A few weeks back in karate, Sensei was telling us about how to gauge the appropriate distance to stand from an opponent. You don’t want to be too close (as you won’t be able to move properly), but you want to be closer than, in class, most folks get. You want to be close enough so that, duh, your fist could actually hit their face if not blocked.
The trick for this, we were told, is to walk forward until their feet are just disappearing from your lower peripheral vision, then take (as I recall) a step back. Obviously, with time, this becomes automatic, but it’s a good idea for getting into the right habit.
Problem is, of course, with my glasses I can’t do that nearly as well. Sensei noted I was not gauging it properly, and asked if I could do karate without my glasses, to which I answered, “Um, not really.”
It occurred to me later, though, that might not be the case. It’s not like I need to read the inscription on folks belts when sparring, and when doing katas and moves it’s only necessary to not run into walls — I can still, mercifully, do that without my glasses.
So on Tuesday night, I tried going through practice with my glasses off (albeit at the back window in case I decided I needed them).
While it’s true that I could go through everything we tried (we didn’t do sparring) without glasses, it was uncomfortable being in a very fuzzy room like that. It did make it a bit more difficult to tell what was being demonstrated at the front, and during kata exercises it made it harder to watch or enjoy the other belts doing their things (though I could have put on my glasses just for that).
I’m going to give it a try again today, to see how it goes, but I’m thinking that it’s not going to be my standard. Ah, well.
I’ve been doing martial arts for about 12 years now, and ran in to the same problem with the glasses thing. What I’ve done is I wear them for katas and learning new moves; but when we spar I take them off and fight without them. It’s not a perfect solution, but it works pretty well, and has the added bonus that since everything is fuzzy when I spar, I don’t fall for small, twitch fakes.
It does make for a sharper learning curve when just starting out sparring though, I’ll grant that. It’s become second nature at this point though, so much so that when I tried to spar with contacts in a couple months ago, it was harder than without my glasses on. Just my $0.02 on how it’s worked out for me.
Interesting.
My current plan for tonight:
– Leave the glasses at the back of the room.
– Go through kihon (moves) and kumite (sparring) with them off.
– Put them on for kata (forms) practice.
We’ll see how that works tonight.
When I used to play racquetball and basketball, I used some sports glasses which fit more closely to my face and were held on with an elastic band around my head. They had no sharp edges or corners. I think they are kind of bulky compared to the glasses you currently wear, but it might be a good alternative for you to consider.
I used something like this:
http://www.libertyoptical.com/products_helmet3.asp
You probably don’t need the eye protection required when playing racquetball, but I didn’t need it when playing basketball, and these glasses were far better than a regular pair of glasses at staying on my face so I was willing to put up with the fact that they were probably overkill for basketball.
I haven’t had a problem with the glasses coming off. I am slightly worried about glasses being damaged in an actual sparring session (esp. at higher levels), but that hasn’t been an issue yet. It’s more a peripheral vision issue (esp. when wearing glasses).
As an interesting Blog note, when I got home and returned a call to my Mom, her first question was, “Did you wear your glasses?”
So I followed the plan above, and it worked okay, but I came to a realization — I am dissociative/distractable/unfocused enough that, in an environment of fuzzy unfocusedness, it’s hard for me to keep focused.
So, I’ll be wearing my glasses in practice from here on out, though I now know that I can leave them off (as need be) during competitive sparring.