Spider Senses

When I used to train in ‘Tai Chi Chuan Northern Style Praying Mantis Kung Fu’ it was not uncommon to do some pretty weird drills (see issue 5 of Chaos Training). One drill in particular I find extremely useful to this day.

Imo it is just as important to develop abilities beyond the 5 senses as it is to improve physically through training. And one of those abilities is ‘feel’. And I don’t mean the sensation of touch. I mean the type of ‘feel’ that takes place in your gut and might be referred to as intuition or awareness. Here’s a great drill we used to do in order to develop ‘feel’ and to sense the energy of another person. It reminds me a lot of a watered down version Wing Chun’s sticky hands performed blind folded.

Sit on the floor blind-folded in the middle of a room with your legs crossed. Preferably you will have few mates around to do this drill with. One at a time your friends approach you from either the front or side (you can’t reach far enough behind you) with the idea of putting their hand on you. When you think you sense someone your job is to touch them before they touch you. They of course aren’t to rush up but rather try and sneak up as quietly as possible. They are also meant to remain in your reach as they try to touch you. No leaning!

When I did this drill for the first time it was amazing. I felt like I could feel each person enter my personal space, a real spider sense. Weird indeed! But I did manage to grab the leg or arm of every person in that class before they touched my shoulder or head. It was that same weird feeling you get when someone holds their finger close to your forehead while your eyes are closed. You can just sense it there.

Regardless of what happened to me was what I think this drill offers. For those involved in contact sports, these sort of feel drills help to develop your awareness of an opponent’s intent. You can literally start to sense what your opponent intends to do before they do it. I remember reading about Lennox Lewis doing Tai Chi to help get a feel for when his opponent might throw a punch. The point being that he was developing feel. Rickson Gracie is renowned for rolling on the mats with his eyes closed in order to develop feel for his opponent.

Blind fold work on the whole is essential I believe to a well-rounded training program. For tackling sports I believe that learning basic wrestling and grappling drills and performing those that allow for eyes closed movements will help tremendously in developing feel for an opponent. Whether making a tackle or shrugging one, developing ‘feel’ is an essential part of improving performance