Did One-Eyed Warriors Fight Effectively in Melee Combat?

[aggienation]

It isn't just about depth perception. You lose peripheral vision on one entire side of your body and it upsets your balance.

I've lost sight in an eye for over a week, after the eye gouging I mentioned some posts back. The biggest upset was the completely loss of peripheral vision. You're brain has been hardwired for however many years you've been alive to do everything with two eyes and depth perception. Most people have no clue what I'm even really talking to, in terms of how important it is, until they lose the ability to use an eye. Then suddenly nearly everything that relies on vision is made harder. It takes some time to get used to, as one has to relearn activities, sometimes even relearn neuro muscular pathways, just to be able to do something basically that was done with relative ease with two eyes.

And yet, even with that, the physical is still less important that the psychological aspect of fighting, which is where the good and bad are judged. Having fought a bunch growing up and as an adult, including actual combat with armed enemy, and from the knowledge I've accrued from reading about famous warriors of the past, and current ones (like SOF veterans), all who talk about the importance of it, I wholeheartedly believe in the absolutely necessity to have proper combat mindset, it is without a doubt what truly separates the best from everyone else. One can have a superior warrior mindset while missing an eye and still be a great warrior, whereas someone physically perfect, not just two working eyes, but incredibly athletic, in perfect health, tough and brave in many regards, can suck as a warrior simply for not possessing the right combat mindset.

 

[aggienation]

Having one eye will limit not only your general field of vision (straight ahead), but, perhaps more importantly, your peripheral vision. So one side of your body cannot see. That mean somebody approaching with a fist or weapon will not be seen until it's too late. One has to wonder how things like cataracts also affected one's ability to fight or defend oneself.

Most people under high stress have a tendency to have what is called tunnel vision. Its not really a function of the eye doing anything, but the brain has laser focus on what is immediately in front, which the brain registers as THE THREAT, which severely limits the field of view. The only way to alleviate this are two things:

1. Be so experienced that one is inoculated to the point they barely react biologically to stressers. So slight rise in heart beat and blood pressure, low levels of specific brain waves, no blood transfer away from the limbs (the famous cayse of lethargy, coldness, and shaking). This takes a rather long time using actual battle, but can be accomplished using force on force training (to include sparring) and some other extreme techniques, designed to cause fear, doubt, uncertainty, worry, exhaustion, and other means of stress onto an individual to drill them into continuing to focus on the task at hand despite it all.

2. Through simply training, whereas methods are drilled it into the individual's brain that they must continue to scan while actively completing the task at hand, turning the head and eyes, looking around, properly searching.

Neither are easy to do and few even realize the importance of them, but they are critically necessary to prevent tunnel vision from forming during a high stress encounter.