Bagua's Celestial Energy

[blackmantis]

In "The Power of Internal Martial Arts", B.K. Frantzis distinguishes between 'earthly' and 'celestial' arts. There are two extremely interesting passages in the Bagua chapter of the book;


1. "bagua actively uses the chi of the environment, drawing energy from the earth and sky...bagua people...quite literally draw energy from the planets and stars"

2. "in bagua you do not use reflexes to respond to an attack...you move spontaneously in response not only to the energies of yourself and your opponent, but also to the environmental energies around you"


Without wanting to be seduced by the supernatural, these ideas seem absolutely incredible. Can anyone offer any comments on the validity of these claims, and if so how one might go about drawing this celestial energy. I hope I have not misunderstood what old B.K. is trying to say!

Many thanks!

S

[Rockwood]

These kinds of practices are part of Taoism. They are crazy about stars, trees, rocks and other things like that. You won't find many martial arts people in the US who are interested in this kind of thing. Elsewhere, I have no idea.

-Jess O

[jimquackenbus]

This mysticism makes these internal martial arts more interesting than many of the external martial art counterpats. Its fun to think that your drawing power from things around you. You are, but only indirectly. It can inflate our sense of self, which is good to a point. Be careful though, overconfidance and grandiosity may result. If any of us were to step in the ring with a proffesional boxer of our own size who draws power not from heaven or other objects but only his waist would surely put us in our place. Let your ego go, the last statement is true for 99.9% of us. I practice with great intensity and imagination but remember to stay grounded in reality.

[Scott R. Brown]

Hi Black Mantis,

It is easy for our modern-minded thinking to interpret these types of statements mystically. Since our way of thinking is conditioned by our present culture and the modern era of science we may forget that the vast majority of people in the past were uneducated and illiterate with no scientific understanding of cause and effect relationships. What we view as common everyday phenomena was fantastic and mysterious to those who experienced the same phenomena in the past. Today we understand much better how the world works in terms of cause and effect, i.e. THIS cause produces THAT effect. Since we understand the cause and effect relationships of phenomena more completely, we define phenomena from a different perspective. One of the phenomena we understand much better is the mechanics of the human body. They knew what worked but, didn’t necessarily understand why it worked, so Chi was a source attributed to causing some phenomena in order to explain how or why something occurred the way it did. In China many everyday phenomena were explained in terms of their cause and effect relationships by the powers or effects of Chi; Heaven (Celestial) Chi and Earth Chi.

In regards to the reference to Earth Chi, all strikes draw their energy/power from the earth. This is a scientific fact, not a mystical statement! It is easily demonstrated by observing your body mechanics when striking. Initial power is generated by pushing off the EARTH with the rear foot. The power is then amplified through the whip-like motion of the twisting of the waist and shoulders.

Just as a glass may be half full or half empty merely by how one chooses to define it, one may also attribute the power of a strike as coming FROM the earth because in a sense, it does. Without gravity (earth) to push against we could not generate sufficient power to strike with any meaningful power. Think of trying to strike someone in a weightless environment. Without something to push off of there is no real power. When your strike contacted the opponent it would propel you backwards as well as the opponent greatly reducing or eliminating the intended damage. Even twisting of the waist to generate power requires something to push off of in order to generate sufficient power. So from a certain perspective we may say the power is generated or borrowed from the EARTH! Thus Earth Chi is the source of the power of our strikes.

The individuals who formulated these explanations merely perceived and/or defined the world differently than we do today! It seems mysterious and fantastic to us because we view the world from a different perspective and we don’t understand their perspective. If we take the time to understand their perspective and remember they viewed the world from a less scientifically aware foundation we may begin to understand their meaning. In addition, they tended to view phenomena more holistically while we tend towards a more linear mindset. To us everything occurs in a linear manner one thing occurs after another and one thing causes another; to them all things occur at once. When one views everything as occurring all at once a much different manner of conceiving cause and effect results since cause and effect occurs in a seemingly linear fashion.

