I was reading The Power of Intimidation thread on this sub-forum and someone mentioned where to look at your opponent. And that rang a bell. My friend in Karate, she was telling me about a drill they do where two circle opposite each other around a sitting group of four. The two move fast in the same direction with eyes locked on each other. Then the instructor yells, and they change direction. The idea is to move before your opponent can move.

I said 'you know, this is like a basketball drill I used to do' My drill was defensive and I had to move with the opponent down the court but the idea was to never to let them get by me.

But I didn't watch the eyes, i learned to watch the hips. Wherever a person's hips move, thats the direction they had to move. A person's hips cant go this way while their legs go that way. You can anticipate them this way, sometimes even before they've been able to commit to the move themselves. That drill was golden.

So where do you look when you're trying to find out where you're opponent intends to move next?

'Fifty-yard stare'. Just watch their entire shape.

Exactly! That's exactly what I look like in order to assess the opponent. I focus on the hips (the center of the body) but I'm taking in everything with my peripheral vision. Except mine looks like a 100-yard stare.

But yep, that's exactly the way it should look.

I use my perephial vision. My focus is probibly around the lower chest. This allows me to pick up elbows moving a tad easier. Definalty never the eyes.

I look around the upper torso area. The hips could be a good idea, too. Where their belt goes, they are going to go.

I generally focus on the abdomen/chest area, because many moves are telegraphed from there. I totally agree with the other posters- you focus on that area, but use your perephial sight to see everything.

I start my students at the hip/leg area until they are able to react to gross body movement. Then I have them focus on the shoulder/upper chest as this is where most movements are "telegraphed" from-fine body movement. Of course there are always exceptions but in general this strategy seems to give the student somewhere to focus until they figure out other strategies.

I use my perephial vision. My focus is probibly around the lower chest. This allows me to pick up elbows moving a tad easier. Definalty never the eyes.

Odd.

There is something about fighting with eye contact.

I'll usually check shoulders. Low enough to get lower body movements, high enough to check any arm techniques coming my way.

The reason I don't focus on the eyes is that they aren't going to hurt me.

You might catch a telegraph, but then again maybe not. You're much more likely to intercept an attack based on seeing the movement of the limb actually attacking. Peripheral vision will pick this up faster and react quicker than a solid stare will. That's why I don't focus anywhere specific.

Looking at the eyes makes it too easy to tunnel vision on one, relatively unimportant, aspect of an opponent. It can draw you in away from the rest of the conflict. Avoiding eye contact also keeps it less personal, it's not a person you're fighting, it's another set of targets to destroy. That's the mind set best suited, in my opinion, to winning a conflict. Keeping that distinction is easier if you simply read targets out of the corner of your eyes.

Hope that explains my stance on it at bit better.