What does "Chi" feel like for all you internal MA'ists?

OK this is not a pee-taking thread and please don't disregard it before you've read it.

I know that the jury is out regarding what Chi actually is and whether it exists in certain interpretations of the word, but what I want to know is when did you personally feel like you had built up what you considered to be Chi? When did you start to notice it's effect in your training? Notice it add power to your movements/strikes? Is it something that is physically felt, or is it something more noticed in the way you move?

I am looking for the personal opinions of people who believe that they have cultivated Chi, not some troll posting "OMFG you moron Chi doesn't exist!111!".

I did a search and couldn't find this question asked in this way so if you could take the time to answer i'd appreciate it as i'm genuinely interested in the question.

Rich.

 

There's different viewpoints (duh!), but it's something you can actually feel.

I just have to qualify it - I don't believe in the mystical side, but I still get strong physical reactions when doing tai chi or qigong. Check out the link for one of the first qigong exercises I learned: http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3872&highlight=how+to+feel+chi . I've always been a sceptic (still am), but it freaks me out that after about 30secs of calm breathing, I can feel a magnetic sensation in my hands and a definite pressure between them when I hold them half a foot apart.

You'll get people saying it's:

Flowing warmth
Tingling sensation in the hands
Like water/waves of force
Sensation of floating when you move, like your body is suspended below your head (like a jellyfish)
Seeing 'auras' of light (I don't, but I've heard some people do)
Magnetic-type sensations

When you're "in the zone" doing IMA, it feels like all your body is completely in sync, therefore you'll feel yourself move the weight/force from your feet to your hips, arms, hands, etc. This is what it feels like, and you get the perception that you're using a tiny amount of power to create a huge effect/force. It's almost like you're being moved by somebody else.

I'd say it's mostly in the way you move, but the coordination is often coupled with a flowing type of sensation which different people perceive as warmth/tingling/water etc. That's what people mean when they talk about directing/leading the chi into different parts of the body.

 

That was a great, clear, and well-detailed explanation Niz, thanks a lot! I want to experience that, just haven't got the time to take up Tai-Chi again (I quit after a few months due to funds and other MA's). Guess i'll do it later in life after I reach a good level of WC.

I look forward to hearing other folks interpretations too.

 

What does "Chi" feel like for all you internal MA'ists?

After a bit of form I also feel the magnetic type of thingy and my hands are warm and mottled looking.

When my alignment is good I get a 'bubbling' feeling in my foot.

I have done a round of form and noticed a distinct difference between being wilted and slumpy as opposed to alive and erect. I used to be so into developing root that I started to slump into the ground to deepen it. But when I started to look at the energy entering the top of my head...wow! the difference was incredible.

Another thing I've noticed is that after a period of rooting practice (e.g. standing in play guitar for 2 minutes or more) I have felt a real high when I've stopped, and its not just because I've stopped, but something more than that.

For me I more or less equate chi with energy. Practicing, I have felt more energised and had sensations in my hands and feet. Sometimes its a tingling and other times its a warmth.

Of course the above sensations could be described in other ways, but I like to use 'chi' to name them. Others will use other terms, but that's up to them.

 

Just by background: I have a bit of T'ai Chi experience, and my instructor is working a lot of Chi Kung with me.

When I do the Chi Kung properly, I tend to get tingling sensations in the appropriate areas. I also feel better emotionally and physically, not like a natural "high" but rather I feel re-energized. Yes, that's a good word. Even the few minutes of breathing I do every morning helps to clear my head and wake me up, gets the "energy" flowing (yes, I do specific Chi Kung exercises every morning). I have noticed the sensations that Niz speaks of as well.

Since I've started doing even minimal Chi Kung daily, I feel better, have a bit more energy, and feel a bit more balanced.

 

Depending on what kind of qigong or martial art I'm doing, qi can feel like heat, weight, magnetism, tingling, or a gust of wind moving through different parts of my body. Sometimes, qi can merely feel empty, and sometimes it can feel like a hardened mass (if it is stagnant).

 

The first experiences of Qi I can rememeber are the bubbling in the feet that vampire-rat describes and a magnetic feeling in my hands, while doing Qi Gong. In terms of Taiji form, the first move that gave me a real strong feeling of Qi, like magnets, was 'wave hands like clouds.' Slowly this feeling crept into other moves. One move that is strong for me at the moment is 'fishes in 8', or 'pieces of 8'. I strongly feel a compression types feeling in my lungs, and something that I find really difficult to explain but it like an awakening of lung-qi. In terms of feeling other people's Qi, this can be done through playing with Qi Gong: rather than feeling the space between your own hands feel the space between your own and another person's hands. I have had some powerful experiences from this. I also do the exercises of push-hands and chi-sau without touching the other person, just feeling their Qi. In terms of martial application, this is the hardest: to get the experiences to carry over. Basically I think it all comes down to developing true internal fa-jing.

