We already discussed accuracy in Targeting, right? Well, that was quite a bit different from what we need to do now. Improving reflexes in conjunction with targeting is definitely not the same as knowing where you are going to hit and practicing hitting that point over and over. The biggest difference is that you have to improve reflexes because your target is not always stationary. In our targeting exercises we were able to practice hitting a point because it was stationary - we knew it would be there from one moment to the next. That is why we practiced that before I introduced this. That was the easy part!

You should now know where to hit a person and how to do so accurately over and over if they stand still. In real life, however, your target will change position from one instant to the next. It is imperative that you be able to hit your target spot while your opponent is in motion. So this section will have as its goal two things: 1) improvement of reflexive response time, and 2) ability to adapt to an opponent's position changes.

The first should not be that hard if you have done the targeting exercises. Why? By performing a movement repetitiously, you shorten the gap between the synapses in your body's nervous system. What does that mean? When you first learn to do something, your body takes a little while to adjust to the new movement. That's why you may feel awkward at first. Take, for instance, throwing a ball. Almost no one is able to throw a ball properly the first time. But after a few days or weeks, the movement comes almost as second nature. What happened?

Your brain sends signals through your body along the nervous system. Between the nerve cells is a gap called a synapse. The bigger the gap, the slower the transmission of information from one nerve cell to the next. There are millions of different nerve cells in your body that allow your brain to give every portion of your body just the right information it needs to perform the tasks it needs to. The more you perform an action or movement, the more your brain needs to send information to those parts of the body that are used to perform that action or movement. As a result, the body adapts, and the nerve cells that are used to relay the information to those parts of the body start to close those gaps, synapses, so that the relay of necessary information is more quickly passed along from one nerve cell to the next.

The repetitious targeting exercises have now allowed your body to shorten the synapses so that your response time should be picking up. What we are going to do now is push the limits of the response time of your synapses. How? By moving faster and faster.

First, though, you need to be accurate. So let's take a little time and exercise your accuracy. One of the best ways I have found to practice this is in my normal walking from place to place. One can almost always find trees or bushes hanging out into a sidewalk or street. As you walk by, pick a leaf and try to grab it. Most people think this is easy, but once you try it a few times, you will realize it is not as easy as you thought. The correlation between a leaf and a person is this: with every gust of wind that comes along, it will change its position.

For starters, pick trees with semi-large leaves. Once you can successfully grab the one leaf you meant to, go faster and faster, building your response time. When you have accomplished being able to grab big leaves fast, pick trees with smaller leaves. Willow trees can be fun to practice on; so can locust trees. Remember, start off slow at first, just like you did when you started to learn how to throw a ball. Do it right and learn to grab what you are aiming for. Then, as you get better, go faster, but never exchange accuracy for speed. If you aren't grabbing leaves at a faster pace, grab them at a slower pace for a while and pick up speed as you get better.

There are other exercises, of course, but I leave them up to your imagination. What I have given you I discovered in my own studies, along with other exercises. You see, a true martial artist is thinking of bettering himself - mentally, spiritually, and physically - all the time, no matter where he goes or what he does. So you will come up with exercises unique to your own environment, which I thoroughly encourage. Anything that constantly changes its position, or at least changes its position semi-erratically, will be useful in using to exercise with. Doing this type of exercise also aids in developing control of the force of your movement.

With this one exercise we have accomplished the two goals we set out to achieve. I will include more exercises in the appendix of this discussion, but for now, let's consider some other things to do to develop our reflexes.