Eye gouging thread

[Tez3]

LOL at the twists and turns of our, ok, my mind!
Dennis, I posted this morning at 0730 when I came off nights. At my age mammograms worry me far more than eye injuries, eye injuries not pleasant but finding a lump in the breast is a whole new world of fear. Interestingly martial arts strikes on both areas are subject of debates.
I have to say I see more 'black eyes' from altercations in the street than in sparring or MMA fights. One of the worse offenders for eye injuries, I believe is squash, a game popular here, the ball, it seems unlike a tennis, cricket or baseball etc is small enough to actually hit the eyeball rather than the eye socket like other sports balls.
I've always found that 'attackers' always guard their eyes and groins far more than any other area so it seems to me that strikes to vulnerable areas other than these are preferable. I do get rather peeved when the argument comes up, which it did in the original thread, that 'you can't practice eye gouges' is so often a put down of others styles and training methods ie 'your ............( insert style here) isn't real because you can't practice eye gouges/you can't do eye gouges in the cage. Eye gouges are held up to be the epitome of a 'hard' style, rather than that of someone who wants to survive an attack.

 

[Dirty Dog]

You know at the next secret society meeting you are going to have to accept the prescribed sanctions for disclosing that to the public! Right?

Oh crap. I'll wear my cup...

As pointed out above by Elder and myself, the chin strike alone can cause a lot of pain and even injury.

Agreed. Absolutely.

The eye strike depends on how well it can be delivered, but it can cause damage

Not bloody likely, or at least, not bloody likely to cause serious injury. Corneal abrassions and even vitreal hemorrhages are not really serious injuries.

and/or excruciating pain.

Absolutely. It's going to hurt like hell.

If the eye strike does no more than cause a lot of tearing, then you are correct that it puts your assailant at a disadvantage.

And that, when you get down to it, is the purpose of this sort of attack.

 

[DennisBreene]

LOL at the twists and turns of our, ok, my mind!
Dennis, I posted this morning at 0730 when I came off nights. At my age mammograms worry me far more than eye injuries, eye injuries not pleasant but finding a lump in the breast is a whole new world of fear. Interestingly martial arts strikes on both areas are subject of debates.
I have to say I see more 'black eyes' from altercations in the street than in sparring or MMA fights. One of the worse offenders for eye injuries, I believe is squash, a game popular here, the ball, it seems unlike a tennis, cricket or baseball etc is small enough to actually hit the eyeball rather than the eye socket like other sports balls.
I've always found that 'attackers' always guard their eyes and groins far more than any other area so it seems to me that strikes to vulnerable areas other than these are preferable. I do get rather peeved when the argument comes up, which it did in the original thread, that 'you can't practice eye gouges' is so often a put down of others styles and training methods ie 'your ............( insert style here) isn't real because you can't practice eye gouges/you can't do eye gouges in the cage. Eye gouges are held up to be the epitome of a 'hard' style, rather than that of someone who wants to survive an attack.

Wow, I'll try to deal with the last few comments in one response. For all of you who think it's a mammogram-keep your eyes up! A bunch of horney goats on this site. I prefer my pizza without retina, and I particularly don't like it served up to me on the out side of an eye from a penetrating injury or a rupture. That eye is gone and basically has to come out.

I agree that the palm heel combo to the eyes is unlikely to have a great deal of velocity when the fingers hit the eye, so the effect is more likely a short term painful injury that gives you an opening. I believe another strike described in the thread was a palm strike to the eye with the fleshy portion of the thumb side (the thenar eminence) could be dangerous because the force can be directed directly into the orbit. Which brings me to a major point! The eye is well protected by the orbital rim (the bony part) so it takes a very direct blow to direct force into the globe itself. Having said that, it happens often enough to keep guys like me busy. Whether it's from a squash ball or a fist, it's the mechanism of injury that I concentrate on. The vast majority of serious globe injuries come from high velocity impact directly into the globe either by an object small enough to get past the orbital rim (fingers) or deformable enough to flex and push through the rim (squash ball, palm, or portion of a fist). The results can be devastating. The photo shows, hemorrhage, shockwave damage to the retina, infarction (like heart attack infarction), and a circular rupture of the layers under the retinal responsible for a large portion of its blood supply. That eye will never see normally again. I have seen globes ruptured, the optic nerve completely torn away from the globe and expulsive hemorhhages (the vascular choroid layer hemorrhages so much that the entire eye contents are expelled from a rupture) all from blunt trauma, including punches and fingers to the eye.

