Science And The Martial Arts:
Looks Can Deceive

By Christopher Caile

In a fight or altercation, new research suggests that if you become focused on any object, such as an attacker’s face or on a punching fist, that you might just miss a secondary attack or another attacker altogether.

This same phenomena accounts for that fact that if you are talking on a cell phone or listening to the radio in a car, you are more likely to miss seeing a stop sign or a pedestrian crossing the street. Now we know why this happens.

Scientists at UCL (University College London) discovered that we often visually miss major changes in our surroundings because concentrating hard on something can cause your processing capacity to reach its limits.

A team of scientists at UCL (University College London) has found that the brain’s parietal cortex (that lies just above and behind the right ear) is the area responsible for concentration, and is also critical to our ability to detect changes. Their research was published in the September 2005 issue of the journal “Cerebral Cortex”.

Using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or TMS (a research tool which uses a powerful electromagnetic discharges to alter brain activity), the team momentarily switched off the parietal cortex. The result was that subjects failed to notice even major visual changes (the study used changes of a persons face).

The experiment for the first time determined the crucial role of parietal cortex activity in the ability to notice change. When it was switched off, phenomena called “change blindness” occurred (failure to notice large changes within a person’s visual field).

In previous experiments using fMRI brain scanning (functional magnetic resonance imaging similar to MRI) (1), Professor Nilli Lavie and his team of researchers at the UCL Department of Psychology discovered that visual change detection was correlated with activity in conventional visual areas of the brain as well as with activity in the parietal cortex.

In an article on this research in Neurology/Neuroscience News Professor Lavie said this finding helps explain why people can be so easily deceived by such things as a magicians’ slight of hand: concentrating so hard on something that a person’s processing capacity hits its limits, the parietal cortex is not available to pay attention to new things. “If you’re concentrating on what the magician’s left hand is doing, you won’t notice what the right hand is doing,” Dr. Lavie said.

Thus, even dramatic changes can go unnoticed.

This phenomenon has important implications to martial arts. If we become so focused on an attack or weapon, we might just miss another attack or even another attacker.

This concept is not new, but it is now better explained. As a teacher of karate, I have always instructed students not to focus on the attack when facing an opponent (2), but to look beyond the attack so as to ascertain the next move or attack. I knew that when visually focusing on one thing that it takes time switch back the eye’s focus to a more general awareness so as to pick up secondary attacks.

If you focus on something it takes time for the eyes to readjust and for the brain to recalibrate on what you focus on again – this involves the physical mechanisms of the eye, and mental activity within the visual cortex (comprehending the new area of focus). This new research, however, adds a whole new dimension – that one part of the brain critical to noticing change can fill up and be momentarily blinded.

Footnotes:

(1) fMRI is a procedure similar to magnetic resonance imaging that uses radio and strong magnetic fields, but instead of imaging organs and tissue, it measures quick, tiny metabolic changes that take place in an active part of the brain.

(2) This is not to suggest that you never concentrate intentionally on an opponent. Before conflict begins or is initiated, if there is a single opponent, it can be helpful to look at an opponent’s eyes while still maintaining a general focus. I have found that in this way I can pick up slight, unconscious changes in the eyes just before an opponent initiates movement. This can help you respond faster since you can have a slight forewarning of an impending attack. Once conflict is initiated, however, only a non-focused general awareness should be maintained.

About the Author Christopher Caile

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Christopher Caile is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of FightingArts.com. He has been a student of the martial arts for over 65 years.

He first started in judo while in college. Then he added karate as a student of Phil Koeppel in 1959 studying Kempo and Wado-Ryu karate. He later added Shotokan Karate where he was promoted to brown belt and taught beginner classes. In 1960 while living in Finland, Caile introduced karate to that country and placed fourth in that nation’s first national judo tournament.

Wanting to further his karate studies, Caile then hitch hiked from Finland to Japan traveling through Scandinavia, Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia — living on 25 cents a day and often sleeping outside.

Arriving in Japan (1962), Caile was introduced to Mas Oyama and his fledgling full contact Kyokushinkai Karate by Donn Draeger, the famous martial artist and historian. Donn also housed him with several other senior international judo practitioners. Donn became Caile’s martial arts mentor, coaching him in judo and introducing him to Shinto Muso-ryu under Takaji Shimizu.

Caile studied at Oyama’s honbu dojo and also at Kenji Kurosaki’s second Tokyo Kyokushinkai dojo. In his first day in class Oyama asked Caile to teach English to his chief instructor, Tadashi Nakamura. They have been friends ever since. Caile also participated in Oyama’s masterwork book, “This Is Karate.”

Caile left Japan with his black belt and designation as Branch Chief, the first in the US to have had extensive training in Japan directly under Oyama Sensei. As such, Oyama Sensei asked him to be his representative on visits to his US dojos to report on their status.

