Some of your thoughts on Chi Kung...

[MightyB]

I'm interested in hearing peoples' thoughts on Chi Kung and Chi Kung training.

Personally, I believe that people are way off with what Chi is and what Chi Kung can really do. I've never seen a Chi Kung exhibition that couldn't be explained as a parlor trick that anybody could do with a little training and a bit of knowledge of good ol' physics.

Now, my personal opinion is that Chi Kung - Iron Body/Iron Fist training is good, but I believe that it doesn't allow a person to perform miracles like most claim. I think that it was a way to condition a person to work and fight through pain, and what better way to get a person to do the self-abusing exercises of Chi Kung than to tell them that they will be impervious to knives and such on the battlefield. (If I was a general in the old days, I would feel a little better if I knew that the majority of my men would fight on even if they were mortally wounded.)

What are some of your thoughts on this subject?

[denali]

Basically, most people who don't train it, don't believe it. So you will get many different responses. The only way is to find out for yourself. Try it out.

[Justa Man]

but I believe that it doesn't allow a person to perform miracles like most claim

what miracles are you referring to?
what chi gung exercises do you think are "self-abusing"?

[MightyB]

Going on 9 years traditional CMA. Done it-- Iron Palm, Iron Body, Hardcore Shin and Forearm conditioning, even the Lo Han Gung and Wu style Tai Chi. Still don't believe it's all what people claim it to be. I'm not saying there isn't anything there, just not what people claim it is.

I read a little book on the 5 canons of Chan Budhism a long time ago. I can't remember it word for word (I'm Christian and have no desire to memorize Budhist psalms) but it went a little like this. If you seek Budha and you see Budha, then it's not Budha. If you seek enlightenment and feel enlightenment, then it's not enlightenment.

Something to think about...

Keep 'em coming.

[MightyB]

The "miracles" that I'm referring to are the superhuman feats people claim. The usual... invincibility, curing diseases, levitation, the death touch, immortality and longevity, and any of the other pop-psycho bull that the peddlers push.

Do some Iron Body, Iron Palm, and some Shin/Forearm conditioning and you'll see what I mean by "self-abuse" (I do and love the conditioning and Iron body/palm training. Also, dynamic strength and tension exercises are great).

I'm not saying that there's no Chi, I just think people are seeking too much from training in it.

Keep 'em coming.

[Repulsive Monkey]

I have to be honet but you have a maasive misunderstaniding as to what inenal training and Qi Gong reallt illicts as far as personal traoining is concerned. Qi gong is NOT primaril;y about being impervious to weapons and the such but more about the difference between internal and external training. It's obvious from wht you say that you do not have a firm grasp of what internal cultivation is about. Qi is very real and the difference between internal and external is a much debated topic on this forum. One for which I am not about to re-ignite. External and internal martial arts do have somer very obvious differences as far as training is concerned and I think it would be to your advantange to consider in an acadmic perspective the main principle differences prior to making any statements contrary to the other.

[EARTH DRAGON]

Well without going to much into deatail there is many different kinds of qigong training, medical , scholar and martial. I practice medical and it is definatly real. The main objective again not going to go too deep but the manin objective it to treat someone that has a unbalance in thier flow of chi. When they are unbalanced they become sick. accupuncture does the same. Inserting needles into meridains in which chi flow to unblock stagnet chi.

When perfroming qigong treaments we do just that without the use of needles. You shoot chi from your fingertips to perfrom the same function. This is very real and used everyday by 1000's of people as well as my shrfu Yen chu feng. She cures many diseases like cancer, aids, heppatitis, lymphomia and many many more. So with some years in the martial arts you should learn to open your mind to possiblities. Just becuse you have never seen it does that mean that is doesnt exsist?......... explain gravity if I didnt belive in it....
I invite you to brose my web site and check out the masters page by clicking the photos button. There you will see my teacher shooting her chi ointo my leg as I shove a 9" steel wire through my thigh without pain or a drop of blood. I did this on a medical show and the doctors could not explian the absence of blood medically. They did say that possibly I was able to block out the pain but I could not mentally stop blood from comming through the epedermis to the skins surface......

