Extrasensory Situational Awareness

[TrainingDummy]

Perhaps it would be better, for the continued discussion of this thread, to discuss the topic as trans-sensory states.

Trans-sensory being inclusive of all normal organs of perception, "fuzzy" thinking processes, and includes the possibility of the mysterious other.

Going straight to ESP means you have to debate the extra sense, which is unlikely to come to any useful conclusions soon.

[BruceP]

Trans-sensory Situational Awareness just doesn't sound as cool

Some of us don't believe it's 'extra' anything. Rather, it's something quite innate in humans but perhaps under-developed or ignored altogether.

[Daniel]

From what I have been taught and seen in others and myself, different people are born with different innate ability in this to begin with. This can then get affected by the life you live and what kind of training you do, if any.

Someone born with high innate ability can train that to be more precise, someone with lower can train it up to their built-in level this life.

We can then debate the point in training someone to build it up, if that is worth the time and effort in how much you get out from it.

From what I have seen, being under threat of life or death will release a lot of this in people if they have it. This is one problem many veterans get in that they can´t turn it off when they get back from the field. And if someone is stress-damaged there is so much white noise in the mind that actual warnings will simply be lost among paranoia and exaggerated startle responses.

I have had my own experiences with the pure psychic warning side of this, both in the past and actually quite recently. In the past I acted on it sometimes but didn´t trust it; now I have more training and more experience, and my mind is clearer to see what is internal ghosts and what is a warning, and now I trust it more.

One book that might be interesting is Warrior Spirit by Heckler. It shows what can happen if techniques are taught to soldiers, even spec ops, and the challenges therein.

This kind of ability is basically like an extra radar, just one that needs to be attached to a lot of other practical skills and training to work well. Most of the time the other skills will take care of things, but sometimes that extra gut feeling or clear warning does make a difference. For one life, or for many.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[TrainingDummy]

In that absence of any further viewpoints, I'll have a stab at it. Note that I'm going to create some definitions in order to further a hypothesis. Please don't argue with my definitions on the basis of semantics, or if you must, provide better terms than the ones I put forward.

By following a meditation method of ones choice over time, one is presented with the following experiences within mediation:

1. There are phases where consciousness is focused on the device of meditation, be it an image, a sound, a physiological process etc.

2. There are phases where consciousness fluctuates away from the device.

Fluctuations are of two basic categories:

1. There are fluctuations where you lose awareness of the device or sense of self, and are flooded with thoughts. I will call this type emotions, and would place any grasping of the mind into this category.

2. There are fluctuations that increase peripheral awareness, that deepen the space of consciousness. While the device may still be going on the background somewhere, but it is not the principal focus of the present moment. I'll call this type feelings. I'd put the natural retention of breath, that occasionally occurs within a breathing practice into this category, or any other state where one is simply resting within the mediation without a loss of awareness.

A basic principal of meditation and self transformation practices would then be to go from emotions to feelings. From a state where one is swallowed in one's thoughts, to a state where one is resting in the present without attempting to manipulate it.

Within a full mediation training the device, or some variation of it, would then be applicable to observing consciousness in daily life. So again, the practice is attempting to separate out the emotional reactions in life that take you away from the present moment, to a life of feelings that grounds you into the world.

Now my assumption is that ones intuition rests in feelings. That when your reactive mind grasps too hard, you cut yourself off from receiving the subtle, non-linear information of ones feelings. So by a slow practice of extending the time each day outside a state of reaction, you are viewing the world how it actually is, and not how you think it is, and are able to receive the full range of senses and any extra senses that may be left over.

Now how you put this into a fighting curriculum, I have nfi, but it certainly can help to avoid conflict through avoidance or very early de-escalation.

Discuss... or link abstract pictures.

[RobP2]

Now how you put this into a fighting curriculum, I have nfi, but it certainly can help to avoid conflict through avoidance or very early de-escalation.
.

The idea of training to give up intention discussed here http://rumsoakedfist.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14631 can be a good starting point. In other words learning to be open and accepting of what is going on around you. It's the antithesis of "martial arts" training which is about being strong and having a killer technique. Blindfold work is also a good starting point. It's something I'll be covering in on my blog in the near future

[UniTaichi]

The Extrasensory that is in discussion, in my opininon is our 6th Sense aka the Mind working in relation with our other 5 sense organ of Eyes, Ears, Touch, Nose, Taste. There are multiple level in most skills and depending on what we want to achieve. As in this case its' combat form. As in most, this combat form also have levels. We are already training these ESA abilties in the form of TinJing, Mingjin, etc, in Taichi. With hardwork and good training a person with TinJing training is able to sense where the opponent energy is coming from, eg the spine or the leg, etc. Higher level for combat would be like Huajing.

These abilities manifest in our lives in many ways as shared by Deus, Cryp, Jonathan and Shooter. These abilities are in us but can actually be accessible on a conscious level but lost for whatever reason by a force limiting our abilities. However being aware and through observtion and being genuine with people, we can have more consistent access. So when we can make a connection like in taichi and NBA and sports, we can see that these practitioners and sportsman are actually displaying the skills using what I described above in 1st paragraph. For us spectators they have something ''special'' eg. anticipanting a throw into an empty area 10ft away from the nearest player and suddenly Kobe is there catching it, last second basket etc. Of course in NBA and sport is call ''Zoning''. So to these players it is Normal. The view is if we all can do these special abilities consistently and on demand than it is no longer paranormal. When the ancient Sage did these stuff, to them it is normal. For those like myself who is on this path, there is nothing mystic about ESP.

