A planet that defies the law of physics. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/planet-found-that-defies-the-laws-of-physics-1777738.html
23rdwave, there's no need to defend Adam Mizner. I agree with Iron Fist that it is a mixed bag. Mizner has skills and knowledge, what he does with that skill and knowledge is a bit confusing. If you want to help, tell us what parts of what he does is skill and what parts is parlor tricks. And I do mean parlor tricks, since he implied that Judo is balance tricks and distinctly said what he does is NOT balance tricks in an interview of his. If you can define where the line is, then please let us know. If you think there is no trick to it, then I think you miss the point that ALL technique is a trick of some type. Of more interest to me is his use of pressure points. Pushing people flying across the room has very little combat value. It is more showmanship. Causing the opponent to collapse on themselves is something that has much more combat value. Why he chooses to make people fly is quite sportive of him and neglects the combat roots of TCC. IMHO. Edit: I think where I'm getting at is do we know if Mizner is being honest with his students that he is not teaching them how to fight? He is teaching a skill set that could be used in fighting but is missing the actual goal. Sending people flying off balance isn't a combat use of TCC.
I myself was puzzled for a different reason. The title of the video is "chi blast" but all I saw was one guy pushing another guy backwards with physical touch. It looks so much like the wrist grab thing we practice in aikido all the time: you hold my wrist, and I push you off balance. At some point we do the same thing with the jo (big stick): you're holding a jo, I grab your jo, manuever a little, and push you off balance with your own jo. The "trick" is to find the sweet spot of alignment, and then move your body altogether, as one unit, in that direction. Very little strength is needed if you do that. Well, instead of holding onto each other's wrists, or holding onto a big stick, the guys in the video were holding onto peppers. :dunno: Or did I miss something?
I don't believe Chi Blast was the original title of the video. I don't believe Chi is even mentioned in the video audio. Fa Jin seems to be what is being demonstrated. There is some connection that is "like a wire" that I was asking folks earlier if that was a reference that Chi might travel across this wire (although I didn't use these words previously).
I, too, am put off by his persona. He sits in lotus position on a throne, for chrissakes. Many teachers just do parlor tricks at seminars. He seems to fall into this category. Any young white guy calling himself a sifu is absurd. At least he doesn't have a topknot or tail. I know a guy with both. My objection is to putting up a joke video (jalapeño power, really?) and claiming this is what cima is about. And then here come all the self-described experts and the posting of the same old mma vs chi power vid that we have all seen ad infinitum. If one wants to test someone's skill test it in person. I wouldn't train with a teacher that hasn't been vetted by people I respect and trust. Mizner is a Mark Rasmus student so that is where he gets his stuff. I wouldn't train with him. There are better teachers. But Adam is supposed to have some skill. Just not with pepper poppers.
" I'll going to go out on a limb here and say he owned me before physical touch happened ". Sounds like the perfect uke ! But seriously , you can't expect people to accept this account as a basis for verifying the man's ability ? Is there any evidence of such demonstrable skills against a resisting opponent - sparring, pushing hands or outside the bubble of a sympathetic seminar.
I don't know Mizner. You can go by some goofy videos or what people who trained with him say. Lan Tran compared him to Sam Chin. I don't see it in the videos and I am not interested in seeing it in person. Internal martial arts are about feeling not technique. One can't learn the feeling through a video. One has to touch hands. Jalapeños be damned.
:cry::cry: pmsl! This thread reminds me, there was someone who was going to fight Hannibal blindfolded using his chi vision or something, whatever happened to him?
Exactly, that is why online discussion of "Internal" MA usually gets a bit pointless ( but on the other hand, provides a lot of entertainment here on MAP )
http://dandjurdjevic.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-7-signs-of-martial-personality-cult.html You know I can't seem to get any sort of real info on how old Adam Mizner is. He founded an org in 2004 and a new one in 2014. He looks..? 40 at the oldest? So a master teacher since he was 28? '' has had 7 primary teachers of Yang Style Tai Chi from the Huang Sheng Shyan and Yang Shao Hou lineages '' ''entered the Path in his early teens, although his personal initiations had begun much earlier in life. His preliminary training included in depth study of Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, Complete Reality Taoism , Kung Fu, Chi Gong and Taijiquan. Sifu Mizner's lifelong quest, the pursuit of the heightened mind, was set. He pursued full time training in Asia and Australia, spending vast periods of time in Temples, furthering and deepening '' ''During his time in Australia, he undertook a live-in initiation into the hermetic sciences ( a western metaphysical tradition).This intensive practice regime , which spanned years, further tempered his mastery of the internal arts. During this time Sifu Mizner also became a Rieki Master and gained proficiency in Thai and Chinese massage.'' Seems a few decades spent learning one thing or another ... all at the same time? If he started serious training after high school that gave him a decade to become all these things.. well I am only guessing since I can't find any sort of chronological information about this fellow. Does anyone actually know anything much about his true history? Rather than the stuff from the book jacket? Being a good fighter with people who think like you do isn't quite as convincing as when you see someone like Master Wang visiting the karate guys in Japan and having a go with them without difficulties. The link at the beginning discusses the traits of cultish MA behaviour... LFD
Not really, if you read the article they haven't discovered a physical impossibility, just a statistical improbability (1 in 2,000 is not a big deal, cosmologically speaking). There is huge difference between what shouldn't be expected to be found because it's unlikely, versus because finding it breaks all the laws of physics. So I'm not sure how this new potential discovery is relevant, unless you're suggesting that Tai Chi does transcend physical laws (this possible 10th planet certainly doesn't).
MMA fighters have amazing Chi, compared to people who just claim to have Chi and perform tricks with it.. don't you agree? So does he ever spar or compete or showcase in any real, actual skills with Tai Chi for someone making demos and interviews as a Tai Chi 'master'? This is my problem with him, he would seem to be the whole package...he seems smart, educated about the art, he clearly wants to teach it to the whole Internet, so where is all the valuable learning material again? Where is the video of this man actually using Tai Chi skill to defeat an opponent (rather than make believe to) Masters should teach valuable stuff, and showcase real training, so why am we even listening to this guy again? How is he any different than George Dillman's, just without the gi? He seems to only do make believe for the camera. Again that's even if he learned Tai Chi from a good source, and maybe he did, but what he's reproducing is not good. He is the kind of Tai Chi guy who gets his butt kicked, is what I am guessing, when it comes to fighting. By all means, please prove me wrong, with a single realistic video clip of him taking on an unscripted attack. "I can throw you across a room with Tai Chi" come on man, video or it never even happened.
It’s not because the details are minute or the probability low that we're magically operating outside the laws of physics.
You folks are all slipping. Not one individual has yet to level the accusation that all the results we see in the vid are 'cause the peppers were compliant.