I'm with vampyre rat credible studies published in credible medical journals are very thin on the ground in regards alternative medicine including Qigong. There are loads of impressive figures tooted around but when you look into them properly they usually disintegrate under shady trial conditions and extremely dubious research organisations.
Sorry to interrupt - super quick question for Onyomi - a simple yes / no answer will be fine to avoid going off topic. To your knowledge, does Seven Star Mantis, if taught correctly, contain any movements that are made with the wrist alone?
Thanks, Onyomi If Tai Chi Chuan has more Longfist elements, I was curious though would it depend on what style you practice of Tai Chi as well? For example what if you have done a Sun or Wu style do these styles still have long fist elemets? Just curious as I have little experience with Kung fu, besides what I have read
I don't disagree with either you nor VR, things such as Qigong and "alternative medicine" are hard to do correct studies for. Though they pour money and time and effort into these techniques, still people cannot deny that Chinese Medicine and Qigong, must be doing something positive for the chinese to have lived through some of the most notorious diseases. They do have documented accounts of healing TB, Plague, Scrofula and other diseases that did kill many in other countries. Though, also if you want to speak of studies done, even "western" medicine does not do full trials on most drugs on the market. Even they are released with what could be considered questionable results. They have actually recently developed a "placebo" needle that will actually feel like a acupuncture needle going in to the body. It shows promising results for future studies such as finding Qi in traditional points and how much psyhcological and placebos effect the test subjects. I admit, I am partial because I study TCM and Qigong as well. For me personally, I cannot explain how it works "scientifically", though I have seen for patients that it does work, for nearly all without any side effects. While I cannot say it is the Qi and Qigong that is healing the patient (I agree that the mind is very powerful as well such as shown by VR above) but for me it is better if a person can heal themselves without taking meds. I am unsure how they could do truly valid studies with Qigong. I know they have done studies using some technology to measure "Qi" and they have shown those that are Qigong Masters have shown quantifiable results. Some show through infra-red, at the very least increased blood flow and control to areas of the body that were suggested. Also they have been able to read increased magnetic fields around focused upon body parts, also increased electrical conductivity and acoustical as well from the body. This has been harder to explain.
Just a word on placebo, I read a book recently which examined the healing work of Jesus as perhaps being attributable to people receiving love and attention and being told their sins had been forgiven. The book puts it all into its appropriate historical context to reveal a people who were at the time afraid, superstitious, felt haunted by evil spirits and very fatalistic. It was apparently widely believed at that time that illness and disability might be a penance for sin, which led to a lot of psychosomatic illnesses. So by making people believe they were not being punished for sin because God didn't hold grudges, for some people a cure became possible. I guess if this is true it shows a good example of how much illness can be a symptom of despair as much as it shows the positive effects of hope. I just thought people might be interested in this as it contributes to the discussion on placebo - I'm not arguing or trying to score any points.
couple of quick points. I'm not saying that there isn't anything happening in qi-gong or TCM, but the studies are rarely balanced correctly to try to isolate that which separates qi-gong/TCM from low impact exercise/herbalism. In Germany the second most prescribed drug is Arnica. A herbal remedy. Off topic, but we in the west have not totally lost our herbal medicine. Another point. Optimistic happy people tend to be healthier than pessimistic unhappy people. The mind is a wonder and can achieve some pretty strange results. or is it.. The mind is pretty strange and can achieve some wonderful results? Don't underestimate the power of belief.
Well, yes it does, though almost always as part of a move that will also engage fingers, upper body and especially waist. For example, gou (hook) is a kind of grabbing motion focusing on the last three fingers which hook to the outside, bending the wrist slightly to one side. Of course, this generally comes at the end of some kind of deflecting-type arm movement, which should be powered by the waist. So, wrist movement totally by itself and with no coordination with the rest of the body? Not much... even in qinna you're supposed to get the body in on it to some degree. Same with wuda lianhuan pi (five different kinds of blocking, up, down, right, left, circle in which the wrist bends down, up, left, right and in a circle respectively). These moves are all still supposed to be powered by the waist. I'd think JUST wrist movement alone and nothing else would be pretty useless. However, does Mantis focus so much on "if one thing moves, everything moves?" No, it doesn't. The upper body and lower body are more "disconnected" in Mantis than in Taiji. Though the legs are used for power generation and there is the concept of "hands and feet arrive together," they are also used quite a lot for pure mobility. Generally speaking Mantis is more of a speed and finesse style. Rarely trying to do one super-powerful Baji-esque hit. Ironically, Taiji is kind of a powerhouse style, trying to get the whole body behind everything.