As far as martial qigong the highest level of iron palm is breaking with out lifting the hand off of the object you intend to break. This can only be done by shooting chi through the object. strength is not a part of iron palm , proper use of channeling your internal energy is the only way.

[Brett Again]

Personally, I believe that people are way off with what Chi is and what Chi Kung can really do.
I think you are way off with what chi kung really IS.

Chi Kung is "breath work," loosley translated. It can and does strengthen the mind, the muscles, and/or the internal organs, depending on what sort of chi kung you're doing. (Soft or hard, moving or standing, etc.)

I've never heard chi kung having anything to do with dim mak (which is real, by the way) or levitation (which I'm pretty sure is not.) And of course, there are charlatans in any field of endeavor.

On a side note, if you think Iron Palm training is "self abusive" then you're probably doing it wrong.

JMHO.

[MightyB]

This is the kind of debate that I'm looking for.

Personally, I still think that most of what I've seen as good chi is more about attitude, experience, balance, sense of distance, and timing. I'm thinking about old school Aikido clips of Ueshiba from the BBC. He does dominate a room full of martial artists.

Now about blowing things up without moving the hand, I'd like to see it, not hear about it, but see it.

I'm not saying that there isn't internal energy, and, yes, there are some martial arts styles that seem to employ the use more so than others. I don't want to start fights about internal versus external and so forth, because, when it comes down to it, there is no internal versus external all MA incorporate elements of both (even western boxing-- see speed to lead on http://www.ringside.com "being relaxed is one of the keys to speed").

I still would like to see some more thoughts on this subject, so please keep 'em coming.

[Wongsifu]

dude its all possible, just cause were not at the level to do them doesnt mean it doesnt exist. its just that its beyond normal comprehension ot expalin why they are possible.

you said yourself youve done iron palm, did you manage to break 10 slabs of ice? , when you were 5 years old you wouldnt have believed this!
you know

[prana]

Originally posted by MightyB
I still would like to see some more thoughts on this subject, so please keep 'em coming.

Hi there MightyB

I am guesing we have never conversed, and I hope this doesn't come o'er as a seed of anger.

There is one consistency with the training of Qi Gong. Highly accomplished Qi Gong practioners tend to favour things such as healing, peace, perfection of heart (cantonese:sum) and preperation for death, as opposed to money, fame and external influences


Going on 9 years traditional CMA. Done it-- Iron Palm, Iron Body, Hardcore Shin and Forearm conditioning, even the Lo Han Gung and Wu style Tai Chi.

Please, I mean no offense, but 10 years of training in all these aspects as you mentioned is not a good feat, in fact, it is too short to arise any true effects. If you were to have spent 10 years training only ONE aspect of any one of the above, then you will have my attention. 10 years of scattering the mind, is 10 years worth of misery to your life, and perhaps 10 years less in your precious life.


I think that it was a way to condition a person to work and fight through pain, and what better way to get a person to do the self-abusing exercises of Chi Kung than to tell them that they will be impervious to knives and such on the battlefield.


... I can't further comment on this quote...


I read a little book on the 5 canons of Chan Budhism a long time ago. I can't remember it word for word (I'm Christian and have no desire to memorize Budhist psalms) but it went a little like this. If you seek Budha and you see Budha, then it's not Budha. If you seek enlightenment and feel enlightenment, then it's not enlightenment.

Something to think about...

:cool:

good luck in your training and keep it coming.

[GLW]

Medical, Martial, Scholar....

I always love the way we humans categorize....

So exactly how does the Qi in the body know which kind it is...:)

Even those categories are contrived...

Just like the idea of giving Qi to someone:

If it is possible:
First, your pre-birth Qi is finite and TCM theory and Qi theory state that when your pre-birth Qi is depeleted, you die.

Second, TCM theory indicates that in the body, the pre and post birth Qi's are intermingled so you can't split them out...if you could, you would be able to isolate pre-birth and never lose it no matter what you did.

So, if you give Qi, how much of your life are you giving and how much is that really worth.

Next idea...if you give Qi to open a person's Jing Luo, have you done them any favor?

Well, their channels are blocked for a reason....their diet, behavior, etc... and people learn Qi Gong to open things up and improve the flow.

