Vision

Steel Tiger

Senior Master
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The other night I was watching television and saw an add with two basketball teams, one in black one in white, passing balls around. It asks you to count the number of passes of the team in white. At the end it asked if you saw the moonwalking bear. (It was 13 passes by the way).

But it made me think about focus, concentration, and vision as it relates to MAs. You see, the point is that when we concentrate hard we narrow our focus. Think about all the things we have been told about where we should be looking when facing an opponent - the eyes, the shoulders, the upper centre torso - all supposedly so that we can see all the moves our opponent will make.

To my mind, the problem is this - if we who are teaching are not clear about these statements we will have students who watch a specific part of their opponents too carefully and actually miss the point. Focused vision is not awareness. Remember what Bruce said about all that celestial beauty.

Concentration and focus are wonderful things. In the Mahabharata, during an archery contest, the pivotal character, Arjuna, has aimed his arrow at a far target in the shape of a bird. His teacher asks him to describe the bird and he says he cannot. When asked why he said he could only see the eye. This is the reverse of what I am talking about, but it exemplifies the potential pitfall.

We as martial artists want to be able to react to what our opponent does or tries to do, but we need our focus to be good but not pinpoint. To go to an extreme in anything, including this, is to deny yourself options.

Does anyone find this idea hard to get across? Do you find students taking knocks because while they can see their opponent they can't see what he is doing?
 
You see, the point is that when we concentrate hard we narrow our focus.
Not sure that I agree that concentration requires narrow focus. I think narrow focus requires concentration, but not necessarily the opposite. I'd rather see students adopt a wider field of 'concentration'.

Does anyone find this idea hard to get across? Do you find students taking knocks because while they can see their opponent they can't see what he is doing?
I actually teach students to unfocus. Otherwise, we are attempting to predetermine (guess correctly) what the attacker will do--by focusing on a specific part of their weapon toolbox. Looking at anything will leave us open somewhere. Looking at nothing, but seeing everything, imho gives us the best chance to survive and *win* the encounter (and yeah, I teach a soft gaze about belly high, using full peripheral vision, using some form of Geoff Thompson's fence and enough distance to have reaction time).
 
Not sure that I agree that concentration requires narrow focus. I think narrow focus requires concentration, but not necessarily the opposite. I'd rather see students adopt a wider field of 'concentration'.

Its not so much that concentration requires a narrow focus in so much as when we concentrate too hard a consequence can be a narrowed focus. And in our sphere as teachers we should be making our students aware of the fact that awareness is more than just looking at something.
 
Initially before I finished reading your post I thought of the kenpo white/black dot focus.

After reading the entire post I think of an old martial art story:

A young student asked his teacher how long will it take to become a master. The more the young student said he would concentrate the longer the teacher said it would take.
 
Initially before I finished reading your post I thought of the kenpo white/black dot focus.

After reading the entire post I think of an old martial art story:

A young student asked his teacher how long will it take to become a master. The more the young student said he would concentrate the longer the teacher said it would take.

I believe the lesson there was, "if you have one eye on your destination, it only leaves one left to show you the way."
 
Its not so much that concentration requires a narrow focus in so much as when we concentrate too hard a consequence can be a narrowed focus. And in our sphere as teachers we should be making our students aware of the fact that awareness is more than just looking at something.
I agree with this, S-T. Think on my first reading I failed to see the use of *focus* and *awareness* as used maybe almost interchangeably. Awareness is the term I'd prefer/use more to teach, a point which I think you actually make here:

We as martial artists want to be able to react to what our opponent does or tries to do, but we need our focus to be good but not pinpoint. To go to an extreme in anything, including this, is to deny yourself options.
Hawke and M.A.T. also reinforce this idea, imho.

:headbangin:
 
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