Cheers,
D
PS.- Those words in italic are quotes from Bhassler, Shooter and Michael.

[I-mon]

There are a few posts in recent pages that I have yet to read, and certainly intend to, but just on the point of "training skills relevant to real-world violence" I'd like to say that any sort of meditation or whatever practice which
a) increases our awareness of our own mental and physical states
b) increases our awareness of our own and other people's emotional fluctuations
c) increases our awareness of our own physical postures, movements and potential movements, and those of other people

should also lead to
a) calmer and more relaxed mind and body
b) better emotional regulation
c) better posture and balance and greater ease of movement

which should hopefully MAKE ONE LESS OF AN ASSHOLE. Arguably the best and most practical defense against real-world violence there is, second only to awareness, which has already been covered.

Training solely focused on being more of a badass and being constantly on the lookout for danger and only paying attention for when people are out to get us (rather than paying attention to the whole range of people's emotional states) is more likely to turn us into paranoid weirdos, if it isn't balanced out with some peace of mind and deliberate generation of compassion, IMO.

[Chris McKinley]

Good references by Daniel and Rob....thanks, guys. Garth, nice description of a method for developing whatever-it-is. Thanks for posting that. Couple that to a method for contextualizing it and maybe you have something. Who knows?

[DeusTrismegistus]

The problem with stating concrete and explicit training methods, at least for me, is that I know that my training has led to this ability to start to open up but I have no idea which exact training practices caused it or if it was a combination of practices which I think is most likely. Another problem is that when you are talking about mental states they are the most subjective things there are. Same goes for proof. The best we can get is personal anecdotes which no person with a scientific mindset will accept as proof.

Here is another personal anecdote and while it has nothing to do with fighting it is certainly ESP related.

When I was about 18 I was dating a girl. I hated her ex who at one point was a friend of mine. I had asked her not to talk to him anymore. One day I am in class in a horse stance doing drills with everyone else and all of the sudden I just KNOW that she was at that moment with her ex talking to him. As soon as class was over I went to her house, knocked on the front door and when she answered I just said, "you were talking to -name omitted- earlier." Her jaw dropped and her response was, "how did you know?"

At the time we had been doing a lot of standing meditation in class.

Now as to methods.
1) I use a qigong system called the 12 step childlike method. I cannot give all I know away but I can tell some very basic stuff which is probably very similar to many other qigong systems. Meditate standing, sitting, or lying down. Visualize light or qi coming down from above and moving through the body to the lower dan tien, then down to the ground through the body and into the earth. Focus on the breathing calming the breath and deepening it feeling like you are breathing into the lower dan tien. Next clear the mind of verbal thought. There are many ways to do this. One I like is to take a phrase or sentence that enters the mind and repeat it over and over but each time you get rid of the last sound. So "What is for dinner" becomes; what is for dinn, what is for di, what is for d, what is for, what if fo, what is f, what is, what i, what, wha, wh,......... Pay attention to the stillness at the end and try to lengthen that stillness and eventually stay in it.

2) When you do your solo practice try to mentally maintain the state of not thinking you achieved during meditation. To do this you must be very familiar with whatever solo movements you are doing. The slower you move the easier it will be. There is not much else to be said about how to do this. The trick is to go back to the feeling of the meditation.

3) When you do sparring go very slowly. Try to go back to the mental state of your meditation. Do not think, do not anticipate, do not plan, just move. Again due to the nature of dealing with mental states there is little that can be said about how to do this. It is a lot of trial and error. The feeling is once again what is important.

[Chris McKinley]

Cool post, Deus. You know, I seem to recall advocating slow training when doing rou shou to generate free, spontaneous movement. I wonder why that is?

Just kidding with the snarkery. I do it precisely because the mental state it elicits is extremely useful for vastly accelerated learning. If you learn to combine this with trance work, the rate of acceleration gets scary fun.

[BruceP]

I second the idea of working through certain drills with a blindfold. Was hoping (and waiting) for someone to propose that type of thing for exploring awareness and spidey senses. It's something I've used quite a bit in my own work with intuitive learning and, while not even remotely related to this whole 'esa' hairball, there are lots of crossovers.

[BruceP]

Hi Shooter,

Pls post some of your ideas. I will give you some feedback.

thks.
D

UniTaichi, have you had a chance to try the drill yet? I have some ideas about altering things a bit to expand on the 'esa' thing but will have to wait until our group meets next week. What's outlined should be enough for your own group for now. Anyway, looking forward to your feedback

[Chris McKinley]

Blindfolds....reminds me of some work I did with them for deep canopy sentry work. I distinctly did not like the parts of my psyche that that kind of work awakens and cultivates. Sometimes when you open a door, you find you're not alone out there.

[Daniel]

Yep. And sometimes people discover that they can´t really close that door again.

This kind of work - trying to create skills like these - should come with a large, above-tearline CAUTION sticker on it.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[RobP2]

Blindfolds....reminds me of some work I did with them for deep canopy sentry work. I distinctly did not like the parts of my psyche that that kind of work awakens and cultivates. Sometimes when you open a door, you find you're not alone out there.

Yep that's why there are sections of our work you won't see discussed on forums or in our Youtube clips. For one thing they are too personal and secondly should only be practiced under guidance