No Dominant Eye

[Da Coach]

My DD does not have a dominant eye. It's called ambi-ocular vision.

I'm wondering if she should open her stance a scooch extra to ensure getting a good 2 eyed look at the pitch because of this. She bats lefty.

Does anyone have any experience or suggestions for my equal eyed slugger?

Thanks

 

[MendozaBusta]

My DD does not have a dominant eye. It's called ambi-ocular vision.

I'm wondering if she should open her stance a scooch extra to ensure getting a good 2 eyed look at the pitch because of this. She bats lefty.

Does anyone have any experience or suggestions for my equal eyed slugger?

Thanks

There have been many baseball eye dominance studies, and they all contradict one another. There is evidence additionally, that initial eye dominance and ball tracking ability changes over time with training. I don't believe that i've seen any studies of players with ambi-ocular vision, (doesn't mean there aren't any) but i'd suspect that with training (i.e. normal bp, hitting etc.) that the lack of a dominant eye wouldn't be an issue. Additionally, it's always good to get two eyes tracking the ball from the release point, so if she isn't now, then maybe a slightly open stance would help.

MB

 

[SBFAMILY]

HAP page 499; “Convergence: Human beings have binocular vision, meaning that although we have two eyes, we perceive only one image. Each eye receives an image from a slightly different angle, and this creates the impression of distance, depth, and three-dimensionality. (This is why we want you to get a good two eyed look at the ball and why we use a 5 degree offset.) For this reason, binocular vision is sometimes called stereoscopic vision. In binocular vision, the two eyeballs turn slightly inward to focus on a close object so that both images fall on the corresponding points of both retinas at the same time. Human Anatomy And Physiology (HAP) Much of the information we take on eye drills and hitting come from this book, so this might give you your answer.

 

[Da Coach]

Human Anatomy And Physiology (HAP) Much of the information we take on eye drills and hitting come from this book, so this might give you your answer.

Thank you. I'm going a get a copy and read up.

I'm trying to determine if this is a good or bad thing. Also if there are any advantages how do I help her use it?

 

[Da Coach]

Additionally, it's always good to get two eyes tracking the ball from the release point, so if she isn't now, then maybe a slightly open stance would help.
MB

Thanks. We're going to try a slightly open stance the move to straightaway at toe touch.

 

[mrslug01]

I think the dominant eye talk is a bit over rated. We had a girl on our team who batted righty for a number of years. Her dad discovered that her other eye was dominant and switched her to lefty. She didn't hit that way either. She didn't work at it either way so she didn't hit well either way. Yet there are many switch hitters in the world who have worked at the art of hitting and do hit well form both sides. When we hit we turn our head so our face is essentially facing the pitcher so our face is almost square so I don't see why eye dominance matters really.

 

[jinjet95]

If a child has good mechanics, but isn't hitting the ball correctly, maybe they need a comprehensive eye exam. My daughter was struggling at the plate a couple of years ago. She wasn't near sighted according to standard eye exams. We took her to an eye doctor that did an exam that included testing movement of the eye, not just whether she could see an eye chart. They discovered she had convergence excess, which is one eye that moves too far when tracking a moving object. She was literally losing sight of the ball right before it reached the plate. The left eye tracked the ball properly, her right eye would pass the ball and "bounce" back. By then the ball would be in the catcher's glove. It was a little freaky to see when the therapist demonstrated it to me. Her binocular vision wasn't functioning once a fast moving object got within a couple of feet of her. She did 8 weeks of therapy to exercise the eye muscles and train them to work together. We never realized she had an issue because she could see the board in school and fielded well because the ball isn't usually in the same plane as a pitched ball. After she completed therapy, her batting average increased 200 points.

 

[SBFAMILY]

try the Burton Worrell vision drills as it has helped several of our players over the years. This may help some of the people.

Workouts for Your Eyes | Outside Online



Another one is a simple test and the kids find it fun to try however it gets the point across.



"Test Your Vision. Binocular? Stereoscopic?"



Too many hitters just focus on the ball on the tee without actually tracking the ball in all their drills they do. Put a piece of tape on the wall and look through the net at a fixed object then at toe touch move your head not your eyes a little to the right or giving your head a head start and use your nose as a reference point and then look at the ball on a tee with your eyes. We also incorporate this when doing soft toss by having the hitter look through the net and as I lower my hand they see it out of their peripheral vision, load and as they get to toe touch they turn to give their head a head start and then turn their eyes to pick up the ball as it is being tossed. If the head is leaned over too far they do not get a good two eyed look so we have the hitter stand in front of a mirror so they can see them self and what we are attempting to get them to do. A good two eyed look is when you can see the white on the lead eye on both sides without a strain on the eyes and we let the hitter pick the stance. Using a 5 degree open stance is very common in order to see the ball better. TSW did it also and it is not new, just maybe forgotten.

Bottom line is the head can not move as fast as the eyes so by moving the head a little to the right improves your ability to track the ball.

Look up vestibulo-ocular reflex: The vestibular system sends signals primarily to the neural structures that control our eye movements, and to the muscles that keep us upright. The projections to the former provide the anatomical basis of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which is required for clear vision; and the projections to the muscles that control our posture are necessary to keep us upright.



Basically the eyes will stay fixed on the pitchers window of release if the head is turned right and then you use their eyes and head and yes we teach it to our hitters