Hips dont lie.

[Dark Planet]

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.

It does explain your stance a bit better, though I have to disagree with the personal aspect.

I think, ultimately, it is important to acknowledge that you are embattled with another human. As they put in the Bulletproof Monk, "It's not about anger, it's about peace." To dehumanize one's opponent is to remove the desire to achieve peace and only pursue with the desire for destruction. This takes more of a solid psychological foundation- but it true to reality, and to the art form.

As for tunnel vision, if there's tunnel vision, it doesn't matter where the focus is, since the peripheral is lost. Though, I agree, the chest is a good choice. I use the eyes because I found it effective in Kum Do training. It allowed me a deeper awareness of everything else.

[algernon]

I find it too cumbersome to focus my eyes on any specific part of an opponent. I simply try to keep as much of them within my field of vision as possible. At close range, body contact is more useful than sight.

[tallgeese]

Great point, once you make body contact a general feel of what the opponent is doing is a better indicator than sight. It's important to grappling sure, but also to people engaged in a trapping range and the clinch as well.

To the previous post, I see what you're saying. But to me, it's not about anger or peace, it's about winning the conflict; confronting violence and prevailing to go home as unscathed as possible.

I'll let larger social commentators worry about peace. Any peace I had with this individual was breached by his assault. Now, we're into conflict resolution mode. If it's come to the deployment of my skills, we're beyond negotiation. Win fast, and hard.

It's not anger, just my desire to go home at the end of the fight, that's all.

[wildman1717]

Chest and shoulders, they'll move before anything else will.

[Kuma]

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.

Good post. That's my philosophy too. The hands and waist are the typical danger zones so that's where I want to loosely focus my attention.

[KarateGeorge]

Chest and shoulders, they'll move before anything else will.

Agreed.

[sensei8]

Feel it!

Our eyes can be tricked into seeing something that's not real. Whether it's with a stare or peripheral vision or watching the hips or watching the shoulders/body or whatever; I've used them all from time to time, some more often than others but for me....FEEL IT!

Bruce said...."Feel it! It's like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you'll miss all of that heavenly glory!" Don't concentrate on one body part over another because you might be tricked/deceived, therefore, FEEL IT!