Is Chi Real? Exploring the Concept of Chi in Chinese Philosophy

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In summary: Anyway, I'm not sure what to call it.At one point he described how one can build up waves of energy. For example, if one is to throw a right punch, the waves might travel between the right fist and the rear-most foot. The most proficient experts can allegedly quickly produce seven waves, I think it was, which enables an incredibly powerful punch. As a black belt, my buddy could only get to three waves or so.I think this describes Bruce Lee's famous one inch punch.In summary, an electrical current runs through your body and everything around you. Chi may be what the Chinese were referring to when they talked about a force called Chi. Chi is supposedly an electrical current that runs
  • #281
Proton Soup said:
what?!

Did I stutter? The kind of hallucinations he described are typical of of people suffering from low blood oxygen saturation, people "near death" (hypoxia again, abliet more extreme), and suggestablity: The expectation that something is going to happen.

Psychosomatic conditions can be severe, so it is it any wonder you can percieve a feeling of "warmth" or see some lights? Hell, you could just be a in a posture that constricts breathing, and makes you dizzy.

If you want me to believe in Chi, perform a scientific test of the claims made by "practicitioners". One of the classics, is the Reiki practioner who claims to "feel" energy of other people. Ok, says the skeptic, does it matter if I wear clothes? No, says the practioner. Does it matter of you're looking at me? No says the practioner, I FEEL your Ki. Ok, says the skeptic, then you stand behind this opaque scrim; I'll be behind it, or not, and in various parts of it. Please use your ability to sense energy to point to where I am.

This, is a real challenge, and there is a cash reward for it I believe. This far, no takers. What a shock.

Apply logic accordingly to Chi, Ki, Reiki, Spirit, Aura, Etc... Etc...
 
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  • #282
Frame Dragger said:
Did I stutter? The kind of hallucinations he described are typical of of people suffering from low blood oxygen saturation, people "near death" (hypoxia again, abliet more extreme), and suggestablity: The expectation that something is going to happen.

Psychosomatic conditions can be severe, so it is it any wonder you can percieve a feeling of "warmth" or see some lights? Hell, you could just be a in a posture that constricts breathing, and makes you dizzy.

If you want me to believe in Chi, perform a scientific test of the claims made by "practicitioners". One of the classics, is the Reiki practioner who claims to "feel" energy of other people. Ok, says the skeptic, does it matter if I wear clothes? No, says the practioner. Does it matter of you're looking at me? No says the practioner, I FEEL your Ki. Ok, says the skeptic, then you stand behind this opaque scrim; I'll be behind it, or not, and in various parts of it. Please use your ability to sense energy to point to where I am.

This, is a real challenge, and there is a cash reward for it I believe. This far, no takers. What a shock.

Apply logic accordingly to Chi, Ki, Reiki, Spirit, Aura, Etc... Etc...

yes, you are stuttering. tell me more about internal production of Atropine. so i just hold my breath and my body produces it?
 
  • #283
Proton Soup said:
yes, you are stuttering. tell me more about internal production of Atropine. so i just hold my breath and my body produces it?

That's a pretty lame tactic.

He might well be mistaken about Atropine but why don't you try addressing his argument in a mature manner and try to refute all his points.

You do realize that even if he is inaccurate on one point that doesn't render his whole argument invalid, don't you?
 
  • #284
Proton Soup said:
yes, you are stuttering. tell me more about internal production of Atropine. so i just hold my breath and my body produces it?

*sigh*... I was trying to keep things simple for the sake of the PHYSICS crowd. So, how about you hold your breath (or try a plastic bag?) while you read this.

Of course ATROPINE, is not endogenous, but other anticholinergics ARE. For the sake of simplicity in a non-medical forum, I am trying to respect the OP who is talking about CHI and the rest who seem to lack any kind of medical expertise. As Chimps pointed out, even leaving the atropine aside (and the EFFECT does remain, it's just a different muscarinic anticholinergic which IS endogenous) the issue is the TOXIDROME as a result.

You seem to be well versed in your basics, so you probably already knew that, and knew that my point held. Or... didn't you? I'm not sure which is MORE small-minded. http://biomedgerontology.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/7/764.abstract

That's a start... take off the bag if you haven't seen LIGHT yet. :rolleyes:
 
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  • #285
Frame Dragger said:
Hypoxia (and internal production of Atropine) and suggestability.

