Anticipating the Enemy

[Kajukenbopr]

We have seen many movies where Martial Arts "Masters" can detect the opponent without having seen or heard him. Some Styles claim to develop a sensitivity to auras, spirit energy, ki/chi, intent or however you want to call it.

I have seen Wing Chun people fight while blindfolded, and I have also seen ninjitsu people avoid being struck by a wooden or real sword with not only their eyes blindfolded, but with their backs turned to the would-be attacker.

How do you train in your style to anticipate your attacker's movement, and how effective has it been for you?

Explain some of these exercises, if they're not too private, so we can all learn from each other.

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

you know, this may sound like crap but every since i was a kid i've always had a very good sense of what's around me all on my own...chi or no chi.

for example.,

one time a friend of mine decided to come up behing my in a half jog fashion but i couldnt hear her feet on the ground...none of my friends i was with told me because they wanted to see what was to unfold...well sure enough i knew somehow, someway that she was coming and without turning i timed it and flipped her over my back and on to a bench!

she's never forgiven me since but i said hey! you're the one who ran up behind me smarty pants!

[Kajukenbopr]

I'm pretty certain there is a way to know, everyone jumps a bit right before being scared or being tickled, even if we are not consciously aware of the other person.

[Throwdown0850]

I dont know, I usually try to do it Jason Bourne style, like look for any signs on the person that would make me think, hmm, this person may be trouble..

[DWx]

Dunno whether I'd call it chi but something I've learnt to do is be able to tell who's walking behind you and how far away. Sounds weird but the whole time I've been in high school I've walked about a mile to my mum's work after school for a lift home. Gets pretty boring so I used to try and guess how far away and roughly what build the person behind me was. You get pretty good at it after a while. You can sort of tell how big they are from their footfall and can pick up how far they are away from the sound and by noticing things like shadows..

I also live in a house with a 14 year old who hides behind stuff and then tries to jump me as I walk into the room. Again I've sort of learnt when its going to happen and at what point to duck.

[Kajukenbopr]

There has to be some kind of formal training...

In Wing Chun, this is developed by constantly performing drills with a partner, the sensitivity just "turns on". Also they are told to look at a person's chest and shoulders, since that shows if the person is attacking or moving. But after a while they can do it with blindfolds.

In ninjitsu there are other forms of doing this, though as of right now, I dont know what the training is.

TaiChi, Xing Yi and Baguazhang develop this in their stance training and then push-hands. http://youtube.com/watch?v=6frie4wpqWs

[bushido_man96]

I think some people have it, and some don't as much. It may be trainable, but I think it mostly comes from awareness training.

[Sam]

I think most peolpe would be surprised at the ability the brain has to analyse stimulus that you may not be conciously be aware of.

The brain filters out a *huge* amount of information (auditory and visual) so what you actually "see"/"hear" isn't the limit of what your senses are picking up, it is simply what's left after pre-processing.

(nb. I'm NOT going towards esp etc.) This can result in feelings like deja Vu (this is where the brain has reprocessed an image after storing the first run through giving you the sense you've seen it before) or other "strange" feelings related to sense.

This discarding of information also neatly explains the more adept olfactory and auditory senses of the blind, as their brain will discard less, rather than the sense actaully becoming stronger, they are just analysing the data in more detail and not scrapping as much.

As far as this related to telling distance and location of people behind you, this is really no different to the sort of instinct reaction to catch somethingt thrown at you. Although spinning ballistic trajectories are mathematically relatively complicated (and would be impossible to conciously solve before the object reached you) the subconcious is able to do a very fast solution and project of motion and coordinate your hands to catch, even accounting for the angular motion of the incoming object.

I know this has been a bit rambling, but I'm just trying to say that strange feelings tend to be when the data usually scrapped by the subconcious is either double processed or suddenly deemed important to make conciously available (i.e. appealing to the higher brain functions to make a decision of action based on the stimulus).

[bushido_man96]

This discarding of information also neatly explains the more adept olfactory and auditory senses of the blind, as their brain will discard less, rather than the sense actaully becoming stronger, they are just analysing the data in more detail and not scrapping as much.

When you speak of it in this fashion, it makes a bit more sense.

[Kajukenbopr]

very nice explanation.

Could explain it...

now, how does one train so your brain doesnt "scrap" it all?