To open things up for a person without them knowing how to keep it open means that they will just close down again...also, the process of Qi Gong training is the important thing...it is the journey and not the destination that is important....

So, if you do this, you are depriving them of the journey....are you really doing a good thing....?

Just some of the things that come from Qi Gong and the writings about it....and the contradictions.

[dedalus]

Dude, a couple of weeks ago I tapped a guy's bladder with the biggest ****ing needle I could find, and there wasn't a drop of blood during the procedure. And haven't we all seen the insane piercing rituals they perform on certain holidays in India? I think this is very poor evidence for the action of qi.

I agree with you that there are some healers out there who can do some pretty unusual things, but none of those things confirm the existence of qi. Positing qi helps to explain them, but what's actually going on is unknown - its a veil of perception thing in my opinion.

I do qigong and it is good for me, but even so I don't know if I believe in qi literally. In a way though it doesn't matter... if it works for you, you can explain it as you like.

[EARTH DRAGON]

I dont mean to sound argumentive or negitive but you said.......
Chi Kung is "breath work," loosley translated. It can and does strengthen the mind, the muscles, and/or the internal organs, depending on what sort of chi kung you're doing. (Soft or hard, moving or standing, etc.)

Very loosly indeed this is not a good translation. Chi means "life energy" gong, gung, kung means "skill" so actually chigung, qigong should actually but translated to "energy skill".

As for soft and hard this should mean internal or external.
And for moving or standing this is more like meditation or excersises not a sort of qigong training. again I do not mean to try to correct anyone but just wanted to clear that up...

[No_Know]

applying a bit of knowledge of good ol' physics, one could arrive at a predetermined destination a hundred miles away within the same minute they left; one could molecularlly convert ambiant matter to netrients and not have to eat for months, years, for ever; one could adjust the local airpressure to force two sides of a gash close, then accelerate the natural biomechanics that repairs and no poof yet as if was nogash, no gash and as before skin. But of course these are merely parlor tricks to someone applying a bit of good ol' physics.

Shut up and Prove It! ? O.K. you can't die...where's my loaded gun?

""How do you know if you've never tried?""

You don't necessarilly Have to know.

[MightyB]

Thanks to everybody who replied. Qi, Chi, or Ki is a very complex subject that I think should be discussed more because it is a central thought in all Eastern Martial Arts.

I read and did enjoy all of your thoughts on this subject.

[TigerJaw]

EarthDragon, like you I don't wish to be fractious but I have something to add to your comments.

I'm a physicist and as such I have studied what is known as energy. It's not an abstract concept but a strictly defined, measurable physical quantity. It can be expressed in a number of forms and is, accoriding to Einstein, equivilent to mass.

The definition which is widly accepted by society has absolutely nothing to do with Chi. Chi can't be considered to be a form of energy, it can't be measured with the instruments which we measure energy with and doesn't fit into our physical model of the universe.

This doesn't mean that Chi doesn't exist. It simply means that it isn't energy.

[Satanachia]

The way i see just about anything...

I'm not going to believe anything completely until i see it.
And once that happens, seeing it is now not good enough. Now i must strive to "understand" it. I'm one of those people that has to understand every little concept behind something taking place, i'm not just happy to see or do. I have to know.

That being said, i have often looked into a number of topics of just about everything under the sun, and chi/energy/meditation/spirituality stuff is one of my favourites. I've seen and read hundreds of articles, both by the scientific and by normal everyday people. Some seem beyond amazing, others are rediculously simple and explainable by modern physics. But there's always some that just aren't.

There will always be a great number of people who claim their using chi, or spirtual energy, or flowing energy, Kundalani energy, life force, what ever "mystical" name they want to use for their acts. And i'll say that more than the majority of these people are either frauds, or simply those who themselves are too ignorant to know what their talking about is wrong. And many things which these people claim to do with their "energy" work is indeed simple physics. Ie. Put force here, something happens....WOW!!!!!

But then there's some cases, which i'm sad to say are definitely in the minority, which really make you wonder and want to learn more. Cases of healings(which even if sychoschematic, psychosis(sp?), or simply the power of suggestion or placebo effects are absolutely incredible), impossible feats with seemingly reliable witnesses at the time, or other such things such as videos/recordings that happened to collarborate such stories of things people have no real explanation for. The real problem is of course understanding. The very thing which i believe i seek, and which i believe most practioners want to. Unfortunately, we have very little of it, and most of these events, even though they stand up to examination by themselves, are not easily or 100% repeatable and so get dismissed.