I think you're forgetting the part of my anecdote where I said that the strenuosity of the chi exercises didn't exceed those of the exercises preceeding them, in fact they were less rigorous, which I think refutes the hypoxia argument (I've been training for 5 years, faced much more rigorous exercise, this has never happenewd).

I don't like the suggestability explanation, although this COULD in principle explain it, but being the actual experiencer of this makes me doubtful. The hallucinations were so intense, the memory was so blurred. This wasn't like being suggested whilst in hypnosis to imagine something, this was an intense physiological event akin to a hallucinogenic induced panic attack.

This isn't the only reason i suspect that chi is real, my kung fu teacher can make his 'dan tien' grumble (stomach area) as a result of focused thought (I've felt this). Moreover, his claims as to his personal experience of the feeling of chi flowing around his body ('like fire') coupled with me knowing him for so many years as a sincere & thruthful person (so i suspect a probability of 0 of him lying). OF COURSE, this doesn't constitute a proof in any way shape or form, I'm just stating why I think that P=0.999 that chi is real, whether there's a conventional medical explanation or not.
 
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  • #286
imiyakawa said:
OF COURSE, this doesn't constitute a proof in any way shape or form, I'm just stating why I think that P=0.999 that chi is real, whether there's a conventional medical explanation or not.

If you are so convinced that it is real why are you even bothering to defend it on a science forum?

You obviously are not going to change your mind no matter how many people attempt to debunk your notions. If it is real to you then fine, but you are never going to find scientific proof, otherwise it would have been found long ago.
 
  • #287
Chimps said:
You obviously are not going to change your mind no matter how many people attempt to debunk your notions.

Are you saying that if you were me you would change your mind because someone said you were experiencing hypoxia and suggestibility. Hypoxia cannot explain it, as there was no reason for me to experience hypoxia in the realitively gentle exercises combined with years of training, and I've never heard of suggestibility causing such severe physiological reactions. If one was to accept this argument OVER the chi hypothesis (with other possible explanations aside), they would be troubled.

I understand your position though, I am yet another anecdote testifying something which has remained unproven for decades. I just wished to throw my story out there for light consideration as it related direcly to the topic, nothing more.
 
  • #288
imiyakawa said:
Are you saying that if you were me you would change your mind because someone said you were experiencing hypoxia and suggestibility. Hypoxia cannot explain it, as there was no reason for me to experience hypoxia in the realitively gentle exercises combined with years of training, and I've never heard of suggestibility causing such severe physiological reactions. If one was to accept this argument OVER the chi hypothesis (with other possible explanations aside), they would be troubled.

I understand your position though, I am yet another anecdote testifying something which has remained unproven for decades. I just wished to throw my story out there for light consideration as it related direcly to the topic, nothing more.

I would gravitate towards the most logical explanation, and for me that would rule out the supernatural.

Hypoxia may be incorrect but of course that doesn't mean that by default an unexplainable, unquantifiable and supernatural force was therefore involved. It just means we might not have the knowledge to explain it satisfactorily yet.
 
  • #289
imiyakawa said:
Are you saying that if you were me you would change your mind because someone said you were experiencing hypoxia and suggestibility. Hypoxia cannot explain it, as there was no reason for me to experience hypoxia in the realitively gentle exercises combined with years of training, and I've never heard of suggestibility causing such severe physiological reactions. If one was to accept this argument OVER the chi hypothesis (with other possible explanations aside), they would be troubled.

I understand your position though, I am yet another anecdote testifying something which has remained unproven for decades. I just wished to throw my story out there for light consideration as it related direcly to the topic, nothing more.

This is the DEBUNKING forum... it's what we do. As I said, blood/O2 doesn't always follow what you'd expect, and if you replace hypoxia with: hypotension and a variety of other things, you get the same result. I was aiming for simplicity, and trying not to be judgemental. I offered an alternative explanation, nothing more. I don't believe in Chi, so I'd probably be willing to accept deception, mental illness, and standard deviations from the norm of behaviour in the context of the internet before I'd entertain the notion of a mystical force that eludes all tests.

