What is Chi?

[Kai]

though the article also says you have to hit in just the right 15-20ms timeslot. buuuut let's say they are really awesome and have been pacing their opponent from the start, maybe being able to make a decent guess at the heart phase?

Unless the force of impact was strong enough over a great enough length of time. An impact isn't instantaneous, it lasts near half a second or more. That's including all the inertia.

Feel free to call bullshit on me if I'm wrong.

[Adios]

I had an instructor who explained that 'chi' was the art of centering yourself so you could focus on what you are doing. In fact he never used the word chi when teaching, he always coached on centering. He simply turned it into paying attention in the pure verb form. I have found it to be effective in this form.

[Kai]

I had an instructor who explained that 'chi' was the art of centering yourself so you could focus on what you are doing. In fact he never used the word chi when teaching, he always coached on centering. He simply turned it into paying attention in the pure verb form. I have found it to be effective in this form.

I've often thought that accessing chi involved centering first.

I'm not quite sure how your definition of centering relates to mine.

[Adios]

I had an instructor who explained that 'chi' was the art of centering yourself so you could focus on what you are doing. In fact he never used the word chi when teaching, he always coached on centering. He simply turned it into paying attention in the pure verb form. I have found it to be effective in this form.

I've often thought that accessing chi involved centering first.

I'm not quite sure how your definition of centering relates to mine.

To me centering is the act of internal focus. To attempt to remove outside distractions. Many athletes use this technique before competing.

[Kai]

I had an instructor who explained that 'chi' was the art of centering yourself so you could focus on what you are doing. In fact he never used the word chi when teaching, he always coached on centering. He simply turned it into paying attention in the pure verb form. I have found it to be effective in this form.

I've often thought that accessing chi involved centering first.

I'm not quite sure how your definition of centering relates to mine.

To me centering is the act of internal focus. To attempt to remove outside distractions. Many athletes use this technique before competing.

Yes, bringing of awareness of the body into focus. Feeling yourself here and now. It allows you to access chi, or at least the way I've been defining chi in this thread.

[Adios]

I think we are on the same page. In my simple laymans terms it is 'getting in the zone'.

[Triple Zero]

though the article also says you have to hit in just the right 15-20ms timeslot. buuuut let's say they are really awesome and have been pacing their opponent from the start, maybe being able to make a decent guess at the heart phase?

Unless the force of impact was strong enough over a great enough length of time. An impact isn't instantaneous, it lasts near half a second or more. That's including all the inertia.

Feel free to call bullshit on me if I'm wrong.

I dunno man, that's what the article said. I call for MOAR EXPIRIMINTS!!!

[MMIX]

  so looking at he chi phenomenon from a slightly different angle . . . when I was first reading up about chakras - yeah wildly different countries/energies/whatever/whatever - and trying to do those exercise thingies I was sent for an MRI scan. So they give you a radioactive drink and then bombard you with magnetic doohickies. So I'm lying there and when the magnetic torus gadget gets to my root chackra Bang - off it goes. So I mentioned this to the radiographer in a conversational way and he was totally unsurprised YES it turns out that this is a common phenomenon during scans, and is thought to be a side effect of the radioactive isotope you drink . . .  well lets just say I'm not convinced. But I can't find any refs to it online - I suspect that there is a scientific explanation here which relates to the body's electrical/magnetic makeup - thoughts . .  and how does it relate to chi . . .




removed orphan letter - damn this obsessive behaviour . .

[Telarus]

Most of the public "Dim Mak" demonstrations I have seen reek of bullshit, as Cain has alluded to. I agree that it is akin to guided hypnosis, and falls into all of the lame complications that recreating hypnosis effects on different people suffer. (See the Grade 5 Syndrome thread).

A lot of martial artists throw this same argument at Aikido practitioners ("dancing in fancy pants, and training the students to simply accept all of the high-level practitioner's body cues and movements").... this may be a valid criticism of _some_ (full of fail) Aikido instructors, but there are schools of Aikido out there that will have none of the bullshit, and indeed those masters tend to criticize individual techniques that are widely taught that leave one open to attack in the middle of the technique.

For a specific example, I point to Nishio Sensei's exposition on Shihonage (I'm really still learning the terminology):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9PTMSwr1h0

Dammit, I need a job so I can afford some formal instruction. The above is what to look for in a MA instructor, dead honesty about the weakness of techniques.

As to Dim Mak, I think that it was originally based on a solid concept. The above video should show how a solid concept can devolve over time without a critical attitude in the practitioners. Dogma leads to bullshit.

[Kai]

  so looking at he chi phenomenon from a slightly different angle . . . when I was first reading up about chakras - yeah wildly different countries/energies/whatever/whatever - and trying to do those exercise thingies I was sent for and MRI scan. So they give you a radioactive drink and then bombard you with magnetic doohickies. So I'm lying there and when the magnetic torus gadget gets to my root chackra Bang - off it goes. So I mentioned this to the radiographer in a conversational way and he was totally unsurprised YES it turns out that this is a common phenomenon during scans, and is thought to be a side effect of the radioactive isotope you drink . . .  well lets just say I'm not convinced. But I can't find any refs to it online - I suspect that there is a scientific explanation here which relates to the body's electrical/magnetic makeup - thoughts . .  and how does it relate to chi . . .

I don't really know anything about it, but if you learn more I'd love to hear. Sounds interesting.

[Kai]

Thanks for the link Telarus.

[fomenter]

i suspect dim muk is the equivalent of a throat punch knee to the balls, applied to the one or two areas that are potentially as devastating, fancied up and made mystical to sell the teaching,  and to maybe keep it secretive during times when civilians knowing things was not encouraged

[LMNO]

though the article also says you have to hit in just the right 15-20ms timeslot. buuuut let's say they are really awesome and have been pacing their opponent from the start, maybe being able to make a decent guess at the heart phase?

The chance of it working is small, but if you add up all the times throughout history where one fighter has punched another fighter in the chest, the probability that at some point some guy's heart stopped after getting punched starts increasing pretty quickly.


And it only takes one instance to start a legend.

[Kai]

though the article also says you have to hit in just the right 15-20ms timeslot. buuuut let's say they are really awesome and have been pacing their opponent from the start, maybe being able to make a decent guess at the heart phase?

The chance of it working is small, but if you add up all the times throughout history where one fighter has punched another fighter in the chest, the probability that at some point some guy's heart stopped after getting punched starts increasing pretty quickly.


And it only takes one instance to start a legend.

Yeah, the one guy who did it probably thought "holy fuck, I could market this", and he did. Thus, Dim Mak was born.

[Richter]

That sounds like a fair assesment.  Martial arts tend to grow esoteric qualities (like mold) over time.

Going along with the idea that the heart punch does work, it seems like a very specialized, very convoluted thing to know.  Not many of us will ever need to perform 1 hit kills, at close range, unarmed. 

How do you practice something like that?  Kill people?
Assuming you have the experience / wherewithall to execute such a technique when caught flat footed, do you then use it to slaughter every ornery drunk, mugger, or punk who ever crosses you? 

Personally, I'd rather spend my time learning esoteric ways to open a beer bottle, dancing in funny pants, and perfecting the combo of kick knee and RUN.  I feel this will provide a much happier life.