Martial Magic

This article from Wired Magazine is interesting especially toward the end. Magic and the Brain: Teller Reveals the Neuroscience of Illusion.  It gets a bit into the techniques of magic and the possibility that new discoveries about the mind/brain might lead to new magic tricks.

I'll just take a moment to reflect on the idea that a lot of martial arts are in fact a category of magic trick. Some of the stuff I'm doing now, the tricks, are quite simple once you see them. But the normal human mind won't let you see them. Nor will it let you feel them. That's messed up, because a great deal of teaching, especially in the traditional Chinese martial arts, is predicated on being able to see or feel. The Taijiquan Classics, about five pages of poetic text, were almost certainly written to deceive.  They were created to send people on a wild goose chase. Just think about some of the questions like, "How is it possible for a small old man to toss around a throng of unruly youths?" 

A Magic Mirror (from Wiki Commons)