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An often overlooked and very important
component in everyone's game is eye dominance. Your dominant eye
can affect what you see and how you see it. You must know your dominant
eye and understand its impact and why it is important. It will help
you communicate about targeting and visualization techniques as
well as understand that when your coach says "Hit 10", you translate
that into "Okay, that means look at 8."
If you don't know your dominant eye, here's how to determine it.
You are about to perform some magic by making the pins move without
ever touching them. They are going to move behind one of your hands!
Hold your arms out in front of you with the palm of the hands facing
away from you. Touch the index fingers together and overlap the
thumbs so that a triangle is created between the two parts of the
hands that are touching. Keep the hands at arms' length and, with
both eyes open, put something 10 or 12 feet or even farther away
from you in that triangle. Don't cheat and look at whatever you
have chosen with one eye or the other. Do it with both eyes open.
Close the left eye and then open it. Then close the right eye and
open it. When one of your eyes was closed, whatever you were looking
at disappeared from the triangle. That is your dominant eye. Some
people think that if what they are looking at doesn't move, that
is the dominant eye. Not. Think of it this way: if you close the
eye that is dominant, its dominance will be negated. That's why
it's dominant! (As an interesting aside, a right eye dominant right-hander
will perceive the object as having disappeared behind the left hand
and a left eye dominant right-hander will perceive the pins as having
disappeared behind the right hand!)
Most right-handers are right eye dominant. The necessity of the
triangulation of the target, the eye, and the shoulder (the ball)
can cause a miss of the target of about two boards left. It is not
uncommon and is not an error. For some people it has no effect.
The important thing is that you know whether it affects your accuracy
or not. If it does, merely change your targeting. If you want to
hit 10, you merely look at 8.
Some right-handers are left eye dominant. This is also not a problem
as long as it is known. Left eye dominance in a right-hander usually
causes a miss left of three or four boards (sometimes more). No
big deal. Want to hit 10? Look at 6. The variance in the miss is
caused by how far the eye is from the target. What a left eye dominant
right-hander sees with is pretty far from the bowling shoulder!
Eye dominance is common to most of the population. Regardless of
which eye is dominant, it is possible you will be able to look directly
at what you want to hit. However, if you are missing left, this
simple, non-threatening explanation can be a lifesaver. It is possible
but rare that your eye dominance doesn't cause you to miss to the
inside but rather to the outside. Don't worry about it. If this
happens to you, just look left of what you intend to hit.
NOW THAT YOU'VE DONE ALL THAT, YOU SHOULD KNOW IT'S NOT ALWAYS TRUE
Keep in mind that it is not only possible but also likely that you
may miss what you are looking at in different amounts in different
parts of the lane. For instance, you may need to look two to the
right when playing 10 or out, look at what you want to hit when
playing 11 to 16, and go back to looking to the right to play inside
of 17. This is not a problem unless you don't know it.
It's up to you and your coach to discover what your tendencies are.
You can use tape or 'clickers' to mark the lane for this exercise.
Some people put coins on the lane. I personally don't advise this
as sometimes when you hit the coins, they put a dent in the lane.
Not a good thing for your relationship with the proprietor and laneman.
Clickers are the tabs purchased in the office supply store that
affix to files. They will attach to the lanes well (if you remove
the oil in that one little spot), cause no damage, come in different
colors, and make a clicking sound if hit by the ball. Place one
each on the 6th and 9th boards for instance. If you look between
them and hit the one on the 9th board, you likely will need to look
to the right of what you intend to hit when playing this area of
the lane.
Continue to move the clickers across the lane until you have defined
your tendencies in all the areas of the lane. This will be invaluable
in helping you hit what you intend to hit regardless of where you
need to look to do so.
Accuracy plays a critical role in our sport and how to properly
choose a target is important. This is also important to the mental
game. Let's say you're just cruising along, pounding the pocket
and getting rewarded, and someone asks you what you are playing.
You tell them you are playing 8. They look at you incredulously
and shake their head while their eyes roll back in their head. The
entire league that is watching your performance from the concourse
begins to snicker when your 'friend' tells them what you have said.
They can all plainly see you're hitting 12.
"I am too hitting 8. Just watch this," you think as you squint,
bear down, purse your lips, clench your teeth, and really, really
try hard to hit 8 all of which will have no affect except to make
your facial muscles tired. Understanding eye dominance can go a
long way toward teaching you to forgive yourself and understanding
where to look in order to hit what you intend to hit. A better answer
for your friend's question is "I don't have a clue. I just roll
the ball and it seems to work." Or you could ask a clarifying question,
"Do you mean what is my target or where do I intend the ball to
go?"
This exercise will help you learn how to line up, how to deal with
the reality of the lane vs. the perception of the lane, and point
out the importance of a precise stance to eliminate misalignment
as a cause for inaccuracy. This should help you make sure that if,
by some miracle, you miss, it won't be because you didn't line up
right! |
