A one-eyed swordsman?

As an iai/kendoka, I can offer a little info. Before I rebooted on my training this summer, I was somewhat haphazardly training off/on during 05-06 (hardly a 2-3 hours a month, yeah, very little). There were a few regular (And still are) "center/target" zone practices you can do to improve such. Around spring 06, my left eye was injured and I was forced to wear a patch for a few weeks. To boil it down, I tried one simple "zone" practice and was -completely- off my mark. To be blunt though, even when I practice seriously now, I seldom do more than 7-10 hours (2-4 official) of "practice" a week. A fictional (or even hell, a real samurai) character like Guts trained/faced battle 24/7, means to an end/way of life. It should become second nature and eyesight should not be a liability (not trying to say Zatoichi isn't Bullshit...)

Wrapping things up, no, losing an eye to something one is comfortable and using on a daily basis that doesn't completely require eyesight isn't a big hinder.
Again, if you lost your eye today, you'd still probably be able to use a keyboard+play video games without going batshit that you couldn't make out where things were.
 

Gurifisu

Sweet dreams, dear child of god.
Disadvantages of having one eye

Well I'm just wondering if anyone who knowledgeable about eyes could tell me all the combat related disadvantages of having one eye.

I know it affects depth perception, and you have a blind side. A scientific description would nice... I'm just curious to know exactly how much it effects.
 
Re: Disadvantages of having one eye

For one, you're straining your left eye a lot more. You also lack the visual cues that require two eyes such as convergence (eyes moving inward as an object comes closer) and retinal disparity (but since you don't have any image in the other eye, I'm not sure that this matters).
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Re: Disadvantages of having one eye

This may interest you, first hand experience from someone who's actually lost an eye: http://www.losteye.com/depthper.htm

Depth Perception
... is grossly overrated!


Introduction

When you are about to lose an eye, you will be told that you will lose some depth perception. The key is "some" which for most people turns out to be "very little".

Oh, yes, it will become more difficult to do some things, such as thread a needle. It will also become more difficult to play some types of sports. But for the most part, the loss of an eye will probably not significantly affect your depth perception or your life.

How do you get depth perception in the first place? Because your eyes are a couple of inches apart, each of your eyes sees a slightly different image, shadows, etc., and your mind has learned to compare the two and make judgments on distance. Depending on your age, your mind has probably made millions of judgments and over the years has been trained to recognized distances.

Outside of about 20 feet, the couple of inches between your eyes doesn't make any substantial difference, and so in gauging distances outside of 20 feet it doesn't matter if you have one eye or two. A guy with one eyes sees the world outside of 20 feet the same as the guy with two eyes. It only really matters for stuff closer in, and the closer in the more significant the difference.

Again, you get depth perception because your two eyes are a couple of inches apart and see a slightly different image which your mind compares. If you only have one eye, you only get one image unless . . . [gasp] . . . you move your head slightly from side to side so that you get a couple of different images from your one eye for your mind to compare. This allows you to, essentially, with one eye mimick what you would see with two eyes, and thus alleviate the close-in depth perception problem.

Where this simple and effective trick does not work is with an activity which is fast-paced, such as sports. You will simply not have enough time to move your head around and get different images if, for instance, you have a tennis ball coming at you at 90 mph.

So, what can I tell you about sports? Not much, because yet I have not had enough practical experience playing many sports with just one eye. I can tell you the obvious, that some sports will not be effected at all by your one-eyedness. These will include jogging, swimming, water-skiing, snow-skiing, snowboarding, surfing, etc. Some sports, such as tennis might be significantly affected. Other sports may or may not be affected, depending on the position you play. For instance, I doubt that your one-eyedness would make much of a difference if you play the pitcher in baseball (the plate is outside of 20 feet), if you play in the post position in basketball, or if you play on the offensive line in football.

Remember that your brain will have to re-train itself to cope with your single vision. You can help it out by practicing your one-eyed depth perception, such as by laying on your back and repeatedly throwing a tennis ball straight up in the air and catching it as it comes down (be sure to wear safety goggles when you do this).

There are some things which might cause you trouble at first, which are solved if you just do them a little more slowly than you did before. An example is shaking somebody's hand -- don't feel uncomfortable slowly extending your hand and letting the other person grasp it (I haven't found this to be a problem at all). Steps can be weird at first, and of course you need to be careful of the blind spot, caused by your nose, on the side on which you lost your eye.

Other problems can be solved by just proceeding slowly and cautiously at first. An example is pouring orange juice. If you hold the pitcher a foot above the glass you may or may not hit it. What you should do is lower the pitcher (or raise the glass) until the lip of the glass almost touches the pitcher, and then pour so that it is a "sure thing". After a while, your mind will learn to compensate for your one-eyedness and such things as pouring will once again become second nature to you.

