Skeptic almost converted

[freestyler]

While on the grey area of chi, not long ago I met up with my dad's old friend who is a proficient Tai Chi practitioner.
He asked me to place my hands in front of myself palms facing, a good 50 cm apart from each other. He placed his hand in the middle and commented that 'your chi isn't too bad'. (As in it sucked). I never expected to have any super chi power because I don't practise tai chi that much. I tend to do the short-short form only once before I being kung fu practise (external, you know the fun stuff that young people like).
He placed his hands in front of himself the same way hands quite far apart. I put my hand in the middle and felt a definate heat. It wasn't heat from his body warmth and I was a skeptic so I wouldn't try to make myself believe subconsciously in any apparent effect. But I did definately notice a phenomenon that I still can't explain.
It's quite logical to put it down to "it's chi power derrr". But I'd like to hear other opinions
Maybe someone here can shed some light.

[honorisc]

Your hand was not one hundred percent. Feeling heat might have meant your hand was readjusting (healing) its self. Or Chi type stuff can be controlled, and the various intensities feel differently.

Even if someone uses different words that likely wouldn't discount what you went through as being Chi related~.

Very some such, perhaps might have been, likely say some, some not.

[jameswebsteruk]

Try this for a more controlled test. Do the same thing, but through a screen, or cloth, so you cant see whether his hands are there or not. This way rules out your subconscious affecting your feeling.

Get him to do the same thing maybe 50 times, but half the time, he will leave his hands by his sides, so you do not know for a particular test whether his hands are there or not. Have some disinterested observer determine randomly on each occaison whether his hands will be there or not, writing down the hand position.

On each occaison check for the warmth you felt before, and write it down.

Then examine both sets of writings, and see if the times you felt the heat correspond to the times his hands were around yours.

Or you could do the same thing, but this time you would be the one who decided whether your hands were there or not, ie. testing his ability to feel your chi, rather than your ability to feel his.

A similar test was done recently to test someone who claimed to be able to feel auras, the presence of an energy field around a human. They couldnt. :)

The chalice from the palace has the pellet with the poison,
The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

[Can-O-Bud]

I'm still mostly a skeptic about the chi thing.

I just can't beleive that it is a mystical power that we can harness.

I think that it is mostly a state of mind that can help a martial artist focus his/her energy.

"You pour water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You pour water into a bottle it becomes the bottle. You pour Whisky into me I become a teapot."

[Repulsive Monkey]

You seem so vehement about your dismissal of Qi, when it sounds like that you have had very little living experience of it. It is natural for people to put down what they haven't experienced much due to the rationalisation that takes over and blinds them into thinking that logic refutes it. Logic and science refutes little when it comes to Qi. If anyone at all believes that science (which is never the be all and end all, I pity those folk who think it is!!)can explain away that Qi as a usuable organic bio-energy does not exist, then you have to start thinking hard about why you put so much faith in the authourity that calls itself science.

[Fish of Fury]

it took me more than 10 years to feel Qi easily and well (yeah, i know i'm kinda slow) but once i could it was a clear sensation, no 2 ways about it (much like pushing 2 like poles of a magnet together when i put my palms together)

this sensation was very strong when i was training more than i now am (unfortunately :( )
but it was as clear as if someone touched you.

i should also add that i make no claims to be able to DO anything much with it (either now or then) i've had reasonable success with healing which is kinda more a focus for me these days, but i never did anything martial with it SPECIFICALLY, although i felt very robust, focused and confident back then, and my kungfu was better.

so, if you want to know that Qi exists, train until you feel it.if you're a slackarse like me and it takes you 10 years...so be it.
but don't decide that it doesn't exist WITHOUT doing that practise, cos you'll be wrong.

i'm simply talking about the fact that it exists.i'll be the first to admit that training the ability to feel Qi that clearly will not necessarily turn you into a NHB fighting god.if you want to fight NHB then train appropriately for that, but that wont necessarily qualify you to know anything about Qi

__________________________________________________ _________________________ "I'm just trying to lull you into a genuine sense of security!"

