Persistence of time

Discussion on the three big Chinese internals, Yiquan, Bajiquan, Piguazhang and other similar styles.

Persistence of time

Postby origami_itto on Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:10 pm

There was a post about meditation and taijiquan on Facebook that got me thinking about something I've been meaning to talk about. Time dilation.

Meditation, for me, has been a way to achieve a certain stillness and clarity with a particular purpose, to move my perception and understanding closer to the moment things actually happen, as opposed to being formed from memories of what happened a few microseconds prior.

The practical effect is a reduced reaction time, not due to faster physical reflexes or faster muscles but by perceiving and understanding sooner than I would if I did not practice what I practice.

Examples are, because I'm still clumsy, knocking a fast food cup off of a table but in the same motion catching it before it hits the floor without squeezing it hard enough to pop the lid off, or feeling/hearing a partners energy gathering in preparation for an attack and moving to swallow or stuff it.

I once, for fun, grabbed a foil and fooled around with a fencing teacher. Neither of us could touch each other even though I'd never fenced and his comment afterwards was, "wow, you're pretty fast". It didn't feel to me like I was moving quickly, but just leisurely getting out of the way of his attacks.

I call it getting closer to now.

Anybody else notice this sort of stuff or is it just my acid flashbacks?
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby everything on Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:41 pm

The only time I really use zhan zhuang (trying to apply it in action) is when I try to play goalie (I'm definitely not a goalie). I try to relax as much as possible, not tense up, even sink qi, but still be alert. Sometimes it works. My hand or foot just moves, and the "observer" part of me goes "shit, my hand just blocked that. hmm." Sometimes I think "make a certain shape that might make sense here" so I'm shifting from a "stance" (like hands down near knees) to another "stance" (like shifted over with one knee down or something). If I have to think too much about that, it just doesn't work. But for a bad goalie with no training, sometimes this IMA sort of approach works surprisingly well. I don't spar striking (have only done grappling) so I'm not used to needing this much speed of reflex (the ball can be traveling quite fast from a sudden change of angle). For me it's pretty cool and enough proof about zhan zhuang mixed with qigong mixed with meditation mixed with all the biomechnical blah blah as a sort of beginner level IMA, even though it's not an MA application.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby shawnsegler on Fri Feb 01, 2019 9:37 pm

oragami_itto wrote:There was a post about meditation and taijiquan on Facebook that got me thinking about something I've been meaning to talk about. Time dilation.

Meditation, for me, has been a way to achieve a certain stillness and clarity with a particular purpose, to move my perception and understanding closer to the moment things actually happen, as opposed to being formed from memories of what happened a few microseconds prior.

The practical effect is a reduced reaction time, not due to faster physical reflexes or faster muscles but by perceiving and understanding sooner than I would if I did not practice what I practice.

Examples are, because I'm still clumsy, knocking a fast food cup off of a table but in the same motion catching it before it hits the floor without squeezing it hard enough to pop the lid off, or feeling/hearing a partners energy gathering in preparation for an attack and moving to swallow or stuff it.

I once, for fun, grabbed a foil and fooled around with a fencing teacher. Neither of us could touch each other even though I'd never fenced and his comment afterwards was, "wow, you're pretty fast". It didn't feel to me like I was moving quickly, but just leisurely getting out of the way of his attacks.

I call it getting closer to now.

Anybody else notice this sort of stuff or is it just my acid flashbacks?


Yeah, I've had the same thing happening for awhile now. I think what happens is that your attention becomes more stable so that, even though it's not directed, there's less chance of any sort of break in ones attention to see a thing and try and cross reference what it is or what's happening and so the attention, the (mental) response and the action have little or no separation. When it happens, I'm always surprised that I manage to catch whatever I've dropped or move from what's going to hit me etc, as it feels like I'm not moving terribly fast...it's just there's not lag between the disparate elements so it doesn't have the same sensation as what we normally think of as something moving "fast". FWIW. Cheers. S.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby Trick on Sat Feb 02, 2019 3:18 am

Surrounding in slow mo I’m as usual and as I have all the time at hand to do what’s proper I’ve experienced three times(so far).
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby Bao on Sat Feb 02, 2019 5:06 am

oragami_itto wrote:The practical effect is a reduced reaction time, not due to faster physical reflexes or faster muscles but by perceiving and understanding sooner than I would if I did not practice what I practice.

....

Anybody else notice this sort of stuff or is it just my acid flashbacks?


