A recent study examined the phenomena of seeing stressful events in what seems to be at an extremely slow speed.Tests have shown that even though everything appears to be visually slowing down the eyes do not have the ability to see things at an either a slower or at an accelerated rate other than what is normal, instead the mind allows more information, more visual detail to be entered into memory.
I believe that this flood of visually detailed information allows humans to assess the situation and take appropriate steps during and following the stressful event, and that after the stressful event the mind eventually purges much of the visual details that have no useful information. Although all humans experience this type of visual detail during stressful events not everyone can act on its valuable information while it is happening. Constant kendo training gives us the ability to move and act while seeing in slow motion. An important distinction about kendo is that advanced kendo tends to rely more on intuitive sight rather than visual sight. Moreover in advanced kendo all of our years of training, along with the mind, body and spirit are used defeat the opponent the distinctions are merely used as way to describe only parts of the whole that is “the way of the sword”.