Tai Chi - How long before you feel the chi?

This was in S.E. Asia, so maybe the cultural/traditional aspects of the region played a role in the way the class and attitude to the subject was structured.

Yeah, I know what you mean. We occasionally get fok like that show up, they dont tend to hang around too long though.

I’m not sure why it is, but some folk just seem to need the mysticism and fantasy. I guess it just makes the world a more interesting and maybe palatable place. Though, to some extent its not such a bad thing if it makes people happy and helps them live their lives, the problem is when it reaches a state of delusion. Though a good physical practice tends to bring them back to more a more normal world view quite effectively.

Yeah, thats pretty much how I look at it these days. I dont think its too important to dwell on it, if it gives you some benefits, you may as well use it. I guess it could be kind of like a placebo, which reminds me of this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1LRcbHUjRU"]Derren Brown: Fear and Faith: Friday 9th Nov (9pm Ch4) - YouTube[/ame]

If you get a chance, check out the full program if you didn’t see it on telly recently. Really interesting to see to what extent our minds and lives can be changed just with suggestion of something positive/negative.

 

Wow, thanks for all the insights.

When I say chi, I mean it in the way that the Chinese Masters of the past have meant it. As an energy which is felt but is not seen.

Its interesting to see the responses with regards to chi. I never thought that there could be people practicing Tai Chi, and not really believe in the stuff. The Chinese are very wise people, and the philosophy of chi is a principle of Taoism that they did not take lightly.

I guess skepticism reaches into everything in life. Even those practicing it for its martial art and health benefits. Is it fear of the unknown, or are people simply uncomfortable with things they don't quite understand?

 

These days we are less convinced by loose descriptions and more concerned with proof

Now proof and explanation are not the same thing. No one is asking to explain chi in textbook terms (or to the "western mind" as often gets trotted out) but people are asking for demonstrable and repeatable results that cannot be explained or replicated by other means. This would be a good indicator of a "physical" chi energy

Of course it could be good mechanics, bio tensegrity or just a name to describe "guts", "will" or "focus"

Being an Ancient Chinese idea is not any indicator of truth...they advocated Feng Shui and that has no merit at all beyond making the room look pretty.

 

"The Chinese are very wise people"

no. there were wise people who happened to be chinese. there is a huge and very important difference between the two.

 

Which 'Chinese Masters of the past' are you referring to? Do you have any direct quotes?

Why?
I can't be sure; but I would doubt that Yang LuChan and his sons, or the Chen family, or Dong HaiChuan, or Wang LeiSheng or any number of 'internal' boxers of the various styles spent so much time worrying about 'Chi' - and would instead spend their time developing their boxing skills...

Or are others so 'open minded' that their brain has fallen out? We may never know...
Scepticism is a healthy thing within the martial arts, particularly within the so called 'internal' styles; where people make many dubious claims to do with Chi (Dillman etc) - a sceptical mind will help you avoid the trash, but it doesn't necessarily mean you will reject anything outright. Being open to new ideas, once they have been proven and verified is no bad thing.

 

I did my first tai chi class today, a martial oriented one, dunno about chi but i thought my thighs were gonna give up after standing with most of my weight on the back leg in one stance for god know how long, I'm not looking for chi, Im looking for a decent martial art, to me its the physical results, if its my chi chucking someone across the room or my shifting balance converting into power makes no odds to me

 

Hi Mike. You might never feel it, especially if you keep trying to. After all, 'to put it into practice, don't try to force it.' Trying to feel your Chi running around inside you seems like a good way to screw up both the 'meditative' and the martial parts of your training - after all, 'those who preserve this Way do not want fullness,' preferring to be 'simple as uncarved wood, open as the valleys...'

Many other posters have suggested concentrating on getting good, and all of them know way more about Tai Chi than me. I think they're right. The challenges of real training do more for your 'chi' than any amount of pseudomystical self delusion.

Setting aside our copy of Tao te Ching for a moment, and applying our 'Western mind' (thanks for that) to the problem, let's ask: does chi matter? To put it another way, shouldn't we be more concerned with using it and less concerned with tracking it down and defining it? I don't think there is some mystical energy, but the exercises designed to cultivate it seem to work, so just do them I guess.

 

the instructor said that theres a saying in tai chi using 4oz to move 1000lbs, he said Nigel Sutton said if you're using 99lbs to move 1000lbs its tai chi, (its his zhong ding organisation i've started training with)

 

I think of ki or chi as what I feel when my entire body flows together in synergy. All my muscles flow in harmony to block while simultaneously moving into position and retaliating.
This economy and sharing of the load of carrying out the task feels good and creates the illusion of disproportionate results to the effort put in.

When I punch my wrist to elbow to shoulder to hip to knees to ankles are working in synergy. When I feel this flow as it happens and I get the sense that my body will respond this way any time I ask it to- that's chi to me. It isn't supernatural it's your body feeling unfettered and in tune with itself.

