Will practicing internal kung fu make me hyperventilate?

The usual video... the usual caveats... the same schtick as every other time this sort of nonsense has been posted online.

Popcorn anyone?

 

Is it me, or is the guy in red actually leaping backwards a few times just before the hand touches?

 

Check out Micheal Phillips,an American tai chi guy.He does a similar thing to a guy twice his size whilst sitting in a chair with his feet off the floor.The only point of contact is his pinkie finger.

Some photos of him here.

http://michael-phillips.net/pics

Worth checking his videos as well as he gives a pretty good explanation about fajin.

 

Does he ever do it on anyone with a pulse or who isn't a total stooge?

 

It's mind boggling people believe in this nonsense. Sadly, we all know what really happens when they're actually tested by someone not a total rube and/or their student:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEDaCIDvj6I"]Kiai Master vs MMA - YouTube[/ame]

 

This one always gets wheeled out as "evidence" that fajin/fali is some kind of no contact nonsense.Nothing could be further from the truth.In Chinese fali means release of strength,it has nothing to do with chi.Belief dosen't have anything to do with it as you can believe as much as you like but you won't make any progress without hard training.I think David Chan is sound but its only natural for students to talk their teacher up.

 

complete and utter BS

Are you seriously buying this as real and legit?!?!?!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5AdvqvZm6U&feature=related"]Mike Phillips Mar 2011 Youtube.wmv - YouTube[/ame]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDF0CwZnkVA&feature=related"]Mike Phillips 2011 youtube video - YouTube[/ame]

Holy crap. This is the largest load of absolute flim flam ever. A very sad lot of sycophants. This is nothing more than out of shape middle aged people desperately looking for someone or something to believe in. It's bad vaudeville... new age snakeoil salesmanship at it's best. What an absolute racket.

 

Very charming and very congenial... gotta give him that... but absolute nonsense. Christ... those who in eras past actually practiced the martial aspects of T'ai chi ch'uan are rolling in their graves. What an absolute perversion this is. Unreal.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHQ3zsxmu1w&feature=related"]How should legit fajin look? - YouTube[/ame]

 

I've watched some of this fellow's vids before. FWIW, it 'looks' like he may have some reasonable ability to discharge force without tension, but all the attacks are contrived with no realism whatsoever (like a lot of TCC) and there is no guard in him or any of the 'opponents'.

Developing 'listening' skills is important i.e. sensing someone's energy distribution and intent, but this is just too artificial for me. He may have some force emission capability, but I would have to do some Push Hands with him to detect any sense of it. Essentially this is the problem with TCC on internet/Youtube - you have to feel through experience to appreciate whats going on, so I may be judging him unfairly.

Where he really did not impress me was when he states words to the effect of in 1 of his vids that 'evasion is for other MA". For me, without evasion, TCC and all MA is meaningless - even if you are built like King Kong (I am not.)

 

tai chi con man

BWHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It goes from bad to ridiculous.....
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOPUP0TEL7k&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL"]Michael Phillips September 2009 - YouTube[/ame]

If you think this is the real deal... please post up and support it... they're casting for the Muppet Show and you're a dead ringer for lead roles.

 

His boxing looks like he is practicing a very leasurely Tennis game.

There isn't really anything to defend in this. An example (as in many of internet/youtube land) as to how TCC has been corrupted. In the west a lot of it is like this. In China/asia, the picture is more uncertain. I have the impression that it was ok in asia (outside China) up till about 20 years ago, but something has taken a greater hold of modern youth's interest e.g. game consoles than real TCC - and there lies the dilemma, as the last dedicated asian generation passes away can MA like TCC and other Nejia IMA thrive? i.e can the younger generations in the west, asia and china be bothered and motivated to learn the real deal? - which is not helped by the lack of genuinely skilled teachers.

 

scam-O-matic

 

Wow. I've seen some bad stuff in my day, but this gent definitely ranks up there.

 

To be honest it looks like a couple of guys messing around.Why they have to put it on you tube is beyond me.Phillips does give some pretty good explanations but what he is like in real life,well I don't really know as I have never met him.I do know he was seriously injured in a horse riding accident a few years ago and it might be one of the reasons for caution.

