Watch and Feel in Fighting

As we train ourselves to fight, we need to understand what to do with our eyes...where to look, what to watch. In general it is good to watch the upper body while separated from your opponent. Some people say watch the eyes as you will be able to see the intent of your opponents while others say watch the shoulders.

I believe there is more than one answer to this. If you are always watching the eyes, I believe you can be faked out but I also believe that watching the shoulders will put you in danger of falling for shoulder fakes. I recommend a combination. I watch eyes to look for intent of the opponent and watch the entire upper body for an indication of my opponent closing distance. While at a distance, I recommend using your peripheral vision to look for strikes coming from different angles. Your peripheral vision should allow you to monitor both arms and both legs of your opponent.

Once engaged in the fight, meaning a strike has been thrown (and hopefully you have blocked successfully) you should use the feel built during your sensitivity training. As long as you have contact with your opponent's hand (assuming the strike was a hand strike of some sort) you will be able to feel any moves he tries with that hand. In this case, you now focus your eyes on the hand that is not engaged and allow your peripheral vision watch the kicks. In many cases you will be able to feel your opponent move to kick as they shift their weight.