jesper
01-25-2003, 02:12 PM
I have gotten myself an eye infection, so are currently unable to use my right eye.
Well anyway, when my initial irritation about being half blind left me, I thought I might as well try to experiment with how much it affected my fighting abilities.
So of I went to spar one of my tkd friends.
That was embarresing. I couldnt focus or correctly judge distances, and was constantly kicked down. Not to mention when he managed to get to my blind side. It actually took me quite a while to be able to compensate somewhat for my disability.
So several hours of training and sparring later, I have come to following conclussions.
1) your depth perception gets all screwed up. which is very bad when somebody hits you full speed and power.
2) your perifiry (spell ?) vision sucks
3) when you get contact your vision screw up your other sensory information and sends confusing signals to your brain.
What I learned was that correct positioning is much much more important when you have only 50% vision. You simply cannot under any circumstances let him get to your sides (I cannot stress that enought). I also found out that I needed to close my eyes as soon as we had contact, so I wouldnt get confused by the incorrect signals I recieved from my eyes ( A good thing is that it confirmed that all my hours spend doing chi sao wasnt completely wasted).
Lastly this has oppened my eyes :) to the fact that I need to train more with situations, where I am at an disadvantage. Ie blindfolded, one arm tied behind back etc. Just in case I ever need to fight at an disadvantage.
Well anyway, when my initial irritation about being half blind left me, I thought I might as well try to experiment with how much it affected my fighting abilities.
So of I went to spar one of my tkd friends.
That was embarresing. I couldnt focus or correctly judge distances, and was constantly kicked down. Not to mention when he managed to get to my blind side. It actually took me quite a while to be able to compensate somewhat for my disability.
So several hours of training and sparring later, I have come to following conclussions.
1) your depth perception gets all screwed up. which is very bad when somebody hits you full speed and power.
2) your perifiry (spell ?) vision sucks
3) when you get contact your vision screw up your other sensory information and sends confusing signals to your brain.
What I learned was that correct positioning is much much more important when you have only 50% vision. You simply cannot under any circumstances let him get to your sides (I cannot stress that enought). I also found out that I needed to close my eyes as soon as we had contact, so I wouldnt get confused by the incorrect signals I recieved from my eyes ( A good thing is that it confirmed that all my hours spend doing chi sao wasnt completely wasted).
Lastly this has oppened my eyes :) to the fact that I need to train more with situations, where I am at an disadvantage. Ie blindfolded, one arm tied behind back etc. Just in case I ever need to fight at an disadvantage.