Stance/Dominant Eye Question

[s54m5]

I'm a little confused with the dominant eye/stance position. Oddly enough, I am right handed, but my dominant eye is my left and I fight orthodox. But after reading some post here, because I am left eye dominant, should I fight southpaw stance? Any advise would be great. Thanks. I know I'm left eye dominant due to the results from the test I did on Ocular dominance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Also, I use my left eye to aim with a firearm or use cameras.

[Scrap]

How do you know you are left eye dominant

[HerbM]

One fairly standard test for eye dominance is to hold you index finger out at arms length, cover first one eye then the other -- when the finger seems to jump TOWARDS the eye you are covering, the covered eye is the dominant one.

[Reasoning (so you don't have to memorize this) is that when the finger seems to jump the eye you are covering was the PRIMARY eye you were using, but now with that covered the OTHER eye must take over and since it is at a slightly different angle it will seem that the finger has moved over towards the covered eye.]


There is a lot of importance given to eye dominance in the shooting sports. I have an issue in that my dominant eye changes based on BRIGHT vs. DIM light.

Shooting indoors on a dim range my left eye is dominant and when shooting outdoors in bright sunlight my right eye is the dominant one -- almost never figured this out when I first got into serious shooting.

BTW: I am still waiting to hear if eye dominance has anything to do with picking an orthordox or south paw stance. (I have no idea.)

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HerbM

[Scrap]

Most of your peripharil vision is in the dominant eye. The lesser eye is more shortsighted, thats why the finger moves when testing, with the finger idea. All the guys who were the other way round, the good ones, Hagler, Dela Hoya, and others had trouble with movers, because of feet.But had a good lead hand but a poor lead foot . brought on by poor oral stability which didnt help with the working of the inner ear.

[WayneFlint]

I would say orthadox but only because im also cross dominant as in im right handed but left eye dominant, i couldnt imagine trying to change my stance now ive fought too long from orthadox but this is a very interesting question, good post.

[HerbM]

Most of your peripharil vision is in the dominant eye. The lesser eye is more shortsighted, thats why the finger moves when testing, with the finger idea. All the guys who were the other way round, the good ones, Hagler, Dela Hoya, and others had trouble with movers, because of feet.But had a good lead hand but a poor lead foot . brought on by poor oral stability which didnt help with the working of the inner ear.

The highlighted portion is incorrect; the reason the finger moves is a parallax shift due to the different positions of the two eyes.

There remainder is very interesting; it sounds plausible.

Is there evidence for this? (I.e., peripheral vision difference, shortsighted difference, head stability etc)

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HerbM

[Scrap]

Regading the finger exercise, if its the thing with putting the finger central and in line with an object. Then closing opposite eyes to see where the object moves, where one eye moves and the other is usually stable, it is. Read some interesting stuff 10 years ago on eyes in sport, but cant remember the source, but interesting stuff. Do some interesting stuff on Proreceptive stuff at the moment cocerning eyes, theres been some odd results . In movement eyes slow you down, one reason, they dont go direct to the nervous system, 2 both eyes dont see the same thing because of Piripharels, and they only have 1/6 of a second memory.

[s54m5]

So should I switch to southpaw?

[HerbM]

The highlighted portion is incorrect; the reason the finger moves is a parallax shift due to the different positions of the two eyes.

There remainder is very interesting; it sounds plausible.

Is there evidence for this? (I.e., peripheral vision difference, shortsighted difference, head stability etc)
...

Actually, after a bit of research there are some other problems with the above. The shortsighted (myopia) difference is actually the DOMINANT EYE which is more myopic

Cheng CY, Yen MY, Lin HY, Hsia WW, Hsu WM (2004). "Association of ocular dominance and anisometropic myopia". Invest. Ophthalmol. Vis. Sci. 45 (: 2856–60. doi:10.1167/iovs.03-0878. PMID 15277513.
Goldschmidt E, Lyhne N, Lam CS (2004). "Ocular anisometropia and laterality". Acta Ophthalmol Scand 82 (2): 175–8. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0420.2004.00230.x. PMID 15043536.

The Wikipedia article on ocular dominance provides a decent start point for this subject as well as a long list of tests for eye dominance, and offers the following on topic summary of eye-hand dominance in sports using side-on stances (boxing is not however mentioned):

In normal binocular vision there is an effect of parallax, and therefore the dominant eye is the one that is primarily relied on for precise positional information. This may be especially important in sports which require aim, such as archery, darts or shooting sports.
It has been asserted that cross-dominance (in which the dominant eye is on one side and the dominant hand is on the other) is advantageous in sports requiring side-on stances (e.g. baseball, cricket, golf)[14]; however, recent studies have shown this not to be the case. In a study of professional baseball players, hand-ocular dominance patterns did not show an effect on batting average or ERA.[15] Similarly, a recent South African study found that "cricketers were not more likely to have crossed dominance" than the normal population[16].

The Google searches [ "Ocular | eye dominance" | eyedness "peripheral vision" ] and [ "Ocular | eye dominance" | eyedness "peripheral vision" sports | boxing ] hasn't allowed me to find anything relating "eye dominance" to "peripheral vision" in a VERY CURSORY examination (I'll try to did through this more tomorrow and by removing the term 'sports', i.e., using 'boxing' alone as the qualifier.)

A Google search branching from the above seems to offer some discussion of ocular dominance, peripheral vision, and body sway and/or postural stability but I haven (yet) been able to locate anything both on topic and understandable.


PS: I have no idea if the original poster should start out left handed (from a position supported by science), but would tend to recommend: If you have not strong preference (i.e., you are equally comfortable in both stances) the go southpaw -- an fight between an equally skilled orthodox and southpaw fighter tends to favor the southpaw who has for more experience fighting and practicing with right handers (the majority) than the orthodox has with southpaws (the minority.)

In theory, there would be no advantage from this inherent symmetric position, but the greater familiarity and experience that the southpaw has with the subtleties of it will give him an advantage (all other things being equal -- though they never are in reality.)

[Scrap]

Find that intereting, nice one.

[s54m5]

Thanks for the info. I am actually pretty comfortable fighting in southpaw stance... As comfortable as fighting orthodox, but what worries me is that if I do fight southpaw; I would have no power in my left crosses or left hooks? Pretty much it would seem as my left hand would be somewhat useless. I mean, I can try to train my left arm more than the right, but to get it to the speed/power of my right arm would be extremely difficult. Any advice?

[Howlin Mad Missy]

strength/power/speed can be trained up.

I traded hand speed when in SP over 'natual' power when orthodox.

I've yet to try out any of the tests but they do sound very interesting.

[HerbM]

Everything Howlin Mad Missysaid: You can train speed and power -- and need to do that anyway for your left hand. After all it is pretty much a truism in boxing that you most important punch is your (lead hand) JAB, and you are going to want all the speed and power you can get into that hand.

This is especially true of the jab hand since it doesn't get the same level of help from your spine, hips, and legs as does the "power hand". Power hand is really a misnomer for most people -- it isn't necessarily stronger, but rather positioned to better use your core and leg strength to deliver all that power THROUGH the rear hand.

BTW: My lead left arm/shoulder is actually LARGER than my rear 'power' side -- in doing combinations on the heavy bag or shadow boxing etc, that lead hand is pumping out 2-4 jabs for every straight power punch and it usually throws more hooks by about 3 to 2 or more. After all it's closer and faster to hit your opponent with that near hand.

When I first started (six months ago) I had a HARD time going a full round on the heavy bag IF I was going to hit combinations of 2-4 jabs for every straight right -- 2 wasn't bad, 3 was tough, but 4 fast lefts would just kill me pretty quick. Now I frequently go 5-6 jabs just to be moving around the bag quickly (Coach says to jab only while moving, hit with the right when you stop.)

I would really like to train BOTH sides (almost equally) to switch as I am pretty much ambidextrous for punching and footwork, but if I do that Coach yells and make me do extra pushups. <grin>

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HerbM

[Gray Lion]

I found this an interesting, but confused question (since I have no idea of the stance you use). I brought it up in conversation with some other fighters and coaches at a dinner (Yeah, that's all we like to talk about, so our wives encourage us to get out away from them). The consensus was that in the proper stance and head position, it should not make that much difference. If it does however, then the suggestions ranged from slight move of the position of the head, to adjusting the stance. In short, no one could give a definate answer without being there to physically see your stance, your punch, and how you move. I guess the best course is to have your coach give you an evaluation. Changing from a right hand hitter to a southpaw is a radical move that might not be the best for you.

[rowza]

Im Left Eye Dominint Im a southpaw Never had any problems I can fight Orthdox but dont like Using my strongest hand as a jab. Im left handerd thats why im southpaw nothing to do with the domint eye i dont think. I feel it more to do what you feel comphy as