“I have been training and practicing Martial Arts everyday for more than 40 years, and I have realised I’ve obtained this strange sense after doing this visualisation exercise over and over in all my training and also through a lot of sparring and competitions.”
Visualisation is very powerful technique to help not only Martial Arts training but also to help our everyday lives.
We use various ways of visualisation in Martial Arts training.
These are some examples.
Shadow boxing is a typical example of visualisation in Martial Arts training.
We visualise our opponent in front of us, and think about their reaction when we throw a punch and kick then follow up depending on the opponents actions, or visualise their punches and kicks, then we react to defend and counter.
When we practice punches especialy when we hit punching bags or pads,
we visualise something like laser beams coming out from our knuckles, and straight through to the other side of the target.
Just from doing that, our punches hit much more properly and the impact goes right into the target more.
When that is becoming natural, the next is to focus on the other part of our body too, like visualising the power and energy coming from the ground through our feet and going through TANDEN (Centre of the body) and focus on the knuckle.
If we visualise that, the whole body’s power tends to go into the punch.
When we learn new techniques, the instructor or senior student shows us the moves, then we visualise them first when we apply those moves.
We have to strongly visualise how we use our body, timing, distance, etc from entry all the way through to finishing the technique.
If we don’t visualise them well, our body doesn’t move properly.
The image in our head and body movement both get harmonised after doing repetitions over and over with that process.
That’s how our techniques get better.
I have been training and practicing Martial Arts everyday for more than 40 years, and I have realised I’ve obtained this strange sense after doing this visualisation exercise over and over in all my training and also through a lot of sparring and competitions.
That strange sense is like this.
Even if that is in fast and uncertain movements in fight, the image of the finishing moment of each technique comes into my head naturally without thinking one after another every time I move.
Even if one technique isn’t successful, the picture of the next finishing movements and techniques come into my head one after another very fast without stopping.
That is a strange feeling, and it is like everything feels like slow motion in fast movements.
The best way to obtain this sense is repetition over and over same technique with strong visualisation, and to develop the ability of visualisation, Martial Arts meditation is the best way.
In the next blog, I’m going to explain about how we can develop the ability of visualisation with Martial Arts meditation, and how this visualisation can be useful and helpful for our everyday lives.
