shoot several inches or more to one side even when their trigger control is excellent and their grip on the gun solid.

For people in category 4), these folks are the lucky ones. They can switch eyes when they switch hands (everyone who practices for self defense should be able to shoot with either hand). They can easily use the right eye around right side cover and the left eye around left side cover, thus keeping more of themselves behind cover. And like the people in category 1), they may not understand what all the fuss is about.

***

For most people, there's no real benefit to keeping both eyes open while shooting modern handguns for self defense.

Yes, tunnel vision is a thing that happens. But tunnel vision is not a vision issue. It is an "attentional focus" issue -- in other words, it's a brain issue rather than a eyeball one.

While it's very, very important to open your eyes and look around as soon as you're done shooting, you cannot simultaneously pay strict attention to getting your hits and see what's going on to the sides of you at the same time. Brains are just not wired that way. That kind of multi-tasking is not within human capability (which is why people look down at their phones, or turn off the radio in order to concentrate -- we 'tunnel in' all the freaking time. It's not some rare or weird thing. It's normal processing, just on steroids.)

Anyway... The answer is NOT to multi task, but to thin slice. Do the thing that needs to be done RIGHT NOW, do that thing with 100% of your focus, and then move to the next thing as fast as you capably can.

What's that one thing that's most important RIGHT NOW? Stopping that guy from killing you. Do that. Use your eyes however you need to use them in order to see so you can do that. Then look around and see if the bad guy has friends. Don't dawdle.

Categories 3) and 4) are both rare, about half as common as mixed hand dominance and true ambidexterity in the general population.

With modern, self-defense handguns, there's no disadvantage to being "cross dominant" -- that is, to shooting with your right hand while being left-eye dominant.

It makes no difference for shooting defensive handguns. It used to matter a great deal, back in the days when people shot bullseye by sighting down the arm. And it matters for long guns. But that's not what we're talking about here.

pax

[g.willikers]

Eye dominance must be genetic based or inherited.
While being left or right handed can be changed to a large degree, being left or right eyed seems be fixed by mother nature.
Yes?

[A J]

My advice? Just shoot the way you're most comfortable. 90% of the time I shoot handguns with one eye closed. Perhaps it's a bad habit, but the target doesn't know the difference!

[g.willikers]

you cannot simultaneously pay strict attention to getting your hits and see what's going on to the sides of you at the same time. Brains are just not wired that way.

I'll have to respectably disagree.
Being involved with motor sports, I personally can account that focusing on what's ahead and still being aware of what's going on all around is essential.
Not just to the sides, but what's going on in the mirrors behind, too.
And also including talking on the radio.
It stands to reason a wider area of awareness should be possible with shooting.
Whether or not it's possible for everyone is another matter.
But there's nothing in the human condition to prevent it.

[pax]

Ah, point of clarification: you are not simultaneously doing all of those things. You are doing each one of them, one after the other, so quickly that it seems to you that you're doing them all at the same time.

Multiple studies bear this out, can throw some of them into the thread if you'd like.

How long does it take to wink?

pax

[ShootistPRS]

When in a self defense situation awareness is king. When you close one eye you lose 40% of your field of view. You also lose a good part of your depth perception. I certainly don't have any pat answers but I know that training to point my gun instinctively keeps me from relying on the sights and keeps both eyes open.

[g.willikers]

Pax,
Talking to the spotter while zipping down the race track and shifting gears should qualify as a convincing example of doing multiple things at once.
There's nothing about it that could be considered sequential.
It's all happening at the exact same time.
Studies or no.

P.S.
A less intensive example would have to be all the folks running around in their cars, dodging traffic, while yapping on their cell phones.
There's definitely more than one thing going on at the same time.
And we see that happening all day long.

[osbornk]

I lived over 65 years before I learned to shoot with both eyes open. It was a slow and difficult challenge but I finally succeeded with handguns. However, I still can't shoot rifles or shotguns with both eyes open. People tell me it is easier but I have not found that to be true. I am still working on it.

[Slopemeno]

FWIW I almost always have a sharp sight picture with my paintball gun (pre '99 WGP Sniper II). it doesn't have a classic front sight, but it has a "sight track" which works well. And I keep both eyes open.

[jackstrawIII]

As to being faced with multiple enemies and having to keep both eyes open to prevent a bad guy from sneaking up on you in the "blind spot", folks who worry about such things should find more likely concerns.

This.

But, if you must try, do dryfire practice. I'll often sit on my couch and practice "point shooting" at light switches and outlets with my eyes open. The secret is really just choosing to focus on the front sight. Your brain will automatically choose the sight picture provided by your dominant eye. Just learn to trust it.

But, as I said, I don't think it's as important as the internet commandos would make you believe. Most of us are not on a SWAT team, and engaging a whole room full of bad guys is just not realistic. At all.

[Lohman446]

engaging a whole room full of bad guys is just not realistic.

The thing that concerns me about these discussions is its not even a mindset that one is going to engage and "put up the good fight" its the mindset that one is going to engage and win.

I know the limits of my ability. If multiple determined and competent attackers chose to ambush me the best I can hope for is to go down swinging. Too many people declare my attitude defeatist and insist they will win. While some may actually have this level of ability I am not certain how one proposes training for it

[44 AMP]

It stands to reason a wider area of awareness should be possible with shooting.

You would think so, but it seldom seems to happen in the real world,

Tunnel vision and auditory exclusion absolutely happen to some people. Maybe they happen to us all (under just the right conditions) and we simply don't remember it.

Auto racing and other things requiring multitasking under stressful conditions may not trigger that degree of response from your subconscious the way a defensive shooting situation can.

Literally, there is a difference between our brain recognizing risky behavior and spinning us up a bit to deal with it, because a mistake (lack of focus) could result in an injury, and our brain's reaction to the awareness that SOMEONE IS TRYING TO KILL US! (RFN!!!!!!)

There is no comparable sport, there is no training that can duplicate THAT level of stress. The only thing I can think of that does is facing a charging animal of the dangerous and lethal variety. (either dangerous game or dangerous livestock)

[K_Mac]

Lohman446 I can declare your attitude defeatist while accepting your premise.

I completely agree that against several determined skilled attackers the odds are not good. We can train for multiple attackers, to hone our skills, to maintain as good physical condition as possible, and to keep our head under stress.

Even the most determined attackers know that a prepared and determined target is dangerous. Yes, we have to know our limitations. Yes, we can't prepare for every possibility. What we can do is resolve to be a dangerous target, and work to that end.