 Superheroes and comic book characters are huge right now as they provide us a temporary escape from the demons of our real world. The adventures of Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the like can all tap into our inner sense of adventure even if it is fantasy. But what if it wasn't all fantasy? What if there was a Marvel character that wasn't so far fetched and was just a little bit of training we could get a real life taste of? Okay, I admit, maybe I'm sensationalizing this just a little bit, but only slightly. Daredevil has taken a more of a front-light role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in recent years, and it's not hard to see why. Sure, there was that Ben Affleck movie years back, but the Netflix slash Marvel show gave us a Daredevil, aka Matt Murdock, that we could actually empathize with. Blinded as a child and like many proper superheroes, burdened with a sense of vengeance, Murdock became the underdog we grew for and ascends to a level of badassery. For those unfamiliar with the character of Daredevil, his superpower is a highly-tuned and trained sense of hearing. Using echolocation and ambient sound, he is able to see the world around him that the frequencies generate and is a sort of mental image in his surroundings. It could be really satisfying and cool to watch, but many of us would claim that this is pretty far-fetched. But what if I told you that this echolocation skill was something real that we could actually develop? In this episode, we're going to take a quick look at what this skill is, meet a few people who wield it in real life, and then look at how we can develop this skill ourselves. Echolocation is a skill used to find a location of objects by reflecting sound, particularly like that used in animals such as dolphins and bats. Sonar works on the same principle, send out sound waves that hit objects and reflect back. Now someone or something with a finely-tuned ear will be able to navigate and identify surrounding objects based on how the sound bounces back. To get a very rudimentary idea of this, stand just a couple of feet away from a wall, close your eyes, start talking, and slowly walk towards the wall. As you get closer, you will hear your words reflect back to you and you can start to feel the wall getting closer and closer. It's pretty cool, really. So how does this work in real life and how the hell does this apply to the martial arts? There are already some fascinating individuals who have developed a skill out of necessity and a desire to live a more functional life. First, let's meet Ben Underwood. When he was just three years old, Ben had to have both of his eyes removed due to retinal cancer. But what is remarkable about Ben's story is that by the age of five, he had taught himself how to use echolocation to navigate his environment. By making sharp clicking sounds with his mouth, he was able to get a sense of surroundings based on how the sound reflected back to him. He developed this ability so well that he did not have to use a cane and he was able to run and navigate around the house, including using stairs without having to hold onto the handrail. He became so adept at this that he was even able to play basketball, rollerblade, and ride a bike. Using his clicking sounds combined with ambient sounds around him, he was able to paint a picture in his mind that allowed him to, well, see, at least mentally. Unfortunately, his cancer return when he was 16 years old and Ben passed away. But his story leaves behind an incredible lesson in how a person can overcome what seems like a crippling challenge and still lead a happy and normal life. And Ben is not alone. There have been several people out there who have developed a skill to such a level that they have become the subject of studies and have inspired many people to learn the craft of echolocation. One of the more notable examples is that of Daniel Kish. Also suffering from retinal cancer, Daniel had both of his eyes removed by the age of 13 months. Much like Ben Underwood, he grew up using echolocation and clicking to navigate the world around him. He became so proficient at this skill that he became the first blind person to become a certified orientation and mobility specialist and to hold national blindness professional certification. He also holds a degree in psychology, leads training programs to teach people how to use echolocation, and even recently did a brief TED talk giving us a little glimpse into his world. And I do encourage you all to check it out. It's fascinating and I've included a link down below in the description. In this talk, he said something that I found quite striking. He said that it is impressions about blindness that are far more threatening to blind people than the blindness itself. He and others who have mastered it describe it as using sound to see a vague geometry of the world. With enough practice, a person using echolocation can detect where objects are around them, the size, general shape of the object, and often the orientation. So much like we see in Daredevil, they see a rough visual outline in their mind of what's around them. Even more impressive, Daniel Kish said that by utilizing sound, he can see 360 degrees around him, around corners, and sometimes even through objects. So how does this relate to the martial arts? Honestly, a lot of our objectives here with the channel is to recognize challenges and try to offer or share solutions to those challenges. This topic reminds me a lot of one of our early viewers who I haven't seen comment in a while and I hope you're still watching here because I found you to be a great leader of this example. He had reached out to me and we had a great discussion. He was blind but still dedicated himself to training in the martial arts. Grappling arts obviously work the best because once you make contact with a person, you can now register their more subtle movements. Someone proficient in BJJ will fold you in half even with their eyes closed because they can feel the nuances. Your movements telegraph your actions and they know how to read tactile body language. So that's what our viewer was telling us. He even recounted the story in which he was walking home and someone tried to rob him and take his wallet from his pocket but once the contact was made, he was able to counter with the judo takedown that took us up tacker by surprise. But here's where his true boldness stepped up. He was also taking boxing. Boxing. I think we can all understand the challenge there. He told me it was a terrifying experience to spar because you really can't read those strikes coming in but he was really trying to get himself mentally past the fear of getting hit and in recognizing patterns and hopefully learning how to move in response or in retaliation to a hit once contact was established. Honestly that is not far off from Daredevil. By developing the skill it may help you get a better sense of your surroundings if you are out late or what if you're in a fight or dangerous situation and you injure your eyes. You know the ability to navigate out of a house fire while blinded by smoke or heat would be invaluable. Or what if it's dark in your house and there's an intruder? Has anyone seen the movie Don't Breathe? If you did, then you know what I'm talking about. I also used to run a game slash exercise a few years back when I was teaching kids classes. Very briefly we did an episode on this so if you want to check that out you know click on the link here or in the description but basically we called it the ninja game and we set up like a rudimentary castle setting you know we use all the all the wave masters the mats the kicking shields we made like this castle with a river and obstacles to move around and one kid was designated as the ninja and their job was to infiltrate the castle and try to steal whatever the prize was you know it was usually just some sort of like a little token or whatever but we would put in maybe four five six seven other students and we would blindfold them and we gave them the little padded sword so basically they were guarding the castle and it was the ninja's job to sneak it around all the objects climb over stuff climb under stuff get in take the trinket whatever the prize was and try to escape without getting caught and the other four or the other students that were there standing guard their job was to listen and the second they heard the person they were trying to tap them with the sword if the ninja got tapped with the sword they were out doesn't seem too hard except we made the ninja wear a bell so if they moved too hastily or too fast or made the wrong move it would jingle and it would alert them so they basically they were all navigating off a sound it was really fun the kids had to blast with it and it was really interesting seeing them try to strategize and kind of work on their movements and try to get around obstacles or the other students were trying to really listen they were using that sense of hearing and in some form ethical location to try to find the infiltrator now if this is a skill that you want to develop yourself the good news is you can it just takes learning how to interpret audio stimuli into a different way now there are programs that will train you how to do this and how to become proficient at it and I've linked this article to the Smithsonian magazine below for those of you who want to read more about that but start off by doing small tests close your eyes or blindfold yourself and then making clicking sounds and try to test yourself to first identify objects in front of you and then try to judge how far away they are based on the sound reflection of course please keep it safe be careful with stairs or any hazards in the house practice with a friend or family member and see if you can pick up on any subtle mental imagery as you harness the power of echolocation if you want to apply this to a sparring session well get a partner again being safe about it blindfold yourselves and slowly try to use the sound to find you the person listen for the shuffling the feet the swishing of a uniform try to slowly reach out and try to find each other and once contact is made go at a slow speed and do like a grapple session to see how well you can fight them based on the tactile response alone once you can do all that then you've made your first step towards becoming the devil of hell's kitchen