Can You Really Gouge Out an Eye?

I have never shown the actual technique for gouging an eye in the WARSKYL blog. This article by Tim Larkin of Target Focus Training does not give the actual technique, either, but discusses something that is actually more important: "What is at stake?"

“You can't gouge my eye out. Go ahead, try”

He loudly proclaimed this to the assembled gaggle of men as he squeezed the lids of one eye as the other guy tried to “gouge it” …and he was right the other guy couldn’t do it.

The guy tried to get in there and gouge his eye out. I wouldn't say he was completely committed, but he was giving it a good effort but to no avail. They stopped after a couple of seconds and then the guy just pushed him away and arrogantly dismissed him.

Now people paid attention to this guy with the “inpeneratable eye” because he is a Tier One combat decorated operator. He’s from the US Army’s Delta Force and well known in the tactical training world.

Not a bad guy, but again, misinformed.

I've heard variations of this “you can’t gouge my eye in a real fight” for years. And this is not just limited to eye gouges.

The statements usually are crafted like this; combat sport practitioners say “You can't do x”, and the Reality Self Defense gurus will say, “Oh yes, you can!”

So who's right?

Well, my impulsive answer is they're both wrong, but to be fair, here's the answer.

It depends..

Because both sides rarely ask the correct foundational question:

“What are the stakes?”

When that Delta Force operator squeezed down on his eye, shutting his eye closed, and the other guy tried to get his thumb in there to no avail … everyone watching nodded their heads and agreed eye gouging doesn’t work. But noone asked….What were the stakes?

Was anybody's life on the line?

Was anybody devoid of choice?

The answer is to all of the above is…. NO!

In a training demo of course it won’t “work”, that is unless you're a functioning sociopath who would just take out another person's eye just to prove a point. But the dangerous problem is uniformed people look at a canned scenario like that and think, “See, eye gouges don’t work”.

Then you've got the guys that I'll kindly call “Reality Self Defense Experts” who sit there and say that combat sport practitioners are all vulnerable to their “deadly techniques”, but that they can't show their “deadly techniques” in the ring...which of course is a bunch of crap.

The reason you won't ever take anybody's eye in a “fight” is because a “fight” does not have high enough threat level. Whereas in a life or death, violent struggle, numerous examples exist where eyes came out, throats were crushed, joints were ripped apart, and all sorts of horrific acts of violence occurred.

So you constantly have to ask yourself, what are you training for?