I don’t know if it only in my social circle or not that we often taught only about the movements or go for the bulge. But i understand in some circumstances that we can’t reach for the face. But if we can we should be taught more often about it. I’m sorry in advance if this is normally taught for most of you guys.
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I don’t know if you were taught any martial arts but the 1st rule i was taught in MMA class was to protect my face as a result it is kind of hard to hit someone in the eyes if he knows even a little bit of martial arts.
also our reflexes in the eyes are pretty high to avoid it… not so much for other parts of the body
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Because its too small of a target. And your refldxes defend most of the time..
You get their eye, now they’re going for an eye too …
Take krav maga lol
IMHO, I believe there is a legitimate revulsion to poking someone’s eyes out. That there is a yuck factor that even in a self-defense situation that will prevent you from actually doing that.
If you want to try it out for yourself, go to a sports store and actually poke out the eyes of a Century BOB Body Bag. And give it enough force to actually do that. There’s just something about it that I wouldn’t tell an untrained person to do it.
It’s hard to not see an eye gouge coming. And if you do succeed, they are going to be out to kill you if they weren’t before.
Much easier to not see a kick to the balls, and it more likely to incapacitate if successful.
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Be careful, it can easily leave the target with permanent damage, and at some point self defense doesn’t protect you anymore, there’s a disproportionate response thing legally
Also it’s not that easy to do, if it doesn’t work the situation might get more dangerous
But it’s still a good target
I always ask myself this question. In a dangerous situation, if I have presence of mind, I’d definitely stick my finger in somebody’s eyes, immediately giving me the edge (to run. I’m no fighter lol)
The problem is that your opponent can see your attack coming. What is deadly and not taught is to grab the Adam’s apple. That’s a brutal move.
My father always said kick their shins
Tbf one jab to the eye and there fumbling
Going for the eyes will instantly escalate a fight from a dangerous situation into a possibly lethal one. Same with going for the balls. If you go for either of these and your opponent is able to keep fighting, any rule of decorum goes out the window.
These are not magical disablers: they’ll just enrage the attacker.
Go for the eyes, Boo!
The real answer, is that in dangerous situations your stress is high. You cannot reliably perform any techniques that you haven’t practiced over and over again. So, any techniques that you want to rely on in a fight need to be techniques that you can practice over and over again.
Yes, you can drill eye gouges, but there are issues with the techniques. If you drill by always pulling short, then maybe you will pull short in a real fight. If you drill by always going high then you will go high in a real fight. Also, you cannot drill eye gouges with high intensity. You can’t eye gouge in a spar, because that’s a great way to poke your partner’s eye out. Most people only have two eyes.
So, martial arts focus on those techniques which can be drilled over and over again. Punches, kicks, elbows, and knees are flexible and effective but can also be drilled, used in spars, and even in competition with some padding to make them safe. You can punch and kick partners/pads/bags over and over again.
Go for the BALLS
in women, ho for the Throat
Because balls
Krav Maga says go for those fucking eyes and don’t forget the balls!!
My understanding is that there used to be a lot of brutal moves in Karate, such as breaking arms etc, which were removed when Karate became more of a mainstream thing. Also, my instructor said that many of the masters would remove things they thought were too “barbaric, or uncivilized.” My source is just my karate teacher.
I always wonder why people so rarely go for the joints. A kick to the ankle, especially on the side can absolutely end a situation on the spot. Hitting ears is also a great idea but it is hard to reach, because people will cover their heads.
Go for the eyes Boo, go for THE EYES!!!
Same reason you shoot to the body and not head… target size.
I’m far more likely to miss your eyes vs the rest of someone’s face
Because it’s easy to see coming. I’m just being a wise ass but there is probably some truth to it. If you see something coming at your eyes, instincts kick in and you blink and flinch.
Reflexes.
Try poking your finger at someone’s eye at high speed(don’t actually poke them, just take your finger close to the eye) and see how they react.
Even if they are day dreaming they react instantly. Its part of our brains autonomic functions. Same as how you would react when you accidentally touch something very hot.
And in a fight with adrenaline the reflexes will be even faster.
Because going for the eyes typically involves getting very close into the subject and raising your arms above you in a compromising position it’s better to aim for sensitive spots that are easier to attack with less chance to defend such as their crotch
It’s much easier to kick/knee guy in the dick than it is to poke his eye out
Because it’s hard to do it, we instinctively protect our eyes and it’s a pretty small target so usually it’s not effective
If you blind someone, they can and probably will sue you and win.
In firearms class we were taught to shoot to kill for that very reason. Injure someone to the point they can’t work, and you’ll wind up supporting your attacker financially.
Hard target to hit on a moving person, requires to you essentially grapple their face and leaves you wide open, is considered “brutal” and there is a chance your opponent might escalate in response. Street fights have no rules but there is a line between assault and attempted murder.
That’s a charge. You choke a man out and he just has a little nap. You permanently disfigure or disable someone and now you can be charged. Plus a tough guy will fight with a missing eye or broken arm
Well, I can not know what your social circle says, can I?
