Developing Foveal and Peripheral Vision

Why do you need to challenge the capability of your vision?  Simple! Better eyesight makes a better tai chi practitioner. What you can see coming, you can touch, and absorb.

What you will need to develop dynamic switching between foveal and peripheral vision:  (*see below for definitions of foveal and peripheral vision)

1. five or six raquet balls (three or four in your pockets to substitute for all the ones you drop and get behind you, so you don't have to keep walking instead of throwing), ...if you are using an indoor plywood backed wall, raquet balls won't leave wall impressions. Find coloured raquet balls if possible...depending on your colour vision, the blue colour of most raquet balls may be difficult to pick out in a low light background.

2. If raquet balls are not available, any type of ball that has a good bounce to it will do. If you use a hard bouncing ball, wear eye protection.

3. an ability to catch/throw a single ball with either the dominant or non-dominant hand is helpful. Start chucking balls to even up the ability of the non-dominant arm.

Throw two balls at the wall simultaneously . The hips should be the torquing power that whips the arm toward the wall. When you shift the weight from your back foot to a 50/50 stance or even a 70/30% foot forward stance, you should be well rooted with no further movement of the feet in the final position.

ensure you throw from both sides, especially the non-dominant side

Most important: use a relaxed and rooted transition between the  throwing and catching.

4. When you demonstrate a consistent ability to catch the balls, at least five times out of ten tosses, combine footwork with the throwing. How about starting with a consistent ability to catch 2 out of ten tosses....the practice is the exercise!


Hand positions:

1. Two balls side by side will produce two incoming balls sharing the same horizontal line, both roughly the same height from the ground.

thrown horizontally, they return approx at the same height

 2. Two balls thrown in a vertical position will produce two incoming balls sharing the same vertical line.

thrown vertically, the balls converge at your center line

3. Two balls of different size, weight, and bounce capability produce a myriad pattern of incoming speeds and direction: together they are a real mind obstruction!
4. Thrown repeatedly, a random pattern occurs which is a real aerobic thrill, a chaotic breeding ground for new neural networks, and a challenge to the foveal and peripheral vision.

Even more fun is three ball juggling against a wall:

And here are the silly pictures, when the balls go through the holes in the outstretched palms.

open the hand dude!

OPEN THE HAND DUDE!

Yes, this is all too much!

(1*)"The distinctions between: foveal (sometimes also called central) and peripheral vision are reflected in subtle physiological and anatomical differences in the visual cortex. Different visual areas contribute to the processing of visual information coming from different parts of the visual field, and a complex of visual areas located along the banks of the interhemispheric fissure (a deep groove that separates the two brain hemispheres) has been linked to peripheral vision. It has been suggested that these areas are important for fast reactions to visual stimuli in the periphery, and monitoring body position relative to gravity.^[3]

Peripheral vision can be practiced, jugglers that regularly locate and catch objects in their peripheral vision do have improved abilities. Jugglers do not follow the paths of individual objects with their eyes, instead they focus on a defined point in mid-air, so almost all of the information necessary for successful catches is perceived in the near-peripheral region. Some juggling patterns and disciplines require extraordinary peripheral vision."....from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral_vision

4. There is some indication that this ball throwing also challenges the vestibular-ocular reflex.(2*)

(2*)"The vestibulo-ocular reflex needs to be fast: for clear vision, head movement must be compensated almost immediately; otherwise, vision corresponds to a photograph taken with a shaky hand. To achieve clear vision, signals from the semicircular canals are sent as directly as possible to the eye muscles: the connection involves only three neurons, and is correspondingly called the three neuron arc. Using these direct connections, eye movements lag the head movements by less than 10 ms,^[7] and thus the vestibulo-ocular reflex is one of the fastest reflexes in the human body."...from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestibulo-ocular_reflex

Here's a great You Tube explanation of Foveal and peripheral vision: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtXPV_u_YMA