Driving, and particularly parking, may pose some depth perception problems. After my eye was removed, my girlfriend placed a board on the garage floor to indicate to me when to stop my car. However, I've learned that it is easier to simply find a familiar spot on the wall next to my door, and to learn to stop when I have lined up with it. Like everything else, parking with one eye will simply take some practice, but you can expect to get good at it over time.

Update: 4 October 2000

Okay, folks, it's been more than six months since I lost my eye, and I can definitely tell you that:

The Loss Of Depth Perception Is A Total Crock!

I can lay on my back, throw a tennis ball 10 feet into the air, and catch it on the way back down, no problemo. I don't have any problems judging wave distance when I'm out surfing (well, at least no more problem than I had before). Depth perception is not an issue in parking (the loss of peripheral vision does occasionally cause some difficulty, but that's not depth perception).

Personally, I think the mind compensates very quickly for the loss of the other eye, to where after a while it is no longer noticeable (not that it was very noticeable in the first place).

Anyway, since we already have a thread on the topic, I'll merge the two together.
 
To point out something Aazealh's quote mentioned and even I'll confirm, yes depth perception wasn't a big deal after awhile. It was enough to throw me off, but some what like looking in the dark, you adjust after awhile.

As for the above, another show, forgetting the name, showed a man who had invented inverted glasses/helmet, which would mirror your vision upside down, essentially forcing you to learn how to see/measure depth all over again. It took him a very long time, but after awhile it was second nature to him and could shift between normal vision and inverted with ease, the same applies to a lost eye.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
Manji said:
As for the above, another show, forgetting the name, showed a man who had invented inverted glasses/helmet, which would mirror your vision upside down, essentially forcing you to learn how to see/measure depth all over again. It took him a very long time, but after awhile it was second nature to him and could shift between normal vision and inverted with ease, the same applies to a lost eye.

Yeah, I remember those glasses (seriously, that stuff's like 15 years old). The guy could ride a bicycle and all that. Anyway, all in all the biggest disadvantage of the condition is the blind spot to me. And it's also what Miura showed Guts dealing with in the manga (waterfall scene).
 

KazigluBey

Misanthrōpos
If you were going to talk about far-fetched physical abilities, I would have to think that wielding a weapon the size of the dragon slayer with one good arm would be a hell of a lot more difficult than fighting with one eye. Would anybody like to wager a guess as to how much that darn thing weighs? Recall the scene where guts puts the handle (or part of the blade?) of the DS in his mouth (I believe it was his mouth?) and braces it with the artificial arm as he goes to attack the Count. Now that's one hell of a strong neck!

Of course this is fantasy and to enjoy fantasy you suspend disbelief of certain things, but you get my point...I hope.
 

SimplyEd

エンシェント カタストロフィ
So far, everything seems to work out quite well. I mean, he and his companions are still alive, even with all those disadvantages. Seriously though, Guts' physical shape keeps on getting worse with progressing time. With any kind of luck, they'll find some sort of treatment at Elfhelm. I won't put my money on a wondrous regeneration, but it would be very helpful if he could get his body fixed up again.
 
KazigluBey said:
I would have to think that wielding a weapon the size of the dragon slayer with one good arm would be a hell of a lot more difficult than fighting with one eye

He's not just fighting with one good arm. He also has that kick-ass mechanical arm to help him. As shown in the manga, he wields the DS with two hands and he can clench his hand into a fist, and grasp a sword handle at will, so the arm is not just dead weight.
 

KazigluBey

Misanthrōpos
Well even with the ability to clamp the iron hand around the handle, his shoulder is bearing the brunt of the load because there are no intricate muscles/nerves to articulate from the elbow down like there would be with a regular human arm. Then you take into consideration the length of the sword and how much more difficult it would be due to the amount of leverage needed to keep it upright. Lifting a 100lb object which is concentrated in a weight plate like those found in a gym is much easier than lifting a six foot long pole that weighs 100lbs, by one end.

One plus for Guts is that we see him adding some weight to his sword when practicing, so he's obviously building up his strength as time goes on, so that helps to add realism to it. Then again, people have been know to lift incredible amounts of weight with the aid of adrenaline and life threatening situations.
 

Aazealh

Administrator
Staff member
KazigluBey said:
his shoulder is bearing the brunt of the load because there are no intricate muscles/nerves to articulate from the elbow down like there would be with a regular human arm.

He still has a part of his forearm left. Anyway this isn't the thread to discuss this. It's been talked about again and again over time and nothing new is being said here.
 
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