Nobody is denying that Chinese or alternative medicines never do 'something right'. As VR pointed out faith healers even do 'something right' however that 'something right' rather often can be attributed to the placebo effect (not always). With Qigong I would say the relaxation and physical components certainly would do most people some good. I do have to wonder though if living through epidemics is really a mark of the medicine of the times efficacy. EUrope and Asia survived the black death but that had precious little to do with medicine of the day... and to be honest if I contracted the plague I have a feeling that modern medicine would be of alot more use than TCM. There are documented cases of blood letting healing all manner of disease or of shamans driving out demons and curing all manner of illness- doesn't mean much. Documented cases don't mean much if you can't replicate them. As far as I was aware that as a result of questionable drugs reaching the market in the past most developed countries now have strict regulations on clinical trials and what a drug company can/cannot claim it's product does. Regardless though the fact is that for a drug to make it to the market it has to produce results that show it to be better than a placebo. This is not the case for most alternative medicines generally due to the fact that alot of them rely on the placebo effect! How does that work? So someone doesn't actually get *****ed by a needle but they think they were, is that the idea? Pretty interesting! I'm right behind you on the over-reliance on medication however I believe this idea is often taken too far as some illnesses really do require medication and no amount of positive thinking is going to make an infected cut or an aggresive form of cancer disappear. Im sure if you do studies on people who are ill and swim and those who do not swim or do any physical exercise you will find the swimmers show more signs of improvement but that wouldn't mean swimming is an effective cure for diseases. I don't doubt that some effects have been recorded but anytime I've seen reputable studies done on the topic they tend to not find anything nearly as spectacular as claimed nor do the effects in any way seem to relate to anything that cause someone else to heal. If you have some decent links for me to have a look through I'd appreciate it... Sorry to sidetrack the thread by the way and much obliged for the thought out response.
CKava, First of all I don't think you sidetracked the thread, I kind of view this thread as a way for us to "kick around ideas" as it were for Qi. There is medical Qigong so these are valid points. (btw sorry I don't know how to split the quotes like you did on your post, not much for tech. lol) 1) Okay, TCM has been shown to effectively fight some very difficult or "incurable diseases" such as MS, also SARS (in the break out in China herbs and acupuncture were the main modalities they used since they could not study the virus so quickly. This was in fact one of the main things that kept many healthcare workers healthy and alive then), TB, just because of rural china and the lack of western medicine. The key thing here is most Rural Chinese cannot afford western treatments or even meds. Herbs and Acupuncture are actually cheaper and if they don't have to go 100 miles to the nearest city this is a bonus. We know little all of what TCM can actually help in these rural areas, or what has been treated i.e. malaria, jaundice etc. 2) Yes I do agree, though most of this has been done by charlatans as it seems most of us can agree here. 3) Most alternative medicines bought in "Organic Stores etc" are not at all regulated and in fact have just as many additives etc. as regular drugs. Yes these are dangerous, also, because they are natural people do think they are safe. Also a horrible mistake, I don't disagree that alternative medicines are dangerous b/c of lack of regulation. But as a TCM practitioner I have spent 3000 hours studying Acupuncture and herbs, not including all my clinic time etc. I wouldn't prescribe outside of my realm of knowledge, not only is it illegal, but also unethical and dishonorable. However, when you have the FDA (federal Drug Administration) looking to take off some of your best herbs used to treat patients b/c of "alternative medicine" companies making outrageous claims it chafs your buns to say the least. It is like an alternative med. company trying to take aspirin away from western medical doctors. As for the testing, yes you are right about the regulations. However, the margin of difference between placebos and western drugs only has to be something greater that like %10. There have been trials showing acupuncture alone better than this margin. Also the amount of the general public they generally test is small one test for Celebrex was for 4,000 people this sounds like a lot, but when you think about the overall amount of population that now use this drug, that quickly becomes a very small number. They are also not required to test a specific amount of males or females, some drugs are only tested on males and vice versa. Obviously none are tested on pregnant females, but they are prescribed to pregnant mothers at times. (sorry, *gets off soapbox* ) http://www.rxlist.com/cgi/generic/coxib_ad.htm 4) Yeah it is cool, though I have no idea how it works, they just show for the most part many patients aren't able to tell the difference. http://www.superdragon.co.uk/acupuncture knowledge/placebo acupuncture needles.htm 5) Well this does somewhat depend, there are studies going on about how much a positive mind can effect healing. This is nothing different from what can be seen in forms of meditation, Qigong, and other exercise. There have been studies that have shown that patients that have a more positive outlook or a strong faith, or anything else like that. Heal quicker and make some miraculous recoveries. Though these too are hard to compare study wise, because as of yet we cannot measure emotions. 6) Again, most Qigong Masters, don't make fantastic claims. The good ones I have met don't run around spouting, I can cure that, do this and you will live to be 1,000 years old. No, most of them are very realistic people that make no claims of fantastic cures, they simply speak on what they know or have done. I personally turn and run when I hear outrageously fantastic claims. Per request heres at least one site to check out a Qigong study on Fibromyalgia and Qigong effectiveness. http://www.qigongresearchsociety.com/news.html The article seems pretty good with some pretty good points, it is one of the first where i see an attending M.D. writing on the study
Fantastic Posts CKava, Taoquan Thanks. It is an interesting debate. I am strong pro-western thought on science and medicine. However my son had a nasty skin condition and the doctors tried everything and could not heal it. My wife took the wee man to a medical herbalist (I thought it would be a waste but make her feel like she was doing something). The medicince they gave wasn't cheap but it sorted the problem in two weeks. So I am a little more open minded with some alternative medicines now, not much but a little. The Bear.
