Last weekend, I helped my mother clean up the attic of our family house in the south of France. Hidden behind a pile of boxes was a cardboard tube containing posters that were pinned on my bedroom wall until I left for college.
One of them is a portrait of a man you are unlikely to have heard of: Bernard Tchoullouyan, a 1981 judo world champion and bronze medalist at the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
It was an emotional find. My brain instantly sent me back to Marseille in the early-1990s, when Tchoullouyan became my judo sensei – the Japanese term for a martial arts master and instructor. Early on in my training, I became fascinated by the magical quality of his hands. One of the proudest moments of my life remains the one in which those hands handed me my black belt.
But, like many others who have sparred with Tchoullouyan, I have painful memories of those hands, too. At the start of a fight, it was like he was barely touching you at all. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, you would feel the most powerful grip, followed by a light-speed throw and the agony of landing heavily on your back.
A neuroscientific study of blind people conducted a decade ago revealed that orienting one's hand movements during the act of reaching is not supported by vision, but rather by another sensory channel called proprioception, often referred to by scientists as the 'true sixth sense'
From time to time, Tchoullouyan made his students train blindfolded. “Your hands are your eyes,” he often said, because in judo your opponent is too close for vision to be your main source of information. I learned this the hard way after being defeated in mere seconds by a blind judo fighter back in the day.
A neuroscientific study of blind people conducted a decade ago revealed that orienting one’s hand movements during the act of reaching is not supported by vision, but rather by another sensory channel called proprioception, often referred to by scientists as the “true sixth sense”. Together with vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell, proprioception allows us to perceive our own position and movements. This is made possible by body sensors that provide information about the angles, tension and length of our muscles and joints.
It is proprioception that allows us to type on the keyboards of our computers or play a musical instrument without looking. When dancing or engaged in judo, proprioception allows the hands, arms, shoulders and other parts of the body to read the movements and, at times, even the intentions of someone else.
Researchers from England and Italy published a study in Neuropsychologia in which blindfolded participants being touched on the forearm or hands were able to identify the emotions and intentions of the person touching them. This could very well be how a judo competitor can feel the fear or determination of his or her opponent without having to look at their face.
But the magic of Tchoullouyan’s hands extended beyond an exceptional reading of the mind of the person he was wrestling. When he spoke to you, he would often stand by your side, not looking at you, with one hand on your shoulder. It instantly made you feel calmer, even understood.
There is more still to the power of touch, as illustrated by a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) in the US. Researchers used a technology called hyper-scan electro-encephalography, which allows recording the brain activity of several individuals simultaneously. One person was holding the hand of his or her romantic partner, while the latter was administered pain in a controlled fashion. The idea for this experiment came as one of the scientists was holding his wife’s hand as she gave birth to their child.
Read More from Olivier Oullier
The researchers found that the level of brain-to-brain synchrony between partners as they held hands was positively correlated with the magnitude of pain relief measured in the brain of the partner experiencing the pain. One hypothesis is that the very act of touching increases coupling through connections between two individuals’ brains, enhancing the perception of empathy – the feeling of being understood. In other words, being touched by an empathetic partner helps to relieve pain – and the higher the degree of empathy, the more the pain eases. The phenomenon is known as "social analgesic", and it is something that nurses and caregivers have known, and been practising for centuries with people suffering.
"Physical touch, empathy and affective connections between humans are crucial for the social analgesic effect to happen," says Dr Guillaume Dumas, a social neuroscientist at the Human Genetics & Cognitive Functions Laboratory at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, who co-authored the PNAS study. "Despite a lot of interest in social robots and avatars to replace caregivers, they are not yet at a level where human physical presence and touch can be replaced to relief pain. A genuine realistic human-machine bonding through artificial empathy is still to be developed." So, there is much to say about the power of touch in its ability to convey intentions, emotions and also social support.
