Breaking Windows

Considering the Human Eye in Combat

Just about every woman I have known deeply enough to have serious conversation has named the eyes “the windows of the soul.” I gather this is a common belief, one that I share, which vexes me, having grown so smug in my apartness.

This week I viewed a conversation between Joe Rogan and Bas Rutten, in which Rutten was speaking of the fact that the eye is not a magic bullet in combat and you had better not poke the eye of some caveman like him who has you in a dominant position.

This requires an address from a coach who advocates spearing and raking the eyes in a survival situation. Rutten was discussing poking and gouging, which puts you in the grappler’s game.

I have trained with guys that were so strong, that if you started digging around in their eye they could just snap your bones. I also once protected myself from a furious attempt to crush my throat on the steel blade of an upturned dolly by scraping an eye, my would-be murderer only permitting me a one-finger scrape before adjusting his hold and maintaining his determination to kill me. This is covered in detail in Thriving in Bad Places.

In Being a bad Man in a Worse World, I cover attacks against the eye, which should be strikes from an oblique angle for shocking the brain and ripping open the eye ball.

What I would like to discuss here is the tactical facility of using eye contact in pre-combat situations.

Keeping one eye on someone while using the other for peripheral detection of an accomplice or third party is something I can only do from left to right, by turning my left side to the primary threat or target, keeping my left eye directed at him, while utilizing my bony beak to divide my vision, scanning with my right eye. Practicing this for more than a minute causes a headache. My left eye is damaged and has no real peripheral vision so I’m no good on this from that side. This provides a more subtle form of pre-sucker punch setup.

If you are not close enough to be hit and he seems like he is ready to go, a sharp look to the side—as if you are startled by something suddenly appearing to your side—has worked for me. Do not turn your head even a little or he will belt you. This is a good one if you are about to bum rush, not punch.

Mentally weak people are easily cowed through cold, hard eye-contact from just beyond touch range. Maniacs, however will often attack precipitously over such eye contact. Emasculated dindus and whindus will generally begin wolfing at this point, which will permit you to drift away with your eye on them while they go about saving face by running their mouth.

Hot eye-contact, works best at close proximity if you have overwhelming psychological or physical strength and your rear and flanks are secured. Keep in mind that such close range grilling can trigger sucker punches from a crafty antagonist and is, legally, assault, for which you might be charged in a court of law, or even arrested if you don’t cool down around a responding cop. This shows wisdom on the part of the courts as eye-to-eye grilling is a highly successful and much used form of intimidation.

The most effective way to use the eyes against dangerous men is to make and maintain neutral eye-contact while seeking superior position and maintaining time and measure by subtly shifting angles, one sucker step at a time. This often tires and confuses the confrontational personality.

With the exception of hot, close eye-contact, little to no conversation, no insults, no arguments and preferably the mystery of cold silence will break the resolve of most confrontational antagonists and many predatory aggressors before contact.

(c) 2017 James LaFond