WORCESTER - The concept of “eye gouging” might seem self-evident, but security expert and Krav Maga instructor Avital Zeisler noticed a few squeamish reactions among the 35 or so girls gathered in the gymnasium at Girls Inc. Friday when she went into slightly more detail about the tactic.
The goal, she explained, is to stick your thumb in an attacker’s eye and try to scoop it out of its socket. The girls may have been caught off-guard by the thought of doing it, but Ms. Zeisler said that’s all part of getting into a survival mindset where there’s one objective: to survive at all costs.
Ms. Zeisler spent about an hour with the girls, who ranged in age from 5th to 9th grade, as part of a partnership with the Vanessa T. Marcotte Foundation, named after the 27-year-old killed in August 2016 while on a jog near her family home in Princeton. A man was later arrested and charged with the murder of the well-liked Google employee who lived in New York City.