Putting out candles with chi

[Jotaro Joestar]

I have seen "Masters" put out candle flames from a palm strike from several feet distance at tournaments before. What are peoples general feelings about the ability to put out a candle flame from 4'+ with a palm strike? What is the general belief in the technique to be able to achieve this?

I have my own beliefs, but I am interested into hearing others first.

Many thanks in advance.

Jotaro Joestar

 

[RobP]

Whenever I've done it it's nothing to do with "chi", just the snap of the punch. My teacher also demo'd it with a staff.

 

[Despairbear]

I have yet to see any proof that chi/ki is anything more than timing and kinesiology. Now having said that I study Aikido, a rather ki heavy art and have no problem telling a new student that focusing your ki will improve your abilitys and showing them an example. It is not magic it is simply a good way to explain a complicated idea. Puting a candle out with a palmstrike? So can a fan or a strong breath.



Despair Bear

 

[Arthur]

The candle trick works by pushing air abruptly and then ceasing quickly (a snap strike as mentioned earlier) because a tiny vacuum occurs for an instant behind the pushed air. In the absence of oxygen the flame goes out.

Sort of the opposite reason as is often assumed, and no Qi involved

Arthur

 

[Disco]

Back in Brooklyn, da guys youse to do it all da time. Vinny No Neck Lamonty was really good at it. It was amazzin. We'd, meanin us guys, would lite the candle and Vinny would stand about 5 feet away. He then would grab Tony Chi by the seat of da pants and would throw the bum at the candle. Hey, it would go out every frickin time. Just amazzin.

 

[andurilking2]

please try to offer intellagible answers

 

[Taiji fan]

I put out candles using qi all of the time......from a few inches away...

Qi = breath...

its easy...you just put your lips together and blow...give it a try you will be amazed.

 

[Ken JP Stuczynski]

Chi is damn undeniabley real (if you have a clue about it), but when I put out the candles on MY cake with a palm strike, I always consider it to be air disturbance and not chi transfer.

If anyone here thinks it's chi, show me someone who can do it from behind a piece of glass in front of the flame, or do it slowly. If they can't, it's not chi.

 

[Phil Elmore]

"Chi" is metaphorical. It is a very useful metaphor, but nobody here is using the Force.

 

[J-kid]

eez i want someone to shoot fire balls in the UFC.

Infact i would pay good money to see chi at work, if its real why dosnt anyone stop crime with it or make them selves rich, wait people do that all the time by getting crazy ideas into peoples minds.

Science proved the earth was round, now lets work on chi.....

 

[Despairbear]

Is chi real yes. Can chi make you fly or throw fireballs or any other magic thing no. Judeo-Kid I don't know who has been telling you that chi will do these things but they are very wrong. Oh and one more thing the world i not round it is elliptical.



Despair Bear

 

[Taiji fan]

what do you mean the world is round (or eliptical)....so what happend to all those ships that fell off the edge then :rofl:

 

[Ken JP Stuczynski]

Sea serpents were superstition and myth until they caught a few of them. Unknown (and sometimes thought-to-be-extinct) fish are now known.

Sailors always knew about them.

But people drew pictures of them as huge dragons and 100-foot squid (Oops, those are real too) and other fictitious beasts. Sailors were ridiculed for believing in sea monsters.


:asian:

Chi is just a metaphor until you open your eyes and apply the term "chi" to everyday experience.

The Chinese always knew about it (as did many other cultures in different ways and with different words).

But people turned it into some psychic power through movies and frauds doing tricks. So people who recognize they use it every day, and can use it effectively in martial arts are written off as "misunderstanding" physics.


:soapbox:

So without assigning the Chi article in Martial Talk Magazine for homework, here's a hint -- the Chinese language is not abstract, except to those who are unfamiliar with the culture and language. The words themselves are rarely metaphorical, and are only used that way as phrases, such as "beating the heavenly drum" for tapping the cerebellum.

The problem is that the understanding of breath is different from culture to culture, and therefore the things we can do with it are limited by that understanding -- that frame of reference for understanding the world. Chinese scientific process is not Western, and that is why they achieve different results and abilities.

