He snorted and hit me in the solar plexus.

I bent over and took hold of the room with both hands and spun it. When I had it nicely spinning I gave it a full swing and hit myself on the back of the head with the floor.

This brings up something that has always mystified me:

I have never been in a real “fight” fight — I mean an all-out fist fight. I’m not that kind of person. But once when I was a kid, I got hit in the solar plexus by accident during a playground game. The wind was totally knocked out of me and I couldn’t inhale for probably two minutes. I thought I was going to die, actually.

Later, when I was about 20, a friend once snuck up behind me as a joke and tickled me on the side, to make some other friends (who were watching the prank) laugh. I was so freaked out and surprised by the jab in the side, not yet knowing it was my friend, that I reflexively jerked by elbow backwards with all my might, and caught him directly in the solar plexus. He was a really big guy, practically twice my size, and he instantly crumpled to the ground and practically passed out, also unable to breathe. Took him half and hour to recover.

I learned from these two rather mild experiences that blows to the solar plexus can be totally debilitating. Almost a knockout punch if delivered well.

AND YET…

Whenever you see two guys fighting, whether in reality, or in fiction, or in a boxing match, or a street fight, or wherever, they almost inevitably always aim for the face.

Why?

Why doesn’t everybody aim for the solar plexus every now and then?

Like I said, I’ve never been in a fight, but I always planned that if I was, or if someone attacked me and I had to defend myself, that I would pummel the attacker in the solar plexus, which seems harder to defend than the face, due to the angle of the arms.

Lizards with street-fighting experience: What’s your opinion? Face, or solar plexus?