For me the experience of Qi is the most important thing. When I ask myself how I should be doing the form, my answer is that I should do the form however it needs to be done to get the most powerful experience of Qi.

 

This should make you smile at least lol, Anyway I've been doing tai chi for about 15 mths now and in that time I've also had a few attunements with the reiki. Anyway when I'd had my first attunement I had a strong tingling in my hands when I was doing tai chi, you should have seen the teacher, he thought it was quite amusing as he was also a reiki master which didn't help as he made sure we did the exercises which caused you to get plenty of energy (chi) circulating around your body lol. In every class I had to put up with his evil sense of humour as I didn't know at the time how to control the energy levels and stop the tingling in my hands. Whenever we did the form we were learning I had problems as I had to step aside and touch something wooden as this was the only way it stopped causing really strong sensations up my arm lol.
As I've just had a couple of attunements at once I did some tai chi today and yes it's stronger than ever, it's going to be fun when I go down to the South East to train with the group as I'll be getting hold of the tree which is close by to where we train, of cause the others will problably laugh at me in this situation but it's really hard to concentrate when your energy levels are up the wall and you can't control what's happening as you get a strong feeling and your hands are wanting to release some of that energy which is there and I'll have to hug that tree lol.
lisa xx

 

Pretty well all of the above lol The longer I go on practising the more I feel it. These days I can pretty well switch on or off at will and sense qi from a few feet away. It depends largely on my state of mind how well I can do this btw
What I would like to add is that one of the reasons people are so sceptical is because of what you can supposedly do with qi e.g. knock people over at range, death touch (lol), jump 15 feet straight upwards, fly etc etc
Well... (and disregarding that the above are folklore interpretations of much subtler skills that I, for one, believe do exist - but take a very long time to develop and are subject to certain universal laws that may or may not get discussed some other time...) these cannot be done with qi
( SHOCK! HORROR! Has the normally qi-lovin' old heepy lost him mind?? )
( Calm down dear it's only a commercial )
No - qi in its raw state can't do much other than be felt, (seem to) move from place to place, swell or fade and of course grow, heal and regenerate when handled/channeled correctly.
To get into martial qi stuff, you have to know how to store and refine the qi into jing (and eventually shen but that's another subject...) you have to learn how to circulate it correctly and take control of the relationship between the mental/internal/spiritual and physical aspects. This is not generally taught in western Taijiquan classes and is also widely neglected in Eastern ones these days also. The material is out there - generally in bits - but you'll have to look hard, be very open-minded and be prepared to weed out the dross from the gold. Good luck...
Much of the reason types of qigong are used as an add-on to Taiji practice is a distortion of this practice ie people know there is something else - they've just forgotten what it is lol They end up doing the wrong types of qigong - not doing any harm btw but never developing the jing aspects. This was certainly neglected in my early training, but I was taught internal qigong (is that what people mean by neigong btw? I get very confused about all this... anyone let me know... ) and internal qi circulation. Last year at the Tian training we practised exercises specifically for developing fajing - different to any qigong or exercises I had previously come across. My feeling is that when they are combined with internal circulation and (practised carefully) with partners the jing(s) will develop. This will take time imo. lol

Re; ways to feel qi.
Stand in a light 'bow' stance with palms facing each other, body turned in direction of forward foot. Move slowly back and forth over the front and rear feet, at the same time making circular shapes by lifting and lowering the hands as you move (imagine you are running your fingers round the two circular ends of a barrel, rolling the barrel away from you - the exercise is called 'the barrel' btw stay relaxed and don't over-extend the arms, the elbows stay level with sides of body) breathe out as you move forwards and in as you move back. Do this for a few minutes on each side of the body, keeping the hands separated when you change feet. Ensure the elbows stay bent and the back straight, moving from the back and waist with head suspended at all times. When you've done right and left, stand in a Taiji 'ready' stance relaxed with palms still facing each other in front of the abdomen. Now bring the hands towards and away from each other sensing whatever you may feel there. This works for about 90% of students I teach in their first lesson - to varying degrees - so give it a go! Some take longer to feel it, some never do. I never tell beginners what they are looking for btw, I just ask if they notice anything and they describe stuff like in the thread above lol When you feel it, you can then 'play' with the energy but I'll leave that up to you to discover lol
OMG just looked at the time lol
Off to work
Peace
N :Angel:

 

You sort of feel light footed.. and really loose.
Richy, I don't practice any Tai Chi or Qi Gong (well, I'm probably doing what they'd teach me, it's just from a different source), but you can also devellop Chi through good practice of Sui Nim Tao.

I reckon you'll have learn the basic sequence by now.
From there it's a case of practicing and exploring it.
I found this book to be very helpful. Also you could ask some other Wing Chun practitioners on here too. I'm still fresh and inexperienced to be of much help.

 

Hi Strafio mate, I heard that Siu Nim Tao was also good for a bit of internal strength, just presumed that it would be nowehere as effective as Tai-Chim practises.