That said, my belief doesn't make me right. The need to resort to anecdotes as the only reliable source of information about "Chi" is amazing given the amount of power and influence it's credited with having. I had a friend once, who was sane, but did tell me that he saw his "sifu" blow a candle out across the room with a gesture. Maybe he was trying to impress me, maybe he was telling a secondhand story from the first person perspective so I would take him seriously? Who knows? I was friends with him for over a decade, and I know he's sane and rational, nor is he more honest or dishonest than any other good person I've met.

That said, none of what I or you have related is scientific... it's the reason that illussions of our (literal) place in the cosmos persisted for so long. Anything as pervasive and manipulatable as Chi, should be open to study and evidence, yet all anyone gets is *rude noise*. I conclude from this that Chi is not a real phenomenon, but I would be interested to pin down what the internal experiences are of those who DO believe and "feel it". The problem is that without the scientific method applied, sorting out who is lying or ill, or mistaken (I'm sure a magician of poor skill could figure out how to make it appear he was extinguishing a candle), or experiencing an unusual, but NORMAL, biological process becomes an impossiblity.

You have "Faith" imiyakawa, and faith has made people experience FAR stranger things than you describe in a lab, under an fMRI. For that matter TMS has done the same minus the faith.
 
  • #290
Okay, the last two posts of you guys has made 100% sense, so I agree in all totality.

Just to set the record straight, when I referenced "chi" in my previous posts, I didn't intend the assumption to follow that I meant it as a supernatural force - something that I suspected strongly exists, but I didn't mean it was supernatural.
 
  • #291
@imiyakawa: If someone sat you in a chair in a doctor's office, and used TMS to reproduce similar experiences that you had with "Chi", and those same people tested your sensei/sifu/etc... and found nothing, what would you believe then? Is there a model that shakes your faith, or are you a closed book presenting a fait accompli?

EDIT: You seem to have a very working knowledge of the negative effects of some drugs... May I be blunt and ask if at some point you've taken LSD or something similar? If so, this could very well be a flashback. If not, and you have an anxiety disorder, again, a strong FoF response IS a massive load of drugs to the system. Finally, you mention a blurred memory, and this makes we wonder if you were exposed to a toxin or drug, or that this is the result of a manic episode or similar state. I'm not judging here... just noting something.
 
  • #292
Frame Dragger said:
@imiyakawa: If someone sat you in a chair in a doctor's office, and used TMS to reproduce similar experiences that you had with "Chi", and those same people tested your sensei/sifu/etc... and found nothing, what would you believe then? Is there a model that shakes your faith, or are you a closed book presenting a fait accompli?

I would of course conclude that there was a ~99.999999999% chance that what occurred to me wasn't this 'chi', and if I thought the test on my teacher was of sufficient standard I would be forced to conclude that he was deluded to some extent.

BUT, please note that at no stage did I 'believe' that this chi existed, I still think that, given my PERSONAL experiences, there's a high % chance that chi exists (NOTE: NOT SAYING IT'S SUPERNATURAL IN ANY WAY.), whatever it is, to whatever extent. I'm honestly looking back at the 2 experiences and thinking this is the only outcome I can arrive at. I don't think I have an emotional investment in this, if you're wondering

BUT THEN AGAIN, after thinking about it, my assigning of a very high probability may have been too premature: there could easily be an explanation to the stomach-rumbling I felt (muscles spasming? what abotu the sound?), my teacher could be deluded as he has a vested interest in the art being real (dedicated whole life to it), and I could've had some sudden physiological consequence of which I've enever experienced from the exercising or from suggestion. (perhaps as a result to some of the scenarios you've suggested)

EDIT: No, 0 drug experiences. Although some friends I used to have were drug users, and I was around for a few of their highs.
 
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  • #293
imiyakawa said:
I would of course conclude that there was a ~99.999999999% chance that what occurred to me wasn't this 'chi', and if I thought the test on my teacher was of sufficient standard I would be forced to conclude that he was deluded to some extent.

BUT, please note that at no stage did I 'believe' that this chi existed, I still think that, given my PERSONAL experiences, there's a high % chance that chi exists (NOTE: NOT SAYING IT'S SUPERNATURAL.), whatever it is, to whatever extent.

EDIT: No, 0 drug experiences. Although some friends I used to have were drug users, and I was around for a few of their highs.

@imiyakawa: Ok, well then, I'm in this for the long haul and am willing to hear you out completely. As for the drugs, I believe you, but marijuana USE wouldn't really explain this, never mind a "contact high" ;) . No... assuming honesty (and we must, and frankly I will) this is pretty mysterious. What kind of postures were you in? Was this something like Pushing Hands, or something more modified from the Kung-Fu end of things?
 
