What Happens When You Believe Chi Will Protect You?
Here's a video that shows what happens when "chi" is put to the reality test. Apparently, the Yellow Bamboo folks -- the guys in the yellow shirts -- believe that when an attacker comes near, they can use their chi to stop them.
It's hard to believe that anyone still buys this fraud, but people being people, they still do. Check it out, and at one point you can hear someone connected to Yellow Bamboo (I assume) sounding amazed that the attacker could touch the chi guy.
The Power of Belief in Chi
Dr. Tom Morris received his Ph.D. in both Philosophy and Religious Studies from Yale University. For more than 15 years, he was a Professor of Philosophy at Notre Dame.
In one of his books, he writes about the power of belief and tells the story of when he bought a gas grill. The delivery men from Sears wouldn't hook up the propane tank because of the dangers. So Tom hooked it up, holding his breath while he worked so he wouldn't breathe any fumes. After a minute he would walk away and breathe clean air, then go back to the grill. He accidentally took a few breaths while at the grill and could smell the propane. The fumes began making him light-headed and he began feeling sick, and even when he hooked the tank up, he could still smell the gas.
He called Sears to report the problem. They asked, "Where did you fill up the tank?" He hadn't filled up the tank, and didn't realize that Sears delivers a new grill with an empty propane tank.
Tom's family got a big kick out if this, and as ...
Iron Boy Learns Iron Palm
Read this article about a teacher in Miami who trains in Iron Palm.
This teacher might be able to break four bricks, but my friends, "chi" has nothing to do with it.
When you "boil" your hand until the fingers swell up like grapes, and you continue doing this to your poor hands until you no longer feel anything, why would anyone believe that doing such a ridiculous thing is building "chi"?
If you condition part of your body to withstand pain--for example slamming your palm a thousand times a day onto a bean bag for months or years--it has nothing to do with chi.
If chi exists (and I doubt it) it would be a natural thing. Damaging part of your body so you can break a few bricks is the least natural thing you can do.
I've seen the knuckles of guys who pound wood or metal to strengthen their striking power and their "chi." Their knuckles are deformed, horribly calloused, and ugly. There is a philosophical problem here--a disconnect between the concept of "chi flow" and this type of ...
Are There Really Dangers in Doing Qigong?
A young man emailed me the other day and said he wanted to study chi kung (qigong) but was worried about something a chi kung teacher told him. Apparently this teacher said that unless the guy learned chi kung properly, it could harm him, especially in a sexual way.
This young guy asked my opinion, and how he could find a good chi kung teacher so he could begin training.
First of all, I told him to give that instructor a roundhouse kick to the head. Some teachers are nuts. They believe everything they read or hear about magical or metaphysical properties of chi.
Why do we perpetuate these myths? How can a breathing exercise--a mentally and physically calming exercise--create a danger to you?
The real answer is that it can't.
Like everyone, I've heard of people who felt some strange feelings and even got ill while doing chi kung. I suspect these cases involve people who either had some physical ailment going on, or they were bringing emotional baggage into the class that triggered ...
Using Chi Kung in Daily Life
The first time I realized that chi kung (also spelled "Qigong") was having an impact on my life was in 1988, working as the producer of the 6:00 newscast at KMTV.
On one particular day, a wall cloud was passing the station, preparing to drop a tornado. People were running around the newsroom, doing live broadcasts, rolling big studio cameras outside the door so they could show the wall cloud on the air as it passed by -- there was a lot of shouting and screaming.
It was a little after 5 p.m. and I was at my desk, putting the final touches on the rundown and script for the 6:00 news. Suddenly I heard someone laugh. I looked to my right and the sports anchor was sitting at his desk looking at me.
"Doctor Chill," he said. "Everyone's screaming and panicking and you just sit there getting the job done."
I realized that I had been centering myself as I worked. I had become the eye in the center of the storm. The chi kung I began studying under Sifu Phillip Starr at the Omaha YiLi Chuan ...
Author - Instructor
Ken Gullette
I have practiced martial arts since 1973 and began studying the internal arts in 1987. My goal is to cut years off your development time by coaching you in the real skills for high-quality Tai Chi, Xingyi, Bagua. To see more about my bio, click the "About Ken" link on the menu at the top of this page.
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