When it comes to Celestial Chi it is unclear what exact phenomena is being defined. However, it should be fairly easy to understand that it is not necessarily to be taken literally. Since they didn’t understand the cause and effect relationships of most phenomena it is easy to understand that a physical phenomenon may be interpreted in this manner.

Lets take breathing exercises for an example. We now know that proper aerobic exercise releases endorphins that act as a pain reliever and mood elevator. We also understand that more oxygen to the brain enhances our mental function. We understand the science behind these effects. But imagine an individual who has no knowledge of science or the scientific studies demonstrating these effects. Through simple observation and experience born of practice one may observe these effects for themselves without requiring scientific experimentation to demonstrate they are so. One will learn through observation that there is something about taking more oxygen into the lungs that makes them think more clearly and feel more relaxed. Not understanding the chemical reactions within their body and viewing phenomena holistically rather than linearly, it would appear that air (Heavenly/Celestial Chi) creates the physical effects we experience; and from one perspective, it does. While we view the effects today primarily as a consequence of exercise, they would view it as an effect of oxygen. That is something inherent within oxygen that creates the effects they are experiencing. It is the same phenomena defined differently that is all that is occurring here, since the effects are not experienced in the absence of oxygen. Their glass is half full and ours is half empty, or vise versa, depending on how we choose to define it!

In both circumstances and from a simplistic perspective it is both causes that create the specific effect. Exercise in the presence of oxygen creates clear thinking and a relaxed feeling! No oxygen, no effect! No deep breathing, no effect! Pushing off the ground with my foot creates power. No ground, no effect! No pushing off the ground, no effect!

Your second quote may be explained simply as well. In most circumstances we perceive an action, process the information, determine a response, and then act. This is an inefficient manner of responding to a threat. It takes too much time and there are many opportunities for error. When we respond spontaneously we are using our intuition. With intuition one may respond to a threat before one actually perceives the threat through the known five senses. With intuition we act without knowing why until after we respond. This type of intuition is somewhat common, but not normally developed. An event that has occurred for many of us is spontaneously stopping at an intersection for no known reason and with no legal requirement to do so only to observe shortly thereafter a car barreling through the intersection. If the had not stopped we would have been struck by the car. It has also occurred to me a number of times while sparring. I have reacted to a threat that was not present at the time of the action, but by reacting spontaneously I avoided being struck.

So your quote, "in bagua you do not use reflexes to respond to an attack...you move spontaneously in response not only to the energies of yourself and your opponent, but also to the environmental energies around you" describes the act of developing ones intuition to the point where you are able to anticipate a threat without observing specific actions that indicate the threat and responding spontaneously without using the mental reasoning process.

[blackmantis]

Thank you Scott that is all extremely interesting. I do however have a couple of additional questions regarding your explanation.

You refer to not using the mental reasoning process and depending on intuition in responding to the opponent's energy. I find this a satisfactory explanation but wonder how Bagua specifically is designed to develop this skill.

As intuition is essentially the ability to understand (and therefore act) independent of prior empirically experienced knowledge, I do not understand how the specific techniques of Bagua (circle-walking, single palm change etc.) develop these abilities whereas other styles (Xingyi's five elements, Shaolin's Lohan methods, Wing Chun's chi sau) do not.

I appreciate your statement regarding pre-cognition in sparring, but I would not explain this in terms of intuition as it is based upon experience and subconscious reference to memory in the hippocampus; I imagine a martial arts novice would not experience this type of precognition.

I therefore wonder if Kumar is somehow indicating that the specific type of chi created through Bagua allows an interaction between the exponent and the universal energy. This is certainly consistent with the Taoist belief in a single unified consciousness.

So, what is it about the specific methods of Bagua that Kumar is suggesting reach this almost super-human level of perception? Xingyi and Tai Chi also have highly developed Chi Gung and Nei Gung methods, but neither make such a claim.

What do people think?

Many thanks!!

S

[Buddy]

Well I studied with Kumar for ten years. I think he's being a bit hyperbolic here. He is referring to advanced stages of alchemy. None of this will help your training right now. Just relax, develop proper structure and find a good teacher.