In the end i remain a sceptic, but i like to think it is with an open mind.
I myself don't know anyone who believes they have attained a mastery of their "chi" as it were, but i'm willing to bet that those who have undertaken such arts will admit that they are but learners, students always striving to learn more. And they probably always will be. Is there a point where one stops learning. Where all is known? Maybe. Some of you would call it enlightenment. Has anyone reached it here?
I highly doubt it:p

If someone wants to believe they can stop an arrow with their "chi", i say let them, but i won't believe it until i see it with my own eyes.
If someone says they can heal with chi, well, that i have heard of, known of and seen. Do i understand it? No. I do not.

Does anyone really understand it perfectly? No. And i would believe anyone that claims they do, is lying and fits into the position of fraud. So of course there will be discrepancies.
Does it exist and does it work? Maybe. Maybe not. Either way none of us know for sure, all we can do is judge on what we know, but for most, that is limited.

[Satanachia]

God, i'm not sure if i had a point in my previous post or not, i think i started ranting, either way, i guess what i'm saying is this.

Of course chi, if it exists, will not be 100% verifiable accurate. Nothing in this world is.

If western medicine were to be held up to the same scrutiny as many attack eastern medicine and chi manipulation, it would of been "proved" false. Especially when you get all these idiots and completly unknowledgable people out there with old wives tales, myths, and miraculous things which simply don't work. And then those that do work, we admit there's only a chance that they will work. Especially in some cases.

Does this mean that western medicine is innefective?

Of course not, yet many would hold eastern medicine and chi manipulation and control up to the same rediculous standard. They hear of some guy who says he performs miraculous things with his chi training. Of course he turns out to be a fraud.
So they say chi is false. But in western medicine, when some guy comes on an infomercial with a new "miracle breakthrough" or somesuch, do we say "that's rediculous, western medicine obviously doesn't work".

In short the same should be held with eastern practices and concepts such as chi and energy manipulation. Don't focus on those who don't get results from their wild outrageous voistrous claims, instead, focus and learn from those who do get some results from theirs.

[MightyB]

I think that you're stumbling onto my thoughts on Chi. I don't believe in magic. I don't think Chi can be understood. My perception of it would be more like... that last ounce of strength that lets you fight on even though you shouldn't be able to, the way a little old lady lifts a car to save a young child, that undefinable feeling of victory before you've even started...

I think Chi, if there is such a thing, will be there when you need it. Until then, train like a champion, because if the Chi's not there, you'll always have a good right cross.

[Tainan Mantis]

TigerJaw,
Light has energy, but no mass. Or not?

Also, I thought there were several problems with the theory of quantum mechanics that are still unresolved.

Keep it in laypersons terms as I'm not a physicist.

[MightyB]

He'll start telling us about waves and particles and the unified theory, and then he'll want us to read about Shroedinger's dead cat, and that will just scare the Hell out of all of us!

[Repulsive Monkey]

but the way you analogize it I feel is incorrect. I don't think it will pop up by accident. If one is training internally one needs to learn how to manipulate Qi to use it practically. If it is undeveloped I wouldn't count on it for getting you out of sticky situations.

[prana]

Originally posted by TigerJaw
EarthDragon, like you I don't wish to be fractious but I have something to add to your comments.

I'm a physicist and as such I have studied what is known as energy. It's not an abstract concept but a strictly defined, measurable physical quantity. It can be expressed in a number of forms and is, accoriding to Einstein, equivilent to mass.

The definition which is widly accepted by society has absolutely nothing to do with Chi. Chi can't be considered to be a form of energy, it can't be measured with the instruments which we measure energy with and doesn't fit into our physical model of the universe.

This doesn't mean that Chi doesn't exist. It simply means that it isn't energy.

heehhe energy is an english word ;)

[joedoe]

Just because you can't measure it doesn't mean it is not energy ;)

People seems to forget that qi is defined in a completely different paradigm to the westerm scientific paradigm. So if it does not fit the western scientific/medical paradigm, obviously it is wrong (or doesn't exist etc) right?

