This will decrease your reaction time to visual stimuli in fighting. For defensive purposes, you will learn to anticipate, recognize, and track swift movements. For offensive purposes, you will learn to quickly spot openings and opportunities to attack.
Lateral Eye Stretch
Sit in a relaxed position. Look straight ahead. Without moving your head, look as far to your right as you can. You should feel a slight stretch in your eye muscles. Hold the stretch for five seconds. Now focus your eyes straight ahead, relaxing them for one second. Repeat the eye stretch to your left, without moving your head. Hold for five seconds. Again, focus straight ahead and relax the eyes for one second. That is one repetition. You should do 5-10 repetitions.
Vertical Eye Stretch
Sit in a relaxed position. Look straight ahead. Without moving your head, look as far down as you can. You should feel a slight stretch in your eye muscles. Hold the stretch for five seconds. Now focus your eyes straight ahead, relaxing them for one second. Repeat the eye stretch looking as far upward as you can, without moving your head. Hold for five seconds. Again, focus straight ahead and relax the eyes for one second. That is one repetition. You should do 5-10 repetitions.
Circular Eye Stretch
Sit in a comfortable position. Look straight ahead. Visualize a large clock, about 10 feet in diameter, directly in front of your face. Imagine your nose is fixed to the center of the clock.
Looking up, fix your sight first on the clock’s 12. Moving your eyes clockwise, fix your sight on the 1. Keep moving your eyes clockwise, stopping at each number, until you go all the way around to 12 again. Rest the eyes for a few seconds. Repeat this exercise going counter-clockwise.
During the circular eye stretch, it is important to pause your focus briefly at each number on the imaginary clock. It is also important that you stretch your eye muscles to see each number. Remember: the clock is 10 feet across.
Eye Squeeze
Sit in a comfortable position. Look straight ahead. Now squeeze your eyes shut tightly. Hold the eye squeeze for five seconds. Open your eyes and relax them briefly before repeating the eye squeeze. You should do 5-10 repetitions.
Eye Massage
Sit in a comfortable position. Allow your head to gently fall forward, as if you are falling asleep. Close your eyes and relax all of your facial muscles. Begin to gently massage the lids of your closed eyes with your fingers using the following techniques:
1. Downward stroke: slide the fingers from the eyebrows down to the cheekbones while applying slight pressure as the fingers first contact the eyelids.
2. Inward stroke: slide the fingers from the temples across the socket between the eyes and eyebrows while applying slight pressure as the fingers make contact just above the eyelids.
Warning: The eye is a delicate organ. I advise you to proceed with caution when practicing these eye exercises. You must be careful not to strain the eye or the eye muscles. Be careful to avoid pushing too hard on your eyelids.
Blink Control
Crucial to “quick seeing” is the ability to control the natural tendency to blink. All superior full-contact fighters have learned blink control—consciously or unconsciously. Blink control will ensure maximum use of your visual reflexes. Being able to resist closing the eyes during a fight can mean the difference between victory and being pummeled by your adversary. If you can’t “see” it, you will surely “feel” it when it gets there!
We all blink naturally. This natural blinking happens in a microsecond and cannot be eliminated. What I am talking about is eliminating the habit of closing your eyes when you are attacked. Developing blink control is more of a psychological task than a physical one.
Closing your eyes in the midst of fighting reduces your chances of success. I realize there are exceptions to every rule. For instance, it would make sense to close your eyes if someone hurled a handful of sand toward your eyes. The goal is not to have your eyes closed any longer than they absolutely need to be.
The following are the recommended drills for developing blink control.
Blink Challenge
You will need a training partner to help you with this drill. Start by standing with your hands at your side. Have your training partner stand about five feet in front of you. Your partner should now attempt to find your “blink point.” How close to your eyes does an attack have to be to make you blink? Your partner’s goal is to make you blink. Your goal is not to blink. It’s that simple. Some people can easily be made to blink. Some superior fighters do not seem to blink even when they are hit.
First, your partner could try stomping or yelling abruptly. If that doesn’t work, your partner could try punches or kicks launched toward your face.
Your partner should not come too close until you can control your response. As you gain control over your blinking, have your partner throw punches and kicks that come within an inch of your face. Be sure your partner can accurately judge the distance between you. In addition, I recommend that you wear protective headgear to avoid injury when practicing these drills. You will probably feel the wind from these attacks, but just concentrate on relaxing and not blinking.
The last step is to have your partner put on boxing gloves and footpads. Your partner should now make very light contact. Do not concern yourself with defense at this time. Just focus on controlling your blinking. Once you can handle this, try some fast light-contact sparring. This will help you develop blink control.
Public Awareness
Focus your eyes on a distant structure, such as a high building or pole. Now diffuse your vision. You should be able to see the structure clearly, and also the blurry environment bordering it. You might see people, cars, or other objects. Take note of any movement from both corners of your eyes. Try to really see what is going on around you while your eyes are fixated on the focus structure.
Name Call
Enlist the help of three or more training partners and spread them out in a line facing you. Stand about 10 feet in front of them. Now focus on all of them by diffusing your vision. Your eyes focus on the person in the middle, but your peripheral vision is actually upon the outer two at the same time. As one of them moves any body part, no matter how slightly, call out the person’s name.
Alphabet Game
Stand about 15 feet in front of your training partner. Have your training partner draw imaginary letters of the alphabet in the air with a finger as you attempt to distinguish the letters. To make this more of a challenge, have your partner move to the right or left so as to be out of your direct view. You must keep your drills consistently challenging if you seek rapid improvement.
Sparring Against Multiple Opponents
As your peripheral vision improves, you should advance to sparring against two or more people. This is the best way to improve your peripheral vision for competition and self-defense purposes. You can choose to go light and fast without protective gear, or go full contact with full protective gear.
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