Your thoughts on yellow bamboo...

[Himokiri Karate]

The name and style is something I heard in mid-2000s but recently I myself have gotten in to internal martial arts and got curios and watched a video of a YouTuber defending the style. In his argument he says that this style is effective based on fasting, celibacy and tons of meditation.

Now a decade ago I scuffed at these notions but long story short in an unrelated yellow bamboo reason, I got in to meditation, fasting (intermittent type)and celibacy and I saw a drastic improvement in my boxing skills. That being said, when I tried to explain my improvement, people would either laugh it off or get interested and say they are going to try it but they never give it a sincere try.

Fast forward to present time, I was reading a Kung Fu book by author Douglas Wong and he mentioned something that hit me in the core of my existence. He said that "deletion of technique due to mistrust" which is a result of average kung Fu practitioners misrepresenting themselves as great masters which ends with the style/moves/ideas being portrayed as underwhelming and ineffective in publics eye.

Now going back to Yellow Bamboo, I am curios to know how they were able to garner so much followers? I mean I get the cult mentality but I just feel that even if cult tactics was used, they had lots of guts to put themselves in the lime light. I say this because a premeditated scam artist would keep it hush hush so I like to think that the yellow bamboo practitioners did not have any ill intent but I like to hear your thoughts on them.

[OneKickWonder]

Meditation is incredibly valid, and done right, will drastically improve your fighting ability. But not by some weird magical means. Meditation enables you to settle your mind sufficiently to have a greater control of what to focus on. The average untrained person is very inefficient in combat. They tense up muscles that don't need to be tense, thus wasting energy and slowing themselves down. They fire inappropriate shots from the wrong range, therefore again wasting energy but also offering their opponent an opening. The breath erratically and therfore don't maintain optimum oxygen levels in their blood so they start to burn out before they really ought to.

Meditation allows us to breath better. That gives us a fitness boost for free in effect. We don't actually become fitter (that requires hard work as for everyone) but through better breathing you get best use of what fitness you already have. Meditation also allows you to better control your muscles. And the clarity of mind it offers gives you better judgement in the heat of the moment, enabling you to move better and choose better options. Nothing magical. It's just like uncluttering the mind so it can function better.

[OneKickWonder]

Thinking about this some more, all martial artists meditate. That would include the most hardcore sceptical modernists.

What differs is HOW they meditate, and whether they call it meditation.

The tai chi guy might hold a pose for many minutes while focusing his mind on the sensation from his body. Or he might practice visualisation. The karate guy might practice kata repeatedly for a while, slowing it down and speeding it up to feel it. The MMA guy might practice his accuracy against a partner holding focus pads, or he might repeatedly practice a very short flow drill to develop the feel for a particular scenario that he feels he needs to improve on. It's all meditation. It's all focusing the mind on the task at hand in order to move closer to a particular goal.

[MatsuShinshii]

The name and style is something I heard in mid-2000s but recently I myself have gotten in to internal martial arts and got curios and watched a video of a YouTuber defending the style. In his argument he says that this style is effective based on fasting, celibacy and tons of meditation.

Now a decade ago I scuffed at these notions but long story short in an unrelated yellow bamboo reason, I got in to meditation, fasting (intermittent type)and celibacy and I saw a drastic improvement in my boxing skills. That being said, when I tried to explain my improvement, people would either laugh it off or get interested and say they are going to try it but they never give it a sincere try.

Fast forward to present time, I was reading a Kung Fu book by author Douglas Wong and he mentioned something that hit me in the core of my existence. He said that "deletion of technique due to mistrust" which is a result of average kung Fu practitioners misrepresenting themselves as great masters which ends with the style/moves/ideas being portrayed as underwhelming and ineffective in publics eye.

Now going back to Yellow Bamboo, I am curios to know how they were able to garner so much followers? I mean I get the cult mentality but I just feel that even if cult tactics was used, they had lots of guts to put themselves in the lime light. I say this because a premeditated scam artist would keep it hush hush so I like to think that the yellow bamboo practitioners did not have any ill intent but I like to hear your thoughts on them.

If these are the same people that state they can stop someone or knock someone out without touching them (which I seem to remember they are) they are a joke.

I buy into meditation to focus the mind, I buy into fasting because it does have health benefits but the whole celibacy thing (not for me). The whole no touch knockout and stopping someone with your mind is fake and utter nonsense. I don't care if you meditate, fast and abstain from sex your whole life, you can't knock someone out with your Chi. Pure bull pucky.

[OneKickWonder]

The thing about chi is it is so misunderstood. It is so misunderstood because the shaolin cabaret brings so much money into China.

Chi means something like, the energy we obtain from the air we breath. Even in its original meaning, it's nothing magic. It's the fact that we die if we don't breath, and don't die if we do breath.that simple. But because of the lack of direct translation it is somewhat open to interpretation. The shaolin dudes and folks like them twist it to make it appear like it's magic. When people see the shaolin monks doing seemingly superhuman things, what they don't see is a lifetime of intensive training and for every one that makes it, possibly hundreds more that don't.

[singularity6]

Mindful meditation has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety and depression, and improve mental performance (which would also help those perform physically,) so I think meditation is definitely something for all to consider.

I'm not sold on fasting for everyone. I, for one, have a hard time doing anything if I don't eat regular meals. I get light-headed, nauseous, and shaky (once I went to TKD class with only having a salad for lunch... I left early due to seeing stars during warm-up.)

Regarding celibacy - there is no scientific evidence that supports the myth that abstaining before athletic performance improves said performance.

And about those "chi-busting" things MatsuShinshii pointed out... I'm a man of science, so I'll pass on the magic and make-believe.

Ultimately, if something works for you, go for it. Just be careful and try not to hurt yourself, or someone else!

