i usually cringed when i heard about moving without thinking in martial arts. beginners often spent too much time analyze things before/after moving. their mind and body weren't coordinate or in-sync enough. so they trained and trained. eventually they reached some advance level where their body and mind are more in tune, i.e. their mind wills it and their body moves it. the ki thing here (pun intended) is they control their body movement through thoughts. they just happened to do it very fast.
you can do an experiment if you want. take a beginner and attack that person with yokomen uchi and alter the angle of attack slightly with each attack. do the same with an advance person. ask yourself the question or questions why does the beginner moves different from the advance? what sort of decision process does the advance person went through to select the counter movement?
the old saying "mind leads ki, ki leads movement". mind goes first. body follows. otherwise, it would only be fight or flight respond which are also trained through pass experiences. martial arts trained to control that responses, and that control is through thoughts.
of course, if you claimed to be doing zombie aikido, then i withdraw my above statements.
