Forms With Your Eyes Closed?

[singularity6]

I starts working on balancing on one leg with my eyes closed. It's a lot harder than I anticipated! When bouncing this off my friend, he says "I fall all over the place when I do my forms with my eyes closed."

Is this something you've tried? If so, do you practice it?

[LLLEARNER]

I try to practice them with my eyes closed. It is a good way to focus.

[Bulltahr]

We do Sanchin more often with eyes closed than with them open.

[JR 137]

We also do Sanchin with our eyes closed often (Bulltahr and I are in the same organization- Seido Juku) too. We also occasionally have people pushing us from different directions and holding our arms to resist our movement.

We do all our kata with eyes closed - not every time; rather we've done every kata with them closed on occasion.

We also occasionally do them facing different directions. I know it sounds stupid, but it throws us off sometimes if we have our back to a different wall when we start.

[sensei8]

I've been doing kata with my eyes closed since 1964. It's one of my Dai-Soke's favorite drills. It's weird the first dozen or so times at first, but, then, you start to see the advantages of doing kata with your eyes closed.

That since of awareness is highlighted as never before. You "FEEL" the kata!!

[singularity6]

Excellent contributions, folks! Thanks! I think it's something I'm going to try. Unfortunately, I can't do them in the comfort of my home - not enough room.

I'll have to make some extra time at school for it.

[Lupin1]

We have the kids do them blind folded. It's a great test of your stances and turns. Being just a little off on each step or turn really adds up over the course of the kata.

[bushido_man96]

I've done it before, but don't care for the practice. Balance gets harder because we rely so much on what we can see in our kinesthetic awareness. Take away one of the senses, and things get a lot tougher.

[ashworth]

We also practise this, in fact I made the students do this in my class last night

[Nidan Melbourne]

I practice my Kata/Forms in different ways like you said.

It is honestly amazing to see what deficits that you may have by adding or removing something. On Monday we did all our kata without our Arms, which is harder than it looks especially with the more advanced kata.

Other way we do it is without our legs, so we remain stationary and do all the related arm movements. If I get time tomorrow morning i'll film it and load it up.