Movement and Observation

I'm at the point where my list of things to write about is shrinking ever so slightly, due to me generally staying at home, and also not wanting to keep bringing up the mundane (like how many pages of a book/series I have read). It is easy to get some material to rant about from scouring the various news websites, but at some fundamental level, I don't really enjoy doing that [scouring] much.

If I am going to write about real-world happenings outside of my immediate, personal experience, then it is my duty to actually do enough research to make it as informed a piece of writing as I can to avoid being one of the many misinformation/disinformation spreaders that I have expressed distaste for. But doing all that means that I may inadvertently raise the profile of this blog of mine to beyond the small handful of people who are still reading it---I'm not sure if I want that, or even am remotely ready for that.

Meta-discussions aside, I did think of something to write about while going on a short walk earlier today: movement and observation.

I don't move normally as compared to most people, and by that, I don't mean that I do funny walks or anything of that sort. When I move from one point to another, I am usually quite focused on my surroundings, with the focus level proportionate to how unfamiliar I am with the place. At the lowest focus level, I let instinct take over my vision, relying on a lot of peripheral vision and instinctual facial recognition to take over the navigation process. This means that even at the lowest level of focus, my visual arc tends to be much larger than expected. This reliance on my peripheral vision is why I prefer glasses with wider lenses that do not compromise on that, which leads to lenses that extend much farther out along the frame, which itself is much closer to the width of my head than not. In addition, the glasses itself sits higher on my face so as to bring the lenses closer to my eye, which also increases the effective arc of corrected vision.

Leaving my visual cortex to the instinct level also means that I can often identify familiar faces faster than I can process consciously. So if you are someone that I might know, it is more likely than not that I have identified you already when you appeared within my visual range. Now whether I choose to recognise you is a different story, and relies on the processing of the higher levels of consciousness above that of my instincts.

Apart from making extensive use of my peripheral vision (and lowering my level of conscious control to that of being instinctual), I also use lots of eye and head movement to further increase the amount of surroundings that I can see. I rely a little heavier on eye movement since it is quick and less confusing to others, but I do use head movement to increase it much further even as I am continuing my forward ambulation. Think of it as the extended version of ``look left, then right, then left again before crossing the road'' principle. With these combined movements, I can cover much of the 360 ° that I can observe, leaving about the rear 30 ° or so uncovered. There is usually no need to do that, but if I am in a really unfamiliar place, I will physically half-turn my entire body with the right amount of foot pivot to check my six.

I don't do that action most of the time because for most places, it's not as necessary to be that observant. Covering that remaining 30 ° is important if I'm in a completely unfamiliar place for two reasons:

1. It establishes a view to remember should one need to backtrack later on; and
2. It demonstrates to observers that one is actually aware of one's surroundings.

That second point can be quite important from the safety perspective---one can spot more dangers earlier if one were to look around one's surroundings more, and showing that awareness raises the threat-level (and opportunity cost) for the opportunistic perpetrator, under the ``most violence is committed among familiar people, and non-familial violence is often predatory in nature'' principle. Showing that one is actively looking out makes one look less enticing as a prey for such predatory people, which raises one's safety by a bit. Of course, it also means that one can pre-emptively know if they are setting themselves up for a bad encounter through the observation as well---most times the best self-defense is to avoid being in such a situation in the first place.

Apart from the observation arcs that I talk about, I also use quite a bit of ``reflective elements'' to further increase what I can see. ``Reflective element'' use here means checking out things that reflect light, like mirrors that I pass by, or windows that have some kind of reflection, even camera output displays; essentially anything that extends the normal direction of view in one way or another. It's habitual at this point. Effective shadowing/stalking requires one to not do any suspicious actions when under observation, and sometimes while trying to maintain a low suspicion, the perpetrator may need to make up for lost ground during moments of non-observation. So an effective way of applying the suspicion pressure (and give oneself more time to react) is to use as many of such ``reflective elements'' to increase the duration of observation.

With respect to actual movement, I have a tendency to just walk straight ahead with as little ``wobble'' as possible, keeping on the left side of the route (SIN city rules, sort of). If there are any obstacles, I can end up doing some kind of irimi movement to continue my general forward movement, though with what most would call a ``dodge''. This is often the case if there is just too many people to do my more usual action of just stopping and looking at the other person to see what he/she wants to do in terms of movement. I don't mind giving way to people; it doesn't hurt me in time, and more importantly, allows a more fluid movement since I can always make up the ``lost'' time in the stop through my usual fast movement.

Years of aikido and jujutsu training have taught me how to keep advancing no matter what gets in the way, which includes how to break my falls. There has been instances where I did execute some kind of breakfall on instinct thanks to the slippery ground, and from those instances, I truly got away lightly. I foresee that this will continue to serve me well into the future should I live that long, since one of the leading causes of really big problems from being old is actually bone breakage, particularly of the hips.

You don't really want that.

Anyway that's all I have to say for now. It's a little different from the usual ranting and existential mulling. Till the next update.