Never Take Your Eyes Off the Threat

This is something I learned a long time ago, and which became vital in my days of big cat raising and training. You never look away, you never take your eyes off the threat, you never get distracted. I'm not sure if I learned it when I became a scuba diver, or if it was later in the air force when flying. It might have been sooner than that even, but in the world of animal training, especially wild carnivores, it's vital.

So I have a problem, at times, with plot points in stories and shows where the main character, or maybe a not so main character, gets distracted away from the 'bad <whatever>' at a particular point. Because I don't get distracted, I know where the 'threat' of imminent harm is, and I keep my eyes on it. If I have to maneuver to keep my eyes on two things I will, but I do maintain an awareness of what's going on around me, because what my try to distract me, may also spook or distract that which I'm dealing with. Because you never want to get tunnel vision either. You don't have to focus all of your attention on the 'threat, to still see it, after all. Because anything in your field of vision is still in your vision.

A friend of mine always used to unfocus his eyes when in judo competitions or sparring, so he never focused on a specific aspect of his opponent, instead allowing him to see all of the opponent at once so he could react to all of it, and not be distracted by a hand faint, or a head fake. It's really a very worthwhile technique to practice.

Now, for the average person, yes, I can see them being easily distracted, not paying attention to things around them that are supposed to be important (like say their children :-6 ), but for a trained professional? Well, not if their training was really any good. It's like that bit you see in fake fights in movies and stuff where the one guy turns his back on the other in a fight. Yeah, that doesn't happen, you never turn your back, even when doing any kind of a spinning attack in martial arts, you turn your head as you spin, to keep your eyes on your opponent as long as possible.

Of course it's always easier to write a hero who makes lots of simple mistakes, and it's a lot harder to write someone who doesn't. Because then the mistakes have to be a lot more believable.

Anyway, back to work.