Old Ki debate with a subtle twist

[Shorin Ryuu]

Hello everyone...I wanted to post a poll on Chi/Ki. This poll asks whether you believe it to be non-existent, a scientific phenomenon that deals with mind-body attunement, a deeply spiritual or mystical force, or undecided about the issue.

 

The answer that it has some spiritual benefits but is limited by the physical world is for all purposes the second answer.

 

The answer that the spiritual force can drive changes in the physical world is for all purposes the third answer.

 

I wanted a poll so I could also get some quantitative idea of what people here think as well as a qualitative idea, so please feel free to post something along with your poll response.

 

Thanks everyone, and try to keep this respectful please.

[delta1]

I'll abstain from voting. The existance of chi can not be decided by a poll. Your results would be irrelevant, since most people have never experienced it, and most who have (including me) would not be qualified to give you a definative answer. My advice would be to find a good instructor and study Quigong. You can then decide for yourself if it exists. That shouldn't take you too long. But you could then spend the rest of your life deciding how to vote in your poll.

[Martial Artist]

Hmmm... very good question.

 

Among the arts that I study are Aikido and Tai Chi Chuan. Both of these combat styles focus on this mystical... "force/thing" quite a bit. However, it is all physically based. In both Tai Chi and Aikido, I can trow a 300 pound man 10 feet without exerting any strength becauae I "Ki/Chi" into my target. In actuallity, I am simply sinking my weight, relaxing, rotating my hips and expanding outwards. The Hips are what drive the action.

[Kamidake]

That's a good question. I wish I had a good answer. Certainly ki/chi/prana is real; it is essentially the way of describing the life force in those three languages. If you're alive, you have ki. The more relevant question is how, and to what extent, you can control it, and frankly, I don't have a clue. I can offer a couple of little anecdotes for whatever they're worth.

 

1) My son and I took a tai chi class. The first night the teacher had us in some position, I forget what--nothing too complicated--and I asked, "Are you supposed to feel a warm tingling sensation in your left hand?" (That was the hand we had uppermost, I do remember that.) The teacher said, yes, that was chi, that was what we were after. I tried to ask my son if he had felt it too, but he wasn't verbal enough to be able to explain it if he had (brain damage).

 

2) In Jinenkan class, we worked on a leverage technique where I scooted a strong young man across the floor as he resisted. (Great fun, I might add! ) My teacher said a lot of people would tell you that was chi, but he thought it was leverage, and added that he thought most, if not all, of what people call the effects of chi boils down to physics and the mechanics of the positions.

[Drunken Monkey]

one of the things that people forget that the whole idea of chi was invented/created during a period when superstition and magic was believed and indeed, revered in china. you can still see the remnants of this strong belief. if those people, however many hundreds/thouds of years ago understood the human body like how we do today, do you think that ideas like chi would have survived?

 

and then there's the much dispised chinese habit of holding things back from people (which you and i know as closed door policy). i always regarded chi as something that they couldn't explain so they made it a mystery to perplex those students who had gotten as good they were. in this case, they needed an edge over them so they use this thing...

 

i really don't meant to offend and i apologise deeply if i have but this is just my opinion, feel free to express yours.

[hobbitbob]

Qi as an explanatory concept for a pre-technological civilization is wonderful. But, to quote Harry Cook, "If Qi were as powerful as it is said, why aren't their teams of 90 lb. men in their 80s defeating proffesional rugby players?"

[Drunken Monkey]

was that a response to my post?

 

anyway, i absolutely agree with you. i am a wing chun student and have always been taught chi in terms of body mechanics. certain body structures are just stronger in certain positions. no magic/mystery involved.

[JerryLove]

And much of what is called Qi is indeed something else (such as body mechanics). Teaching both, there are things I can isolate as "definately not body-mechanics", such as the no-contact qigong work I do.

[Drunken Monkey]

can you tell us more of the none contact qi-gong?

[JerryLove]

http://www.karateforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=3786&start=10&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

I had / have seen many of the Chi tricks. Some I could see the biomechanics of, some I chalked up to psycosematics (and some certainly are). I rolled by eyes at qigong person after qigong person who spoke at length of their abilitys, but who had limited demonstrations.

 

What finally changed that was my instructor dragging me, kicking and screaming (metaphorically), to our schools "qigong healing workshop". I followed what we were told, tried all the imagery, felt the sensations... But that could be psycosematic (I was giving a good-faith effort to believe it).

 

So, armed with my qi skills in hand, I devised a double-blind test. The qigong healing works by "scannig" your subject... finding areas the deel "wrong" (warm, cold, dry, wet, tingly, etc), and fixing them. So for my double blind test, I decided to enlist some non-martial artist (mostly random mmbers of my extende family). I would have them sit and relax; I would scan them and get a firm idea in my head of exactly what was wrong and where; I would then fix it as best I could and get a firm idea in my head of how well I had made it go. I even wrote down my thoughts on some occasions (normally, I trust myself not to lie to me, so I did not always). Afterwards, I would ask them what they had felt before, during, and after the work. I was very careful not to ask leading questions.

 

My results were that I did miss things. There were hurts I did not find. OTOH, I never found something in error. If I felt a problem, they felt the problem either from before I started work, or when I started workin on it. I was also accurate in weather I had been successful in fixing it. There were no false positives, and there were no wrong impressions of success.

 

It's also worth pointin out that I did the healing behind them, I did not really preface them with what I was planning ("can I try someing? Sit there."). There is no actual contact in the healing process; at east one person's visual perception wa actively wrong (she said I was over on her right and she felt the sensations / pain on her left... but I had in-fact been on her left and she didn't see where I was correctly).

 

I've done this experiment around a dozen times, never a false positive, and yes, I almost always find something.