In fact, the majority of injuries are fractures of the boney rim, or bruises to the eyelids (the proverbial shiner). But I have plenty of photos of what can be found under that black eye if anyone is interested.

As for gouging. I suspect that gouging with fingers is more likely to tear the eyelids and do relatively minor damage to the globe. That would still slow your opponent down and ensure a trip to the ER in many cases. You won't be pulling the eye out of the socket though. I suspect you would need the assist of some sort of sharp object. It takes me about 40min to remove and eye with the correct instruments (but I'm trying to be neat so that I can reconstruct the socket for a prosthetic eye).

Now. Does that cover it?

 

[Mz1]

Eye gouging or eye jabbing are not big deals. Only suckers pays money to train these techniques.

Eye jabbing is merely a jab or a straight cross. Anyone who trains Boxing, MMA, etc. will be already be proficient at eye jabbing whenever they want to, by extending their fingers out instead of balling it into a fist. Real fighters will train for speed, power, precision, etc. striking pads, bags and most importantly, fully resisting opponents during sparring....from light to hard sparring for KO's. Non-fighters can train for such too, but their sparring is usually limited to light contact. Therefore, who's going to be better at it eye jabbing? Someone who only play fight or someone who fights for real and often?

Personally, in a fight, I'd rather throw my entire fist at someone's face in hopes of having a better chance at hitting something rather than try to go for a pinpoint accuracy shot at an eyeball. If I miss the eye jab, then I just wasted a move while committing (thus in his range) and no one's going to just stand there and let me throw another attack one for free. A trained fighter, who's used to fists flying at his face all the time will just treat an eye jab as any other strike....and answer it. You can't just walk up to an experienced Boxer and poke him in the eye that easily...he's probably going to slip it and knock you out. Slipping 2 fingers is a lot easier than an entire fist.

Eye gouging is even more ridiculous if considered to be something that needs training for. You don't need to train to gouge someone's eyeballs out, let alone pay money for such training. Kind of like needing someone to teach you how to bite in a fight.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Wow, I'll try to deal with the last few comments in one response. For all of you who think it's a mammogram-keep your eyes up! A bunch of horney goats on this site. I prefer my pizza without retina, and I particularly don't like it served up to me on the out side of an eye from a penetrating injury or a rupture. That eye is gone and basically has to come out.

I agree that the palm heel combo to the eyes is unlikely to have a great deal of velocity when the fingers hit the eye, so the effect is more likely a short term painful injury that gives you an opening. I believe another strike described in the thread was a palm strike to the eye with the fleshy portion of the thumb side (the thenar eminence) could be dangerous because the force can be directed directly into the orbit. Which brings me to a major point! The eye is well protected by the orbital rim (the bony part) so it takes a very direct blow to direct force into the globe itself. Having said that, it happens often enough to keep guys like me busy. Whether it's from a squash ball or a fist, it's the mechanism of injury that I concentrate on. The vast majority of serious globe injuries come from high velocity impact directly into the globe either by an object small enough to get past the orbital rim (fingers) or deformable enough to flex and push through the rim (squash ball, palm, or portion of a fist). The results can be devastating. The photo shows, hemorrhage, shockwave damage to the retina, infarction (like heart attack infarction), and a circular rupture of the layers under the retinal responsible for a large portion of its blood supply. That eye will never see normally again. I have seen globes ruptured, the optic nerve completely torn away from the globe and expulsive hemorhhages (the vascular choroid layer hemorrhages so much that the entire eye contents are expelled from a rupture) all from blunt trauma, including punches and fingers to the eye.

In fact, the majority of injuries are fractures of the boney rim, or bruises to the eyelids (the proverbial shiner). But I have plenty of photos of what can be found under that black eye if anyone is interested.