I think the problem with scientific medicine and in some ways this goes for some martial training as well, is that it tried to isolate ONE ingredient that will work. What can happen is that they miss out on the little ingredients that make it work PROPERLY. That's why science finds it hard to replicate some herbal remedies because the make-up of those remedies are just so complicated. It's not just the wrist, it's the arm. It's not just the arm it's the whole body, it's not just strength, it's fluidity and awareness as well, etc. Oh and don't forget qi! Ha Ha!
Ok then but maybe if others get fed up they can say and then we can split this into another thread if needs be. I enjoy these kind of discussions myself too and don't worry about not splitting up the replies the numbering works just as well! I don't deny that healthcare in China is lacking and that generally speaking it is only the richer families that can get access to modern medical treatment but doesn't that perhaps tell you something? If traditional Chinese medicine was so effective why would the rich people pay so much to be treated at hi-tech hospitals rather than pop down to their local herbalist? The lack of regulation of TCM in China is scary and the ingredients for many of its products are actually harmful (not to mention how they are harvested i.e. bear bile is extremely questionable). Despite this Im not arguing that acupuncture or other Chinese medicines are not in someway effective even if it is mainly due to the placebo effect. You would expect that people having lived in an area for a long time would have worked out to some extent what plants/animal products help with what. However the same thing applies to Europe and yet I rarely see people advocating Traditional Medieval Europe cures to illness. It's this disconnect I don't get why is anything old and Chinese relating to medicine good but anything old and European not? And in relation to SARS the fatality rate was around 10% and actually in China it was much lower at about 6%... it was not an incurable disease it was just overhyped by the media. I also doubt that herbs and the like were the main forms of treatment for this illness in China as it received huge amounts of publicity worldwide and China would not want to be represented as a country that relied on herbal medicine to treat an epidemic. I could be wrong but I would like to see some evidence that Chinese herbal remedies and acupuncture were the main treatment for SARS in China and were effective. Having done a little research I can find nothing that suggests this. Addressing point 3: If alternative medicine companies are making ridiculous claims about medicines it's not the FDA's fault. The FDA is a regulatory body it's the job of the FDA to regulate. If it turns out that a drug is being marketed falsely then it should be removed. I don't see how this would effect people making proper claims about a particular drug? I don't know the precise percentage it has to be better than a placebo but the fact reamins it HAS to better. This is not the case with alternative medicines. Also for the likes of 4,000 test subjects I don't see how it is feasible to always do studies with larger numbers than what I would already count as a very large number (That's probably greater than a great number of acupuncture studies put together!). The Qigong study you list at the bottom had 10 and they were all woman predisposed to Qigong! Anyhow I'm not saying that modern medicine is perfect it's not and it is heavily influenced by drug companies but still it's much better regulated than alternative medicines. As for acupuncture I have had acupuncture treatment myself believe it or not and I do think it helps but again the trials on acupuncture are mixed alot have shown for instance that where the needles were inserted was didn't seem to matter. Also for instance look up "Systematic review of systematic reviews of acupuncture published 1996-2005" on pubmed. I don't disagree and this is certainly one of the reasons I think things like Qigong and swimming could be extremely beneficial for people with illnesses. Just look at Lance Armstrong! Though whats important to note about Lance Armstrong is that without the modern treatment that accompanied his extremely positive outlook he would be dead. It is good your right though basically it just shows that people who did Qigong were found to feel a bit better. Also of significance is that this study was conducted on only 10 white women- hardly a significant sample! Not to mention that even I can see several problems with the study namely: - the patients were still following their standard treatment measures so there is no way to tell if the obtained results is due to the other treatments or the Qigong. - only