Sensory Methods

Kankaku-teki hōhō [感覚的方法]

Learn to listen, to close your eyes and focus your mind on as many sounds as possible to train your hearing sensory system. Practice with dojo mates on hearing movements and to discern noises then find out what noises one might hear that are not “normal” in your environment so you can shift visual sensory toward such sounds in deciding their potential toward conflict or violence. 

Then, get a pair of safety ear plugs and a pair of safety ear headphones 🎧 and put in the plugs and cover your ears to muffle out as much sound as possible. Now feel that quiet and focus on the other sensory systems to detect anomalies in the environment, i.e., use direct and peripheral vision in conjunction with rotating the head to take in as much of your environment as possible. Take notice of how much you can miss when hearing is compromised. You want to sharpen all senses to achieve awareness of all senses in providing that ability to detect anomalies that indicate possible dangers to include those that warn you of potential conflicts and possible violence.

Now, use a blindfold to restrict vision and work the tactile senses and use your entire body, skin, to feel and to detect touch of others and remember to smell odors as well as people getting close may have odors that are abnormal in social closeness indicating someone you need to identify quickly.

As a person who has lost a good deal of my hearing i have come to realize how diminished hearing affects my ability to detect even normal environmental dangers such as approaching vehicles when crossing the street.

In addition, as i pass through more of my winter years (70+ years) my vision changes so i needed to enhance my visual methods to see, hear and feel (tactile by hands and skin, etc.) my environment. Add in more methods of physical practfor balance as well.

When some more dangerous folks try to sneak up on you, you may detect them by their body odor so paying an aware attention to such practices can heighten your sensory systems so you act to detect and orient in evaluating potential dangers.

It’s important to train and practice collective and individual senses (especially that 6th sense) to remain safe and secure in an ever changing world. Don’t assume your senses will do the trick automatically especially if you don’t live and/or work in more dangerous environments because surprise is a major tool of the more nefarious types of predators. 

Oh, side note here: learn to detect non-movement because one may remain motionless when scoping out possible targets and they tend to move when you are in a position where they can surprise you. Reverse the freeze and flight response concept because being motionless can help the nefarious hide from you as you pass through their territory or zone of attack.