Ki uses question

[Steve_K]

I understand the uses of Ki energy, such as combat oriented uses and health oriented uses. My question to anyone who is experienced in this is, 1) how do you harness ki for striking purposes? 2) how do you harness ki for defensive purposes such as absorbing strikes? and 3) how do you harness ki in a healing aspect.

It can't be just the fact that I exercise my ki therefore my strikes are deadly, I feel no pain, and I am in perfect health.

Thank you very much for your insight.

[giang_hu]

Even after 10 years training dilegently in a martial art, one will not understand how to use chi in that aspect. I have come to the conclusion that it is not actually a substance. It is a state of mind used to help our bodies tense or relax certain muscles in a specific sequence with a specific timing, in response to an opponent's attack/defense, to generate a certain effect such as rooting or uprooting another person (PHEW!).

[SenseiMike]

that was a god reply giang_hu, I think of ki in two ways, wy # 1 is mind, breat, and muscle control. That's hard ki. much easier to master than the other soft ki aspect. Soft ki requires a lot of time, and meditation (no I'm definately not a master) I've made a lot of progres, but I doubt i'll ever develop anything spectacular.

Hard ki is coordinating your entire body to work in unity inorder to pull off some nice stuff, increased power, roots, taking full body hits, etc..

Soft ki is putting your mind in direct conection with out side energies, this is actually easier to do than you think, but doing it in combat is almost imposible.

the best exercises for either are some simple chi-gung/ki-ko exercises followed by rotating hard and soft versions of your kata.

also, read some books on quantum physics, I found that once I understood the science behind chi/ki I could accept it a lot more.

I reccomend the Self Aware Universe & The Feild as two good books to read.