Ki - by any other name

[nzric]

At the risk of spending my life in purgatory, rolling an enormous ki ball up and down a hill, here's another chi/ki thread!
Ok here's the rules of chi club: You do not talk about ... oh forget it

This is the thing. From any MAP threads, past or present, feel free to cut and paste SHORT definitions/explanations of ki - anything from the intelligent and informative to the plain insane and incomprehensible.

BUT - the rule is DON'T post original material. It can be cut and pasted from your own previous posts, but KEEP IT SHORT (and respect other's views!). We'll leave your well reasoned explanations to the other ki threads. This is just a list of definitions.

Maybe, just maybe, even if we agree to disagree about the reality of it, at least we can agree on what the h..l we're talking about! :))

[ns_oni]

Quotes of Ki

"I thought I felt my Ki once - turns out I just had a stone in my shoe - Damn! Back to the drawing board."


"You know that tingling feeling you get when you are practising your form, usually in your hands and fingers? Thats Chi energy"


"Call it ki, chi, prana, energy, biomagnetic force"


"The best scientific name I've heard for chi is Electromagnetic force"


"There are things in this world that can't be seen or touched and yet we know they exist, so why should subtle energy and the human biomagnetic field be any different? Infact the human biomagnetic field can be measured and proven and this is an intimate of Qi."


"after a while you should feel the ball, or a warm, tingling sensation. That is chi!"


Again, these are not my views
:Angel:

[Syd]

Beneath heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
Yet for attacking the solid and strong,
Nothing can take its place.
Therefore the soft can overcome the hard,
The weak can overwhelm the strong,
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.

[Tatsuma]

when the Chinese people were more acquainted with electromagnetic science, that they began to recognize that this energy circulating in the body, which they called Qi, might be the same thing as what today's science calls "bioelectricity."

[nzric]

the only reason you don't like chi is caus apperantly you have none. :P

Given that I believe chi is visualisation/focussing techniques, I fail to see the difference.

"chi" is life energy. Therefore, the act of walking, running, kicking, breathing, focusing, visualizing, breathing, talking, punching, etc. all involves the use of "chi" to accomplish.

Chi or Qi is simply energy. Every thing in the universe and beyond has Qi has energy, physical emotional, intelectual and spiritual energy.

not all IMA focus on the Dantien. They make reference on storing Chi there, but not all IMAs require one to move from the Dantien. YiQuan is one such. In Empty Power, there's often NO MOVEMENT at all, the defender basically lets the attacker make contact before Zap KaPow !

somone cannot really push the cultivation of Chi. You put your time in, and it comes and grows

[God]

when the Chinese people were more acquainted with electromagnetic science, that they began to recognize that this energy circulating in the body, which they called Qi, might be the same thing as what today's science calls "bioelectricity."

Is that a quote from Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming?

[Reiki]

Originally posted by nzric

somone cannot really push the cultivation of Chi. You put your time in, and it comes and grows

or in the case of reiki, the energy comes through the practioner and into the patient......

[Bobtob]

How do rocks have chi/ki/qi. you said everything in the universe. im not trying to say your wrong i just curious.:confused:

[nzric]

because chi rocks!!!!!


(btw - it was a metaphor)

[Capt Ann]

Originally posted by Bobtob
How do rocks have chi/ki/qi. you said everything in the universe. im not trying to say your wrong i just curious.:confused:

Hey, Bob!

One problem is that there are so many definitions of chi floating around that you need a score-card to follow who believes exactly what. In ancient China, the universe (all things, including rocks) was believed to have chi. The buddhists added the part about chi being a life-force (only living things have it) centuries later. The neo-confucianists (13th century or so) went back to viewing chi as a physical force, and living beings having intent, or a view of an ideal (called "yi"), and then they spent the next 200 years doing nothing but arguing over which came first, the chi or the yi. I would say that most of the chi-ophiles on this thread have a view heavily influenced by Morihei Ueshiba, who founded the Japanese MA aikido in the 1940's.

Each of these streams of thought have different views on what chi is, what it does, and what (if anything) people can do with it.....and all these views are mutually exclusive. (i.e., AT MOST, only one of these views could be correct).

Those on the thread that seem to make the best case for chi view it as something that gives you awareness of your own body, surroundings, and muscles, a view not really supported by any of these historical views, except possibly Ueshiba's, which is the most recent. (Interesting, since most who advocate chi support their views partly based on the fact that chi is such an ancient concept.)

Anyway, confusion on this topic is very understandable.

My advice: don't worry about "chi cultivation". Practice your basic techniques, build up wind, work on muscles and balance, and be aware of your body's responses.

[zun]

Perhaps not unrelated to Chi:

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_848291.html

Dark energy named 'breakthrough of the year'

Evidence the universe is being pushed apart by a mysterious force called "dark energy" has been named "Breakthrough of the Year".

Science journal has awarded the title after two studies provided proof of a force counteracting gravity.

The fact that the universe was not only expanding but accelerating outwards had been discovered five years earlier.

