Gaze Behavior of Experts and Novices in Aikido's Choku Tsuki.

We investigated where and how expert and novice aikido practitioners fixate their gaze to achieve success in choku tsuki performance. Participants were 20 right-handed aikido male practitioners (black belts = 10; white belts = 8; yellow belts = 2), with an average age of 33.5 years (SD = 7.4). Participants performed a choku tsuki, aiming to hit with a stick (jo) the center of a target on the chest of a virtual opponent attacking them with a wooden sword (bokken). Dependent variables included performance success (absolute frequency of target hits while the attacking opponent was holding the bokken above his head) and gaze behavior (number, variability, and durations of gaze fixations on specific interest areas). The results showed that the experts have fewer and longer fixations than novices; and, whereas experts focused on the target, novices varied their fixations on the opponent's head and feet, and the target and sword. We concluded that the experts were able to set the target as a functional point of gaze fixation, which allowed them to hit it while they monitored the sword's movement for a choku tsuki successful performance.