JerryLove

Because the Gracies cited a California police department that pofferd that statistic for the altercatoins involving offices (who, coincidentally, are trained specifically to take a suspect to the ground). The reson the Gracies found this useful for marketing is because they have a primarily ground art.

Well, you vertainly raise a raough. Yes, those are generally stage-tricks. There certainly are body-conditioning qigong (Golden Bell comes to mind), and I have an aquaintence or two that would be happy ot have you hit them with a sledge-hammer, but I really don't call those "chi demonstrations", though to some extent they *can* be. If you are talking about "crushing bricks on a flat surface"... I've not seen it yet either that I could validate. This is very true... and very common unfortunately. Many of them would loose even the iron they had if you just blew in their ear before hitting them. My school does have qigong body contitioning... it's done with no hitting to contidiont (there's lots of hitting to test). We've had people ask about it and demonstrated it by letting *them* hit someone. Similarly, the neck conditioning happens from the exercises... wheather one wishes to call this a chi trick or a isometric conditioning, I don't wory about it too much. I'm more interested in results than labeling. That's why you won't see me poffering them up as examples... even though they may be. At the risk of being repetitive... some things associated with chi are indeed... others are not. True.. but they can be rather hard to locate... and not all of them teach it.

But there's nothing of importance underneath it... more than one person has attempted to commit suicide by putting a gun to their temple, only to end up blinding themselves by destroying their optic nerves. About 10 years ago, the school I was attending ad a visit from a certain well-known instructor who shall remain nameless. Apparently, this instructor thought energetic hits were fun things to do on other people's students... He walked up to two students and "pat them on the back". One noticed feeling odd a bit later, brought it up with our instructor, and got fixed. The other did not notice. A couple days later he was feeling really awful. He came in. He was an interesting color of grey. As with the other student he had work done on him by my instructor. He was the right color when he left, though it took some time before he was fully back up to par. Anticdotal, and without any support but my word (though I can find a few other people that were there), but there for consideration. Fad diets, herbal suppliments, we have lots of superstisions. And you are ignoring those that believe in UFOs, Ghosts, God(s), Magic, Spriitulism, Mediums, Tarot, Friday the 13th, knocking on wood, stepping on cracks, etc. etc. You don't know of anyone in the US who believes that (insert thing here) is the sign of the anti-christ do you? There's an interesting test for "authenticity" of training in acupuncture... do they have a chart. If they do, they are not "trained right" (sorry, I lack a better term). In the end, you offer an appeal to ignorance. Just because he does not know how to use it offensiely (or will ont admit that it's possible to you) does not mean that it cannot be done. Further, he's essentially stated that his practice does not have much positive effect. Very often, yes.

Obviously, without knowing the material invovled, I cannot comment on it. I don't believe I have claimed that you did...

Tap gently on your trachia... then make the biggest smile you can manage (try to include your eyebrowns) and tap it again. Notice a difference?

I don't understand these sentances. Yes. There are a lot of Chi demonstrations which are mechanical. There are a lot which anyone can do with just instruction. There are a lot which are downright staged. It's a term with a lot of hocus-pocus and mumbo-jumbo... and more than a few charlatains.

Even after years of exposure, I remained a consumate skeptic. So much could be explaned mechanically, or psycologially... it was not until the above mentioned expereiences that I was forced to change my position. So by all means, doubt. The healing/reading stuff I can not really show you in an afternoon (though there is a weekend workshop that teaches it, and I've yet to see someone not gain the skills, including myself, from that. There is very little that I can essentally guarentee you will feel from me... but there are one or two.

(posted rather than emailed as the info may be more generally useful) No, Jerry Love is my real name; Richard Clear lives up in TN these days. Classes are Monday and Wednesday afternoons... by car, it's about 9 hours from Mobile AL (which is prob in your route), but I don't know how long to get to Mobile from where you are. I certainly welcome the visit. Drop me an email (gerald (at) clearsilat.com) with when you will be coming and I'll make sure to be down at the school that day (if you really want/need, I can make arrangements for a non-class time, but you'd probibly have more fun with more people to interact with). Spare a few days and I'm happy to clear time and exchange notes with you. Alternately, and it may not be much more of a drive, you may want to just go see Mr.Clear himself in Maryville, TN (the address and phone is on the website), he can offer far more than I can. Not all people require physical contact to hit you. Of course, not all people respond the same to all non-physical (or phyisical) strikes. It's possible to affect a person energetically without touching them. Depending on the skill of the person doing, and the traits of the person receiving, the effect varies. I, for example, could not hit an insensitive person with a non-contact hit that I can guarentee they would feel. From another art (systema), I do have a strike I particularly love because it leaves something that (so far) everyone can feel, and the can be shown energetic in te fact that it can be pulled back out. I was workin on qigong healing. I would get a voulenteer who did not know what I was doing(I recruited members of my extended family who were not martial artists). I would do a read on them an dwrite down what I thought I had felt. I then did what I could to fix and wrote down the results I thought I had. I then asked them "how did you feel before I started, what did you feel during, how do you feel now" (and gave them no other prompting). The results: I never falsely found something. In every person I found at least one problem and every person described a problem where I had found one (I was working behind their back, and they did not know what I was intending to do). I occasionally missed something, but never found something in error. I was also usually correct in wheather i had improved an individual problem, from their perpective.