As for gouging. I suspect that gouging with fingers is more likely to tear the eyelids and do relatively minor damage to the globe. That would still slow your opponent down and ensure a trip to the ER in many cases. You won't be pulling the eye out of the socket though. I suspect you would need the assist of some sort of sharp object. It takes me about 40min to remove and eye with the correct instruments (but I'm trying to be neat so that I can reconstruct the socket for a prosthetic eye).

Now. Does that cover it?

Mostly, although I think your post makes these injuries seem more common than they really are.

Our trauma center is pretty busy. Calling facial trauma or optho for followup on orbital injuries is fairly common. Call optho for globe injuries? Happens, but it ain't going to keep anybody busy. Hyphemas, vitreal hemorrhage, corneal abrassions... yes, there's follow up, but the VAST majority heal without any specific treatment other than things like pain meds and prophylactic antibiotics.
Be honest... what keeps opthomology busy is things like cataracts and vision correction.

Don't take any of this to mean I don't think attacks to the eyes are not worthwhile. I do. I just have to chuckle when someone seems to think they're going to pluck out someones eye.

 

[DennisBreene]

In the grand scheme of things you are correct. Obviously I see globe trauma as it gets funnelled to me and that skews the relative perception. In fact, as a navy ophthalmologist in a large military area, we averaged about one open globe a month and considerably more cases of blunt trauma that didn't result in rupture. What you did not see in the ER is the long term consequences of those cases with hemorrage etc. It's not so simple when they get to us and often the injuries had serious impact on the patients sight. So while I see your point, I stand by my personal assessment that these are serious injuries and best avoided if possible. As far as applications in a SD setting, I think the discussion in general was spot on as to the utility and limitations of attacking the eyes.
Thanks

 

[seasoned]

I don't think the OP was referring to an actual eye removal, may be wrong. I would think there would be a bit of over kill there. All I really want to do is distract him with some blinding pain, so I can remove some teeth.

"I was on a bike one time tooling down the road, when a tiny little bug decided to commit suicide in my eye. I was out of commission for the better part of 5 minutes."

Now if a BIG guy has me on the ground and is on me, if I can grab something of his and pull him in close, I will at least give him a lobotomy with my thumb the hard way and leave him eye intact.

I hope this helps.

 

[DennisBreene]

I don't think the OP was referring to an actual eye removal, may be wrong. I would think there would be a bit of over kill there. All I really want to do is distract him with some blinding pain, so I can remove some teeth.

"I was on a bike one time tooling down the road, when a tiny little bug decided to commit suicide in my eye. I was out of commission for the better part of 5 minutes."

Now if a BIG guy has me on the ground and is on me, if I can grab something of his and pull him in close, I will at least give him a lobotomy with my thumb the hard way and leave him eye intact.

I hope this helps.

Now you tell me! All that work and I could have just said "be careful"

 

[Aiki Lee]

I'm of the opinion that eye gouging should be used as a set up for something else or as a way to loosen up the attacker if you were grappling and needed to bail out and escape. I honestly don't think you even need to actually do any harm, the attacker just needs to feel like he has to protect his face. Same thing goes for attacking the groin as well. Everyone instinctively protects these areas regardless of training and experience so they are good targets for feints or as a 1st step for something else like a throw or a knock down strike.

 

[jks9199]

In the grand scheme of things you are correct. Obviously I see globe trauma as it gets funnelled to me and that skews the relative perception. In fact, as a navy ophthalmologist in a large military area, we averaged about one open globe a month and considerably more cases of blunt trauma that didn't result in rupture. What you did not see in the ER is the long term consequences of those cases with hemorrage etc. It's not so simple when they get to us and often the injuries had serious impact on the patients sight. So while I see your point, I stand by my personal assessment that these are serious injuries and best avoided if possible. As far as applications in a SD setting, I think the discussion in general was spot on as to the utility and limitations of attacking the eyes.
Thanks

Were they from fights or on-the-job accidents?

I'd absolutely agree that many of these are significant injuries. I'd certainly seek a maiming or aggravated malicious wounding charge -- but we're not seeing them from most fights, either.

 

[DennisBreene]

Were they from fights or on-the-job accidents?

I'd absolutely agree that many of these are significant injuries. I'd certainly seek a maiming or aggravated malicious wounding charge -- but we're not seeing them from most fights, either.

