tai chi controlling chi energy

For validation. Plenty of people are drawn to the "teacher" role because having people listen to them validates what it is they're promoting, whether it's good stuff or not.

The fact of the matter is, if you genuinely want to promote the "real" thing, you'll have to actually support that with facts or at least compelling evidence. Otherwise the only people you'll convince are the easily deluded who give these concepts a bad name in the first place.
In order to sway the serious, the shrewd, those who will work sincerely and honestly to master and understand what you advocate as well as act as good representatives, you must provide some substantial information to distinguish what you're saying from the mire of BS that fills the practice and preaching of martial arts such as these.

And finally, we have a recipe too. Each of us has one. Each is a little different. Some are good, some aren't. We know ours work because we use them and visible, measurable results are produced. As of yet, noone has come forth with a recipe like the one you advocate and presented any special results. Why should anyone put any stock in what you say as opposed to the next guy?

 

Can I buy some of this please ?

 

And you base your assumption on what? I guarantee you the people on that forum are serious to the point of obsession.

I dare say your approach isn't better. You defend the veracity of a subjective sensation that can't be measured, and rather than look for your own terms, you subscribe to a blanket term because it gives you the collective support and confirms your sanity.

Look, what you are feeling is not chi. There are hundreds of feelings and sensations that our body and minds conjure at different circumstances. Everything from sleep paralysis paranoia to impressive spatial deformations. Hell, all stage hypnosis is based on social pressure and a couple ideomotor illusions, and most people think it's for real!

 

Next patient who gets an xray, I'm telling him he's going for an appointment with 'the man with the magic, internal glasses'


If I get fired, I'll have time to train more!

 

Maybe so, but that should be expected as they aren't specifically practicing qi gong. What i'm doing is putting forward what I think contextually is the closest translation in western terminology for "qi" as used in martial texts eg. the classics in tcc.

It doesn't follow that I'm claiming all kineasthetic feeling is equal. Just to be clear.

Well you don't mention anything to do with the three basic components of martial qigong as I understand it ie. breathing, yi, and posture. I guess his method wasn't really qigong related in any way?

So, I don't see what your point is really. Though I might hazard a guess what you're driving at.

Cultivating a feeling associated with a confluence of somatic processes, or storing and circulating some as of yet unknown to man energetic substance/ force.

I'm not claiming I know everything about everything, but I know which of the above scenarios I lean to.. Given the incredible scientific strides we've made, given we're almost on the cusp of glimpsing evidence of something so shy and incredible as the Higgs Boson.. "the god particle"

It's not that I'm a sceptic - in the sense I believe in "qi", I'm a sceptic in the sense that I don't believe it's an exclusive form (of energy).
There's just little if nothing to suggest this, and a great deal to suggest the phenomena is explainable with present knowledge - at least to a satisfactory level for myself and my purposes.

Others mileage may vary, and that's cool.

 

So,on an internet forum you come to a direct conclusion of what someone else is feeling inside their body.That is despite the fact you have never met the person face to face or made a request for a detailed description of their practice.If you had said it "might not be chi" I would have agreed with you as it is easy to mistake the feelings you have listed with chi.But to state that "what you are feeling in not chi" is just a statement that isn't backed up with any evidence,such as physical examination of the subject.

 

And yet the onus is on the claimant. The standard assumption is negative until evidence is presented to change that assumption. These feelings can all be explained via known, testable phenomena. If you want to say this is something different, people are going to assume you're blowing hot air until you provide evidence to the contrary.

Frankly with the information available, it's a pretty safe bet.

 

Exactly.He claimed that I am not feeling chi so perhaps he can provide some evidence to back up his "internet diagnosis".

 

How do you know you are feeling chi?



I'm ignorant in the whole concept to be honest but I'd be interested in hearing how people come to this conclusion.

 

You chose to attack that sentence because you know it's functionally impossible to prove a negative. You could have worked to advance the discussion or presented evidence to the contrary but you didn't. You sniped back with a petty little "gotcha" demand and avoided actually discussing the subject. It's intellectually cowardly and reeks of someone who has nothing of substance left to contribute but can't disengage for fear of appearing to lose.

Do you want to genuinely discuss chi/ki/qi or would you rather scavenge for petty, transparent little chances at feeling like you caught somebody?


If you have something to say about the subject, say it. Otherwise, this sort of thing isn't going to change anyone's mind about chi or your position in this discussion.

 

You're rather missing the point.

There is, as yet, no evidence that has ever been presented to suggest that what you are feeling is chi. There is plenty of evidence that the sensations you describe can be easily (and sensibly) attributed to psychological and biological causes.

