Chris Birke

Well, the only thing that causes tunnel vision is exhaustion, your eyes aren't getting enough o2 and their abilities decline.

When you focus on something (say the tip of your nose) your eyes cross to get good 3d vision. As you focus on something further away, they uncross progressivly until they are as wide as they can get. Focusing on someone who is a few feet away will not uncross them all the way, so you are (by sheer mechanics) limiting your vision.

So, when I say soft focus (this might not be entirely what george means) I mean uncross your eyes as much as possible into that distance focus thing. Focus through your opponent and into the wall behind them, then see how it feels to watch them.

I think, in actual practice, I shift my focus a lot. Usually it's aimed at the guy's center, but a few feet behind him, and shifting depending. Try it out for a while, it really grows on you.

In a more esoteric sense, I believe this sort of vision is refrenced as being compatible with many philosophies, the Tao, Zen, etc... but I don't know so much about that.

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I just wanted to add some things from a mechanics standpoint - as an argument against soft focus, you would be depriving yourself of one way of judgeing 3d, ie stereo vision. But that's not the only way to judge 3d, and how fast is it?

Also, in multiple person situations, I find this to be all the more useful. What good is looking at person A when you cant see person B? It's possible to see them both at once, though not as clearly, and this is the way to do it.