Mind you it is reccommended to spend 15-30 mins on Siu-Nim-Tao a day (like I do *cough yeah right*) so I presume over a few years you could build up a fair amount.

 

The way I see it, it's "effective" as any other QiGong related exercise.
I'd say that the difference is that it's a small part of Wing Chun, while an art like Tai Chi is more based around finding it so there'll be more exercises, more focus and more practice on it.

So if you were taking an "Internal" as your main art then you'd devellop Chi more than if you did Wing Chun. But seeing as you're doing Wing Chun anyway, for you, the best way to devellop Chi would be through Wing Chun forms because that way it is synchronised through the movements you are develloping anyway...

If you do Tai Chi then you're trained to devellop Chi for Tai Chi movements.
The more you use Tai Chi movements then the easier it is to learn and devellop this.
Through Sui Nim Tao you learn to channel Chi through Wing Chun movements, and that's easier to devellop if you're training Wing Chun movements so you relate them better...

Did I make that understandable, because I'm finding my own words hard to follow here.

 

Yes mate it did make perfect sense and to show that i'll summarize.

Tai-Chi teaches effective Chi use for Tai-Chi movements... while WC will develop effective Chi use for WC movements.

 

Yeah, but not just that.

Because you are training those Wing Chun movements anyway, it's a lot easier to devellop Chi in them, rather than from movements of an art you don't really understand so well.

So it's an upward spiral:
Because it's an art you're training in, it's easier to find the Chi, and because you're training Chi for that art, it improves your art.


By the by:

Hehe!
Because that links to a "search result", the keywords are highlighted in red.

It puts emphasis in funny places!

 

Nigel,

Why is the jing energy out again, you got something to tell us or what !!!.
I do agree with you totally (please don't faint lol) with what you've said about the suttle difference between them all. I don't know much about the "shen" though, could you enrich us by telling us more about your experience with the different types of energies you've experienced with them all .
lisa xx

 

Hi Fallentoa - not sure how much I've experienced shen yet really... although I have had some odd energy experiences which have been kind of transcendent lol to say the least. Not sure I want to go into that in here tho really. I'll talk to you about it some other time.
The 'jing' thing... there is more than one meaning to the word jing lol The 'jing' in sexual gung fu is different to the 'jings' in the list here. One is a fine essence that gives the body its vitality, the other is refined qi used for power in movement. This is why different qigong systems and internal alchemy techniques have two different formulae for internal development which leads to major confusion...
Basically:
In sexual alchemy - jing(bodily essence) is alchemised into qi(non-corporeal energy) and later raised into shen(spiritual energy) to attain longevity/immortality(!!lol)
In Taijiquan/Internal Martial Arts - Qi(Natural Life Force) is gathered, stored and refined into jing(internal power/intrinsic energy) then further refined and alchemised into shen(spiritual energy) for longevity/immortality( ) and greater martial power...
Hope that heps clarify things a tad
N :Angel:

 

Thank you Nigel it does a clarify things a tad bit lol. I'll be looking forward to hearing more when I see you sometime lol, I just hope you remember all the stuff your going to tell me as I know that your really busy with all your teaching skills,
see you soon
lisa xx

 

my hand's get really warm and heavy and tingly. and the souls of my feet feel like they're spasming in an extremely pleasant way (i guess this is 'bubbling'). What i feel as free chi flow throughout my body is the tension melting away.

Autogenics is very similar except with autogenics you actually conciously have to think about your limbs gettin warm/heavy. With taichi it just seems to happen on its own and without having to think about anything. I find it the best meditation because not only does your mind stop but your body is completely reflecting how your mind feels (as opposed to sitting meditaiton where your mind may stop but usually just keeps thinkin about how your back hurts and legs are sleep)

 

same as most others have mentioned on here,

over time I noticed different things happening:
first I notice my hands going blotchy,
then my hands would also go tingly,
eventually i kept getting the magnetic feeling between my hands,
after practising for an hour or (even outside in the cold) my hands would be really hot.

now I always feel relaxed and re-energised after practising, and feel very balanced. The magnetic thing usually happens very quickly and alot of the other sensations have spread around my body depending on the movements I'm practising.

I'm not sure how much this has helped with my shaolin kungfu practise, but the forms we practise has what is probably described as relaxed pushing also used in taijiquan. When I've been practising with other people I have found over time it is easier to push about using little (if any) physical strength. Some may put this down to increased upper body strength, but I have only been doing taiji and kungfu forms for my upper body strength for the last 2 1/2 years (as I hurt my shoulder in a car crash).

I've noticed it helps my breathing also when I'm coughing alot.

not had the spasming feet thing though. I'm gonna have to be careful not to think about it too much now that people have mentioned it

Like mentioned before - with new students I try not to talk too much if at all about what they are feeling between their hands, as I think it can be a bit too distracting if people are trying to feel something rather than letting it happen. I also try not to talk to much of chi to newer students as I get the
face with all the talk that's a bit too 'mystical' for their liking.

 

Hot flowing honey.