Until the age of 30 Geoff Thompson worked through a plethora of menial jobs, from glass collector to floor sweeper; he even spent a decade working as a nightclub bouncer. Convinced that there must be more to life than this, Geoff decided to become a martial arts instructor (polled as the number one self defence instructor in the world by Black Belt magazine USA) then followed this by living out his dream of becoming a writer. He is now the author of over thirty books, a stage play, a BAFTA winning short film and two feature films.

If I were to approach my friends or family, and tell them that I’m “getting in tune with the energy of the universe”, I would expect most of them to react in one of three ways:

Say, right… and frown, waiting uncomfortably for me to follow this with something they can relate to

pause, smiling, waiting for a punch line that never comes; or

reach for the phone, and get the men in white coats round…

At this point there is a real danger of you rolling your eyes, and moving onto the next article, see if there’s something less hocus-pocus there. DON’T! Please bear with me, try to put the disbelief and the preconceived ideas to one side for a couple of minutes, and accept what follows as an ordinary man’s real life experiences.

I have spent the last few years training in Bujinkan Taijutsu, not the most famous of the martial arts, but probably best known for the ‘Sakki Test’ that must be taken to achieve 5 th Dan. Personally I’m a long way from this level, but my instructor (and friend) took the test successfully last year. Basically, you kneel down facing away from the Grandmaster, who holds a bokken (hardwood training sword) above your head. At some point, he will cut straight down, and you must roll to avoid the cut. Ha-ha, what could be easier…(?!)

Bear in mind the guy doing the cutting is the Grandmaster of nine martial traditions, the oldest of which goes back the best part of a thousand years.

Or to put it another way - yes it will be fast, and no, you won’t hear him.

What the Grandmaster will do however is to intentionally emit a ‘killing intention’ as he starts to strike, much the same as animals do when attacking their prey, or indeed humans will if trying to seriously hurt or kill someone. As a would-be 5 th Dan, you have to relax, and pick up this killing intention. The years of training leading to this point should ensure you get out of the way without conscious thought.

And if you weren’t ready for this test? Then you get to stay 4 th Dan, with a big lump on the head to remind you of the experience!

At our local dojo, we have trained in sensitivity exercises, where partner/s will attack slowly, either from the front or behind. Receiving this attack, your eyes will be shut, with music playing to mask any sounds that could give away the attacker’s approach. Crucially, the ‘attacker’ will try to mentally project this intention to harm. I also thought this was a bit ‘hocus-pocus’, but then found myself repeatedly moving out of the way on these exercises. In some cases the guy behind me would laugh – what happened, did I get it wrong? No, he replied, just that I never got to attack - as soon as I picked a target and focussed on it, you were off!

Mind blowing. OK, it’s not like sitting the Sakki test, but it did prove something beyond any doubt for myself and a number of others who were training that morning.

A very experienced practitioner in the Bujinkan ( Ben Jones, also interpreter to the Grandmaster) once wrote that this is just the beginning, as some threats to your safety will not have this “killing intention”. The example he used was that you might be walking through the park on a windy day, and a dead branch could be dislodged and fall towards you. No killing intention there - after all it’s nothing but a lump of dead wood. So, after the Sakki test one must strive towards understanding the intentions of the universe, feeling the flow of energy within the universe.

There you go again, I saw your eyes rolling! I know some of the terminology can have that effect, but the language we use is sometimes inadequate, and often fails to convey the full meaning of what we’re trying to say. This is perhaps one reason why so much is written by different people, on what is essentially the same subject, whether this is within the realms of martial arts, personal growth and development, spiritual beliefs or even organised religion. Something just gets lost in the translation from knowing/feeling to describing.

Until recently, my own experiences around this were real, but how can I put this… well, kind of trivial. For example - when I was relaxed and ‘in tune’ with things, I might feel a strong urge to take a different route to work as I approached a junction or crossroads. When I followed this feeling then I would get a good run into work, somehow fairly free of traffic. If however I ignored it, I would invariably hit heavy traffic, and arrive late. Not just once or twice, this actually started to happen on a regular basis.

The same goes for parking – I first saw this when my wife was driving. She’s usually pretty laid back, and would drive right up to the front of a very busy car park, ignoring my stressed out pleas to take that space, it’s as good as we’ll get, quick or we’ll lose it! She would calmly cruise right to the very front, and pull into the space that was waiting for her! It was almost as if she somehow knew it would be there. Sounds unlikely, I know, but this has happened time and time again. Far too often to dismiss as coincidence. This now gets (laughingly) referred to as ‘Zen Parking’!

Of course if I try to pick up the right feeling as I approach the traffic lights, it doesn’t work. If I try to arrive at an empty parking space, it simply isn’t there. You can’t force this, you can’t make it happen. Instead you allow yourself to become receptive to these feelings or energies by slowing down and letting go, both physically and mentally.

Although I found all of this quite fascinating, I eventually came to the conclusion that it wasn’t quite life changing stuff. As a result I pushed this to the ‘unexplained bits and pieces’ part of my mind, and let it be.