Chi is a whole body experience, and we experience it all the time without putting a label on it or being aware of it. Those of us that do can do things that aint in the physics book. Not usually like the stuff from movies mind you, but interesting feats from various documentaries.

What I've found is that people who desperately try to pick it apart with physics don't understand physics any more than chi. Science has been an interest of mine since I was four years old, and no one has been able to explain chi properly from that frame of reference -- it's like trying to eat melted ice cream with a fork.

And that's why people limited to Western thought will never get it, and consider the rest of us fools.

 

[Ken JP Stuczynski]

Originally posted by Taiji fan
what do you mean the world is round (or eliptical)....

Actually, it's an oblate spheriod.

 

[Sauzin]

Got an interesting video of a news reporting group doing investigative journalism for CNN in a Chinese town. The camera man ends up getting an eye infection needing treatment and the locals refer him to an acupuncturist in town. The acupuncturist uses needles just a little differently then most. He charges them with his hands as they are inserted. When he does this the muscles of the subject spasm with small movements, similar to what you would see if you connected them to a small battery. The reporters asked him what he was doing and he motioned them to put out their hand, then he "zapped" the reporter who quickly recoiled his hand. At the same time (with the camera running) you could hear the mic distort slightly. He did it a couple more times to a few other people explaining that he was no different then an electric eel. The positive comes from his stomach and the negative from his groin area. He then took them outside and put a newspaper on the ground. No sleeves, no prep, just a piece of paper laying several inches beneath the acupuncturist’s hands. He then lit it on fire.

I'm sure you could call it a hoax and say that if such a thing could be done it would have been brought up by science by now. All I can tell you is that I have personally seen people do things without touching that cannot be explained away by psychological theories or scientific laws. I do not believe the acupuncturist previously mentioned was a stage magician or a local trickster. He was a well respected local acupuncturist. They are two different schools of thought in my experience.

Not everything around us has been explained by science. Where this not the case, progress would not exist. The candle phenomena I think is a bad example more easily explained by aerodynamics. Where I looking for more substantial evidence I would look towards those who practice moving plants or pushing blindfolded opponents with slow no touching motions. Ki-iyejitsu is another example, though more easily disputable.

-Paul Holsinger

 

[Taiji fan]

Not everything around us has been explained by science. Where this not the case, progress would not exist.

science is constantly evolving and changing its mind. Science is also limited by its people and equipment, instead of having to prove qi exsists why are the experiments not trying to prove that it doesn't?

 

[RobP]

Where tests have been done the results have not been positive, whether it was for acupuncture, empty force or spoon bending.

There are details of Soviet experiments in a book called Experiments in Mental Suggestion but they were working from a different model to the Chinese Chi approach.

As far as I know medical science still hasn't found the meridian system. Perhaps Dr's western mindset keeps them from seeing a group of channels that runs through the body?
Then again some say it corresponds to the nervous system, others that it is a separate thing in itself. And there lies another problem - definitions which seem to change from one practitioner to another, or over time.

When I first started training, many years ago, almost everything was ascribed to "chi". As things were gradually explained away as bio-mechanical or psychological chi became increasingly something just used for "empty force", still a very dubious practice IMHO - aside from Derren Brown

 

[Taiji fan]

When I first started training, many years ago, almost everything was ascribed to "chi".

I had much the same....it was a great way for a sub standard teacher to get out of really having to explain something. All I ever got was.....its just the chi....

 

[RobP]

True, but I've had that from some of the big name teachers too!
Lot's of talk of chi power yet behind the scenes they are busily hefting around iron balls, shaking 12 poles, etc, etc

 

[Ken JP Stuczynski]

Originally posted by RobP
As far as I know medical science still hasn't found the meridian system. Perhaps Dr's western mindset keeps them from seeing a group of channels that runs through the body?

Then again some say it corresponds to the nervous system, others that it is a separate thing in itself. And there lies another problem - definitions which seem to change from one practitioner to another, or over time.

This year, equipment has been developed to track chi flow and it does follow the meridians of Chinese medicine.

The simplified description I use in class is that it follows (roughly) the nervous and lymphatic systems, flows like the circulatory system, is often accompanied by neuro-muscular activity, but is most related tot he pulmonary system.