patients already in favour of TCM were likely to participate. In fact 8 of the patients were already using alternative treatments prior and during the study! The patients were aware this was a study for the effectiveness about Qigong, they were predisposed towards Qigong being effective and all the effects of the treatment were measured by their own descriptions... I see a problem here. - it is suggested that 2 patients dropped out due to discomfort, bruising and increased pain after the treatments. Though this is not necessarily a sign that the treatment doesn't work it is not really addressed adequately in the paper 2 patients out of 12 is 1/6 of the response hardly insignificant! Yet I had to read between the lines to even notice. - although 10 patients completed all treatments only 8 returned for the 3 month follow up. This is stated as to be due to lack of prior contact which seems insane for a well organised trial... There are other issues but most of them are mentioned by the study itself at the end of the paper. Thus once again I have to say that although the paper begins with a resounding conclusion that the study shows that patients have managed complete recoveries with Qigong and serious research needs to be done immediately the actual study itself does not really support such high conclusions. The limitations identified in the study itself already highlight that a much better controlled study is needed before such conclusions can be drawn. Yet the fact is that this study will now be touted as proof that Qigong cures FMS and we both know thats the case. There is alot we agree on and I've only responded to the bits I disagree with so please don't take this response to be entirely negative I just thought quoting things and adding I agree was unnecessary . Thanks again for the discussion!
1) Cool, if anyone has a problem with where this thread is going I agree we can (and should move it). 2) Why do the rich try western? From my what my teachers have said that studied in a hospital in china for a few years, it is because there are a lot of Chinese that fear "They are getting left behind." I.e. the west has all the answers, and are throwing away traditional values simply because they can afford to. When he studied in the hospitals he would study under one TCM doctor that would literally see 100-150 patients a day, this was only one doctor when they would have 10-20 TCM practitioners on staff. Also, the regulation of TCM is difficult to do in a place such as China, because of the Rural areas. However, there are many hospitals and schools oreientated towards standardizing TCM. Mao was actually the one who decided to get as many works and teachers together to try to "save TCM" from being lost due to western influence. Though, b/c of the some of the ideas of spiritual aspects and Qi, this was altogether thrown out of TCM, thus separating TCM into CCM (Classical Chinese Medicine), FCM (Family chinese medicine) and now 5 elements. If you are looking for a very classical sytle of Chinese medicine (More Qi work and psycho-emotional work) you almost have to look at Japanese Acupuncture, as no such changes have truly been made from what they learned from Chinese medicine (no sense in going into the debate on which came first there ) 3) lol, while I agree putting needles in the body at specific points to affect your "life's energy" does sound off. Come on medieval European lobotamies and putting holes in the skull to "expel evil demons" just sounds too painful! 4) here I will admit a mistake on my part, I did somewhat misrepresent SARS and TCM in my previous post. TCM was not the MAIN treatment for SARS, but was a MAIN preventative. http://www.itmonline.org/arts/sars.htm here is one link, Though, if this is true, that makes your %10 numbers and %6 numbers a bit more interesting. Also, most chinese are actually quite proud of their Chinese Medicine. Just as they are of their MAs, Culture, Religions etc. Any stifling of this info (imo) may have been done by government for your reasons stated above. (not a conspiracy person btw) 5) *Cracks open a can of worms* Well not wanting to go into the whole Ephedra debate, but it currently suits our discussion. This is a perfect example, how many diet pills contained Ephedra during that peak time? I have no clue, but there were deaths from it. In TCM the herb is called Ma huang, and loss of weight is a by-product of taking the herb, b/c one it's main functions is to regulate water metabolism. However, we are also trained that it should NEVER be used on ANYONE with heart conditions, also over a certain dosage it does become lethal. The dosage that most of the diet pills were using were 2x our highest recommended amount. This does not mean Ephedra is deadly, because