When right eye is exposed with the pistol in right hand, head area containing only one eye needs to be exposed.
When dominant left eye is exposed with the pistol in the right hand, the area of the head containing both eyes must be exposed.
Yes, I may have to lean either way, but it does not change the fact that both eyes area of the face exposed is larger than only one eye area of the face exposed.
I totally get that, and agree. My point is this: If you are equally likely to have to use cover on either side, then you are equally likely to have to expose half of your face as you are all of your face -- regardless of which way your eyes and hands agree or disagree.
If a right-handed cross-dominant shooter has to lean LEFT instead of right, then s/he only has to expose the left side of his/her face.
Or, if a left-handed but right-eye dominant shooter has to lean RIGHT instead of left, same thing happens.
Therefore, there is no NET advantage to limiting yourself by closing an eye. You're equally likely to have to lean either way, and so, to have to expose half or all of your head to acquire a firing picture.
In fact, I'm really not sure how closing or not closing the eye changes anything at all. You're STILL using your dominant EYE ... right?
When I utlize cover, I make it so that only my one eye and my gun muzzle and some body parts around it that I cannot avoid exposing would be visble.
Ok, I don't disagree with that at all, though I think you'll find that in practice it isn't quite so cut and dried as all that. It's a fine goal if you have the time to position yourself perfectly, but in a dynamic situation you pie and shoot in, hopefully, a fluid enough motion that you really aren't exposing degree-by-degree. After all, most cover is really
concealment only. Just because someone can't clearly see every inch of your face, doesn't mean they can't put bullets through the corner and screw up your day if they can see that you're standing there. Using cover is probably best accomplished -- in the types of situations we appear to be discussing -- with some haste.
I can't comment on your use of cover, since I've never seen it
I provided a link.
...but when I see people in IDPA and IPSC "use cover," my feeling about it is "what cover?"
Well, you won't see anyone in IPSC using cover, because the concept does not exist in that sport. In IDPA, I completely agree. The use of cover is often applied extremely loosely. It should be 1/2 of the upper torso and all legs/feet completely in the shadow of cover -- that's an attainable goal for someone trying to balance staying out of view with getting shots on threats in a timely fashion. Many times in competition it is called far too loosely. We're working on that, but there's miles to go.
But none of that is influenced by whether you close one eye, so the point is rather moot.
