one touch KO. Rubbish?

I literally cannot think of anything that would make 5 blokes, voluntarily on stage at a world tai chi and qigong day, sell a small woman pushing them along besides a mystical force science can't detect or measure.
Nope. I got nothing.
This bloke might have some suggestions though...

[ame="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paranormality-Why-we-believe-impossible/dp/1447208161"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Paranormality-Why-we-believe-impossible/dp/1447208161[/ame]

 

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmVfHZgHMUk"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmVfHZgHMUk[/ame]

No martial arts skill AT ALL yet develops a more impressive result

Whatever is at work is not a martial art concept or chi but clearly some version of NLP or NPP

 

Except this stuff is far older than NLP.

Plus, Derren is not a fan of NLP.

 

He uses similar techniques quite happily though - just rather more sophisticated.

And what does the stuff being older than NLP have to do with it? Do people really think that the first NLP teacher was when those techniques were invented? People have been using suggestion, persuasiveness, sleight of hand, trickery, misleading perceptions, and every other trick of the charlatan for centuries.

Just because it's older doesn't mean it's real - just means that the trick wasn't as well-known.

The heating aluminium one is still one of my all time favourites.

 

And people have always had the ideomotor effect.

 

I completely agree, I just find it slightly irksome when NLP gets the credit for skills that were around long before it.

A lot of the marketing and qualifications of NLP appear rather dubious to me.

 

Not that I am aware of.The progam was about medicine rather than martial arts.

 

Hence the phrase "some version of"

Derren Brown can do the woo-woo better than every mystic out there - and he says it isn't mystic! That within itself is revealing

 

These party tricks are also used in Ki Aikido. Except in the Ki Aikido version the conga line is tightly packed so there are no gaps between the people in the line. This is to give the illusion of moving a solid mass with a very light touch.

The standard routine is to try to move the "solid mass" with raw strength first. And invariably that attempt fails. The second attempt uses the power of "Ki". Everybody in the line falls or stumbles backwards and the crowd are amazed. However all it takes to spoil the illusion is for one person in the line to push forwards very slightly.

The practical point of this party trick is to teach students to strike through a target instead of striking the target and stopping on contact. But that's rarely communicated to students and almost never to the gullible masses in the audience.

Ki, chi, qi, whatever you want to call it is all psychology and mechanics. There is nothing more going on. And body language is a hell of a lot more important to suggestion techniques than words will ever be.

 

Some of these things could be physical.Chow does another demo where she touches certain points and the arm can be moved easily as if it has no strength in it.One trick I have done is to first test a persons arm strength by pushing down on their arm and then I brush lightly with my palm along their chest a few times going from the shoulder to the solar plexus.Once tihs has been done the persons arm loses all strength and they can't resist the push.Not too sure how it works but I have a feeling it is connected with the fascia.

 

Unless the demo can be replicated under test conditions, it's pretty useless.

If it can be then it's still no proof of chi - there are plenty of tricks with the human body involved. Magicians have been doing this for a long time, I don't really see any difference between them and Chow except for the claims being made.

 

It certainly hasn't got anything to do with chi.Chow might say its chi but in my opinion some other mechansim is at work.It can be replicated,try it yourself.

 

Mystique/Raven injected enough into a guard for Magneto to escape

The whole crock of magnetic fields or magnets aiding humans is in all of those gimmicks like wrist bans, etc.

 

Yep - which would have led to blood poisoning, liver failure, diabetes, and all sorts of other unpleasant effects.

In fact that much iron would probably just have killed him outright. He certainly wouldn't have made it into work the next day.

Almost as bad as those crystals you stick on your phone to stop electromagnetic radiation. :bang:

 

What your doing is confusing the system in the brain that judges the level of resistance the arm is feeling. Because this system is confused, the brain can't figure out what it's supposed to be telling the arm to do. And so the arm appears to have no strength.

A similar trick is to get someone to push your arms together while you push them apart. This can result in you being unable to bring your arms together. This effect can also be achieved by holding soapy bubbles in your hands. Try to squash them while resisting that action at the same time.

