Vision is your most valuable sense in combat, and luckily you can improve it to make the most out of it.
Blows can come from everywhere, and it is crucial to anticipate them soon enough to block them.
However, an aggressor always has a fundamental advantage. Indeed, once he has chosen his attack, all he has to do is execute his technique in the fraction of a second that it takes to mobilize the limb. On the other hand, the victim of the attack has to get the information into his brain, process it, find an appropriate response, and ultimately mobilize a limb to defend herself, again in a fraction of a second.
But the time it takes to process the information widens the gap between the two individuals.
This gap can be reduced. Here are some avenues that should to help you do so.
Table of Contents
The importance of gaze in street fighting
Before starting working on your peripheral vision, it is crucial to understand that gaze plays a major part in initiating and resolving a conflict.
On a strictly psychological level, a hostile individual wants to dominate, both through speech and body language, but also through his gaze.
Looking such an individual in the eyes raises two problems.
First of all, if you are rather emotional, looking the aggressor in the eye will challenge you emotionally and lead you either to withdraw or to become aggressive.
Either way, there’s something fishy going on!
The one who withdraws will be attacked, whereas the one who escalates the aggression will set off the fire and spark things off in a confused manner.
A self defense practitioner must master his emotions and know how to feign submission in order to better surprise his opponent in an explosive way, if necessary. If you do not control your emotions, you are tactically disadvantaged.
Secondly, staring at an aggressor can send him a strong defiance signal. Yet, we want to create a surprise effect in order to maximize our chances. In some situations you’d better pretend to be a victim.
Indeed, by pretending to be aggressive, you immediately initiate a conflict. Don’t think that an ill-intentioned individual will let you go if he realizes he is dealing with an alpha male. Once you have been designated as a target, a principle of consistency will be established in the individual’s head, which will make it impossible for the aggressor to step back.
Finally, eye contact raises another issue in street fighting since your gaze betrays you revealing where you are focusing. Whether you are looking too high or too low, the aggressor will know exactly where to hit, that is where you are not looking, simply by analyzing your gaze.
Optimize your perception of a fight using your peripheral vision
Peripheral vision is the area of perception that embraces everything surrounding the spot you are looking at.
This zone is not clear which is why you cannot see the details around you.
However, you should be aware that when dealing with visual stimuli, your speed of information processing is considerably faster regarding the peripheral movements of vision.
Indeed, the foveal vision, that is what we see in front of us, has to process a very large amount of information to transmit a detailed image. In contrast, peripheral vision does not have to deal with all these details, which is why what we see at the edge of our field of vision is so blurred. But as compensation, movements are perceived much more quickly.
To give you an idea, the foveal vision processes 3 to 4 images per second whereas the peripheral vision processes 100 images in the same amount of time.
This might help you understand the importance of using your peripheral vision when fighting. Indeed, your opponent’s movements will be analyzed much more quickly if you don’t stare directly at his limbs, and your reaction time will be greatly optimized.
To take advantage of this peripheral vision, you must fix a spot that is neither at the head nor at the legs, but at an in-between point, i.e. the plexus.
This will allow you to perceive the movements of the shoulders but also of the head, arms and legs. You will therefore cover the whole spectrum of possible attack movements and will be able to counter them more quickly.
Under stress, with the tunnel effect that will shrink your field of vision and blur your view, using your peripheral vision is no longer an option, it is a necessity.
