One of the first things you have to do before you even pick up a bow and arrow is to find out if you are a right or left handed archer. Not all right-handed people shoot archery right handed and the same can be said about left-handed people. What is much more important than if you are right or left handed is if you are right or left eye dominant.

How do we check which of your two eyes is dominant?

There are a number of ways of checking but here is my personal favourite is the ‘Miles test’. It is done as follows;

  1. Stretch both your arms out straight in front of you.
  2. Place one hand over the other with palms of hand facing away from you.
  3. Make a small triangle between your hands using your thumbs. The smaller the better.
  4. Look though the triangle at a stationary object in the distance.
  5. Keep staring at the same object as you slowly bring both hands closer to your face.
  6. The triangle will come to rest over one of your eyes. This is your dominant eye.

If you’re right eye dominant the bow goes in your left hand, and you draw the string back using your right hand. If you’re left eye dominant, the bow goes in your right hand, and you draw the string back using your left hand.

Why is eye dominance more important than hand dominance?

In normal binocular vision the dominant eye is the one that is primarily relied on for precise positional information. This means when you draw an arrow to your anchor point, you want it to be closest to the dominant eye. So if you are right eye dominant then by drawing the string back with your right hand this keeps the end of the arrow closer to the dominant eye. This makes it easy to look down the length of the arrow when aiming.