Meridian striking and recovery

[Tame The Tiger]

Fakery, fraud and just pure ignorance exist in the martial arts world - past and present.

On the other hand, hard working, practical and intelligent practitioners have built up a body of knowledge over thousands of years. It's not wise to conclusively discount it merely because there's no obvious proof.

There was a time when there was no proof that the world was round, that it orbited the sun or that nicotine caused cancer......

[Crushing Step]

Yeah it's so funny that you can still find people talking about the different cycles of chi flowing through the body, etc... But if chi is an ancient way of describing actual scientific facts, then there is a connection. Like striking point so and so because it causes pain due to nerves being there is a scientific explanation that trumps over "disruption of chi".

The internal organ damage some people still say with so much confidence, but I doubt the scientific approach to this. For example if hitting meridian point so and so is supposed to damage the gall bladder, well who tested this theory? Did someone hit point so and so, and then perform a cat scan or MRI of the victim? Since it came from historic China, I would say no.

But that actual connection does still leave me curious. If hitting a point causes a reaction due to nerves, or due to a pressure surge in arteries, is there any credit to the recovery of said damage?

Leaning ever more towards the total bunk of it all. Hoping for scientific evidence for or against.

[David Jamieson]

The ancient Roman gladiators used to eat barley and beans every day to develop a uniform layer of subcutaneous fat on their bodies that would protect them from impacts on some of their more vulnerable areas. This tells me that in some respects varieties of this idea were common in the old days. My Chinese (actually, Manchu) teachers told me that qi just meant breath, and to theorize beyond that was painting legs on a snake. If you can breathe well you have good stamina and your metabolism will generate lots of heat. If you are out of breath or cold all the time your qi is weak. It is the shysters that turn simple breathing mechanics into comic book stuff.

YOU!!!!

I like you.

You know stuff.

[Lee Chiang Po]

Yeah it's so funny that you can still find people talking about the different cycles of chi flowing through the body, etc... But if chi is an ancient way of describing actual scientific facts, then there is a connection. Like striking point so and so because it causes pain due to nerves being there is a scientific explanation that trumps over "disruption of chi".

The internal organ damage some people still say with so much confidence, but I doubt the scientific approach to this. For example if hitting meridian point so and so is supposed to damage the gall bladder, well who tested this theory? Did someone hit point so and so, and then perform a cat scan or MRI of the victim? Since it came from historic China, I would say no.

But that actual connection does still leave me curious. If hitting a point causes a reaction due to nerves, or due to a pressure surge in arteries, is there any credit to the recovery of said damage?

Leaning ever more towards the total bunk of it all. Hoping for scientific evidence for or against.

In jiujitsu we have a technique that is probably widely known. If you take a kick or punch in the Jewels , rising up on the toes or ball of the foot and suddenly dropping hard to the heel will make them come back down and relieve the pain. If the injured is not able to do that, simply striking the bottoms of his feet with a strong palm blow will do the same. You are dealing with ancient culture compared to modern medicine here. If you get shot in the middle and you are bleeding out, a western doc would say, he got shot and is bleeding out. A chinese doc might say, he got shot and it has disrupted his flow and his chi is leaking out. there is always a medical or scientific reason for anything that happens. Our nerve centers fire some sort of neurons to make the body work, and a great number of these follow the flow of our blood. It is not majic being able to disrupt the flow by striking along this blood flow. Making an artery or large vain swell to seriously restrict the blood flow will also cause a disruption in the flow of neurons. I am sure there are others here that know more about that stuff without knit picking. But that is how it happens.
I had an old friend named Reginald Fung that could just slightly poke you in the front of your shoulder joint and the arm would drop to the side and you could not move it for upward of 5 minutes. He could do one and as you turned away slightly he would do the other. You would be completely helpless in that time.