Sensei of Shambala
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“And what about the highest mastery of martial arts fighters?” Kostya asked, joining the discussion. “I’ve read somewhere that masters can deliver a blow before they even think of it. How does it happen and why?”
“Well, guys. You touch upon such a serious subject. But I’ll try to explain in a few words… The whole trick is not just to simply train your muscles but to imagine a concrete situation, or your opponent. And the most important is to know exactly where you hit, into which tissue, and what is happening inside of that body, what’s the power level of the blow, and so forth. If a man strikes thoughtlessly, just to practice, then all his efforts are in vain! A true fighter, while practicing on a maki-vara, first of all works with image. He imagines how the opponent opens up, and at that moment he delivers a blow, being conscious of all possible consequences. In other words, he trains his brain.”
“And what is happening in the brain during that?” one of the senior guys asked.
“The brain evaluates the situation through visual perception, analyzes it and makes a decision. Then it sends that command to the cerebellum or, in other words, to the motion center. And from there, through the nerves, the corresponding signal arrives into the muscles. All that activity is being fixed in the memory. Then, during the fight, this memory unconsciously returns but without a complex chain of analysis and commands in the brain. In other words, when an opponent just opens up, a master has already counteracted automatically. Let’s say it’s a different frame of mind, a different innervation, and different workings of the brain.”
“Does it happen on a subconscious level, from the physiological point of view?” asked Kostya, showing off his erudition.
“You are absolutely right. Complex reflex motion reactions proceed now on the level of unconditional reflex,” said Sensei smiling. He added, “in the school anatomy program such things are described as conditional and unconditional reflexes. The unconditional are genetic by nature. They determine the regulation of the internal medium of the body and preservation of the species. And to the conditional belong the acquired reflexes arising as a result of accumulated experience and new skills. But even they are based on unconditional reflexes. Human beings have a lot of unconditional reflexes, connections, reactions regulating the spinal brain, the after brain, and the middle brain, the subcortical sections of cortexes of the cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres…”
“And is ‘the Highest Art’ what you told us at the beginning?” Andrew asked with excitement.
“No, it’s only a first step to real mastery. In ‘the Highest Art,’ the major work is based on pre-vision. It is the work of epiphysis which is located above the cerebellum in the epithalamus area of the thalamencephalon.”
“And is epiphysis just a section of white matter?” asked Kostya.
“No, it’s the so-called pineal gland that weighs only one carat. However, it plays a huge role in the vital activity of the body. It is one of the most mysterious parts of the human brain and of the human as a whole. Unfortunately, science doesn’t know anything about its true functions.”
“And who does know?” asked curious Kostya.
“Those who need to know,” Sensei answered with a cunning smile and went on. “So, working on pre-vision, a master subconsciously obtains the ability to catch his opponent’s thoughts. It means that, as soon as the opponent thinks about striking somewhere, the master has already simultaneously taken the exact counteraction that is necessary. All that happens unconsciously, in a few split seconds.”
“I wonder if only masters of martial arts face this phenomenon of momentary speed?” Andrew asked thoughtfully.
“Why? Not only. Many people often face these phenomena of mind. Some acquire it after long special training. For example, circus acrobats that catch knives or arrows at great speed. Other people have experienced the influence of unconditional reflexes in their lives. Let’s say you are seriously scared by someone or something, for example, by a dog; you can momentarily execute a series of movements. And only later when the danger has passed you realize how fast you have done it. This ability is implied from the very beginning in human genes. Otherwise, people wouldn’t have survived in ancient times when they had to save themselves by running from mammoths, saber-toothed tigers, or other predators.”
We stood silent, enchanted by Sensei’s words. At that time somebody knocked on the door. It caught me off guard, and everything inside of me contracted. It wasn’t a time when people were out just for an evening walk. Sensei calmly opened the door under the watchful eyes of our company.
“Oh, it’s good that I’ve caught you here,” an unknown man greeted him shaking his hand. “I was just about to look for you at home. You see, there is such a case…”
“All right, wait a second,” replied Sensei. Turning to us, he said, ”Guys, you have fifteen mo re minutes and then we have to go home.”
Half an hour later, we were standing outside, waiting for the others. Igor Mikhailovich closed the sports hall and quickly said goodbye to us, then drove off in a car.
“Well,” I was getting angry with myself, “I wanted to ask Sensei after the training about his mysterious ‘because,’ but it didn’t work out. I should have asked him in the sports hall. But there are too many curious ears over there. That’s the trouble!”
On the way home, everyone thought about his own experiences. And this was not strange, after such trainings there was always something to think about. Some of us thought silently and some aloud. For almost half of the way, Andrew was trying to convince us or most likely himself that he had lost just by accident.
“It’s a pity that I didn’t have nunchaku with me. Never mind, I will bring them to the next training. And then I’ll show them!”
That spectacle promised to be really thrilling, as we knew how good Andrew was with nunchaku. It was his favourite skill.
8
Our company looked forward to this training like no other before. We came early. The sports hall was open. Some guys, having changed, began to warm up. Sensei stood aside and talked with enthusiasm to a gangly old man who was so skinny that his kimono was hanging on him like on a coat-hanger. Not far from them, together with a group of men, stood Dumpling. By the expression on his face, one could see that he didn’t hear the funny jokes of his fellow company. It seemed like his ears had turned into a radar that was picking up the slightest sound coming from Sensei and the old man. “Gosh!” I thought with indignation, “He is here again!”
Following us, a couple of guys from our dojo loudly walked in, in an elated mood. They were accompanied by a proudly walking, untidy looking man, about forty years old, with a week’s worth of old bristle on his face. The guys greeted Sensei and announced with evident pleasure:
“We have just met a very interesting man, a sensitive… His name is Vitaliy Yakovlevich.”
At these words, the disheveled man made a ceremonious bow with his head and again put on his self-satisfied air.