Pardon the snips, but I had to cut to the core of what I believe you are saying.
I don't doubt that many practitioners who believe they are utilizing Chi are skilled martial artists. I only doubt that it is actually Chi that they are utilizing. I think they are just skilled martial artists.
Perhaps you are correct. It does not seem entirely that way to me.
Definitely true, although I would quibble that believing does not make a think so.
Self-deception is part of the human condition, and for both good and bad reasons. There is no way that I can prove or otherwise demonstrate to anyone else that what I believe to be true is so. Therefore, it best not to try. It really isn't important anyway, is it?
I will only say that I am not a believer in magic or the supernatural. Everything that happens, happens in accordance with physical laws that govern the universe. I note that we don't seem to know what all of those rules are yet.
I do not doubt that practitioners of many arts, my own included feel what they presume is Chi. Are they feeling the same application of technique as flavoured by the nuance afforded by long practice as I do, and just calling that skill Chi, or are they really experiencing something beyond that? In other words, I don't doubt for a moment that people feel Chi. What I question is whether that sensation is any different than the aforementioned
Shepard Tone.
As well you should. It is both logical and rational to question what others seem to earnestly believe without objective evidence. I certainly do.
And yet, I find myself in a place where I have no objective evidence for the existence of a force commonly known as 'chi', but I also trust myself as a rational and intelligent human being, not given to flights of fancy or beliefs in typically unscientific things. I know what I know, and although you may consider this analogous to religion, I do not. I accept my religious beliefs as that - irrational, unscientific, and utterly unprovable or demostrable. On the other hand, I am quite aware of people who can bring me to a higher understanding of pain, at will, without apparent effort, and without a requirement that anyone believe it is possible.
Check out the
link and keep listening. Most people would say that the sound gets lower and lower indefinitely, which would be impossible, as we would quickly get below 20 Hz or so, the limits of defined pitch in human hearing, and then seconds later we would reach 0 hz, at which point there literally
is no sound. Trained musicians or those with naturally gifted ears might hear the separate component sin waves and entrances, and realize this is not the case. It seems to transcend basic aural ranges, yet it never does anything close. It's a very simple, otherwise un-noteworthy bit of audio, except that our brain struggles with truly comprehending it, and so comes up with an incorrect explanation, you hear it, so you believe it, but it's not real.
Can't help you there; I'm actually quite tone-deaf. I am incapable of tuning a guitar. Which is funny considering I'm an audiophile as well. However, I take your meaning. Illusions are easily demonstrated, aural, visual, etc.
Seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling may be believing for many people, but again, to believe a thing is not to demonstrate its existence.
Fortunately, I feel no need to demonstrate or prove anything. You ask for proof. I offer none. Your logical and rational response should be to refuse to believe what you cannot see, touch, taste, feel, hear, and even more, to prove actually exists. I applaud you for using your intellect to reject outside attempts to create a 'believer' in chi or any other force or energy that you do not have experience of yourself.
I would agree with this, one hundred percent. I also play contemporary classical guitar, and would say the same holds true for that discipline as well. I can tackle a tricky passage over and over, seemingly getting no closer to performing it without error, let alone smoothly, and not even close to being able to emote anything other than technical competency through the passage. One day, for who knows what reason, it will be locked in, and my fingers will find the passage thoughtlessly, expression coming to the notes almost unavoidably.
Technical proficiency is one thing. However, imagine while playing you hit a note a certain way and the audience begins to weep or laugh uncontrollably, or becomes angry or philosophical or filled with ennui. That's more what I'm talking about. You might play that note thousands of times, but there is a manner in which it can be played that transcends mere playing. This, to me, is closer to my understanding of chi. It still doesn't make it magical or supernatural; it makes it a deep mystery that is hard to understand, let alone master, but which some can seemingly invoke as they desire, effortlessly, and the rest of us just don't seem to be able to do it. Maybe Montoya, Segovia, Ivanov-Kramskoi...
As the Supreme Court Justice once said about pornography:
"I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."
The same goes for martial arts, although the process is longer and more difficult in many ways; with music, no one is trying to stop you playing. (Although my wife does love to walk up and grin at me while slowly detuning a string in the midst of a complex passage. Grrrrr.)
A very loving and amusing mental picture, she sounds wonderful.
