---
title: "The Seventh Sense"
priority: 535
date: 2006-04-02T14:43:00+02:00
author: "Stefan Imhoff"
excerpt: "The Ninja trained and paid attention to the feelings that every human being has at times. When you feel that your subconscious is pushing you to make a certain decision, or when we have some kind of ‘premonition’."
translationKey: "seventhSensePage"
categories:
  - training
---

## Premonition and Intuition

What is that, the ability to sense something happening before it actually happens? The feeling is called the seventh sense, intuition or anticipation. Many of us often have impressions or feelings, hunches, but most reject these feelings and do not allow them.

A Ninja trains himself in honing this perception so that he becomes able to sense and avoid danger. In the _godan_ test in the Bujinkan, the teacher silently approaches the student with a sword (today a _shinai_). At this stage of the training, the student should have improved his senses to such an extent that he can sense the danger of the sword stroke and avoid it with an evasive movement.

It is a fact and has now been scientifically proven that a person sitting in a coffee shop somewhere often feels a kind of uneasiness when someone starts staring at that person.

## The Seventh Sense in the Sakki Test

Hatsumi himself reports that during the _sakki_ test (test for 5th dan, the student must dodge a sword without seeing it) he felt pressure on his shoulders from his master Takamatsu and saw an image of a hacked body in his mind’s eye. He performed a side dodge and passed the test.

These subtle feelings that the electromagnetic force fields of others have on us are felt more strongly by some than by others. But if you continue to practice persistently, you can go far in this art.