Put the bubbles down and try to bring your hands together. You will now feel the "chi ball" effect in your hands.

It's very easy to temporarily confuse the basic systems in your brain that control your body.

 

Agree.

It is almost no wonder how many magicians-illusionists could captivate a audience. It could be said, same parlor tricks-illusions were/are made by CHIers.

Aikido's "Unbendable Arm" is now proven to be that of body mechanics-leverage and disproven as "KI"

This similar feat was also performed and later perfected by Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin's; Light-Heavy Box

Robert-Houdin would influence Erik Weisz so greatly that Weisz will change his last name to match but also adding a "i" to sound more intriguing

As for a one touch KO, depends on how hard and where the touch is; and the response to the stimulus by the individual receiving

 

Well I'm not sure how one disproves the existence or non-existence of something that is so ill defined in the first place. Ki is an ambiguous word that means many things depending on the context of the conversation. It is primarily this ambiguity that leaves the word open to abuse. Particularly in the western world.

With respect to Ki Aikido or Aikido and in particular the "Ki" part. If one takes the time to study the things Koichi Tohei sensei has said and put in writing. Then it is fairly obvious the Ki he is referring to is the mind and the relationship between the mind and the body and how they feed back into each other. Ki Aikido teaching is replete with motivational phrases like "mind moves body".

In comparison to O Sensei, Koichi Tohei's explanations are relatively straightforward and intelligible. Of course they do still sound somewhat mystical. Particularly to westerners. That however is a product of the Japanese culture. Which is partly why we must form our understanding of martial arts where the dojo meets the real world. If you can't move a feather with just your mind. It won't work on a 200lb attacker. Sadly common sense isn't particularly common.

As for one touch knock outs? As has been mentioned already. There are a myriad of factors that determine their success. For example staring at goats really does make them faint or at least fall over. Clearly people aren't goats. But we do have our own physiological quirks that leave us vulnerable.

Every time a person is struck in the head, their brain bounces around inside the confined space in the scull like a marble in a jar. The multiple impacts the brain suffers as the result of one mediocre strike can be enough to knock someone unconscious or even kill them.

The problem as I see it isn't that ki or chi or whatever is fake. It's that old traditional explanations are being used alongside watered down low grade teaching by too many teachers who seem to have a compulsive need to sell books.

 

I don't know if the clip is the real deal, looks a little faked--but it is possible; I was going to provide the same basic explanation as this:

"In the orignal clip the guy struck the carotid sinus,a very common showmanship technique but not very practical in real life.It works okay against someone who is very compliant and relaxed.When you strike this sinus the receptors in it send confusing signals to the brain which thinks it is dealing with an incident of high blood pressure so it automatically lowers the blood pressure resulting in a faint.Its a bit like striking someone full force in the chest and and "knocking them out" The blow interupts the vagus nerve and the subject faints due to low blood pressure.These are not concussive KO's but rather faints.Neither of these methods will work against someone who is pumped up with adrenaline so they are of little use in real life."

However, I do not think the point about it not working under adrenal stress is completely true. I have used this "St 9" KO in a real situation, although It was a pre-emptive strike and the would be assailant may not have had enough time for enough of an adrenal dump in all fairness. Even if this strike did not create a KO, you are at least still popping him in the throat...

The second strike looked like a shot downwards onto the temple. Using the pisiform bone (bottom of the palm heel), you can put all the power in the surface area of less than a square inch to transmit to the opponent. It doesn't take a whole lot to create a KO here. Touch? No, some power, yes. I have demonstrated the same on a moving target, but I used visibly more force I think than shown here.

Qi is crap, it's physiological, not mystical.

G

 

"ST9" is the traditional "Dim Mak" KO , but as you say is little more than a good smack in the neck when all is said and done!

The "brachial stun" that we use in LEO training is basically the same thing.
Effective ? most certainly!
Mystical? Most certainly not!

 

Works all of the time as the "magic bullet".....___________________