A few weeks later, we decided to buy a puppy. Great for the kids to have a pet and so on, but this inevitably meant that I was the ‘lucky’ person who got to take it for a walk most mornings and evenings. What I found was that I became very relaxed as a result, and started to really enjoy this time. It could be 7am in the rain, or 11.30pm in the dark, it didn’t matter. I began to use this time to slow my mind down from the rush of daily living, and to practise breathing techniques. Walking meditation, if you like. Better still standing quietly among the trees, just breathing and feeling.

It was amazing how after 5 minutes or so of walking in a morning, the bird would start to sing. Every day – it was like they were greeting me! Of course, they were really singing all the time, but it took me this long to slow down my over stimulated brain, and actually notice. It still takes me a few minutes sometimes, but now I smile when the birds ‘start’ to sing, as I recognise what that means – that I have relaxed properly.

After a couple of weeks of this ‘walking meditation’, I started to experience a very strange feeling. The only way I can describe this, is like the flow and ebb of the sea, but all around me. No noise, no physical sensation that I can name, but a definite ‘feeling’, which grew in strength over a few days. What became intriguing was the consistency of this feeling, and how it would only happen when I slowed down and opened my senses properly. In touch with the world – someone once described this as slowing down to the speed of life . This soon became something of a daily game. When I realised I was rushing or stressed, I would consciously slow down and look for this feeling. And find it.

I must confess I was a little bewildered by the fact I had no idea what this was, but I did know for certain that ‘it’ was connected with nature, and was a real find, a treasure of some sort. I was also quite amused by the fact I knew there were very few people aside from my wife that I could actually discuss this with. I am very lucky - she is probably the most open-minded person I have ever met, but what about the rest of my family and friends? Well, they’ve always known me to be a bit strange, but this would be beyond the pale for most of them…

Around this time, I was about to nip up to the local shops, when I had a very strong feeling that I should not go, that this was something I really shouldn’t do. Nah, thought I, and shrugged it off. But the feeling persisted. My wife had gone out earlier with the kids, and I thought maybe it’s just that she’s already bought the same stuff, we do connect like this sometimes. Oh well, into the car – more strong feelings, not good. I drove the ¾ mile to the shops, parked up and got out. Same feelings, just as strong. I was on red alert at this point, thinking I might run into a mugger, a gang or some other dangerous situation - after all there could be something to this? Nothing happened. Went to the second shop, same feelings, same alertness, still nothing. Got in the car and set off home, thinking “how strange”, and dismissing it all as fanciful nonsense. I mean, I haven’t got a track record of paranoia, but who knows?

100 yards from home, suddenly the brake lights came on in front of me. I just managed to stop in time, when BANG, something hit me. Looked in the mirror – nothing. Looked again, looked right around, still nothing. Definitely lost the plot here. Went to get out of the car, and jumped out of my skin to see a guy in a motorbike helmet lying on the road there! Right there, next to the drivers door! He had hit my back end, and been thrown right over to land near the front of the car. As it turned out, this guy was all right other than being black and blue, although we did have some shenanigans around the insurance, but that’s a different story. Bottom line of this? Well, there was no real harm done, but it did made me think...

I know that when other people tell you unlikely tales such as this, it’s easier (and safer) to write it off as coincidence, to mentally shrug your shoulders and forget about it. Better than challenging your own beliefs and understanding of this universe, I mean, hey - who wants a hard life after all? But when it happens to you it’s different, it is real . I knew from the start that I shouldn’t be going out in the car, the only thing I did wrong was to ignore those feelings. Why? Simply because my rational mind told me not to be so daft.

So, what about the title of this article? However corny it might be to use this quote, it does somehow seem to capture the essence of it all.

For me, I am currently at a stage of feeling this “force” rather than using it. This has much to do with nature, and sharpening your senses. It’s about ‘un-learning’ established assumptions and beliefs, rather than learning anything new, a process of stripping away the layers of civilisation. Go and walk in the woods and breathe, go sit by the brook and be quiet, get a dog if it helps! See the trees and flowers for the first time – yes, I know how clichéd that sounds, but everything is beautiful in nature when you start to look at it with your senses in tune with your environment, I mean everything .

Use the force? Perhaps in time. You can’t train for this, neither can you go looking for it, because you will never find it this way. You can only prepare yourself, re-open your mind and your senses, be ready to accept this ‘feeling’, and then let things happen in their own time, let things move at their own natural pace.

To finish on a practical note - certainly this is worth it’s weight in gold for finding convenient parking spots, but what about the rest of it? Well, by being open and not trying so hard, I am beginning to find I’m making more of the right decisions, and less of the wrong ones. I can’t often tell you there and then why something is the right/wrong thing to do, I just know it to be the case. Later that day or week the reasons will reveal themselves, and as long as I have been relaxed, and not consciously looking for an answer, then it has always, always been the right choice.

Sounds spooky, but the feeling is one of peace and acceptance, no hocus-pocus, no mumbo-jumbo. Having said that, don’t mention it to my friends just yet. They might well send for the men in white coats!

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