Kissing with Your Eyes Closed - And Learning By Ear

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I grew up learning music by reading it from sheet music. When I attended my first Irish music session, there wasn't a bit of sheet music in sight. I was lost. I couldn't even play the tunes I already knew without the music in front of me.

I've gotten a lot better at it and now I prefer to learn and play music by ear. I've found that when I'm not reading, I can listen better - both to myself and others. When I listen better, I play better.

There's plenty of scientific backing for what pickpockets and magicians have known for ages: focusing on what we see dulls our ability to hear & feel. A recent study at the University of London found that complex visual tasks reduce people's ability to notice a touch. They didn't actually study people kissing. But lots of bloggers drew the obvious conclusion. In another study, the more the subjects focused their attention on a complex visual puzzle, the more they became inattentive to sounds.

If you're a musician and you want to play more musically, try closing your eyes when you play. When you can hear yourself better, it's natural to play better.

Application to Martial Arts Training

A lot of judo schools use the blindfold extensively in training. The blindfold helps the student to focus on the other senses like touch and hearing, instead of relying on what they see. This seems like a great training idea. We have had many blind and legally-blind students in Kokikai Aikido, several of whom have tested for black belt.

I imagine most of us instinctively rely too much on visual cues when practicing aikido. I'm looking for ways to help students get out of that habit.

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