You are the one making the claim that some other explanation applies, and therefore in any sane scientific discourse you are the member expected to provide evidence to back up your claims. The same applies if someone believes they have found a new quantum phenomena - such as neutrinos travelling faster than light. The evidence is put forwards, it is examined, the experiment is replicated, and if the claim is repeatedly substantiated then explanations are looked into and developed.

You have put forth no evidence for your theory as yet. We're still waiting.

 

That would depend on what your definition of 'chi' actually is, and whether it can actually be felt. If I defined 'chi' as breath then I can certainly feel it. But I couldn't give you any evidence to prove that I can feel it.

 

You could blow up a balloon?

 

But we can provide fairly compelling evidence that air does indeed exist, that humans do all breathe it, that it is used by the body in several ways and that you are indeed human.
We could further provide consistent and compelling evidence that your nervous system is reacting to the sensation. Technology isn't at the point where we can quantify exactly what it feels like to you, but then that isn't what's being debated.

 

Yes, and we can also prove the existance of energy, which is what any sensible person regards as the usual meaning of the term 'chi'. The only things we can't prove are the mystical-energy-force nonsensical conceptions of 'chi', and the only people talking about that are the ones jumping up and down shouting "You can't prove it exists! You can't prove it exists!" when as far as I can see, no-one is trying to claim that any such thing exists.

It's just the usual strawman nonsense from people who really should know a bit better than that. And like all such threads, it's just going round in circles on it's way to the inevitable lockdown. Which is a pity, because a few people have made some worthwhile posts.

 

Truth


And yeah, let's end this unless someone has some fresh points to inject?

 

Wow, almost the entirety of the thread holds the opposite view and you feel entitled to "end it" by pointing at the universal truth? Talk about being deluded. Now let's discuss the post you quoted.

This reverse strawman is as bad or more as what has been offered.

A sensible person regards energy as energy, which is a reasonable thing to do because energy is a specific, coherently defined concept.

Anyone who talks about any measurable energy in terms of Chi is either uninformed, deluded, or trying to obtain positional or financial advantage thanks to their "knowledge" of a magnitude that can be explained much better scientifically.

In conclusion, if by "chi" you mean something that doesn't exist, it is worthless. If you interpret Chi as a blanket term to sum up different sources of energy, be them kinetic, chemical, electrical, metabolic or otherwise, you should drop the term because it's unspecific, misleading and can be easily abused by charlatans.

All in all, the idea of "Chi" or teaching martial arts around that term and its implications adds nothing of worth, as has been demonstrated countless times. At best, it's an inspiring metaphor. At worst, it's a lie being used to separate desperate people from their money.

 

I cannot begin to express how much this makes me feel like :bang:

:bang:

Actually quantum gravity does give us a rather nice explanation of how it works, and if/when we find the Higgs boson we will hopefully be able to verify that theory. Just because you're not up to date on current particle physics doesn't mean we aren't getting close to understanding these things.

Yep, granted. That's because a lot of things are a long, long way away or a long, long time ago - it's harder to gather evidence. Chi magic is a different thing entirely - there's no evidence for it, there are no supposed effects it can produce which cannot be explained by well-understood phenomena.

I think they generally start out that way.

Energy - the ability to do work, i.e. to exert a physical force upon a system.

If you think chi is just energy, why bother referring to it as chi at all and mystifying the topic? We know what generates energy and movement in the human body - just say you're working on your ATP utilisation instead of your chi meditation.

Yep. They're the ones you've accused of setting up the strawman.

 

Qigong,or for that matter,any form of meditation,is a highly subjective experience.Its impossible,at least at the present time, to provide the kind of evidence you are looking for.Lets say you had decided to carry out a study of the Archbishop of Canterbury when he was praying.What exactly would you be looking for as evidence? Physiological and psychological changes most certainly take place during pray* so you could measure body functions and brainwaves etc but would these really show the entire picture?

*Benson:Beyond the Relaxation Response 1985

 

I don't claim any new recipe, their are plenty of books that describe the steps involved to be able to apply internal energy to MA.

If you are able to realize internal application, then what I have said will make sense to you.

I am not saying their is a special feeling you get if you have chi, only that it is a way of describing application of energy when used in MA application.

You can only gauge what I am saying based on your experience, you have to find someone that can show you, I am only saying it is real, and can be used in MA applications.

It might not be a separate new energy, but a way of describing what is effecting your body and your opponents in a manner that makes sense.


Cheers