[Himokiri Karate]

The name and style is something I heard in mid-2000s but recently I myself have gotten in to internal martial arts and got curios and watched a video of a YouTuber defending the style. In his argument he says that this style is effective based on fasting, celibacy and tons of meditation.

Now a decade ago I scuffed at these notions but long story short in an unrelated yellow bamboo reason, I got in to meditation, fasting (intermittent type)and celibacy and I saw a drastic improvement in my boxing skills. That being said, when I tried to explain my improvement, people would either laugh it off or get interested and say they are going to try it but they never give it a sincere try.

Fast forward to present time, I was reading a Kung Fu book by author Douglas Wong and he mentioned something that hit me in the core of my existence. He said that "deletion of technique due to mistrust" which is a result of average kung Fu practitioners misrepresenting themselves as great masters which ends with the style/moves/ideas being portrayed as underwhelming and ineffective in publics eye.

Now going back to Yellow Bamboo, I am curios to know how they were able to garner so much followers? I mean I get the cult mentality but I just feel that even if cult tactics was used, they had lots of guts to put themselves in the lime light. I say this because a premeditated scam artist would keep it hush hush so I like to think that the yellow bamboo practitioners did not have any ill intent but I like to hear your thoughts on them.

If these are the same people that state they can stop someone or knock someone out without touching them (which I seem to remember they are) they are a joke.

I buy into meditation to focus the mind, I buy into fasting because it does have health benefits but the whole celibacy thing (not for me). The whole no touch knockout and stopping someone with your mind is fake and utter nonsense. I don't care if you meditate, fast and abstain from sex your whole life, you can't knock someone out with your Chi. Pure bull pucky.

I mean look here is the thing. We have had many seasoned MMA and combat sports champions and for all their fighting abilities, they lack a decent amount of flexibility. I mean heck, just a decade ago, MMA fighters looked down on boxing and judo while at one point, MMA was basically Muay thai, wrestling and BJJ.

Now we are seeing fighters from different styles, fighters with flashy kicks and fighters that have the ability to embrace obscure techniques. Now this doesn't mean we get No touch fighters. But we have yet to see a fighter embrace the healthiest lifestyle that is based on deep meditation and abstaining from parties and loud toxic environment.

[OneKickWonder]

The name and style is something I heard in mid-2000s but recently I myself have gotten in to internal martial arts and got curios and watched a video of a YouTuber defending the style. In his argument he says that this style is effective based on fasting, celibacy and tons of meditation.

Now a decade ago I scuffed at these notions but long story short in an unrelated yellow bamboo reason, I got in to meditation, fasting (intermittent type)and celibacy and I saw a drastic improvement in my boxing skills. That being said, when I tried to explain my improvement, people would either laugh it off or get interested and say they are going to try it but they never give it a sincere try.

Fast forward to present time, I was reading a Kung Fu book by author Douglas Wong and he mentioned something that hit me in the core of my existence. He said that "deletion of technique due to mistrust" which is a result of average kung Fu practitioners misrepresenting themselves as great masters which ends with the style/moves/ideas being portrayed as underwhelming and ineffective in publics eye.

Now going back to Yellow Bamboo, I am curios to know how they were able to garner so much followers? I mean I get the cult mentality but I just feel that even if cult tactics was used, they had lots of guts to put themselves in the lime light. I say this because a premeditated scam artist would keep it hush hush so I like to think that the yellow bamboo practitioners did not have any ill intent but I like to hear your thoughts on them.

If these are the same people that state they can stop someone or knock someone out without touching them (which I seem to remember they are) they are a joke.

I buy into meditation to focus the mind, I buy into fasting because it does have health benefits but the whole celibacy thing (not for me). The whole no touch knockout and stopping someone with your mind is fake and utter nonsense. I don't care if you meditate, fast and abstain from sex your whole life, you can't knock someone out with your Chi. Pure bull pucky.

I mean look here is the thing. We have had many seasoned MMA and combat sports champions and for all their fighting abilities, they lack a decent amount of flexibility. I mean heck, just a decade ago, MMA fighters looked down on boxing and judo while at one point, MMA was basically Muay thai, wrestling and BJJ.

Now we are seeing fighters from different styles, fighters with flashy kicks and fighters that have the ability to embrace obscure techniques. Now this doesn't mean we get No touch fighters. But we have yet to see a fighter embrace the healthiest lifestyle that is based on deep meditation and abstaining from parties and loud toxic environment.

ALL professional athletes embrace meditation and avoid things that will hinder them. Otherwise they'd just get beat.

Meditation is any activity that focuses the mind onto a particular goal or objective. Shadow boxing is meditation. It is visualisation. A cyclist studying a map of the race route is meditating when he tries to tie what he sees on the map to what he saw when he rode the route a week before.

Fasting - OK, that's not common practice. But what is the goal of fasting? To adjust the body chemistry to optimise blood sugar regulation? To initiate fat burning? To trick the body into banking energy in the form of glycogen next time you eat? Serious athletes do all of these things through carefully planned diet.

Abstinence / celibacy - I'm not convinced there's any good science there.

Meditation by the way is not something magical fancy thing. The shoalin monks meditate a lot. But they don't float up into the clouds or visit the astral plane or anything. They work on keeping the mind clear while holding very painful physically demanding body conditioning positions. It's the same when a westerner works til they feel like puking then keeps going anyway.

[sensei8]

Well, I've never heard about Yellow Bamboo, but that's alright because the world of the MA holds a tremendous amount of mystery, however, it does sound quite interesting.

[Spartacus Maximus]

The whole thing was never intended to be a martial art. It was a con from the beginning designed and implemented to profit from taking advantage of people. It has/had many things in common with both cults and scams. Morals and ethics aside, the founder must have made a lot of profit.

Fools and their money as soon parted. If this it is a prime example.