Hi Newbie question

inthespirit · Nov 9, 2007

Regarding the whole Qi/Taiji/IMA/EMA thing... Mr. Handz kindly shared this BKF interview with us in another thread, I found his view quite interesting and thought this may be relevant in this thread:

http://fightmonks.com/Bruce_K._Frantzis_Interview.html

Do these various disciplines you’re using having similar connections but different end products?

The Qigong is very clearly building blocks. It’s not martial arts. Instead, it just gives you the juice or the energy. Softness is the biggest thing about Taiji; it’s softness and the use of Yin energy. The biggest thing about Bagua is its incredible degree of spiralling and its ‘unpredictability’ especially in terms of footsteps and movement. Energetically Bagua is really much more like a vortex and Taiji is like the waves of the ocean. That’s the feel of it and the reality of its uses in fighting. Contrary to some people in the game I do think Qi exists, I think it’s a very learnable subject and a very real subject and I just chuckle at people that don’t believe in it. I find that to be somewhat of a humorous statement given the fact that for thousands of years all this stuff has been based upon it and the distinction in China between things that are physical and things that use energy is very clear. I devoted a couple of chapters on how qigong works and qigong theory in my book, ‘Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body.’ That’s interesting because in the main, when working with Qigong practitioners, they tend to focus on acupoints, meridians etc. There are sixteen components to Qigong. Qigong is a modern term but if we go back more than 50 years ago the term Neigong was always used. If we talk about that, the whole thing about it is that the meridian lines are one of the components. Breath work is another, as is working with the core channels of the body, working with the secondary energies of the body, working with the opening and closing of the joints, the opening and closing of the spine, working with the movement of the internal organs…. all these are very distinct pieces. To try and learn all of them while you’re doing either Taiji or Bagua is a virtually impossible task. In the old days you would just learn the Long Form because the pre-supposition is that you would be practising three-four hours per day, six-seven days a week. Now, even in China, since that time has become really short, Qigong sets are taught with a small number of movements that work on what the internal components are. The first stage of it, and this is what I teach the majority of people, is purely for making you healthy. If you have a disease, you can get well and if your health is so-so, it can get better. The goal is to take a person with a weak condition and give them a strong condition or help change an unhealthy condition to a healthy condition. The second stage, training, which I teach occasionally, is much harder and much more intense. It’s for martial arts. I sometimes teach that to professional athletes because those people are going to train the couple of hours a day to get very superior abilities and you don’t get superior abilities just by doing something casually a couple of days a week for an hour. The third level is about how Qigong is done in terms of meditation. This is what the Chinese refer to as Shen Gong. I’m not really teaching this a lot. I teach it sometimes when I teach meditation but I don’t teach it in general because I simply don’t have people with enough background. That’s all it really comes down to. You can’t go to university if you can’t do your A levels. You have to have the foundation.

With reference to Qigong and Neigong, would you say that Taiji as an art is ineffectual without it?

Yes. Well ineffectual in what way? There’s a thousand ways in which you could be ineffectual. Well let’s say Taiji as a fighting art? Without the application of real Neigong principles you will find that your Taiji will have barriers at each point and without Neigong you won’t go past them. Then the question becomes, “Can I learn the movements of a Taiji form and not really be doing Taiji but make it work for fighting?” Sure you can, because Taiji comes out of Shaolin and as long as you are able to move in such a way, to parry a punch and make them go down, you’ll be fine. By the same token, a good street fighter can make up his own Taiji form, in the pub when he’s drunk, as long as he can slam the guy in the head and knock him out, then he’s got an effective martial art. However if you’re talking about what Taiji can really do…? That’s what I mean, the original creation of the art. Well if you’re talking about the original creation of the art then there’s no way of being effective in fighting without the Neigong. It’s like trying to buy a plane ticket without money; it’s not going to work.
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Sandus · Nov 9, 2007

Thread closed while I clean it up and find some semblance of a topic. I may end up splitting this and starting another thread.

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inthespirit ignant

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