How does Ki benefit you?

That has been my experience as well. I’ve had teachers who claim to feel it. In one case it was described as a feeling of energy sloshing around inside the body, like taking a shower on the inside. I’ve never felt anything even remotely like that.

I trained taiji for over a decade. It was always second place to other things I was training and perhaps my lack of understanding is a result of not giving it the attention and work that it needed, although I was regular in my practice.

Ultimately I decided that I don’t understand it, I am unlikely to understand it, and other things I was training made more sense to me and were a better match for me. So I stopped training taiji.

I don’t think much (or at all) about Qi. The Tibetan White Crane that I study has a systematic method of training full-body connection that makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. We don’t talk about Qi or anything that might be interpreted as mystical. It develops a powerful and efficient technique delivery that I feel is second to none, but I also recognize that it is not a good match for everyone.

No single method is the universal best choice for everyone. People need to find a system that they can connect with and makes sense to them in its approach to training. Different systems with different approaches will appeal to different people. Maybe that’s as close to qi as we can get.

 

I used the cat example to show two things. First, ki is not unique to humans (internal arts refer to gravity as the "ki of heaven"). Second, since cats are simpler beings, it's easier to show the process where it sees something, decides that it's gonna catch it and then acts upon that.

During the course of its life, a cat's ki (= its ability to do with its body what it decides to do in its mind) increases as it grows from a kitten into a stronger, better coordinated adult. You can see kittens try to climb the stairs and fail repeatedly until they grow strong and coordinated enough to succeed. Likewise, as the cat ages past its prime, its body will eventually become less able to do what its mind wants to do. It may stumble as it tries to walk normally: its ki has decreased. Same thing with people.

It's part of it. Those things make your body more able to do what your mind sets out to do. There are other ways to build ki but those are the most common.

My guess is that those people are adept at using their body language in human interactions. They want to communicate effectively with someone and that will shapes their body (including voice, microexpressions, etc.). Their interlocutors pick up on an array of body language cues and identify them as "charismatic". That's why communication coaches instruct you to "listen to every sound in the room": upon that thought, your body makes a series of subtle adjustments that people pick up on that makes them view you as "more present". Because humans are perceptive, you can often guess whether someone is energetic, tired, sick, weak, distracted or even if is good at something within a few seconds of meeting them or seeing them perform. You can gauge their "ki".

Without moving, try to imagine that someone is pushing on your forehead and that you need to remain immobile. Then, again without moving, try to imagine that someone is pushing you from behind your head. You'll feel some kind of tingling as your body adjusts to the mental image (I just did this and felt something under my skin, mainly on my face and neck). I guess that's the feeling. Try several angles and see how it feels for you.

 

but you get some particularly uncoordinated cats, so suggesting its a simple biological process of inevitable improvement is wrong

and cats of coarse, form intent and then miss drop short or other wise mess up, haven't you seen any funny cats you tube vids

 

You have not been around too many uber 'A' personalities have you? It is a known personality trait and can be very influential. Whether you like them or not is d different matter.
Charismatic is is a kind way to describe it. But the word itself is used with a negative connotation at times.

 

uber isnt a personality type youve just thrown that in to complicate matters, type a is. type A dont have more personality, they have a very strong projection of their personality, o

ok two genuine questions

1)do you think a personality can change over time ?, it seems so, our environment and experiences can make significant changes

2) can you fake having a different personality type such as other perceive your personality differently ? again i think yes, thats what actors get paid the big bucks for

so allowing that you've answered with at least a vague affirmative to both

how anyone else know what your personality type is, from only causal interaction

and

if you've been faking it for so long that its become an ingrained habit, has your personality actually changed too fit your ''new behaviour. , how do you know what your personality type is, if your behaving like a different type ?

 

Must say, jobo, this is one of your more thought provoking posts. It is an issue I have contemplated over the years: Who am I, versus, who can I be? Can you fake it till you make it? This latter issue is a deliberate attempts thru repetition and mindset to change oneself. If you aspire to a vision of yourself and keep that affirmation constantly in mind, change will occur.

Surely, as anyone who has, or worked with children knows, personality forms and is imprinted very early on in childhood experience, some traits perhaps even being in-born. This is the basic palate our lives are painted upon. Sometimes, a traumatic experience can change one later on in life, at least in a specific aspect. IMO, all these things are in the mix.

Being in a particular environment requiring a certain outlook on things for a number of years can also "bend" one's basic personality. This is a value of MA, especially if started at a pre-adult age. Tactical thinking, learning you have the ability to influence outcomes, self-discipline, confidence and humility and many other traits are developed within the dojo. Putting all these in practice in the outside world on an everyday basis will mold you to a certain degree, and make you a better version of you.

One's interaction with oneself is probably one of the most complex psychological processes. I think there is a physical aspect to this too. The combination of these, and our ability to focus them is perhaps one way of looking at Ki.

 

Uber just meant an extreme type A personality. Urban slang but a commonly used word.

 

i know what uber means , its isnt however a recognised personality type classification

just randomly sticking words into '' scientific terms'' doesn't help for clarity, if there is such a thing as you described then there is a correct term for it. as the classification types by letter does not include such. its safe to conclude you have just made it up for effect

 

Not at all. It was simply used as an adjective to express the high degree of the personality. It was a descriptor, not part of the term.
Regardless, you are skirting what the comment was regarding.
An average type A personality may call themselves charismatic since it is generally accepted as a 'nice' quality and they use it to feel good about themselves. An uber type A will not give two s**ts what you call them and then may go out of their way to convince you they are right and you are wrong. I suspect these are the people you were referring to.

 

but uber type A is not A thing recognised by science. so you can say its anything, as there is no reference point.

its like saying my wifi is UBER.. WTF does that mean, lazy is what it is !

 

no im talking about people whose life force / personalty projection is such that they can alter your emotional state ( for better or worse) just by being in the same room as you, never mind actual interpersonal interaction

its commonly referred to as charisma or arrogance ( or worse) dependent on what emotional response it invokes

 

ive lived long enough and know enough people to observe that many people in their late 50s have a completely different personality than they did in their late teens, completely unrecognisable as the same person, beyond a vague physical similarity

i saw ian a few weeks ago who was a one man crime wave when he was 18, complain bitterly about the lack of moral compass in the youth of the day and that the police need to be tougher as his push bike was stolen. whilst seemingly forgetting about the time he was handcuffed to a radiator and beaten black and blue for breaking into the local policeman car, something he was some what irritated by at the time

or sean who was confident beyond believe, shuffling about shacking with nerves, scared of his own shadow

or martin, quite the most reckless motor biker ive ridden with who went onto be a traffic policeman and is some what embarrassed if you bring up that time we were was chased across town at three figure speeds, now that he firmly believes doing 35 is a significant threat to the fabric of society

may be they are still the same at their core ? but then how they behaved back then was an act123