How long before you feel it? How long will it take you to learn to make your body work that way?- repetitive training is the way forward and it depends on the individual. I'm afraid you won't awaken any supernatural forces anytime soon.

 

I just tried to post a video of an alleged chi/ki master in action against someone barely trained but uncooperative in this thread but my total ineptitude with newsgroup navigation has likely lead me to break a rule by dumping a random video in the wrong place. Go have a look its old and likely predates BJJ influence on MMA etc but it does show what happens when you start believing your own hype.

 

I've seen the video you posted (in fact I've seen it many times before) and the so-called 'master' is basically an old fraud who has peddled his nonsense to the point where he's come to believe his own hype. Otherwise I can't imagine that he would have agree to accept this challenge - especially since it was being filmed! It must have been a hell of a big fall to earth both for him and for his students.

 

You won't. Qi does not exist, there is zero evidence.

Evaluate your training in real and demonstrable terms. That will lead to true understanding, and not trying to fit something into a mythical term, or analogy.

G

 

One of my friends has no MA training and she can feel Chi. The Chi feeling has nothing to do with MA training. It's possible that you may train MA all your life and you still don't feel Chi. Not everybody can see ghost or talk to God.

 

I can claim I see and feel a dead clan of clowns talking to me in my head from heaven--doesn't make it true. Delusions are a powerful thing, we can detect incomprehensibly small forces in science, none of which include Qi. Zero evidence.

 

That depends what you mean by Qi. Your definition might be a lot deifferent from someone else's.

 

It's nothing to do with being uncomfortable with things that I don't understand. I don't understand all of quantum theory, and I'm quite comfortable with it (working on improving my understanding though). Chi is something I understand, certainly in the context you're talking about (magic). Given that there is not a single repeatable experiment demonstrating chi which doesn't rely on other, well-understood principles the understanding is fairly simple - it's hokum.

There's a huge flaw in the argument that 'chi' is a force which can do things, but cannot be detected by modern science. If something can produce physical changes it can be analysed - if it cannot produce physical changes, then it does not exist except outside someone's head.

Okay, in fairness when I say it can be analysed we do admittedly have some problems when you get down to the fundamental level - as the Higgs search is demonstrating quite nicely, but the chi effects people talk about are macroscopic in nature and therefore would (if real) be extremely easy to study.

One of my friends used to feel chi, see ghosts and talk to God. Then they got some therapy and the delusions cleared right up.

 

Even without observing the Higs directly, we have a well tested and understood model that guides us in what we should be looking for. The same can't really be said for Chi as a force that affects the physical world on our level.

Besides, didn't they find the Higs or something very like it?

 

I think they've got a 2.8 sigma confidence in their data at the moment, which is pretty high.

 

At least in my training within the Templet Style Tai Chi, it all depends on the practitioner. But what we need to understand is that the feeling of CHI or "CHI" doesn't equate the presence of CHI readily.

If I may explain:

• We all have CHI inherently or we aren't alive. When we practice Chi Kung/Nei Kung in Tai Chi, we are harnessing our pre-birth CHI (inherently) and external CHI from the cosmos, sun, earth, water, air (tao).

Culminating in our Dan Tian. Now even if we don't "feel" the CHI just yet, it's there. Just that we may not be sensitive enough to "feel" it and much less master the flow of it later.

Now I've mentioned CHI or "CHI" because what we all surmise as CHI may not be "CHI" after all likewise unless there's a qualified SiFu to detect the external CHI felt. The key is having enough CHI.

For some, their meridians and chakras are already open and CHI flows efficiently for some, blocked and no so efficient. And so the "feeling" of it flowing is very hard to discern. THe main thing is to ignore these feelings or "Feelings" so as not to dwell or empede CHI cultivation.

In our Temple Style Tai Chi (Via GM Waysun Liao), what we call as CHI is the natural CHI inherently and from the TAO. The ideal is to convert that raw CHI into JING in our Dan Tian to be stored and used for health or martial applications.

JING is the "fine" CHI converted, like the fuel we used in our cars from crude oil (raw CHI). CRUDE OIL, like raw CHI isn't usable. It has to be "processed" and converted into JING first and that is through CHI KUNG and meditations.

And so back to the feelings or "feelings" of CHI and "CHI", the permutations on what we're experiencing is hard to fathom and discern. I'd say just continue practicing until we see the results in our health and martial power.

Much Luck and more Jing to everyone!

 

I am going by the "standard" definition in TCM that defines Qi as the force moving through the 12 main, and 2 extra Meridians.

If someone wants to have their own personal definition, fine. But if that definition aligns with something evidence based, like bloodflow, then the more specific demonstrable term is a more effective and specific way to define things, not in the abstract ancient term that so many try and slot their own meaning into.

The meaning of Qi has been debated until the cows come home, which is why the term is even more useless as concept for the reality of training the martial arts. We can describe movement down to the molecular level, as well as the physics very precisely. Using Qi as a term only clouds our arts and becomes counterproductive to progress.

G