They represent a multitude of injuries, but I'd say that probably 50% were fights. The common denominator was the mechanism of injury. These were almost all blunt trauma. The external injury is often less impressive than the internal damage which may not take effect for years. Hopefully these people are evaluated at some point by an ophthalmologist.

 

[Tez3]

I don't think the OP was referring to an actual eye removal, may be wrong. I would think there would be a bit of over kill there. All I really want to do is distract him with some blinding pain, so I can remove some teeth.

"I was on a bike one time tooling down the road, when a tiny little bug decided to commit suicide in my eye. I was out of commission for the better part of 5 minutes."

Now if a BIG guy has me on the ground and is on me, if I can grab something of his and pull him in close, I will at least give him a lobotomy with my thumb the hard way and leave him eye intact.

I hope this helps.

On the original thread that this is from the person who brought up eye gouges did mean the removal of the eyeball. The premise was that people who do karate aren't any good at SD because they can't train eye gouging.

 

[WingChunIan]

I've joined this party a bit late but reading the posts is really interesting. I personally love eye strikes. In the main I would argue that they should be thrown from contact. The ability to generate large amounts of force from contact by thrusting the thumb or fingers into the eye requires training and is a staple of higher level training in Wing Chun. Jabbing at the eyes from distance can also be effective as long as it is done with a soft hand so that if you miss the eyes you don't break your fingers on the opponents forehead (or alternatively you can spend years conditioning your fingers).
As for gouges in the grappling range again they are a favourite of mine. The human body is fantastically designed to protect itself and it requires a huge amount of concious effort for someone to move into more pain with the result that 99% of the time an opponent will naturally move away from the pain / potential damage of you trying to lever their eye out of the socket thus allowing you to obtain a more favourable position / land a telling strike.

Practising eye strikes and gouges is of course very difficult. The torso bags are great tools but getting your hand into the right position against a resisting opponent is also easy to practice as long as you remember to practice the finally delivery of the strike at another time.

As for the poster who claimed that evading punches is harder than finger jabs I suggest that they work with a friend that they trust, remove the gloves and then see what happens when you get into clinch range and the partner is tasked with trying to put a finger / thumb into their eye. Because of their target finger strikes require alot less power to be effective than punches and therefore can be smaller movements that are much harder to read. They aren't everyone's cup of tea and if you train to fight competitively then they wont / shouldn't be in your arsenal but they are highly effective. To say that if you can jab, cross etc you can finger strike shows a lack of understanding of how finger strikes are deployed and also defies habit. If you train to look for eye strikes and gouges at certain ranges it will instinctively ocurr to you to do so, if however you train to punch and only punch (ie a boxer) your instinct will be to punch and any notion of finger striking will be at best an afterthought.

 

[oftheherd1]

Eye gouging or eye jabbing are not big deals. Only suckers pays money to train these techniques.

Eye jabbing is merely a jab or a straight cross. Anyone who trains Boxing, MMA, etc. will be already be proficient at eye jabbing whenever they want to, by extending their fingers out instead of balling it into a fist. Real fighters will train for speed, power, precision, etc. striking pads, bags and most importantly, fully resisting opponents during sparring....from light to hard sparring for KO's. Non-fighters can train for such too, but their sparring is usually limited to light contact. Therefore, who's going to be better at it eye jabbing? Someone who only play fight or someone who fights for real and often?

Personally, in a fight, I'd rather throw my entire fist at someone's face in hopes of having a better chance at hitting something rather than try to go for a pinpoint accuracy shot at an eyeball. If I miss the eye jab, then I just wasted a move while committing (thus in his range) and no one's going to just stand there and let me throw another attack one for free. A trained fighter, who's used to fists flying at his face all the time will just treat an eye jab as any other strike....and answer it. You can't just walk up to an experienced Boxer and poke him in the eye that easily...he's probably going to slip it and knock you out. Slipping 2 fingers is a lot easier than an entire fist.

Eye gouging is even more ridiculous if considered to be something that needs training for. You don't need to train to gouge someone's eyeballs out, let alone pay money for such training. Kind of like needing someone to teach you how to bite in a fight.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And whatever their style is, they should learn it as well as possible. But to discount another style's abilities can cause a rude awakening.

