Q: I saw your AQ blog entry.. I'm not sure if this would be considered "AQ," I've had a few occasions where I would get a "feeling" that would originate from my DT "urging me to" go a certain way (direction). Heeding this "urge" has gotten me out of potentially :sticky" / undesirable / potentially dangerous situations. One or two times, I followed an "urge" to cross the street and I followed it; mere moments a physical fight broke out.
A: Excellent feedback, thank you very much. It gives me the chance to make an important distinction. What this reader is describing is the 'outer rim' of AQ. That's a subconscious, situational pre-conscious assessment mechanism that every human being, regardless of age or training background, possesses in full measure. It is the built-in baseline AQ. I describe this as the 'outer rim' because as you train, you can build up the inner rings of the AQ. As you develop these 'inner rings' the AQ becomes faster, sharper, more immediately physical and even pro-active in its effects. So inner means closer - in time and space. Working from the innermost ring, you can see and feel any close-in, immediate (and I mean knife coming whatever) as a very sharp, focused and distinctive fully physical/energetic sensation in the body. By the time we're talking innermost AQ ring, it's no longer at all just a vague "feeling" or "urge" etc. that can be ignored. It's GAME ON.
So the 'outer rim' is the highly attenuated default from the factory, while the trained, internally-based AQ is a super custom upgrade that takes time and effort but is a lot more amazing and fun. That said though, the AQ factory-installed default outer rim is itself actually incredibly useful for regular folks. Also, being situational, though weak it operates temporally further 'in advance' of shit going down. You just need to pay attention to that. It's really almost a different topic from what I describe as the AQ training (the inner AQ comes 'for free' as just one aspect of hardcore internal work in the ARC mode described in all my books and Vimeo films). That outermost rim (default attenuated builtin AQ) is very worthwhile understanding though. Of course read the book 'The Gift of Fear' if you have not yet.