  • #294
Frame Dragger said:
@imiyakawa: Ok, well then, I'm in this for the long haul and am willing to hear you out completely. As for the drugs, I believe you, but marijuana USE wouldn't really explain this, never mind a "contact high" ;) . No... assuming honesty (and we must, and frankly I will) this is pretty mysterious. What kind of postures were you in? Was this something like Pushing Hands, or something more modified from the Kung-Fu end of things?

Horse stance (google images if you don't know), with arms outstretched facing upwards and kind of going "up" (to get the chi to my head, I was later told). I'd then twist my arms all the way around the other way but so my hands still faced upwards and do the same thing. Following this, some exercises were done to get the chi back down the front of my body (I was told), but I don't remember them as by this time the hallucinations had set in and I could barely stand. (He followed by banging me on the back and doing this other stuff, I was better in ~3/5 minutes. Note: not suggesting causation!)
 
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  • #295
imiyakawa said:
Horse stance (google images if you don't know), with arms outstretched facing upwards and kind of going "up" (to get the chi to my head, I was later told). Following this, some exercises were done to get the chi back down the front of my body (I was told), but I don't remember them as by this time the hallucinations had set in and I could barely stand. (He followed by banging me on the back and doing this other stuff, I was better in ~3 minutes. Note: not suggesting causation!)

Odd as it may seem, I'm into Wah-Lum Kung-Fu, so the horse stance is VERY familiar. I have to say, barring mental illness the two explanations that common sense would indicate is:

1.) You were drugged.
2.) Chi, or some other unknown mechanism was used to alter your state of mind.

I assume that preparatory to this you've eaten well, are hydrated, and don't have a pre-existing medical condition?

EDIT: Better in 3 minutes, so nothing hallucinogenic in the alkaloid family (mushrooms, peyote, LSD, etc), but other agents would make sense. An anticholinergic would, but I can't see you following directions, and you'd be "Hot as a Hare, Dry as a Bone, Red as a Beet, Mad as a Hatter, Blind as a Bat." (Anticholinergic Toxidrome). Does any of that seem familiar? Flushing, impaired vision, and no I'm not kidding... did you try to undress?
 
  • #296
Frame Dragger said:
Odd as it may seem, I'm into Wah-Lum Kung-Fu, so the horse stance is VERY familiar. I have to say, barring mental illness the two explanations that common sense would indicate is:

1.) You were drugged.
2.) Chi, or some other unknown mechanism was used to alter your state of mind.

I assume that preparatory to this you've eaten well, are hydrated, and don't have a pre-existing medical condition?

EDIT: Better in 3 minutes, so nothing hallucinogenic in the alkaloid family (mushrooms, peyote, LSD, etc), but other agents would make sense. An anticholinergic would, but I can't see you following directions, and you'd be "Hot as a Hare, Dry as a Bone, Red as a Beet, Mad as a Hatter, Blind as a Bat." (Anticholinergic Toxidrome). Does any of that seem familiar? Flushing, impaired vision, and no I'm not kidding... did you try to undress?

Haha no I didn't try to undress. I think an explanation of hypoxia or something is more likely than me being drugged, as I'd been doing ~40 minutes of my normal training before hand so I don't see any window of time where I could get drugged.

Unfortunately, I don't remember how much I'd eaten or drunk, too long ago. Perhaps it could be dehydration.
 
  • #297
The 40 minute workout... how quickly did you move from that level of activity to the Chi exercises? Dehydration is possible as a somatic trigger for panic, but not the symptoms themselves. If it had been so severe you couldn't have performed 40 minutes of Katas and such, and 3 minutes to back-to-normal?... nah.

So, Maybe a panic reaction, or a crash in BP as a result of the change in pace and posture. This can be similar to the old trick kids sometimes do (NOTE: DO NOT DO THIS AT HOME OR ANYWHERE), where one holds his breath and stands upright against a wall, while the other presses on The Solar Plexus. If done properly this can induce a brief "faint" (syncopy). There are methods that manipulate the Vagus Nerve to induce syncopy, but it isn't usually preceeded by hallucinations of such length, not to mention you'd have felt terribly nauseous afterwards.

Hmmmmm...
 
