Using Space to Beat your Opponent!
In the martial arts, the deadliest tool I know is also the one least used. The actual and effective use of space is what I am talking about here. If properly understood and utilized, space can win any fight.
Space is the absence of objects, is emptiness, is nothing. You will find, if you just ask any light beam, that space is the greatest conductor of visual perception. A very zen thing, space is not understood by most martial artists.
Space is the distance between your opponent and you. You can control the fight If you can control the space between you and your opponent. In any fight this should be the first strategy.
Space is the perception of your body. This is important if you realize that by relaxing you can perceive more, and thereby create more space. If you can create more space in this manner, you can create more potential for motion.
When hitting in a negative you are utilizing space. Simply, by throwing the mass of the body, by taking energy out of your strike, by being unaffected by energy and emotion (emotion contains, and can stop, a high degree of energy) you can strike ten times harder. Simply, throw your body at your opponent as if it is nothing but an object.
The space of the last paragraph is the space created by not having consideration for your opponent. I used to call this The Dead Strike. Not because it caused death, but because there was no consideration for life when I threw the object and mass of my body at somebody.
Your thoughts are the most important space. Because thoughts don’t occupy space Concentrate your efforts on moving by thought, not on moving by muscle. If you do this you will be able to move far faster than if you moved by muscular effort alone.
Humanities real final frontier is that of thought. The source of all motion is thought. Relax and have thought, create space, and you will have the real Secret of the True Martial Arts.