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aznkarateboi
Brown Belt
Joined: 30 Mar 2003
Posts: 627
Styles: shaolin gung fu southern style
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 Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 9:15 am Post subject: what does ki do |
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| what is the use of a ki ball? what can you do with a ki blast or a ki flame? are there any practical uses to these techniques? |
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Epanchin
White Belt
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 10:49 am Post subject: |
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First of all, it's important to put to rest the silly misconceptions associated commonly with chi.
The human body is, like the Matrix suggests, essentially a battery. It produces body heat, and it produces bioelectricity which is used to govern movement, thought, emotion and all manners of human response. When you have a thought, an electrical pulse is fired off in your brain. When you move your arm, electrical impulses are being sent through your nervous system to your arm to induce and govern the movement. This is chi. Without this electricity, we would be dead and for that reason chi is understood as the "life force" of a human being, though there is nothing magical (in the sense that its not natural) about it.
Chi is often associated with breath, but breath itself is not chi. Rather, chi is built from breathing in certain fashions. When the body is properly aligned to facilitate the flow of chi as best as possible (relaxation, tongue on roof of mouth, pelvis tucked, etc etc) and a certain deep and intentional breath is assumed for extended periods of time, the body begins to become more oxygenated and more energy is produced. This is why meditation can be like sleep. It will refill your lost energy, so to speak, by using oxygen to produce this energy. This is why meditation builds chi in the body. More oxygen = more electricity.
The more energy a person has in his or her body, the more electricity (or the stronger the electrity is), the harder someone can hit. It's just like upgrading a car from an engine with 150 horsepower, to one with 250. Or, in a more literal sense, the more horses you add in front of a cart, the faster the cart can move. This is why chi can make someone move fast and their hits powerful.
At more advanced levels, however, chi itself can become a weapon rather than supplementary for the fist or the palm. I have not experienced someone affecting me without touching me, so I won't comment on it. However, if you've ever touched something electrical and been shocked, you know that the human body can be used as a mild conductor. This means that the electricity that is coursing through a human's nervous system can be transferred directly through contact. These are the kinds of hits where someone can use their intent to guide the energy they release into an area of the body. Slap someone on the arm and have their leg hurt. Punch someone in the face and make them vomit.
There is nothing magical about chi. It is, however, the most fundamental aspect of martial strength and power. |
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Icetuete
Black Belt
Joined: 17 May 2003
Posts: 1025
Location: Germany
Styles: ITF Taekwondo
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 2:56 pm Post subject: |
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interesting read  |
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hobz
Blue Belt
Joined: 21 Mar 2003
Posts: 296
Location: Calgary, Alberta
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:55 pm Post subject: |
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Wow
_________________
Rule #1: Play the game to the limit. Damn the consequences. |
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Dragonias
Yellow Belt
Joined: 22 Jun 2003
Posts: 42
Location: London
Styles: Goju, Shotokan
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2003 7:55 am Post subject: |
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cool, id like to learn how to do that for sure
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Yours In Budo |
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JerryLove
Black Belt
Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 1274
Location: Tampa, FL, US
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| Posted: Mon Jun 23, 2003 10:13 am Post subject: |
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mmm...
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| It produces body heat, and it produces bioelectricity which is used to govern movement, thought, emotion and all manners of human response. |
Emotion is primarily chemical.
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| When you have a thought, an electrical pulse is fired off in your brain. When you move your arm, electrical impulses are being sent through your nervous system to your arm to induce and govern the movement. This is chi. |
So Tens-unit = qigong ? Sounds kinda silly 
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| This is why meditation can be like sleep. It will refill your lost energy, so to speak, by using oxygen to produce this energy. |
But that's not the primary function of sleep, there are animals which do not sleep at all. While sleep time is used for repair of your body, it is primarily your brain that requires it.
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| The more energy a person has in his or her body, the more electricity (or the stronger the electrity is), the harder someone can hit |
That's not particularly true... The built-in systems that limit musculature contraction are more based on pain-response than available electrical stimuli. This is why people with large amounts of endorphins (or drugs like PCP) which act as pain-killers are stronger.
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| There is nothing magical about chi. |
This I agree with... as do I agree with most things I did not respond to.
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www.clearsilat.com |
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Epanchin
White Belt
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2003 8:27 am Post subject: |
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| Well I am basing what I know about chi on my own experience with it and on my own knowledge of the human body which is, well, superficial. However, my own experience with chi is consistent with my superficial knowledge of the functions of the human body. I'm not so much concerned with making some completely accurate account of chi at this stage without doing research as I am about having a concept of chi in my mind that is consistent with my current view of the world (in other words, not "universal magical breath energy" or something). |
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DarkClyde
Yellow Belt
Joined: 11 Jun 2003
Posts: 29
Location: Cromwall Canada
Styles: Ninpo Taijutsu
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| Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2003 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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Science can't prove or disprove Ki, so how can you use science terms to disagree?? Ki's involved in everything whether the text-book agrees or not.
And if Ki doesn't seem to be involved then you have to look closer. Ki is also like the Tao or God or Zen or Enlightment, if you pick it enough there are obviously going to be some insignificant little points within every description.
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"It's quite interesting..." |
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JerryLove
Black Belt
Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 1274
Location: Tampa, FL, US
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| Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2003 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| Science can't prove or disprove Ki, |
If that's true, then it's fantasy to believe in it.
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| so how can you use science terms to disagree?? Ki's involved in everything whether the text-book agrees or not. |
Non-actionable rhetoric.
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| And if Ki doesn't seem to be involved then you have to look closer. Ki is also like the Tao or God or Zen or Enlightment, |
These things are reasonably unrelated.
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| if you pick it enough there are obviously going to be some insignificant little points within every description. |
If true, would establish every description to be wrong.
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Epanchin
White Belt
Joined: 20 Jun 2003
Posts: 10
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| Posted: Tue Jul 01, 2003 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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| Science can't prove or disprove Ki |
I want to comment specifically on this.
First of all, why do you claim that science has no holding with regard to chi? Why is it that you are limiting what "science" (as if there is one organization named as such) can touch at all? Anything that can be observable in some empirical fashion is within the realm of scientific analysis. Sciences are by their very nature, endeavors to understand the natural world as it can be experienced. If it cannot be experienced, it is not part of the natural world and therefore we can have absolutely no perceptual contact with it at all. 'Chi' is felt, at the very least, by the practitioner. Whether or not you can observe or measure chi in other fashions is beyond my own knowledge. I'm sure you can but I'm not going to rest my argument on it.
Second, 'disproving' something's existence is completely unnecessary. The burden of proof is always on the person making the claim. I cannot simply say, well a 15 foot gorilla with 4 heads and a dragon's tail exists because you cannot disprove its existence. That makes no sense. If I want to claim that it exists, I must provide evidence to support the claim that it exists.
Finally, understandings of chi based in the supernatural are founded without any empirical evidence to support them. Furthermore, they are by in large inconsistent with the established understanding of the world and its processes. When these processes are demonstrable consistently, it is therefore a serious problem to introduce elements that have no empirical foundations yet contradict established fundamental natural functions. We aren't living in 500 AD China anymore. We don't need to rely on their explanations for things anymore. |
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on the post.
