Do they work or is it just another snake oil nonsense?
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Do they work or is it just another snake oil nonsense?
unless you can get a machine to replicate the totality of interractions between all physiological systems in the human body and the environment within which it functions...well, what do you think?Quote:
Originally Posted by aussie1981
people seem to have this obsessive desire to demonstrate "qi" as a quantifiable "thing" distinct from other "things", in the way that light, heat, electromagnetism, etc. can be relatively isolated; problem is, it doesn't work that way; but people get strange ideas in their heads and just can't seem to understand what in fact the convention of "qi" is really all about (think about it - "qi" is used in so many different ways and contexts in a classical sense, how could one even for a moment think that it could be reduced to some sort of singular "force" or "energy"? this is just fallout from the charlatans who have hoodwinked people with parlor tricks)
Friend of mine had one and swore by it for relieving back pain from strain. I had never heard of such a thing. Evidently you lie supine and place your ankles onto the device and it provides a constant oscillating movement to shift your legs back and forth.
When I worked in a pt clinic in my younger days I learned to do this manually as a diagnostic for pelvic/low back tightness (when the heels don't line up you know what to look for). Spending some time with this kind of movement might stimulate the cs "pump," blood circulation, and encourage the supporting musculature to reset.
We must also allow for the placebo effect, of course. After all, it's a "chi" machine. That must be way cooler than exercise.
A Bak Hok teacher showed me an exercise that had similar effect for relieving morning stiffness and back pain: sit on the edge of a bed or armless chair (or in a horse stance) to isolate the pelvis. Place your arms akimbo with the tiger's mouths of your hands against the lower ribs and gently swing your trunk left and right while keeping the head stationary. The arms act as a flywheel to provide inertia during the swings. When your waist is ready to go to the right your arms are still moving to the left. Provides a gentle stretch. Increase the waist turns by small increments until the elbows pass the center line. You can feel the paraspinals warm up.
The above isn't a recommendation for anyone with back pain. See a professional for that. I just thought it might explain how this chi gizmo is supposed to work.
aussie1981, is this the kind of device you had in mind?
Nah not for me, for me mrs. She's in an office all day long and getting the aches and paines that go with it. she's not keen on doing any exercise I show her, wants to do her own thing ;) leaning toward bikram yaga atm.
I don't know what the chi machine is, but, at the PT I went to, they had all kinds of machines for shooting 'heat' into parts of the body. If chi is energy, well then I guess they were chi machines--covered and approved by Western health care. So...guess they work. ? :)
One thing TGY was getting at is that Chinese philosophy was not like western, with a clear divide between matter and energy, so defining Chi as "energy" gets a bit muddy, because in usage it is something related to something else, not a thing in and of itself.Quote:
Originally Posted by ShaolinDan
Yes, but if we never simplify or generalize, then we will never be able to say anything. :)
Anyway I was just being silly, so it doesn't really matter.
I'm just saying, chi in the context it is used here doesn't mean energy in the sense suggested.
Not generalizing, mistranslating.
Other than that, I'm not too worried about it.:D
Really? Great. Thanks. That's such a relief. :)
Your passive aggressive chi is only going to make you the constipated.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by ShaolinDan
I'd rather be constipated than sh*tting all over the place. :D
Really, though, I wasn't being passive aggressive. I was being passive defensive.