Dark energy was proposed as the likely explanation, but at the time many cosmologists were wary of the idea.

Their doubts were dispelled this year by data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.

WMAP, an orbiting satellite, took the most detailed picture ever of the cosmic microwave background - radiation left over from the birth of the universe.

By analysing patterns in this light, scientists worked out that the universe consisted of only 4% ordinary visible matter. The rest was made up of 23% hidden dark matter, whose nature remains unknown, and 73% dark energy.

The SDSS mapped a million galaxies. In October, the survey team reported its analysis of the first 250,000 galaxies. By measuring how the galaxies were spread through space, the SDSS scientists also concluded that the universe was dominated by dark energy.

Don Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science, said: "The implications of these discoveries about the universe are truly stunning. Cosmologists have been trying for years to confirm the hypothesis of a dark universe. Science is glad to recognise their success in this effort as the Breakthrough of the Year for 2003."

[Syd]

Are we talking the same thing as Dark Matter? ;) ... yes, yes, yes...

[musashiblade]

lie down some day in the summertime, when there are small clouds in the sky... pick a cloud and focus your will upon it. believe that the cloud is not there, do not focus on destruction or hate, simply focus... when the cloud disappears before your eyes...you have found a form of ki.

[LilBunnyRabbit]

It's His Dark Materials all over again.

[inacan]

Would a Chi by another other name, hurt as much when your instructor sends you flying into the wall from 2 feet away?

Aside from Ki,Qi, Chi, Qing, Ging.... being a spiritual energy, I always believed it occured partially because you have found the way to maximize your power by aligning your body in such a way to deliever it.

[shotokanwarrior]

Originally posted by ns_oni



"You know that tingling feeling you get when you are practising your form, usually in your hands and fingers? Thats Chi energy"


you get that sensation because your veins are overloaded from the movement, not because of ki
shotokanwarrior

[marais]

hi guys
i am trying to get more advanced with my studies on ki and the improvement thereof. please help

[nzric]

shotokanwarrier - good point, but I don't want to get mixed up with western/eastern arguments. I just thought we'd set up a thread which could be a collection point for any and all definitions of ki/chi.

Talking about whether or not we agree with each one is for other threads - the first step is to find out exactly what each person is talking about (as perceptions of what constitutes chi varies a lot).

[dashao]

the best definiton of chi i have heard would be dr yang jwing mings view if i remember he explains it through physics which has already been said but hey worth a shot.

[pandajelly]

Originally posted by nzric
In Empty Power, there's often NO MOVEMENT at all, the defender basically lets the attacker make contact before Zap KaPow !


Are you an Empty Power practitioner ?

[nzric]

No, definitely not. For a good overview of the relative pov of all the locals here, check out the old thread 'Ki'.

As I said at the start of the thread, this is just a summary/collection of quotes about qi/chi from other threads. Discussion about the validity of the quotes are for other threads, this thread is just meant to be to clarify things so we can all agree on the fundamental definition of chi/qi (btw - the quote came from an individual by the name of soggycat, who is an empty power practitioner).

[Capt Ann]

Nzric, I know the purpose of this thread is to collect definitions of what Ki is. Based on conversations I've had, it would help me a lot to could get some concensus on what ki is NOT. Could you and others include some thoughts on this in your posts? (Like whether or not you consider ki to be a physical force, a spiritual force, an experience, a combination of physical features, will-power, external/internal, etc.)

Thanks

[hwardo]

I just heard a new definition of chi that I like a lot:

Everyone has seen the yin and yang symbol, right? Yin (in this case) is the internal processes-- thought, intention, and internal workings. Yang is the expressed action, or the outcome. So Yin would be my intention to direct a punch, and yang would be the action of the punch itself.

Chi is the "S" line between yin and yang-- it is the way your intention connects with your nerves, the connection between Yi (mind) and body, and it can be cultivated and refined in the same manner that the body and the intention can.

[Reiki]

Ki is purely an energy force that can be channeled through the body.

It has healing uses [Reiki] and can be used for making your strikes more effective, and for protection of the body.

That's my view of the uses of ki as a Reiki Master.

[shuyun3]

in the aikido sense ki has a variety of meanings.

in physics terms it may be simply defined as vectors. yes we have kirlian photography to visualize ki but i think that's putting too much stock as a mystical force.

don't get me wrong I qigong too and feel the ball thing and all but F=ma explains ki a lot.

It's center of gravity, vectors, aceleration force. even breath and awareness.

most of the visualization we do is psychosomatic or a product of the mind and felt by the senses (i'm not saying it's useless) it helps the body achieve proper form internally and making the techniques effective. E.g. the perfect circle around a golfer's tee off is an example of visualization.

[silentbob3887]

Sometimes when i concentrate on my dan tien to feel my ki i get that feeling you get right before u have to take a big crap. Do you think that could be my ki?

[Knight_Errant]

"to attempt to acquire chi by any other means than by hard training and daily endeavour would make one as the ignorant man of sung who, dissatisfied that his crops were growing so slowly, pulled them up a little day by day, eventually exposing the whole roots and killing his crop."