it was misrepresented by other alternative medicine companies and misused. It is not a TCM practitioner's fault also, yet the FDA focused in on TCM practitioners in the US because we used it and tried to ban it from our use. Currently in the US it is only availabe to Licensed Acupuncturists. Though I agree with you, this is not the FDA's fault this happened, however, they catch most of the blame. We also use mung beans, broccoli, and cinnamon as herbs, how could the FDA regulate this? (Though currently they are considering taking Green tea supplements and some tea off the market b/c fools are saying it is also a weight loss drug. It works the same as Ma huang. ) 6) Well from my pov let us put it to you this way. You have X disease, I said here take the red pill it will make you better or the blue pill (sorry for the poor matrix reference here). You ask what is the difference, I say the red one will help, and the blue one will help. The blue one will help a little better (5-10%) but it could also give diarrhea, vomiting, nose bleeds, dizziness and oh, you better not take it if you have heart conditions, low BP, or with drugs 1,2,3,4, or 5. what one would you choose? Unfortunately we see many patients like this. They are on 10 meds already (I have literally seen grocery list lengths of western meds some are on) they go to their Western MD for constipation and they prescribe another med. Yes you are right, western Drugs have to be better than a placebo, but for 5-10% better at what cost? I think western med is great for true trauma accidents (car accidents, broken bones, emergency cases) I mean, you can sew a finger back on a hand! I could never do that with needles. However, the nerve damage that would result afterwards, could be helped by not taking potentially dangerous western drugs (the very term drug is not great), but by TCM, even if it is a placebo effect. My big thing with only have 4,000 test subjects to possibly a Million people that could be on Celebrex is only .04% of the amount of people tested. What a terrible number and most drugs are only tested for a few years before put on the market and their clinical human tests are about a year. Most people that are on these drugs are on them for almost a decade. For these numbers mathematically to come out right you have to assume quite a bit as far as how many people are the same. While this number 4,000 number seems high, TCM does have roots back to almost that many years. If the medicine was not effective don't you think the Chinese pop. would be much lower? Or even the japanese when they had their borders closed to the West when china was being influenced by Western nations then? 7) great point! 8) Points are all well taken, I think the main problem with defining Qigong studies, drug studies or any study is b/c it is impossible to have a blind study. Obviously a western MD would like to get his drug on the market, so this could influence results (through suggestion etc.) same goes for Qigong. People for Qigong that practice Qigong will obviously say great things about it. I suppose you have to find something like the New England Journal of Medicine saying Qigong is a great healing art to "feel" credible. That just gave me a thought, for those still following this thread *Looks around and only hears the sound of crickets* besides me and CK, What would it take for you to believe in Qigong, or from the other end Western med?
Well said I couldn't agree more. This is one of the things they are finding out about TCM herbs, when our formulas are made they might contain 10-15 different herbs. Over half these herbs have anti-bacterial properties, the other half have anti-viral properties. However, because of how the anti-viral/bacterial properties "attack" the bacteria/viruses they kill them differently. This means for the bacteria/virus to build resistance it would have to build resistance to close to 10-20 different anti-virals/bacterials. As far as we know this is utterly impossible. This is why they are having trouble isolating specific compounds within herbal medicine. Once they isolate the main compound sometimes they find out it is deadly by itself, so they throw other stuff in there so you don't die. Same goes with MA as you stated if you always react to punch B with C what happens if punch A comes in?
Herbs, for the most part in the hands of a Qualified and/or licensed practitioner are quite effective. The thing with herbs are they are tangible and can be touched, and measured. This is the main problem with Qi and Acupuncture, all the feelings are mostly subjective. I can say I feel something and you don't then it comes down to who is right? I think with Acupuncture and Qi it will take some other technology to definitively determine what is Qi.
