Empty mind

Every expert action must be performed through successions of totally automatic processes. These processes must come to the person as required by circumstances. Through an operation in which we use expertise, our mind focuses in objectives, responding to circumstances automatically, to advance towards the objective. The expert does not have to focus on the components of his or her actions. The expert can connect automatic actions to a produce complex performance that tends to appear simpler and more direct than the performance of non-experts. The major elements that separate the expert performance from the non-expert performance are that the expert eliminates hesitation and unnecessary steps, while performing sequences of actions that flow naturally from step to step. In addition, the expert responds to meaningful cues and ignores irrelevant cues. Therefore, the expert not only acts faster and more efficiently than the non-expert, but he or she also starts acting before the non-expert. The result is that experts achieve much more than non-experts, using much less efforts.
The most important question to ask when someone wants to become an expert is how do experts get to do things so easily and naturally. The generic answer to this question is:

Experts perform the necessary tasks automatically.

It used to be accepted that our brain was the thinking part of our body, and that the body responded to the brain's commands. But this is not our understanding anymore. Our body is packed with neural nets and endocrine glands that learn, feel, and respond without sending any information to the brain. The brain does get the information, but only after the action has already been performed. Our emotions are distributed throughout our bodies. Galvanic skin conductance (which results on goosebumps and skin sensations associated with emotions), palpitations, ocular focus changes, distribution of muscular tension, increases in sensitivity to the digestive track, are just some of the neural-endocrine responses to stimuli that do not get controlled by the brain until the body processes are complete. Auditory stimuli that are associated to danger will reduce visual processing immediately, be processed for direction and proximity, then pass the information to the body for an automatic repositioning. Then, the information will be passed to the eyes to focus on the source of the noise. Then, the interpreter of information in the brain will be retrofitted to process what happened in the last 2 seconds and respond cognitively. The cognitive response happens only after the complete neuro-endocrine-sensory process is completed. This process occurs in many areas of the body, not in the cognitive brain.

Neuro-endocrine-sensory (NES) processes are trainable. There are two important elements involved in their training. First, repetition is required for their spontaneous performance. Any sequence of actions that has been practiced enough will become automatic after a reasonable amount of repetitions. Second, NES training requires interpretation associated with them and visualizations of the NES response to appropriate situations. Somehow, the associations that are cognitive linked to responses will end up triggering the responses automatically after the training is complete. Consequently:

The automatation of physical performance tasks is trainable through practice and visualization.

Once a process has been learned, it can be performed best without thinking. Thinking takes time, creates anticipation, and reduces automaticity. In addition, thinking is the basis for hesitation. One can't hesitate unless one has thinking alternatives. These alternatives need to be mediated before the brain frees itself to allow for automatic processes.

Many people who are well trained in technique do not perform well in sparring because they never learn "not to think". Mot thinking allows for responding instantaneously. This is why in cases of accident, surprise, and emergencies, people perform so amazingly. Their bodies respond to the stimuli without the interference of thinking. In fact, when someone has performed a heroic task and a typical reporter asks him or her "what were you thinking..." the true answer would be "I wasn't thinking!" But people rationalize their reasons and ad thoughts to the action as an afterthought.

the fact is that every fight by a trained person should be performed in a "thoughtless" manner. Cognitive processes should only be involved in the pre-fight moment. These cognitive processes should be limited to "what are my chances, how hard should I fight, how much harm should I inflict, and what are the rules." But the moment the fight starts, all cognition becomes slowing down baggage.

For all the above reasons and many others, fighting training must include training to eliminate cognition. This process is what leads to the empty mind.

Think nothing, follow the flow, respond to the environment, like water (as bruce Lee said), simply adapt to the actions performed by your adversary. This is said very easily, but it takes years to be able to do it.First, all our moves must have been practice to the point of becoming totally automatic. But in addition to that, we must learn to simply respond and to eliminate preconceptions. Preconceived ideas as to what we will do tend to simply lead us to perform the incorrect move and to miss on spontaneous responses. It is not to difficult to learn not to preconceive or plan in advance. Simply go to the fighting ground and be yourself.

The most difficult thing to learn is to simply respond. The first step to respond is to clear your mind. To eliminate thought. We must replace thought for feeling. Yet, this feeling is the feeling for the action, not a feeling towards our adversary. It is correct to get an emotion that comes from defending and attacking, but not an emotion that comes from the expression of your adversary. There are several steps that help develop the ability to respond to the flow.

• Learn to relax, look inward with your eyes closed and see total darkness. I call this "looking into the black". It allows you to clear all thoughts from your mind. YOU DO NOT DO THIS BEFORE OR DURING THE FIGHT. This practice is to learn to empty your mind, not to empty your mind in the moment of the fight. If you practice emptying your mind often enough, it will become very easy to do so when you are in the fight.
  
• Learn to see. People see too much and not enough unless trained to see what they need. The correct thing to see in a fight is movement. Any detail is a distractor. Look at the movements coming towards you. Look at the changes in shade that tell you the person's balance has changed or that the person is contracting some muscles to prepare for something. look at the rhythm of the person's body swing. But do not pay attention to any detail in the person's body. It is not his or her body you must defend against. You must defend against the person's movements. Those are what you must predict. To do this, start learning to use your peripheral vision.
  

• Practice standing in front of a partner who shadow boxes and kicks at you, just marking you. The object is for you to pay attention at the way in which the body moves. Stay still and watch, understanding his motion from the moment he decides to move to the moment he touches you. This exercise teaches you to see, not to respond. Eventually, you can start responding to your partners movements with defenses and counter-attacks.

The spirit of the warrior is not an angry and aggressive soul that explodes into a destructive mode. The spirit taught by most martial art styles and schools is one of inward meditation and discovery. In life, no matter what we experience, every answer to every question is inside us. This does not mean that we don't need teachers or books. The teachers and the books provide us with the questions. Our mind provides us the answers.

The best way to find the answers is to free ourselves of all preconceptions. This freedom can be reached through the empty mind.