Hand-eye coordination is a childhood skill attained through conditioning.
Essentially, the more time we spend redoing a certain activity enhances our hand-eye coordination while executing the task.
It’s the coordination that helps us to play games or write.
Unfortunately, our hand-eye coordination deteriorates as we age.
Therefore, to rewire our brains, we need hobbies that improve our hand-eye coordination.
So, What Are Some Hobbies that Require Hand Eye Coordination?
First, nearly every activity we do relies on hand-eye coordination. For instance, driving and typing on your computer are good examples of such activities. Even though they improve your hand-eye coordination, most people would consider the activities boring. People associate those skills with jobs, which some people hate. Fortunately, there are fun hobbies you can do to engage your hand-eye coordination skills.
Here are some of the hobbies you can choose from below.
1. Playing Pool
In pool, planning your move is important. However, execution is also another matter.
Before you shoot the cue ball, you will have studied the proximity of the pool balls to the hole.
That will then help you determine the angle and power of your attack.
Besides determining the proximity to the holes, you will apply an economic principle called opportunity cost in this game.
For instance, you score a lot of points based on how many pool balls you can get into the holes.
If you have a chance of hitting one ball into the hole and four into the hole, you will definitely go with the latter choice.
Your hand-eye coordination also improves when you study the force needed to make a cue ball move. As a result, you will not hit the cue ball with very little force or too much force.
2. Solving Puzzles
Puzzles are a fun activity for children and adults.
If you are an adult who wants to improve their hand-eye coordination through playing puzzles, get a complex puzzle.
Children’s puzzles tend to be easy, so they may not adequately challenge your hand-eye coordination skills.
Puzzles help you recognize certain patterns and strategize accordingly.
For instance, you know what a car looks like because you have seen it before.
If a puzzle requires you to make a car, you will be able to place the pieces in the right order to make a car.
Some things that will guide you in making a car include its parts and color.
3. Practice Tai Chi
You can either join a Tai Chi class to learn how to defend yourself or as a meditation exercise like yoga.
As a form of self-defense, you have to be quick to spot your opponent’s attacks and dodge them.
As a result, the sport is one of the most effective ways of developing hand-eye coordination.
As per Healthline, Tai Chi improves hand-eye coordination by 20%.
Even though you may never meet an attacker, your hand-eye coordination will still be improved.
4. Playing Video Games
Including video games in this list is bound to stir some controversy. People claim that they cause violence.
However, if you look past its violence, you will discover that it greatly improves hand-eye coordination.
According to GoodRx Health, video games enable gamers to perform better in sensorimotor tasks.
Sensorimotor skills involve performing an action after sensing something.
For instance, in action games, the gamer may spot an enemy. After spotting the enemy, the gamer then shoots the enemy.
Outside the video game, gamers learn how to spot objects, not in their usual position. Once they realize that, they will either arrange or remove the object.
5. Playing Racket Sports
Examples of racket sports you can pick up are ping pong or tennis.
Therefore, you cannot afford to be slow or think for too long before making a move.
In racket sports, you will judge how close an object is.
Once you have determined how far or close an object is, you will be able to apply the necessary force to strike it.
Besides judging how far an object is, you will also be able to spot it outside of the primary vision field.
After all, the ball will not always move in a straight line in ping pong.
6. Skipping Rope
Skipping rope is challenging for most people to do on their own.
That explains why they prefer to skip as a group. However, if you master skipping rope by yourself, you will significantly improve your hand-eye coordination.
Skipping as a group still improves your hand-eye coordination, though not as significantly as doing it alone.
At first, when you do it on your own, you may look down on the rope.
However, it is hard to skip while staring down at the rope. As a result, you will not swing the rope with enough momentum to jump over it.
Therefore, when you skip rope, you need to jump over it without looking at it for the most part.
To successfully jump over it, you will determine how low or high to jump.
7. Painting
When you paint for a living, there is a struggle to do it perfectly.
If the painter’s artwork is imperfect, then it may not sell.
However, if you are painting solely to engage your hand-eye coordination skills, you do not need to worry about painting a good picture.
With enough practice, you will eventually paint a good picture.
When you paint an object, you have to paint the parts you see.
Apart from painting what you see, you also need to move your paintbrush correctly.
For instance, if you move too fast, you may make your painting longer than it needs to be. Additionally, painting trains you to be patient since it is an activity that takes quite some time.
8. Archery
This is a hobby that requires your total concentration. For instance, you have to keep your eye on the target and then shoot your arrow.
Depending on how far you are from the target, you will extend your hands accordingly to shoot the arrow.
While observing the target, you also must ignore distractive objects near you.
For instance, if you see a strange-looking object, it will prevent you from focusing, and you may miss the bull’s eye.
As a beginner, you will be missing the shots.
You will even claim that you focused on the target.
However, just like painting, you have to practice in order to be good at it. So, do not strive too much for perfection unless you are participating in an archery tournament.
Conclusion
Have you ever asked an adult to pick up any of these hobbies?
Most of them will tell you that they are too busy to pick up a hobby. However, no one can be too busy for any of these hobbies.
If you focus so much on work, your hand-eye coordination will worsen since you won’t have time for these hobbies.
So, if you want better hand-eye coordination, pick any hobby from this list today.