Novelty

The brain is a pattern detecting machine. It is also a lazy machine. If a pattern repeats enough times, the brain figures it is irrelevant and tunes it out.

For example. If the brain hears the words “keep your hands up” every time it finds itself I the midst of Kung fu class, it begins to ignore it. Heard it before. Old news. Ignore.

However, if the brain sees boxing gloves on the hands, or a piece of blue tape on the thumbs, or sees the hands holding tiny weights… then that is something new and interesting. That must be worth paying attention to and worth spending the attention points to keep the hands up.

Ironically, getting hit in the head often helps shock the brain into remembering to keep the hands up. Not because of novelty but because most brains don’t enjoy being battered around.

Do whatever it takes. Get your hands up.