But I still remember a military hand to hand course I went through way back when, I’m 74M, taught by this fellow by the name of Pommerelle. Pommerelle had been a French Foreign Legionnaire for 16 years. Came to the States and was brought into our service as an E6, specifically hand to hand and other non-firearm fighting techniques. For instance, stick fighting, use of empty rifle, improvised striking devices, etc. He’d been in actual combat several times, and had taught hand to hand and such while in the Legion. Was considered an expert in Karate, Savate, Judo, and Krav Maga. And knew several other forms of fighting well.
Now the course he was teaching us was not for sport, or developing style, or looking good. A stripped down course of moves and techniques easily remembered, practiced and mastered. Just some essentials. Some things that might keep you from dying.
Besides the daily workout to build some more muscle and flexibility, and he was BIG on being flexible, there was a daily drill of repeatedly chanting Eyes, Nose, Throat, Solar Plexus, Kidney, Groin. And practicing strikes to a dummy with the propriate strike areas. Over and over until you just didn’t need to think about it any more.
As concerns eyes, he wasn’t teaching movie studio strike to the eyes. Didn’t matter, what you were trying to do was make it difficult for the opponent to see. Make his eyes water, at least. A clawed hand raked across one, straight on arm with thumb out and ready to gouge. And if gouging … hold absolutely nothing back. Do it as if your life depended on it, because it might.
FWIW to get us used to not just trying to kick or knee a groin, he’d have us partner up with another student and stand inches apart and put our hands in each others’ short and just kind of feel what you found. A psychological thing to remove your inhibitions to grabbing whatever you might find down there and giving it the jerk of your opponent’s lifetime, or a good twist, as if trying to twist it off.
Now such things probably aren’t talked about much if people are discussing sport type martial arts. As such things would not be allowed. And I sure as hell am not suggesting people try to implement any such thing.
The very best martial art is the art of avoiding a fight in the first place. Unless it is just for sport and fitness.
Back in the marine corps they absolutely did tell us to go for the eyes if that option is open and available.
In NHB where people are allowed to go for the eyes (there are videos, even Mighty Mouse has a reaction to it) people go for the eyes. It is a regular part of guard work, like the head butt, if it is allowed.
Most martial arts that teach self defense eye gouging aren’t useful because they don’t box or roll or lift. So they’d just lost before ever getting to the point eye gouging is a move.
But yeah, if you box you can flick your fingers into people’s eyes pretty easily. You just have to decide to. Some fighters in MMA can purposefully jab the eyes every fight, showing how it can be done on purpose.
I go for the ribs or the hyoid.
Because eye protection is cheap and available.
It depends on where you live and a lot of other factors, but many self defence situations also aren’t life or death… until someone does something like going for the eyes.
Going for the eyes also works a lot better as a first strike, meaning quite often is not even self defence.
I’ve been a bouncer for 17 years at some extremely violent places, and for all the times I’ve heard people online talk about going for the eyes/groin etc, I’ve rarely seen it happen and never seen it work.
Whether it’s me they targeted or someone else, it’s always been a desperate last ditch attempt by someone (eg drug addicts or nutcases) who was already outmatched. And all its done is made the person who was already winning get that little bit rougher.
Last time it happened it just meant I went from holding someone until the cops could get them, to dropping elbows.
The time before that, it was some edgelord biker wannabe trying to fight someone twice his size, and all it did was got him thrown through a window.
The time before that, it was two guys wrestling on the ground during a brawl and got the eye gouger slammed into the curb.
It was the first move we practiced. Grab the face, put a finger in the eye. If someone goes for a takedown grab the head slide down the sides, put fingers in both eyes. In a clinch , grab the shirt, hair, whatever pull in and go for the eyes. We would practice blindfolded so as log as you were touching someone, you knew where the head was. We even had glasses to put on to practice getting under them.
Everything else was secondary.
Self defence classes are terrible
Source: me, who taught them for a decade.
I did actually learn an attack for the eyes. It’s not simple – you basically have to come up and kind of grab the chin and then lean your ring and middle finger around the nose and then poke with those fingertips. Because unless you brace your hand against the face, you can’t really get your fingers accurately to the eyes.
And even that attack isn’t super-easy to pull off.
Because it doesn’t work. You have to reach and it’s too small of a target. There was a good jiujitsu video with some girls going to the gym and asking this and the instructor just said go for it. They couldn’t even get close without getting restrained.
Because it’s a great way to break two of your fingers. Eyes are soft, but skulls are hard and fingers are weak.
Its hard to hit. Go for the nose instead!
You just have the wrong trainer. Like the wise Minsc always says:” Go for the eyes, Boo.”
Throat punch, then eyes
Eyes are surprisingly durable. Most people don’t have the intestinal fortitude to actually pop ‘em like grapes either.
A good poke might make them water enough to aid your escape.
But a punch to the nose does that also, and you can actually train punching the nose so you can get good at it.
A. It’s because a lot of martial arts have been “sportified”. Many of the most effective moves are the ones that are illegal in most martial arts competitions.
B. It’s hard to practice a lot of dangerous moves because they’re, you know, dangerous. You’re not gonna find a lot of people that will let you practice eye pokes on them.
C. The eyes are a small target. It’s most effective to use if you and your opponent are in very close quarters, e.g. if you’re tangled up/grappling. You’re probably better off going for bigger targets like the solar plexus, groin, and throat if you don’t mind fighting “dirty”. That said a stiff jab and cross are the 1-2 for a reason.