I experienced this power myself when Tchoullouyan passed away last year. At his funeral, as I joined my judo friends in giving him a last goodbye, we all held hands in silence. There was no need to look at one another’s faces. We knew we were here to support each other. And, for a moment, the magic of their hands made the sadness I was feeling just a little easier to bear.
Professor Olivier Oullier is the president of Emotiv and a neuroscientist and a DJ
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
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500 People from Gaza enter France
115 Special programme for artists
25 Evacuation of injured and sick
The specs: 2019 Audi A7 Sportback
Price, base: Dh315,000
Engine: 3.0-litre V6
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 335hp @ 5,000rpm
Torque: 500Nm @ 1,370rpm
Fuel economy 5.9L / 100km
What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
- Cinematography, shots and movement.
- All aspects of post-production.
- Emerging technologies and VFX with AI and CGI.
- Understanding of marketing objectives and audience engagement.
- Tourism industry knowledge.
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The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK
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Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
Political Security Directorate
Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
Cham Press TV
Sama TV
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
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Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Six large-scale objects on show
- Concrete wall and windows from the now demolished Robin Hood Gardens housing estate in Poplar
- The 17th Century Agra Colonnade, from the bathhouse of the fort of Agra in India
- A stagecloth for The Ballet Russes that is 10m high – the largest Picasso in the world
- Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1930s Kaufmann Office
- A full-scale Frankfurt Kitchen designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, which transformed kitchen design in the 20th century
- Torrijos Palace dome
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
What is a robo-adviser?
Robo-advisers use an online sign-up process to gauge an investor’s risk tolerance by feeding information such as their age, income, saving goals and investment history into an algorithm, which then assigns them an investment portfolio, ranging from more conservative to higher risk ones.
These portfolios are made up of exchange traded funds (ETFs) with exposure to indices such as US and global equities, fixed-income products like bonds, though exposure to real estate, commodity ETFs or gold is also possible.
Investing in ETFs allows robo-advisers to offer fees far lower than traditional investments, such as actively managed mutual funds bought through a bank or broker. Investors can buy ETFs directly via a brokerage, but with robo-advisers they benefit from investment portfolios matched to their risk tolerance as well as being user friendly.
Many robo-advisers charge what are called wrap fees, meaning there are no additional fees such as subscription or withdrawal fees, success fees or fees for rebalancing.
Match info
Uefa Champions League Group F
Manchester City v Hoffenheim, midnight (Wednesday, UAE)
RESULTS
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Honeymoonish
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UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
RESULTS
Men – semi-finals
57kg – Tak Chuen Suen (MAC) beat Phuong Xuan Nguyen (VIE) 29-28; Almaz Sarsembekov (KAZ) beat Zakaria Eljamari (UAE) by points 30-27.
67kg – Mohammed Mardi (UAE) beat Huong The Nguyen (VIE) by points 30-27; Narin Wonglakhon (THA) v Mojtaba Taravati Aram (IRI) by points 29-28.
60kg – Yerkanat Ospan (KAZ) beat Amir Hosein Kaviani (IRI) 30-27; Long Doan Nguyen (VIE) beat Ibrahim Bilal (UAE) 29-28
63.5kg – Abil Galiyev (KAZ) beat Truong Cao Phat (VIE) 30-27; Nouredine Samir (UAE) beat Norapat Khundam (THA) RSC round 3.
71kg – Shaker Al Tekreeti (IRQ) beat Fawzi Baltagi (LBN) 30-27; Amine El Moatassime (UAE) beat Man Kongsib (THA) 29-28
81kg – Ilyass Hbibali (UAE) beat Alexandr Tsarikov (KAZ) 29-28; Khaled Tarraf (LBN) beat Mustafa Al Tekreeti (IRQ) 30-27
86kg – Ali Takaloo (IRI) beat Mohammed Al Qahtani (KSA) RSC round 1; Emil Umayev (KAZ) beat Ahmad Bahman (UAE) TKO round