Western science/medicine does a very good job of projecting the image that its method is the correct one. Western medicine knows exactly how the human body functions. It also knows exactly how every medicine that doctors prescribe works and how it affects the body. WRONG.

Debating qi is a pointless exercise. Either you experience it or you don't. If you don't, then you will never believe in its existence.

[prana]

bravo Joedoe. I don't know how to say it any better.

Now all those words can fit into a picture, what would it look like ? :D

[Yung Apprentice]

Wouldn't it just be better to train both externally and internally , than just trying to do one or the other?

[TigerJaw]

Tainan Mantis, Light has mass. I shan't go into it because we'll end up all off topic but I can assure you that behaves as if it does have mass.

Joedoe, I have to disagree. If it doesn't behave like energy, you can't say that it's energy.

Please don't mis-understand me. I'm not argueing against it's existence or it's potential usefullness. I'm just argueing against the temptation to crow-bar things like Chi into western paradigms.

IMHO, there is nothing in Western science that is equivilent to Chi, so I call Chi, Chi. When asked what is by non martial artsists, I just describe it's characteristics and uses.

[Bak Mei]

Find a really good teacher. Something subtle can make all the difference I have found.

As far as what I am experieincing after 10 months, I don't know if it is unique or notbecause my master will not discuss it as to not pollute my experience with expectations. But I have felt the training taking effect and continues to do so. The juices are going so to speak and I feel very well tuned in, to my body and my surroundings.

I wouldn't even consider putting a spear, real or wushu, to my throat, wouldn't let anyone kick me in the balls or throat either. That's not what I'm feeling. What I am feeling is a sense of invincibility in a hand to hand situation: solid, simple defensive shapes, combined with explosive short power (through breath, body mechanics and training, this is what I have gotten from internal.

[EARTH DRAGON]

although I wont agrue with what you said I will disagree, you said that chi is not energy but it is ,"life force energy", man has simply not yet invented a machine that can test it's energy properties so therfore scientists will agrue that it is not energy based on thier understanding of what energy is! before the invention of the microscope there were germs, bacteria and such , but it was only after man could see and measure them they said yes they do exsist. Do you see what I am getting at?

Before christoffer columbus the world was believed by its population flat, seemed flat, looked flat, pictured flat and drawn flat. was it flat? no but it took someone to prove it, so just becuse we havent proved chi is energy does that mean that is isn"t? NO it simply means that we have not invented a means to test, prove, mesasure etc etc. its properties as energy. I hope I have expalined my point to help you understand that just becuse it hasnt been proved it can exsist. that s what the art of science is! discovery. black holes do they exsist? are the enenrgy? are they a dead star? before the telescope who knew? gallieo...........

[Nexus]

Just as someone can spend their entire life learning about energy from physics books, I could spend my entire life learning about chi from chinese medicine books and qi gong books and tai chi books...

Neither of these practices bring us any closer to experiencing this energy for ourselves unless we take some of what we learned and attempt to apply it.

With that said, and said earlier in this thread, chinese and western medicine are functions of different paradigms. We can argue over "this detail" and "that detail" but truly if we don't go out and explore both avenues for ourselves we commit ourselves to ignorance regardless.

You could have all the book-knowledge in the world about qi gong and energy healing, and someone else could be in a room with you who had chi kung for 25 years. Who really understands it better, who's opinion really counts on the issue, who would you prefer doing healing work on you if you needed it done?

Nobody is asking anyone to believe in it chi or anything like that. If you don't believe in it, don't believe in it. I don't believe in bubbles shaped like squares, but I can imagine a bubble shaped like a square. Can you imagine the existence of chi?

- Nexus

[TjD]

i think people are getting mixed up with the definition of energy here


energy while referring to life force, chi, what have you is something intirely different than energy in the physics sense of the term... you cannot describe it with a formula

i think theyre two entirely different things, and people are getting caught up in using the same word


peace
travis

[Ginger Fist]

http://coke.rotten.com/gran-canarias/

[TigerJaw]

Originally posted by TjD
i think people are getting mixed up with the definition of energy here


energy while referring to life force, chi, what have you is something intirely different than energy in the physics sense of the term... you cannot describe it with a formula

i think theyre two entirely different things, and people are getting caught up in using the same word


peace
travis

Thank you TJD i was beginning to feel like a lone voice.

