Youth Bow Selection: Know your Eye Dominance

When searching for a new youth bow, one must always make sure that they start with the correct fundamentals. When checking children for their eye dominance, you want to make sure that you do not confuse it with their hand dominance. Some shooters are right hand dominant but left eye dominant. If this is the case then your child will just have to work a little harder to get the accuracy down, but it is attainable. There are various tests that one could do to determine their eye dominance but the most common are the Miles Test, the Porta Test, and the Dolman Method. The Miles Test is the first way to test out the eye dominance and involves the observer holding both arms out in front of them to create a small opening. With both of your eyes, you should look at an object at least 10 feet away, through that small opening. Bring the opening closer to your face and you will instinctively go towards your dominant eye. The next test that is used to determine which youth bow you should get is the Porta Test. In this test, you are going to want to extend one of your arms and point your thumb skyward. Align that thumb with a target in the distance and alternate closing your eyes. If the thumb stays on the target, whatever eye you have open is your dominant eye. If it jumps around then it is not your dominant eye. The final method that you could use is called the Dolman Method. This method is commonly referred to as the hole in the card test. The person is given a card with a hole in it and then told to hold it with both hands while they look at an object through the hole. The person will alternate closing their eyes as they move the card closer to their face. Again, the card will end up in front of the dominant eye. If you are searching for a youth bow then I would recommend that you check out your eye dominance first, to get yourself going in the right direction. Check our youth recurve bow here.