  • #298
I started doing the Chi exercises immediately following the workout. My breath was short, I was tired, but it wasn't something I hadn't gone through before. Hmm, who knows.
a) I'm lying about what happened,
b) I'm lying about my history of drugs,
c) it's Chi (whether a supernatural force or purely medically explainable),
d) any other myriad of physiological possible causes,
e) amazing feat of suggestion,
f) some combinatino of the above.
 
  • #299
imiyakawa said:
I started doing the Chi exercises immediately following the workout. My breath was short, I was tired, but it wasn't something I hadn't gone through before. Hmm, who knows.
a) I'm lying about what happened,
b) I'm lying about my history of drugs,
c) it's Chi (whether a supernatural force or purely medically explainable),
d) any other myriad of physiological possible causes,
e) amazing feat of suggestion,
f) some combinatino of the above.

Agreed. I think that's the best we can do, with the caveat that I don't believe in A or B in this case, and you don't seem to display any of D that would that explain this. Your personality as it comes across online, doesn't seem more or less suggestible than most. One way or another, I find this interesting.
 
  • #300
Strange ><. I wished the people claiming these abilities would actually go out and seek testing, I know I certainly would if chi existed and I could use it.
 
  • #301
imiyakawa said:
Strange ><. I wished the people claiming these abilities would actually go out and seek testing, I know I certainly would if chi existed and I could use it.

That may be one of the best arguments AGAINST the existence of Chi, and well said too.
 
  • #302
I have practiced qigong for about 18 years. From my experience, I know qi is a real force. I have an extensive scientific background, so it was a bit of a stretch at first to let go and experiment with it. Analysis doesn't help with the feeling of it, it happens best when you relax and do the forms/exercises automatically. Qi doesn't flow through a tense muscle. You can see demos on YouTube that show people using force (external forms like karate) against experienced practitioners - they always lose.
 
  • #303
coltech88 said:
From my experience, I know qi is a real force. I have an extensive scientific background

That's pretty paradoxical bunch of statements...

You can see demos on YouTube that show people using force (external forms like karate) against experienced practitioners - they always lose.

Doesn't a "demo" usually mean a pre-planned demonstration, in which there are no losers or winners?

There are no videos on youtube about real fights (or fighting sports events) in which chi would be used successfully against a practitioner of a more practical style. I promise to be interested if somebody proves me wrong with one counter example.
 
  • #304
coltech88 said:
I have practiced qigong for about 18 years. From my experience, I know qi is a real force. I have an extensive scientific background, so it was a bit of a stretch at first to let go and experiment with it. Analysis doesn't help with the feeling of it, it happens best when you relax and do the forms/exercises automatically. Qi doesn't flow through a tense muscle. You can see demos on YouTube that show people using force (external forms like karate) against experienced practitioners - they always lose.

The only thing we care about is if you can do a hadouken or not.
 
  • #305
xxChrisxx said:
The only thing we care about is if you can do a hadouken or not.

Hadouken :biggrin:

That's pretty nerdy stuff. There's even a schematic picture of the technique...
 
  • #306
Chimps said:
I would gravitate towards the most logical explanation, and for me that would rule out the supernatural.

Hypoxia may be incorrect but of course that doesn't mean that by default an unexplainable, unquantifiable and supernatural force was therefore involved. It just means we might not have the knowledge to explain it satisfactorily yet.


Chimps, I think the point here is that people are claiming Chi is NOT supernatural, but rather an undefined natural phenomena.

And, based on personal experience, I believe that he was told how to exercise the Chi, but not what he would experience/feel. His experiences were then confirmed as correct or incorrect by the teacher. Since the sensations felt are difficult to describe objectively.

This does not rule out mind generated sensations, but it seems that you are discounting his experiences without consideration. The whole point of science is to keep an open mind.
How about suggesting experiments that might help prove or disprove the existence of Chi.

Personally I believe the exercises to provoke something (Psychosomatic or not), mainly because of the similarity between the descriptions of various practitioners. I don't know what it is, but I do believe there is something there that bears investigation.
 