However, in neither study do I find the experience of that effortlessness that comes with absolute familiarity to indicate Chi or anything like it. I won't argue that it feels like a magical experience, that there is a joy and a deep, quiet satisfaction that comes from the unthinking fluid performance of a motion drilled through thousands of repetitions over the years, but to me, that's just my brain saying, "wow, my body/fingers are doing a thing I can't explain, wow, this is magical!" For those of you not involved in music, there is every bit as much mysticism and romantic thought in that realm of study as in the martial arts.
Perhaps that is Chi, a vital energy, a life force, a power flow; but I prefer to explain it as nothing more than skill gained through hard work. To my personal ideaology, that's a actually a more beautiful concept.
I believe it certainly is a skill gained through hard work. I also believe it transcends that, but without being a magical or unscientific force.
And again, to me, that's nothing that isn't suitably explained by a basic understanding of human motion, and the subtlety contained therein. Minute differences in the striking angle, the exact portion of the hand that impacts, the exact portion of the area it strikes, the exact position and motion of the target at the point of impact, differences in speed, in breath of the recipient, in which muscles are tensed and loose, etc, all contribute to the effectiveness of any given strike.
Yes, you may well be right. However, it appears to me to be uncodified if so, and perhaps uncodifiable. What is the precise angle of the hand, etc, etc? One learns only slowly and through imitation, trial and error. But again, when the moment comes, it transcends (to me) even that.
I can break concrete pavers using a slow, soft, palm break through repeated practice and good body mechanics. What I cannot do (yet) but have seen done in my presence, is to break concrete with a simple tap of the back of the hand. No, I do not think it is magic. But it is also not deception. I am certain it does not violate the laws of physics as we know them. Neither do I understand what is happening, precisely. It is certainly the focused application of power, but how? I will call this an example of my understanding of chi flow. It is not the only one, far from it. It is just something I have witnessed, repeatedly, up close and personal, and verified to my own satisfaction that no trickery was employed. I have had more personal experiences of the type that involve rather breathtaking levels of pain.
To take a ridiculously simplistic example, ...
Does your reception of the expected, well-executed punch exemplify your defensive chi in action? I think we all would agree that most likely not, at least not necessarily. Can the sucker punch or the well received strike feel inexplicably powerful or extra-skillfully absorbed? Sure, but if we can also explain all of that through really simple principles combining in a more organic way than we can feasibly categorize, why invoke the arcane?
Three or four years ago, I would have been agreeing with you. That is no longer my understanding of focused energy at this time. I have no doubt my understanding will change even more over time, but at the moment, I can't speak to your perception.
When I can't explain something, I like to accept that I, personally can't fully explain it, not that the principles contained within the last thousand years of rational study can't explain it. I certainly don't like to flip it around and say that, since I have no rational explanation that seems suitable to me, that therefore "Chi did it."
Chi is just a word. For me, since I do not believe that chi is magical or breaks the laws of physics, I can call it 'chi' or a jelly donut. It is something I do not pretend to understand, but have come to accept exists.
I realize that last paragraph sounds dismissive, and I suppose in a way it is. As I said at the beginning of this foolishly long post, the essence of the discussion is really that a belief in Chi means that those who don't believe are training without the deepest possible understanding, while a dismissal of that belief means that those who believe are in a certain sense living in a fantasy world, though their skill itself may be sound.
You are correct, and I have been on both sides of that particular coin. Of late, I have tended to believe that there is a third side to that two-sided coin. And a fourth, and a fifth, and etc.
So, I don't mind offending, but I hope not to upset, and that anything said is interpreted in the most amicable and earnest of possible tones.
You have not offended me in the slightest. No worries!
When I began training, I wanted to lose weight and get in better shape, and to learn some self-defense. My background was originally in law enforcement and the military, but many decades ago, and I missed some of that discipline. Verily, I received my reward.
I saw applications of what was described as 'chi' and my response was precisely what yours has been, as I understand your response. I get your point of view.
Somewhere along the line, I lost track of why I was training. Now I have lost track of my concern about that. I train because that is what I do. Things that formerly mattered to me no longer did so.
I don't think a lot about chi; actually, with this exception, I don't think about it at all. Is it? Is it not? I do not know. I don't think it matters to me.
I just train. Chi is something that is. Although many strive to obtain it, I find myself going at it as I do most things - by not going after it at all. Chi will happen when it is chi time for me; or not. Either is fine. I do not try; I train. The only thing I actually struggle with is my own ego, which impedes my training when I do not manage to keep it in check, which is a lot.