No, there’s some truth to this. I find it has much to do with the body state. If you are very relaxed and balanced, it seems like not only the body can react faster, but you understand what’s happening faster. It’s a peculiar effect, but the perception or understanding of things becomes more direct. I experimented with this already more than twenty years ago in different occasions. I remember using this playing pinball games for instance. I would take a good stance, knees bent slightly, sink my shoulders, relax my jaws, arms and hands as much as possible and use deep abdominal breathing. I played far better like this, my reaction time changed drastically. I remember once when I played “Creature from the Black lagoon” and used this method. I only payed for two games, but played approx for two and a half hours non-stop. When I had to leave to meet up with someone I left five free credits for the crowd watching me play to share.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby origami_itto on Sat Feb 02, 2019 4:35 pm

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Re: Persistence of time

Postby marvin8 on Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:15 pm

oragami_itto wrote:Meditation, for me, has been a way to achieve a certain stillness and clarity with a particular purpose, to move my perception and understanding closer to the moment things actually happen, as opposed to being formed from memories of what happened a few microseconds prior.

The practical effect is a reduced reaction time, not due to faster physical reflexes or faster muscles but by perceiving and understanding sooner than I would if I did not practice what I practice.

Examples are, because I'm still clumsy, knocking a fast food cup off of a table but in the same motion catching it before it hits the floor without squeezing it hard enough to pop the lid off, or feeling/hearing a partners energy gathering in preparation for an attack and moving to swallow or stuff it.

I once, for fun, grabbed a foil and fooled around with a fencing teacher. Neither of us could touch each other even though I'd never fenced and his comment afterwards was, "wow, you're pretty fast". It didn't feel to me like I was moving quickly, but just leisurely getting out of the way of his attacks.

Another way of training to "reduce reaction time" is DynaVision D2 (more effective?).

UFC's Al Iaquinta trains with a DynaVision D2 at 4:22:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY2Rs2Nl8oY&t=4m22s

A study using DynaVision D2 "Visual Field Advantage: Redefined by Training?," https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6335314/:

Published online Jan 10, 2019 wrote:Image

Conclusion

We created a task and methodology to measure whether or not training and experience could change the typical performance difference between LVF- and UVF-processing. The results demonstrated this to be the case, suggesting that even the highly conserved differences in information processing in LVF and UVF can be modified through experience. The current finding has implications for both training and rehabilitation after nervous system damage.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby origami_itto on Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:25 pm

Well it might help, but seeing as how when I go to their website instead of a price it says "Request Quote" I think meditation is a bit more accessible.

EDIT: Found a price. One can be yours for the low, low price of $15,000, stand costs extra.
https://axtiontech.com/products/dynavis ... 7321558868
Last edited by origami_itto on Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby Peacedog on Sat Feb 02, 2019 8:15 pm

Search for posts by Chris McKinley on the board. He did some work involving tachypsychia in the past and is familiar with the phenomena of time dilation as you describe it.

He is no longer a board member, at least under that name, and tends to keep a low profile in general. If you can find him and email him he might be able to give you some data points.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby Bao on Sun Feb 03, 2019 1:26 am

oragami_itto wrote:Looks like we're not alone and there's even some science about it

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/23778017/

https://www.consciouslifestylemag.com/s ... p-freedom/


Thanks for sharing. 8-)

.....

I remember now that we used to practice reaction time and timing through an exercise very much similar to what the Wudang PTCC calls “Seven Star” drill/push hands. As my teacher taught it, the direct response was very similar to Bagua partner exercises I've learned through the years. You needed to match the opponent's movements exactly. You must start to move exactly, exactly as when the opponent starts to move. There can not be a glitch between his movement and yours. You also needed to be able to understand the opponent's intent and differentiate real attack and feint or moves without intention of attacking. This meant that your reaction and judgment must solely rely on direct reaction from experiencing what happening and by tingjin. If you tried to think and judge by thinking, or tried to "understand" what happened, you would be much too slow. So this kind of exercise builds up a kind of instinctive way of reacting to what is happening even before you have had a chance to "understand" what is happening.
Last edited by Bao on Sun Feb 03, 2019 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Persistence of time

Postby jimmy on Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:21 am

marvin8 wrote:
oragami_itto wrote:


Sooooo.... next step? Map this onto a wing chun dummy?

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Re: Persistence of time

Postby origami_itto on Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:28 am

jimmy wrote:
marvin8 wrote:
oragami_itto wrote:


Sooooo.... next step? Map this onto a wing chun dummy?



Well my immediate thought was to recreate it in VR. Can't be too difficult, can it? Onto the dummy is good too
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