A little over a year later, Nakamura, Kusosaki and Akio Fujihira won an epic David vs. Goliath challenge match against Thailand’s professional Muay Thai Boxers in Bangkok, Thailand, thrusting Kyolushinkai and Nakamura into national prominence.

Back in the US Caile taught Kyokushinkai karate in Peoria, Il while in college and later in Washington, DC. while in graduate school. Durimg this time Shihan Nakamura had moved to New York City to head Kyokushinkai’s North American Operation.

In 1976 when Kaicho Tadashi Nakamura formed the World Seido Karate organization, Caile followed. Living then in Buffalo, NY, Caile taught Seido karate and self-defense at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY Buffalo) for over 15 years where he also frequently lectured on martial arts and Zen in courses on Japanese culture.

Caile moved to New York City in 1999 to marry Jackie Veit. He is now an 8th degree black belt, Hanshi, training in Seido Karate’s Westchester, NY Johshin Honzan (Spiritual Center) dojo. In Seido Caile is known for his teaching of and seminars on kata applications. He also produced a 14 segment video series on Pinan kata Bunkai currently available to Seido members.

Caile is also a long-time student and Shihan in Aikido. He studied in Buffalo, under Mike Hawley Shihan, and then under Wadokai Aikido’s founder, the late Roy Suenaka (uchi deshi under Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido and was Shihan under Tohei Sensei). In karate, Suenaka (8thdan) was also an in-house student of the Okinawan karate master Hohan Soken.

Having moved to New York City, Caile in 2000 founded this martial arts educational website, FightingArts.com. Twenty-five years later, in 2025, it underwent a major update and revision.

For FightingArts.com and other publications Caile wrote hundreds of articles on karate, martial arts, Japanese art, Chinese Medicine and edited a book on Zen. He also developed relationships with a cross section of leading martial arts teachers. Over the last four decades he has conducted extensive private research into karate and martial arts including private translations of the once secret Okinawan hand copied and passed on Kung Fu book, the Bubishi, as well as an early karate book by the karate master Kenwa Mabuni. He periodically returns to Japan and Okinawa to continue his studies and participate Seido karate events. In Tokyo he practiced (with Roy Suenaka Sensei) in a variety of aikido organizations with their founders – including private interviews and practices at the Aiki-kai Aikido Honbu dojo with the son and grandson of aikido’s founder, Doshu (headmaster) Kisshomaru (an old uchi-deshi friend) and his son, Moriteru Ueshiba and in Iwama with Morihiro Saito. On Okinawa he studied Goju Ryu karate under Eiichi Miyazato, 10th dan founder of Naha’s Jundokan, and also with Yoshitaka Taira (who later formed his own organization, who specialized in kata Bunkai. While there Caile also trained with Hohan Soken’s senior student, Master Fusei Kise, 10 dan as well as with the grandson of the legendary karate master Anko Itosu.

Caile’s other martial arts experience includes: Diato-ryu Aikijujitsu and Kenjitsu, kobudo, boxing, Muay Thai, MMA, Kali (empty hand, knife and bolo), study of old Okinawan Shoran-ryu & Tomari body mechanics, study of old Okinawan kata under Richard Kim, study of close quarter defense and combat, including knife and gun defenses, Kyusho Jitsu and several Chinese fighting arts including 8 Star Praying Mantis, Pak Mei (White Eyebrow), and a private family system of Kung Fu.

Caile is also a student of Zen as well as a long-term student of one branch of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chi Kung (Qigong). As one of two senior disciples of Chi Kung master Dr. Shen (M.D., Ph.D.) Caile was certified to teach and practice. This led to Caile’s founding of the The Chi Kung Healing Institute on Grand Island, NY. In Western NY, he also frequently held Chi Kung seminars, including at SUNY Buffalo and at the famous Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, NY. His articles on Chi Kung also appeared in the Holistic Health Journal and in several books on alternative medicine.

Caile holds a BA in International Studies from Bradley University and MA in International Relations with a specialty in South and Southeast Asia from American University in Washington, D.C. While in Buffalo, NY he also studied digital and analog electronics.

In his professional life Caile also worked in public relations and as a newspaper reporter and photographer. Earlier he worked in the field of telecommunications including Managing a Buffalo, NY sales and service branch for ITT. He then founded his own private telephone company. This was followed by creation of an electrical engineering company that designed and patented his concept for a new type of low-cost small business telephone system (which was eventually sold to Bell South). The company also did contract work for Kodak and the US space program. Simultaneously Caile designed and manufactured a unique break-apart portable pontoon boat.

Most recently Caile co-founded an internet software company. Its products include software suites with AI capability for control and management of streaming media, such as video and music, an all-in-one book publishing software product for hardcover, eBook and audio book creation and security software for buildings and government use.

For more details about Christopher Caile’s martial arts, work experience and life profile, see the About section in the footer of this site.