Extracted from http://www.shuriway.co.uk/zanshin.html
There is an old Japanese samurai saying, "When the battle is over, tighten your chin strap." This refers to constant awareness, preparedness for danger and readiness for action.
The Japanese saying itself focuses on the end of a combat engagement when it is natural to relax awareness, thinking the danger is over, when in reality it often is not. "This concept carries over into the dojo which is not just a training hall but a place where a certain awareness of the possibility of serious combat must constantly be maintained," said John Donohue in his article Kendo: The Way of the Sword found in the Learning section. But, for the serious martial artist this heightened state of awareness becomes a natural part of the psyche, something that is automatically turned on while awake as well as during sleep.
"On one level, zanshin refers to neutral, non-threatening stances or kneeling in such a way as to be always ready for action.
....
Zanshin is also the flip side of single-minded devotion to technique. You must learn not to focus exclusively on your actions but rather to be attentive and receptive to all activities surrounding you," says Donohue. It may seem contradictory, he continues, "but both the ideas of focusing entirely on technique and of maintaining zanshin have to do with the transcending of subjectobject distinctions through martial training. Unity with the Void, to use Musashi's (the famious Japanese swordsman) idiom, results in the execution of technique without any selfconscious awareness of doing so.
By the same token, proper zanshin is indicative of the fact that the swordsman experiences no discontinuity between his surroundings and himself."
Various martial arts have different ways of training to develop heightened zanshin.
... For more detail information, please refer to the above link
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