I agree with most of what you say apart from the bit about the equation. I reckon that one day, we might have equations that describe Chi. We just haven't reached that point yet.

I think that many Chi Gong practishoners have seized on the word energy in order to give Chi Gung a more scientific turn of phrase. I personally think that this is conter-productive since Chi doesn't behave in the same way that energy does at all, it appears to obey very different laws indeed. This confusion of words causes more reductionist thinkers to simply disregard Chi as tree-hugging hippy nonsence, which we all know is not the case.

If we get away from this poor analogy to energy, I think we might develop a better understanding of what Chi is.

No doubt, there will come a time when Chi can be measured, perhaps directly controlled and medically applied using technology. If this were to happen tomorrow, I'd be right next to Earth Dragon saying 'I told you so'.

Having said that, If you want to think in terms of 'life energy' and 'physical energy' as two different but perhaps analogeous concepts then I guess I can accept that. I only take issue when the two are confused and people claim that they are the same thing.

So why do I care about this fine and aparently pedantic point? I hear you ask. Well, simply because I would like to see chinese medicine taken more seriously than it is at the minute. I'd like to see real research into the field, something which has not yet happened, which is why Chi isn't part of science's picture of the universe. I think if Chi-gung practishoners claim that Chi is Energy, western society won't take the question seriously.

[Fish of Fury]

actually i kinda like that "definition" tigerjaw.
i personally feel many attempts to classify Qi have fallen short and given it a bad rep. in some circles.

I have a Q though (genuine question) isn't it true that due to the concepts of the Duality of Matter that light can be classified as both a particle (photon = matter) AND a wave (energy) but can only behave in one of those ways at a time?

that theory goes some of the way (at least in my mind) to explaining why Qi can be so paradoxical...perhaps it can never be explained in ONE simple way (?) (not suggesting that Qi IS light, just drawing a parallel)

[TigerJaw]

Originally posted by Fish of Fury
actually i kinda like that "definition" tigerjaw.
i personally feel many attempts to classify Qi have fallen short and given it a bad rep. in some circles.

I have a Q though (genuine question) isn't it true that due to the concepts of the Duality of Matter that light can be classified as both a particle (photon = matter) AND a wave (energy) but can only behave in one of those ways at a time?

that theory goes some of the way (at least in my mind) to explaining why Qi can be so paradoxical...perhaps it can never be explained in ONE simple way (?) (not suggesting that Qi IS light, just drawing a parallel)

That's interesting.

Just to answer the raw physics part as concisely as I can. Your right that light behaves sometimes as a particle and sometimes as a wave but it can sometimes show some wave like and some particle like behaviour at the same time. A good example is single photon interference. What you do is you shine a coherent source through a slit and the light defracts as the light waves interfere. Now if you turn the source down so low that only one photon is released every second. Your demostrating the particle bahviour but the interference pattern still remains.

This is a very freaky result that can only really be explained in terms of the complicated maths of quantum mechanics. It's impossible to explain or indeed understand in simple terms because there are no analogies we can draw to things that we experience in everyday life.

The understanding of Chi could suffer from the same problem. Since it's unlike anything else, we can't explain it in the context of what we have previously experienced. We would need some estoteric theory to describe it perhaps.

Mind you, with light, we don't need to understand the intricasies of Quantum mechanics in order to design a lens or build a laser. Simple models that stick purely to the wave or particle models will do. Research into Chi might start by trying to model only certain aspects of it's behaviour and we could join the dots later, that's how science usually tackles such difficult questions.

[scotty1]

Hi, I don't have much time and I've missed the middle of the discussion and I've only read the last page and I don't have a ****ing clue about what you people are going on about (single photon inteference :confused: ) BUT there's an article on www.dragonslist.com about how Chi is bio-electrical energy or something. Might be completely inrrelevant, I just thought I'd let you know.

For the record though, I have started soing some very basic Qigong and I've noticed benefits, within about a month.

Er, I'll get my coat.:)