Doing some minor research here: https://www.netflyers.net/taichi/issue.php?id=6 This is an article on which Yang Zhenduo was asked various questions about Tai Chi Chuan and specifically Yang style. Here is one question about Qigong and Tai Chi Chuan. TC (Tai Chi magazine): Is it useful to do Qigong? YZD: There is quite a bit of difference between Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong. Tai Chi includes the elements of Qigong. Because when Tai Chi talks about dropping Qi into the Dan Tien that is also done in Qigong training. But Tai Chi is not Qigong. Tai Chi is part of Wushu, part of Chinese Martial Arts. And in martial arts, each move has attack and defense purposes. In Qigong, when they clear their minds, their thoughts are not on attacking and defending. So there two are totally separate. They are totally not the same in comparison, one to the other. In Tai Chi for many years, each move has had its martial values. A person has to know and understand its principle and its purpose to execute the movement well. But nowadays people also practice for health and to improve their personal character, to make themselves more brave and calm. Those benefits are something that Qigong may not offer. They are totally different. While unfortunately you cannot read the article if you can order a copy this article is great: https://www.netflyers.net/taichi/issue.php?id=125
Hi Taoquan, I've just read the whole of this discussion with interest, so I hope you'll forgive me for taking two disparate quotes from you, one from several days back. I know what you mean by that, or at least I recognise it - I've felt it, and I've done it. I can strike so that the receiver feels it either on the surface or internally - or at least that's what people I've done it to tell me. I'm a karateka, I don't use or study Qi. I make a strike feel like you're being hit more internally by altering my intent and my body mechanics. I'm not making any particular claims about the damage it may or may not cause, but it's a very unpleasant sensation. I have never thought it particularly remarkable, but it does take a lot of practice. I've also felt strikes as you describe, not only in karate, but in other arts - I briefly trained in Systema (a fascinating art which I'd like to do more of, but sadly the only class anywhere near me is held at a time which I find very difficult), and received strikes that, as you put it, felt like they made my internal core shake. Systema also does not, as I understand it, subscribe to the concept of Qi. I have also trained a little in Taiji (although having only trained for a couple or three years I am far from expert and will not attempt to argue details with those of you here who clearly are), and my teacher was also able to demonstrate this. He never spoke about Qi unless he was asked, and when he was asked was determinedly non-committal, using terms like, "the Chinese believe..." He was clear, however, that he did not feel that the concept was necessary to practise Taiji as a martial art, and he was equally clear that he felt Taiji could only be properly practised if it was understood as a martial art. Which suited me, I'm a martial artist, and I wanted to study it as a martial art - for me, there has to be an end product, it has to work. This is not to denigrate your experience at all, but just to question whether the effects you describe could not be explained in purely physical terms. As you say, Qi has yet to be measured by any quantifiable means, and it appears from the tenor of the discussion that many of those arguing its benefits here either appeal to faith, or to anecdote, neither of which are reliable guides to those of us who like rational explanations. Nor does there seem to be much agreement on what Qi actually is. However, I think that of all the forgoing discussion you have posted the nearest to an attempt to scientifically measure or detect the effects of Qigong, where you quote this: This is impressive on the face of it - and I'm presuming that these are scientifically rigorous peer-reviewed double blind tests - if not, then it doesn't mean much. However, (and I'm sorry I don't have a link to hand for this, but it was recently transmitted on the BBC), recent tests (which were scientifically rigorous peer-reviewed double blind tests) have adduced similar evidence for the placebo effect. One particularly striking experiment was carried out on patients with arthritic knees in the US. One group was given surgery, and a second group was led to believe they had been given surgery - they underwent a general anaesthetic, an incision was made, but no actual surgery to the knee was carried out. A third control group received no surgical intervention at all. The group who thought they'd had operations had recovery rates very nearly as good as those who actually had received surgery, whilst the control group was significantly (as in statistically significantly) worse. The experiments with animals are interesting - I remember a similar study a while back where cows were given homoeopathic remedies, with a similar argument that the placebo effect cannot work on animals. It's important, however, that the animals handlers do not know which animals have received which (if any) treatment to exclude the possibility that the animals could be influenced by the reaction of their handlers, but if the experiment has been rigorous and there are statistically significant results then I think it at least demands further research. I can't prove that Qi does or does not exist, and nor can anybody else, it seems - in any case you can't prove that something doesn't exist and from the point of view of the logic of the argument it is incumbent upon those who believe to prove their case. Although there are some who would say that absence of proof is not proof of absence the lack of clear, repeatable and independently verifiable evidence is a difficulty for a sceptic like me. Ultimately, however, I don't need proof either way, as it does not form part of my training, and perhaps nobody here will feel the need to try to persuade me one way or t'other for that very reason - but I do find it a fascinating discussion which is why I've stuck my big nose into it. I hope you all don't mind, I do have a habit of rambling on a bit. But people are capable of remarkable feats. Anybody who has been around the martial arts for long knows that. Actually, I don't think that's restricted to the martial arts, but let's not get too carried away. I think however that perhaps the power of the human mind and the abilities of the human body, when properly trained, are together remarkable enough not to require any more esoteric explanation.
I too saw that BBC program. The open heart surgury using accupuncture as the anesthetic was spooky! Some people need magic. There was a quote I got somewhere, googled it and here it is: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961 (Clarke's third law) English physicist & science fiction author (1917 - ) We get to a point where we can no longer personally understand how the technology does what it does.
A friend of mine once suggested that the same may be true of any sufficiently advanced physical skill.
