Don't worry about it. If you are practing real kung fu and you stick with it, you will develop the ability eventually. Even if you quit kung fu you should still develop the ability. It will just take until you are 60 or 70 when it naturally happens in most human beings.
jinkan- Answering a question w/a question is known in the West as the Socratic Method. Not uncommon.I'm guessing you might know that. I fancy it must "work" in the West to still be in practice here,which it is.Guess it works even without the same cultural background as Asia. I've spent my life around old people.Lots of old people.Didn't notice them developing or having psychic abilities.Must be something in the water here. dormindo-the likes of you and I need not worry about suffering a psychic attack. The feeble minded can't be attacked that way,so I've read/heard many times.
WRONG. If it was force every single martial artist I ever met could do it. I have been looking back at some of the older posts in this thread. Here we go again.
I've never done Kung Fu, so I guess I'm out of luck on that one. I just do capoeira, no psychic powers, just lots of lore about street saavy awareness. But I'm all for free psychic powers when I'm 60 (Obi-Wan FTW). paz, dormindo
Not to mention the fact that if you wiggle your big toes around, chi attacks can't touch you. So sayeth the Dillman!
Long Answer to Simple Question I am going to assume that you don't mean that a master can toss someone aside simply by thinking about it. Your question sounds like, "How can I develop my ability to be more aware of what is going on inside of someone through Tai-chi training?" You seem to also be wondering, how can someone use this awareness in a practical situation to divert aggression? So let's talk about Push Hands. In this two person exercise each of you try to throw the other off balance. Yet if you use tension, the partner can use your tension to throw you. If your attention freezes, as it may at the moment you are thinking about pushing, the partner can use your frozen attention to throw you over. And so the body and the attention must be fluid at all times. In fact, a large part of push hands is to try to get your partner to freeze his attention and therefore, his body. Push Hands is like three dimensional chess in which you are allowed to move any piece at any time and not have to take turns. At my school, we do push hands with eyes closed to help focus on the feeling of the interaction. You must be aware of how each of your muscles and joints are moving, your balance, how tense or relaxed is each muscle, and you must be aware of the same within the partner's body. Of course, these factors change constantly. The only way to do this is for the entire body to become aware of its own condition. That is, each muscle, joint, etc. must have awareness, must be conscious so that the push hands is not controlled by the head. It is controlled at each point of the body. The person who has more aliveness, more consciousness in his body, and is able to let the thinking mind sit on the bench, is able to deflect the partner's force. You can also allow the force to flow into the body, allow each muscle in turn to relax, leading the force into the root. To make an even longer story then this, short, you are reversing the trend of modern people, to perceive only with their thinking minds, and to be able to perceive with their whole bodies, with the energy flowing through their bodies, which in turn, is connected to the environment. It is the extreme development of awareness and response, which allows you to do things within tiny time frames and with such minimal overall body movement, that they are not easily perceptible by most people. And so it seems like magic (which it is not, of course). You use the term "psychic" and I use the terms "perception" and "awareness". I think the stumbling block for many of the people answering your question is that, while they understand that there are intricate mechanics of the body you learn in Tai-chi, they may not understand that there are inticate mechanics of attention that should also be learned in this art. In no martial art can you use the thinking mind to fight. It is just too slow and awkward. You learn that the body itself is capable of awareness of a much greater resolution and speed than the mind can even imagine. Tai-chi takes advantage of those attention mechanics, combining them with physical mechanics. The result may seem mysterious but it is all mechanics of one sort or another. You can also affect the mind, emotions and behavior of another person through your own posture, movements, vocal tone and state of your eyes, but that is another story. I discuss this much further on my blog: www.movementsofmagic.org and in my books, "Movements of Magic - the Spirit of Tai-chi-Chuan" and "Movements of Power - Ancient Secrets of Unleashing Instinctual Vitality" (both downloadable from Amazon Kindle).
I am. I actually examine evidence and draw my own conclusions as best I am able. I am skeptical and doubtful of phenomenon which have no evidence beyond hearsay. I am suspicious of anything which claims to be, through some special status, exempt from rigorous examination and testing. I do not simply repeat what I am told without, at the very least, examining objective evidence and performing my own tests. Wouldn't you rather be able to think for yourself and try to be skeptical even of your own beliefs rather than parrot some cultist?
This is by no way unique to tai chi, nor does it rely on any special definition of attention. All arts (effective at least) and any other complex physical skill rely on muscle memory and instinctive, conditioned reflex reactions. The brain mechanisms behind these reflexes are actually beginning to be understood, and the four levels of ability have been known for a long, long time. For anyone who has not heard of the four levels of ability: Unconscious inability - can't do it, don't know that you can't do it Conscious inability - can't do it, know that you can't and what's going wrong Conscious ability - can do it, but have to think about it Unconscious ability - the action becomes pure, unthinking reflex to be called when needed Again - well understood mechanisms are behind this. Derren Brown is an absolute master at this, and claims no mystical abilities to explain it - just trickery and scientific understanding.
This post was so impressive that I went straight over to amazon and ordered your book I practise Wu Chien Chuan, Ma lineage tai chi - Master Ma Jiangbao is my teacher's teacher, he comes over to our class every year - this year was the first time i got to do pushing hands with him - an incredible experience we were learning some intensely head bending double handed push hands exercise and i hadn't got it so he was helping me - i was trying to use my mind too much to work out what he was doing but then remembered not to do that and just relaxed my awareness into my body at that point he gave a long deep & slow "gooooood" he felt my mental attitude change just like that
Quote: Wouldn't you rather be able to think for yourself and try to be skeptical even of your own beliefs rather than parrot some cultist? End Quote. I would rather put the time and training into experiencing things for myself so I know what I am talking about through my own awareness. The thinking mind can't bring you the actual awareness. Words are only labels of experience and only bring you cleverness.
The thinking mind has to put the initial thought before any activity or engagement. Simply, You have to think before you do. However, if this, by what you are saying is like; When someone learns to drive a auto/car, they "think" about everything they have to do. Per; Use the signals, use the brakes, use the mirrors, etc. When this person-driver becomes experienced, they no longer "think" what has to be done. They simply "drive"
you appear to be confusing the thinking mind with the intending mind they are of course related lol but not the same
Why thank you for shedding this invaluable pearl of wisdom. I now fully understand the difference between the intending mind and the thinking mind. Thank you so much for being humble and explaining these important concepts to us lowly plebs who haven't had the opportunities to learn with the ancient sages who know important things like the difference between the thinking mind and the intending mind.
