My instructor at one point had me train with my eyes closed, partially because he wanted to develop training for the visually impaired, but it taught me an important lesson about how valuable training without using your eyes can be. Not only does it teach sensitivity to an opponent’s energy and awareness of the opponent’s body position, but I think training with your eyes closed can also help promote better technique. Whether this is practicing a block, check and counter, or joint locks or even weapons training, the fact that one has to feel the way around the technique to make it effective make a huge difference in actually executing this same technique with eyes open. Sometimes when we can see, we make up sloppy technique by moving our bodies for better leverage or using more strength. With eyes closed, you have to rely upon your understanding of there the opponent is and judge what their next move may be based on the energy of the limb you’re in contact. Over time, I think this type of training can greatly add to the speed and precision of techniques with your eyes open.

I’m not advocating training this way with speed and power, but keeping your eyes closed and training slowly, I feel can be a valuable addition to any training. It makes to rely on the other senses, namely touch, to understand the force an opponent is striking, their body position as well as proper execution of technique.

If you haven’t tried this, my suggestion would be to start with something simple such as a hand grab. And to execute the techniques slowly. Initially it will be necessary for your partner to “play along”, but over time, you will find that you can execute certain technique just as well blind as you can with sight.

I’d love to hear feedback on this from others who have tried this method.