Yesterday, just as my expectant wife, our 12 month old and I were about to turn into the parking lot of our favorite specialty market, my bad-guy radar instantly took over and made me steer clear of the area.

I asked her if she saw the two suspicious characters I spied as they burned way too much energy taking long strides on diagonals across the small parking area.

"Yeah, I saw them," she replied with equal concern.

"They're the reason I took off," I explained.

"No problem," she shot back. As an experienced student of kenpo karate, she reacted exactly as I did to the potential danger we averted.

One of the most underestimated benefits of great martial arts training is that it gives you a sixth sense, a kind of ESP or precognitive ability to spot and skirt danger before it threatens you, personally.

In typical dojo training, too much attention is devoted to fighting your way out of dangerous circumstances. By the time you're besieged, you could be so compromised that it's too late to stage a successful defense or counterattack.

Some gung-ho combatants might think that circumventing danger is somehow unmanly, wimpy, or other than virtuous. But they're mistaken.

It shows the sort of omniscience and awareness that are the hallmarks of the highest and best uses of martial arts training.

Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan karate, taught that there is no first strike in karate. The art should be used defensively.

I believe cultivating your "Danger ESP" eliminates anyone's first strike, making it a suitable and logical extension of Funakoshi's philosophy.

Ask your martial arts teachers to introduce drills to sharpen your extrasensory abilities. Believe me, they exist, and some of them are nothing less than amazing!