• Archive through October 08, 2005 October 08 - 12:49 pm [20]

Bob#2 is very correct here! Believe can lead to catatonic logic. In other words, I believe therefore it is.

Tony,

How do you know it's chi and not other kind of headache?

If chi is like electricity, how can it get stuck?

How do you move it over your shoulders? You mean you can move chi like muscles?

You don't but if people have been playing about with so-called "microscopic orbit" practices there is a good chance the headache will have been caused by those practices.I honestly don't know what chi is but I do know it is possible to induce certain feelings in the body which can lead to what people call chi.That dosen't mean that chi exists as a seperate energy.What I am saying is that a feeling of pressure exists in the head that is often associated with incorrect practices.Using the tools(ie:intention)to manipulate those feelings will often cure the problem.

Like I said above its better not to get involved with these practices in the first place.

like... if a person holds their shoulder too high, too long, on one side while holding a particular posture resulting in a muscle tension-related head ache? (caused by accidental and/or repedative bad alignment)

I suppose Chinese doctors 500 years ago would have called that Chi blockage. The only one's who'd call it that now either don't have enough education or are trying to sound 'really hip and cool'.

Shane

qi gong was actually made obsolete by my master's 'touch of death' years ago.

the blind leading the blind.

The idea of chi was first introduced some 2500 to 3000 years ago (in China). This tells you two things: first, people have given it quite a bit of thought and second there must be some mileage in it if we are still talking about it today.

Of course there are still some people who believe in the supernatural, so this in part helps to explain the continued use of the concept. The fact that chi can have different meanings according to the context in which it's used does not help either. In our world we like definitions; ideas should be clear cut and testable.

So is chi a pile of crap or not? The answer is it depends. If you view chi in the martial art use as a combination of mental intent, body mechanics, combined with a bit of TCM (meridians etc) then you have a usable, albeit vague concept.

You also have to be aware of making the theory fit the facts. This happens a lot. One guy I heard of swears blind that he can change the weather using his chi. Oh dear. Fortunately much of this supernatural nonsense can be tested scientificaly.

The next problem you have with chi is that much of the current thinking and understanding of the concept is based on ancient writing. These scripts were written in a form of ancient Chinese, which is, today, by and large, impenetrable even to the Chinese themselves.

So what you are left with is the modern day interpretation of an ancient concept. It kind of makes you think there might be room for a little misinterpretaion/misguidedness.

So what of "boiling the chi". An interpretation of a translation of a tranlation of a translation! (Ancient Chinese - Modern Chinese - English)

In and of itself "boiling the chi" can mean anything you want it to mean, which is not much use. However going back to an earlier point, about intent, mechanics, etc an interpretation could be given which is useful to think about.

The final point I would make is that it might well help you when reading about chi in internal martial arts to consider it from the perspective of intention/attention; body mechanics and traditional Chinese Medicine.

No:6 In an occasional series.

KF
Chi is your imaginary friend

Yes but he does n't like Robert

i find no reason to listen to any of the babble that you airheads have birthed.

you cannot half believe in something.

great. see you later.