This clip is good.It a demonstration of fali without the wall slamming antics.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aRrkcj-49Y"]Yiquan Fali Video - YouTube[/ame]

 

Sorry , the title of this thread made me laugh. A bit like "will the Atkins diet make my trousers explode"

 

Ironically... I deal with this very concept everyday when I run my novice guys through the fundamentals of boxing. The concept is the same... only we tend to not dress it up with exotic terms (and I say that as someone who daily speaks the languages that the terms come from - both Mandarin 发劲 and in Cantonese 發勁) and for some reason in the boxing paradigm you don't get a lot of the flim flam making vids of exploding transfer of power with a ton of kow-towers throwing themsleves all kinds of silly.

Transfer of power isn't unique to CMA's. Internal or External. It's common in the physical world we live in. A good tennis coach will teach you the exact same principles. I have a nationally ranked tennis player that I've trained for a long time for both strength and conditioning and over the last two years he's taken a big liking to boxing. He's very good at it... primarily because his ability to transfer power is well developed because of tennis. This power is improved when it's preceded by a loading phase. It's pretty basic bio-kinetics.

The bigger irony is that in our age there are many westerners looking for this type of power... and they look to Chinese mystical traditions and CMA's. Yet if we go back a little more than 100 years... we see the Chinese were busy looking to the West to some extent for an explanation. They were looking for the scientific reasons behind why things worked the way they did. Compared to western science at around the turn of the century... their understanding of the way the human body produced force in relation to it's muscular/skeletal system was very primitive.

Not to say they were primitive... of course not... but the state of their actual understanding of how the human body actually worked was essentially in the dark ages. Now.. people get their shirt up when you bring this up... Oh your Anti-CMA or Anti-Chinese... or Anti-TCM.... and to that I say... study your Chinese history and the history of Chinese martial arts and their rise and decline in Chinese society against the backdrop of the rest of the history of China.

If you do that you'll understand why we have this phenomena of Westerners and quite a lot of Chinese really wanting so badly to believe in what is essentially snake oil shows. Quite sad really... when the actual principles can be explained by simple sports science.

If you have a deep interest in the crossroads between Chinese martial arts and their development in China and all the problems they were beset with because of the upheaval of Chinese society in the last two centuries... then I really can't recommend enough the research and work of Brian Kennedy and Elizabeth Guo.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Jingwu-School-that-Transformed-Kung/dp/1583942424"]Amazon.com: Jingwu: The School that Transformed Kung Fu (9781583942420): Brian Kennedy, Elizabeth Guo: Books[/ame]


http://books.google.com.hk/books/about/Jingwu.html?id=fWv26Msr0bkC&redir_esc=y

 

If you want to achieve more power in your strikes then practice on a heavy punch bag or a "Bob" type dummy, you will get an instant feedback and the more you practice the harder your strikes will become. If you are training for the "Real world" then dont wear any hand wraps or gloves, start off slow and gradually increase your speed and power over a few weeks, you dont need any instruction to do this just practice, practice, practice.

 

I'm not a very big fan of starting out with no wraps or gloves. Of course it's not likely that in a confrontation you're going to have either but... the risk to reward ratio is too high for my liking. Especially with novices. I see it alot... people come the gym to have a look or they show up for a boxing basics class and when the timer goes... they start laying into that bag with everything and the kitchen sink. Their adrenalin and the enthusiasm get the better of them. Much of my constant patter while running them through their paces is for them to worry more about structure and form and less about power. Early on everyone has to much emotional attachment to a punch. The power most people past the age 12 have.. but what they need isn't power... it's timing and technique. The power can come later.

On top of that... most people without wraps or gloves on a heavy bag (and to a lesser extent) on the BOB... end up just taking the skin clean off their knuckles... and then again enthusiasm prevails over common sense and they tend to end up with constantly raw knuckles which then turns into time off of training.

As for no instruction... people don't punch naturally well. It by and large doesn't come to many people as a gift of nature... myself included... so for that I'd say coaching is key. To teach rotation in the hips and waist, to teach recovering the guard so you don't get counter-shotted and to teach balance so that you don't throw yourself head over heels the first time one of your big power-bomb shots doesn't land on your opponent. The same issues apply to confrontation or to sport boxing.

Just food for thought.