[jameswebsteruk]

Science is not perfect. However, it is the best tool that mankind has yet developed to gain understanding about the universe. Science works, it can be used to predict things, it can be used to build useful things. The body of knowledge that science has built is constantly growing, changing and improving.

Logic is a tool that is used by science, science is not just logic. Logic by itself can rarely be used to refute or investigate things, but is extremely useful when used in conjunction with experiment.

I would disagree that science tries to explain away concepts of qi using logic. It explains them away by doing experiments, and finding that either there is nothing to be explained, ie. claimed effects do not actually occur, or the effects are caused by some other factor.

That is why I suggest doing experiments.

The chalice from the palace has the pellet with the poison,
The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

[jameswebsteruk]

I have no doubt that you feel something internally which you call chi.

It is simply not scientifically (or morally) possible for me to state that you are not feeling what you are. I would never attempt to do so! :)

But I agree, whether that internal feeling can be used externally, to effect an outside situation or another person is another matter. That is when it comes under the remit of science, and could be subjected to experiment.

My own KF instructor can throw people around with little effort. There is no chi involved, he has simply been training for 32 years. He has never trained in chigung, or done breathing exercises. He is regularly told that his chi is strong, which he finds hilarious. It is down to good structure. He can explain exactly why what he does, works.

He personally finds no need to invoke chi to explain his abilities. If other people do, then, in the words of Bobby Brown, that is their perogative. However, when people make supernatural claims for their abilities, I don't see why they should not become fair game for investigation.

Regards
Frank

The chalice from the palace has the pellet with the poison,
The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!

[Shaolindynasty]

For all you non beleivers out there, pick up a book written by a chinese medical practitioner and NOT a martial artist or better yet take an itro class to chinese medicine. CM does alot better job explaining Qi than CMA's. Qi works similar to a mix of the nervous and circulatory system, it's actually very scientific, but it is a little hard to get it in the begining because it takes a different way of seeing the body than we are used to in the west.

New classes New online Catalog
www.shaolindynasty.cjb.net

[EARTH DRAGON]

please realize that you dont have to practice tai chi or qigong to have chi, it is the life force energy that keeps us alive it is natural and doesnt need to be practiced to be felt. Blades of grass have chi just as trees do but they do not practice tai chi? but if you walk up to a tree and feel its energy it is there. So if your skeptical about chi or if you have it just ask your self am I alive?

http://www.kungfuUSA.net

[Shaolindynasty]

ugh Com'on ED they are trying to understand qi not have faith in it. Thanks for that though kinda proves my point, MA's just have faith in it and will tell you it works, they are right but if you want it explained to you so you understand in a more scientific way seek a CM practitioner

New classes New online Catalog
www.shaolindynasty.cjb.net

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

sometimes it feels like my chi is collecting in my lower abdomen . ..

but then i usually take a poop and feel better.

where's my beer?

[KC Elbows]

Sorry GDA, they're saying "chi", not "cheese". I'll demonstrate the difference:

WRONG STATEMENT
I have gathered chi behind my sphinctor, and soon I will execute a powerful movement!

CORRECT STATEMENT
I have gathered cheese behind my sphinctor, and soon I will execute a powerful movement!

Does this help?

[JWTAYLOR]

Hmm, your views intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

JWT

If you pr!ck us, do we not bleed? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that the villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. MOV

[fa_jing]

is the body's bio-electric energy. Also it is the body's warmth. What's so mystical about being able to control the energy in your body? You can argue about the properties of chi, but not it's existence - or didn't you know the body has a magnetic field?

Now, does chi have a martial application? Does it have a medical application? Are there types of chi beyond electricity, air, and warmth within the body? This is all debateable. The existence of chi is not. It is just a word that the chinese use to describe the body's energy, IMO.
-FJ