posted by dave on Friday, January 28, 2000 at 11:32 PM in category RSB Post

My right eye has problems as well - although it's not as bad as yours seems to be. Do you still have usable depth perception? Can you stand at the head on the table and discern the different distances between the foot rail, a ball an inch off the foot rail, and a ball 2 inches off the foot rail?

If you've still got adequate depth perception, and you can see pretty well with your left eye, I think you can get used to it. You may have to become more of an FP to do it though.

I see pretty fuzzy balls from more than 3 or 4 feet away, and I've just gotten used to aiming at them. I can't wear my glasses when I shoot because it forces me to bend my neck up too much, and that puts too much strain on my neck after a short while. My depth perception is still good so I don't really have to change anything except my attitude towards aiming at fuzzy blobs of color instead of at clean crisp balls.

If your depth perception has suffered too much to keep the same stance you may want to consider raising up to get a better view of the angles when you shoot. You'll have to be more careful of your alignment since that gets harder to judge the higher your head gets.

Another option to help make up for the loss of depth perception is to raise and lower your head a few inches several times as you take your practice strokes. I know this is not "by the book" but the books assume good vision with both eyes and strong depth perception. A friend of mine who lost an eye was able to become a pretty good player by bobbing his head in this manner. The slight change in perspective allowed his mind to generate a 3D view of the table even though his body wasn't capable of seeing in 3D anymore.

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