Staff Article: The Truth About Ki

[White Warlock]

hehe, another victim of the april fools joke.

[bushido_man96]

Wow....good joke! Feel funny posting now, but I read it, and was humored as well! Forum humor....gotta love it!

I will be leary when posts are made on April 1st from now on.

[Myth]

[Ace2021]

Maybe you guys could do a joke article on the instructions to perform Dim Mak. This was very funny though.

[learning kempo-karate]

Hello, This is a magic trick. If he could really do this....he would be famous and making lots of money on talk shows.

He martial arts would become famous...He would also be sought after by lots of people who would want to learn from him.

Why can't he teach others to do this? A man's mind can be fool many times , and is often done!

If he had special powers...he would be well known and famous.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I do believe you and what you saw! ...BUT was it really what you saw?

Magic is something to watch and at times it is amazing too.

..............Aloha, this message will end in MAGIC!

[shogeri]

Being an internal/external MA I thought I should chime in, first with my own words using the #1 accepted explanation of qi/ki according to answerbag.com:

Qi in English is often spelled as chi. The Japanese form is ki.

Qi is a fundamental concept of everyday Asian culture or philosophy, most often defined as "air" or "breath" and, by extension, "life force" or simply put, just "energy" that is part of everything that exists.

In regards to the Martial Arts and physical health: The overall effectiveness of qi is directly related to posture, (whether moving or stationary), breathing techniques, and mental focus.

Qi is the conceptual layer of understanding that practitioners place upon the actual physiological activity relating to the movement of the various types of biological or chemical energy within the body. Essentially, using mental focus, relaxation, and posture, practitioners create a link between their mind, and that of their body, through various training methods - in order to become more sensitive to the internal processes taking place throughout their own physical being.

Acupuncture and acupressure, both work by distracting from or adding to, the pain stimuli passed through to the nervous system. These procedures help stimulate the manufacture of endorphins, which are the body's own opiates. There are many low level electrical processes occurring. Use of these pressure points have been shown as being able to affect the parts of the central nervous system related to sensation and involuntary body functions, such as immune reactions and processes that regulate a person's blood pressure, blood flow, and body temperature.

Western science is working toward an actual understanding of the qi or energies involved.

Everyday activities such as walking, or stair climbing, along with swimming, aerobics, and Martial Arts may also aid in the flow of these various types of bioelectrical energies through the pathways leading to and from the Central Nervous System, and along the path of the many pressure points within the body.

Based upon science's own inability to measure the many different types of energy involved, qi will inevitably become more categorized over the next few decades, as we get more precise instruments to measure those types of bioelectrical changes.

During this time, there will be a more scientific based understanding of qi, rather than many of the unfounded mystical or religious reasons we see in place today.

It is not magic. Qi is not related to the supernatural, and there are no invisible forces that we can project at one other, or even balls of energy that I have ever witnessed.

It was a good article, but did leave out many things for both the believer and non-believer.

Just because we do not understand something, or even quantify it, or qualify it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There is the science of the body, and then there is the science of the mind. In western medicine, we have categorized the body quite well, but the mind (not just natural brain functions) has yet to be totally revealed to us.

I believe this topic is ready for discussion in another thread. So will leave my thoughts on the table for now, and go check it out.