 

[MJS]

To say that if you can jab, cross etc you can finger strike shows a lack of understanding of how finger strikes are deployed and also defies habit. If you train to look for eye strikes and gouges at certain ranges it will instinctively ocurr to you to do so, if however you train to punch and only punch (ie a boxer) your instinct will be to punch and any notion of finger striking will be at best an afterthought.

I was the one who made this comment. My point was simply...some people make it sound like its impossible to target the eyes. IMO, if its something that you train for, just like every other aspect of your art, then no, its not impossible. Eye shots are big in Kenpo and the FMAs, 2 arts that I've done for quite some time. I feel more than comfortable in throwing them.

 

[Mz1]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And whatever their style is, they should learn it as well as possible. But to discount another style's abilities can cause a rude awakening.

I don't buy into this SD marketing pitch that anyone needs to be taught and trained on how to stick their finger into someone's eye socket and gouge out the eyeball. Like biting, I already know how to do that.

While an eye jab, maybe...but it's just a straight striking technique. And if you're going to commit by extending your arm out, why not just throw the full fist instead of a finger? It's like training a 540 Tornado Kick. Sure it can work, but is it a good idea to try it in a real fight?

 

[Bigdavid5.0]

I don't think the OP was referring to an actual eye removal, may be wrong. I would think there would be a bit of over kill there. All I really want to do is distract him with some blinding pain, so I can remove some teeth.

"I was on a bike one time tooling down the road, when a tiny little bug decided to commit suicide in my eye. I was out of commission for the better part of 5 minutes."

Now if a BIG guy has me on the ground and is on me, if I can grab something of his and pull him in close, I will at least give him a lobotomy with my thumb the hard way and leave him eye intact.

I hope this helps.

Lobotomy,ILMAO.If my life is in danger, I'm going to do some damage.On the street ,there are no rules.I knew of a guy who went to jail.Everyone bullied him.One inmate tried to beat him up until he got his nose bitten off.The defender swallowed the nose.Everyone stayed clear of him after that.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I don't think the OP was referring to an actual eye removal, may be wrong. I would think there would be a bit of over kill there. All I really want to do is distract him with some blinding pain, so I can remove some teeth.

This has already been answered, but as the OP i feel like I should answer it a bit more fully. The original thread was talking about removal of the eyes. This thread was meant to be aimed more specifically towards any sort of eye attack (although removal is a big part of that).
Also, I personally am not a fan of actually trying to remove the eye, however the eyes and throat are my favorite targets XD

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I don't buy into this SD marketing pitch that anyone needs to be taught and trained on how to stick their finger into someone's eye socket and gouge out the eyeball. Like biting, I already know how to do that.

We've already had a discussion on your opinion of MMA, so lets leave it out of this thread please. We all know each others standpoints by now, and none of them are going to change.

While an eye jab, maybe...but it's just a straight striking technique. And if you're going to commit by extending your arm out, why not just throw the full fist instead of a finger? It's like training a 540 Tornado Kick. Sure it can work, but is it a good idea to try it in a real fight?

A few reasons for it.
1:Without gloves on, throwing a closed fist to the face is going to hurt your hand, something you dont need to do.
2:IF you have the acccuracy, it can be more painful than another shot, and a good set up. How many times out of a hundred are you able to set something up based off a jab? probably about 70/80. How many times out of a hundred can you set up something based on an eye jab? close to 100
So yes, it can work and is a good idea to try in a fight (although I would never throw that tornado kick in a fight XD)

 

[elder999]

A trained fighter, who's used to fists flying at his face all the time will just treat an eye jab as any other strike....and answer it. You can't just walk up to an experienced Boxer and poke him in the eye that easily...he's probably going to slip it and knock you out. .

Meh. I guess that's why boxers never get knocked out....

Maybe you weren't born yet, but there was a movement a few years ago to use thumbless gloves in professional boxing, because boxers thumb gouge each other, from time to time, even though it's against the rules. I think it was right around the time media darling Ray Leonard was diagnosed with a detached retina that he claims was from a thumb in his first fight against Tommy Hearns(?)

And if your boxing coach didn't teach you about thumb gouging, and how to do it and get away with it without hurting yourself, you probably have the wrong coach......or he's not much older......:lfao: