Clay Target Nation, April 2019

significantly increased capabilities over those of a single eye By having two eyes that are separated and see in parallel our brain is able to discern details that a single eye cannot see For example have a friend hang a piece of camouflage clothing in the woods Now try and find it with one eye closed Not easy But with both eyes open you can easily accomplish the task In the case of two eyes one plus one truly does add up to much more than two Animal eyes can be located either on the side of the head or in the front of the head Prey animals have their eyes located on the side of their head and their eyes behave independently Predatory animals have their eyes located in the front of their head and their eyes always work in unison Humans obviously fall into this second category so it is critical to understand that anything you do to one eye affects both Removing one eye from service severely diminishes the capabilities of the team and significantly handicaps the predators advantage When two eyes work together it is called binocular vision Binocular vision is valuable in processing any object in motion This can include tasks as simple as walking as you are in motion relative to your surroundings It is also what enables us to perform tasks like catching a ball Binocular vision is a prerequisite for being able to consistently hit a moving target with a shotgun Binocular vision or more specifically binocular summation 42 WWW NSSA NSCA ORG APRIL 2019 significantly increases our ability to see fine detail It gives us the ability to see objects in three dimensions allowing us to see texture Some specialists even propose it gives us the ability to see behind an object as each eye can see a little detail on each edge that the other eye cannot see At a minimum binocular vision makes it easier to see an object when compared to using a single eye Each of these abilities can be extremely helpful when trying to discern the leading edge of a target or the head of a bird in flight Binocular vision is what enables our eyes to precisely delineate distance This is commonly referred to as our depth perception This is critical to a shotgun shooter as it tells our sub conscious not only how far away an object is but also if the object is moving closer to or farther away from the shooter Both of these data points are basic inputs to the art of hitting a moving target with a shotgun Binocular vision also greatly increases our field of view compared to that from a single eye With only a single eye in use the human eye can see an arc of about 150 degrees in front of the shooter With both eyes open this increases to about 190 degrees This is a significant increase in your range of vision And almost all of this additional field of view is additive to one side the side with the eye open or closed For example if a shooter closes her left eye she will lose about 20 percent of her total field of view all on the left side Since half of all targets are engaged on the left side of the field and half on the right she has just handicapped her ability to break half of the targets Since human eyes work in unison any stimulus given to one eye will affect both eyes For example if one eye is denied sunlight with a patch then it will want to increase its pupilar diameter dilate The other eye will want to follow suit but it is receiving different input as it is still seeing light This puts your eyes into conflict Eyes in conflict do not perform at peak levels Therefore it is important to carefully consider any artificial shifts to your vision as you can set your eyes up for failure So given all of the benefits of binocular vision why would anyone choose to use only one eye when shooting The answer is eye dominance Even though both of our eyes work together as a team each of us has one eye referred to as the dominant eye that is primarily relied upon for positional information This is due to the fact that the dominant eye has more neural connections than the other eye Therefore it is something we are born with and we cannot influence it by training Eye dominance can be strongly manifested almost non differentiable or anywhere in between For whatever reason males tend to demonstrate a stronger preference for single eye dominance and females more often present a neutral eye dominance On top of ONE HAND TIED BEHIND MY BACK p Cross dominance and neutral dominance are more common among women Dont use crossdominance as an excuse to close one eye Its best to change which side you shoot on if possible