  • #307
Ok, well, I've just starting Bagua QiGong (I get trained for free by a family friend) and you CAN feel what these people are calling Chi! Although, for me to feel it requires tendonal/muscle/whatever stretching in the hand forearm area. Your hand starts to "pump", as if there's air rushing through it. It is a noticeable, real, quite intense and very interesting feeling. There are a few hand positions that can make this effect. One is rotating your left hand as far left as you possible can without snapping your arm off, while having your 4 fingers outstretched as far as you possibly can and your thumb outstretched but pushed inwards a little so that there's a large ball-shaped groove in the middle of your hand, and hold that position. I don't think it's constricting veins and the resultant increase in pressure as blood pumps through them, as it's not in sync with my heart beat (I can sometimes feel ~20 small "pumps" in a few seconds).

Now, the person that's teaching me says that after more training you can;
A) Induce this same feeling through you head (so up your front, over your head, and down your spine).
B) You can induce mild pumping without actually doing anything, but just by thinking. (Although, this could be a type of autogenics).

I have no reason to suspect he is fibbing and I'm going to be trained to that level eventually anyway so it would be silly to lie, A) would be extremely interesting.

He also claims you can move the Chi into whatever area you desire. Although, I'm not sure if he means you can move the actual obvious pumping to a desired area, I will ask him this.

I'll report back when I'm better trained.

rplatter said:
Personally I believe the exercises to provoke something (Psychosomatic or not), mainly because of the similarity between the descriptions of various practitioners. I don't know what it is, but I do believe there is something there that bears investigation.

Yes, it is a non-imaginary, obvious feeling.

Try it out right now, and hold the hand position for 5-30 minutes. I guarantee you will feel some slight pumping. This pumping will grow massively with practice. Another hand position is having your left arm outstretched in front of you, having your thumb pointing to your right sholder, your fingers stretchted upwards as far as possible, make a hollow ball in the middle of your hand, and have the left side of the palm of your left hand vertical to the ground with your forearm parallel to the ground. This angulation is impossible without practice, but go as far as is safe and you will eventually feel the pumping.

----

OH, another thing. He can make the pumping in his stomach just by thinking.

I know what you're thinking. He CAN actually do this. I put my hand on his stomach and I feel rumbling. I actually feel it.

He claims that some master in China he trains with can put his hand on his stomach and his stomach will grumble much stronger than usual. He states that his master can grumble his stomach area ("dantien") so that it's audible.

Also, whenever he swings his arm around (to get blood into it and to develop power, one of the exercises we do), you can feel pumping around his kidney area and next to his shoulder (on the soft part, near the neck). He says he didn't have this before he started going to China - he met some master who told him what exercise you do to enable this (Horse stance, body twisted as far as possible, swing arm). I haven't developed it yet but I've been very lazy with this exercise. What the hell?

----

Here's 1 of the hand positions you can try.
atqon.jpg
. The guy isn't doing it properly and therefore will feel no pumping but the corrections are in there. Hold it for 1 hour and you should feel significant pumping.
 
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  • #308
Riveting tale, chap.
 
  • #309
J77 said:
When I used to do karate, we had to channel our Qi to stand firmer.

It does strangely work - the firmer bit. If you tense your muscles to stand firm, you can easily be knocked over. However, if you imagine your body flowing through the floor - as if you were fixed with your surroundings - it's very hard to move you, bit like a tree :wink:

Also, Qi is a very handy Scrabble word :biggrin:

I heard that as well. One day I was asked to test a person's chi, and he got the opportunity to test his backside. From that point on, they told me my "chi is very strong."

I didn't have the heart to tell them they were very guillible, and stopped taking Aikido shortly thereafter.
 
  • #310
mugaliens said:
I heard that as well. One day I was asked to test a person's chi, and he got the opportunity to test his backside. From that point on, they told me my "chi is very strong."

I don't understand your point here. Are you saying that you beat someone who was supposed to have a strong chi?

I didn't have the heart to tell them they were very guillible, and stopped taking Aikido shortly thereafter.

So then you are drawing a conclusion based on what?
 
  • #311
Until the federal government allows the Dim Mak to be used as a method of execution, we may never know. :wink:

If people are saying that this is a real phenomenon, I would just ask... which one? Some descriptions sound like the result of good body dynamics in a particular strike, along with intense concentration... others claim a cessation of pain all the way to extinguishing a flame at a distance. If there is a single force at play in these and other examples, it would seem to be physically unlikely, but as a collection of biophysical principles, body conditioning, mental focus, hypnosis/meditation, pain tolerance, and a knowledge of human anatomy then I can buy that. Of course, this doesn't allow for anything super- or pretur- natural... just extreme or unexpected results couched in mystical terms.