Yes, chest compressions can throw a heart into arythmia... there is also a split-second i neach beat where it can be interfered with without compressoin. You most often see this triggered in baseball; where you sporatically get a kid getting hit in the chest with a ball and fall down dead. This doesn't appear to be a sentance. This seems to create several unsupported asertions and does not jive well with reality. The first and most obvious is that vessel walls weaken and strengthen (in different parts at different time) over the course of the day. Another obvious falining is the assertion that clots in the blood stream do not normally travel. They do. Finally, this ignores the visceral reality of the nature of many of the dim-mak stikes (and, indeed, non-strikes); which are not of a force or location to accomplish said activity. That said, one most certainly can cause clotting (or in older victims like myself, simply release plaque) with a strike to a large artery... it's one of the dangers of doing the "side of the neck" knock-out strike. Having personaqlly hit and been hit with energetic attacks which get worse over time; they are generally fixable in the same manners they are inflicted. Acutally, if a blood clot does not kill you relatively quickly, then your kidney's will filter it out... that's their job. I have... I've done double-blind testing on aspectes of non-contact qigong. I'm sorry to hear that he is appealing to his own ignorance that he not seeing it means it's not there. I certainly welcome you to the school... I have a few that are pretty obvious to feel.

It really seems like you have been given good infomration and mangled it abit... at the risk of arguing symantics: "Dim Mak" is not a "martial art"... it is a collection of matieral found in many fields of study, including several martial arts. Nor is dim-Mok acupuncture, though the two are heavily related and accupuncture contains dim-mok material. The moment one does not peirce, one is no longer performing accupuncture. Needles are nor more or less precise, and a good accupuncureist should do far more than stick needles in your skin.

This sentance appears to be more flame-baiting than anything else... especially considering the JuJitsu has many of the exact same low-strength techniques. That would depend on relative skills and your intent. Don't throw yourself when the Akidoko changes direction and something breaks. There are many different things which get attributed to "Chi"... and no, I'm not aware of a "chi meter". I would suggest learning a little and experiencing it for yourself. Where-abouts are you at?

Dim Mok attacks *can* be performed with no contact and with physically light strikes. The field in general does *not* require particlarly conditioned hands.

The problem with the hypothesis in the above two posts is that the hits can be done with little or no contact.

Intereting.. If anything I'd go the opposite and say that a Tank Driver had a real martial art and a boxer did not; as tank driving is suitbale for war ("martial" comes from "Mars", the Roman god of war) and boxing is not.

Someone who practices a martial art and who actually exists physically in our timespace?

So you view "combative" on "how quickly you feel it's effective" rather than "whether it is focused on combat"? Interesting.

My first piece of advice? You've cited "because we are wearing Karate uniforms" as the reason you attract their attention... change into normal clothes at the school. A different route home? Get a ride? Find more friends going the same way to go with? The real reason for the knee as a target is less because it's vunerable (though it certainly can be) and more because damaging the knee interferes with your opponent's ability to move (such as chase you). (writing this, I notice it's already been said, so I'll stop here and just agree with SS above). Note to self: If fighting luckyboxer, make sure to empty a magazine in him afterwards. Guys, I won't hunt you down at all.. feel free to go easy on me.

IME, once you get into proper steels and craftsmanship, bottom price is around $750 with the norm hovering closer to $1500 US.

Correct. I actually believe these are variations on the same meaning... a meaning denoting an apex point or far distance. "ji" is a nexus point or point of conjunction. No, you are correct.

Unless he's actually trained / practiced with a fire-arm, he's reliably deadly only to about 20-30ft. Responses are *highly* situational. If he's after anything less than your life, just give it to him. Depending on his waryness, general readyness, etc, you may be able to move 10', or distract him and move 10' before he can begin his reaction. So lunging into him (preferrably with a little lateral movement in case he remembers to pull but forgets to reaim) my let you get to him unshot. Also, even if he does shoot and hit you, yo umay well be able to continue the fight. The focus here must be on getting to him even more than avoiding the weapon. You can also run. Again, his reactions and aim come into play and again, even if you get shot, you may still escape. Hope the fates like you.

actually, I'd recommend the phillipono arts if you can't find a good Indo art. I've gotta put several of the Silat's at the top of the "knife arts' heap. There's a little bit of knife work shown on the video section of my website: http://clearsilat.com/silat/Multimedia/index.htm

Yes. That said, wheather you do them correctly (wheather what you are taught is correct) effects wheather it does it more than any other screaming. It is, unfortunately, very common for schools teaching them to not know them.

Those are the times my version of "hurt" is likely to empty the pre-ban capacity clip from my firearm. I generally see two situations: Situations where my life is in danger and I can't avoid it, and situations where it is not. In the former, I will do whatever will get me out of danger (and I'm likely to escilate way past some form of "minimum response" rather than try to guess how little I can get away with)... in the latter, I'm unlikely to fight at all. I'm sure I can come up with exception scenerios... drunk uncle bill decides he wants to play around with the martial artist, I'm not going to shoot an obvious non-threat.

The modern color system, as seen in most Japanese and Korean arts comes from Kano in (IIRC) the late 19th or early 20th century. There is no formalized system of ranking for the majority of the Chinese arts (this is the Chinese forums), so I couldn't speak of a univeral origin.

In hominids, I would guess they started when Ug smashed Bob with a rock for another piece of mammoth. Considering the thousands of styles through hundreds of cultures across at least thousands of years... good luck. You may want to narrow your scope and look specifically at the origins of a particular art or group of arts.