If you see an Israeli commando exceed anything like a reasonable period of time in cold or hot conditions, or a Russian Spetsnaz operator withstand a series of blows... they could each say, "Through training, natural ability, and conditioning I achieve this", or they could say, "It's my Chi". Those examples of personal experiences of "feeling" versus object lessons like a death-touch or extinguishing a flame are Veeeeeeeeerrrrrryyyy different.

Oh, and for a meditative experience, Aikido is great... for self-defense try something like Krav Maga, Systema, or other (para) military infighting techniques along with a martial art for balance and extra technique.
 
  • #312
well... there's no magic or spooky action at a distance, that's for sure. just look earlier in the thread for the video i linked. real martial artist challenges a chi master to a fight. chi master got his a** beat.
 
  • #313
J77 said:
I think this describes Bruce Lee's famous one inch punch.

.

to me that looks like a push punch,doesnt looks like it would hurt much,maybe take you off balance,this is a punch to me-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRs5budNvxg"

just looking at it you know it would hurt :approve:
 
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  • #314
Relevant, and in my opinion, interesting essay about the martial arts.

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~grussell/epistemicviciousness.pdf [Broken]
 
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  • #315
Galteeth said:
Relevant, and in my opinion, interesting essay about the martial arts.

http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~grussell/epistemicviciousness.pdf [Broken]
An excellent essay about self-deception in the martial arts. Thanks for posting!
 
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<h2>1. What is Chi?</h2><p>Chi, also known as Qi, is a concept in Chinese philosophy that refers to the vital energy or life force that flows through all living beings and the universe. It is believed to be the fundamental force that governs the functioning of the human body and the universe.</p><h2>2. Is Chi scientifically proven?</h2><p>There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of Chi as a tangible energy or force. However, the concept of Chi plays a significant role in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts, and many people believe in its existence based on personal experiences and cultural beliefs.</p><h2>3. Can Chi be measured or quantified?</h2><p>Since Chi is not a scientifically proven concept, it cannot be measured or quantified using standard scientific methods. However, some studies have attempted to measure the effects of practices like acupuncture and Tai Chi, which are based on the concept of Chi, on the body's physiological processes.</p><h2>4. How is Chi related to the human body?</h2><p>In Chinese philosophy, Chi is believed to flow through channels or meridians in the body, influencing the functioning of organs and bodily systems. It is also associated with the balance and harmony of the mind, body, and spirit. Practices like acupuncture and Tai Chi aim to regulate the flow of Chi in the body to promote health and well-being.</p><h2>5. Is Chi the same as other energy concepts like prana or ki?</h2><p>Chi, prana, and ki are all concepts related to vital energy or life force in different cultures and belief systems. While they may share some similarities, they are not interchangeable, and their specific meanings and applications may vary. It is important to understand the cultural and philosophical context of each concept before making any comparisons or assumptions.</p>

1. What is Chi?

Chi, also known as Qi, is a concept in Chinese philosophy that refers to the vital energy or life force that flows through all living beings and the universe. It is believed to be the fundamental force that governs the functioning of the human body and the universe.

2. Is Chi scientifically proven?

There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of Chi as a tangible energy or force. However, the concept of Chi plays a significant role in traditional Chinese medicine and martial arts, and many people believe in its existence based on personal experiences and cultural beliefs.

3. Can Chi be measured or quantified?

Since Chi is not a scientifically proven concept, it cannot be measured or quantified using standard scientific methods. However, some studies have attempted to measure the effects of practices like acupuncture and Tai Chi, which are based on the concept of Chi, on the body's physiological processes.

4. How is Chi related to the human body?

In Chinese philosophy, Chi is believed to flow through channels or meridians in the body, influencing the functioning of organs and bodily systems. It is also associated with the balance and harmony of the mind, body, and spirit. Practices like acupuncture and Tai Chi aim to regulate the flow of Chi in the body to promote health and well-being.

5. Is Chi the same as other energy concepts like prana or ki?

Chi, prana, and ki are all concepts related to vital energy or life force in different cultures and belief systems. While they may share some similarities, they are not interchangeable, and their specific meanings and applications may vary. It is important to understand the cultural and philosophical context of each concept before making any comparisons or assumptions.

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