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Martial Arts: Chi, Dim Mak and other martial arts woo

paximperium

Penultimate Amazing
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
10,696
As a practitioner of martial arts, chi/ki or inner energy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch'i ) plays an important role in many traditional eastern martial arts.

I've had the luck of studying with good sensei's that teach some meditative components of martial arts but are not into the whole supernatural chi powers although they do believe in power of things like Kiais (Good Ki shouts) etc.

I understand that chinese martial arts tend to have more supernatural beliefs but am wondering if anyone else has seen any really ridiculous supernatural claims in martial arts.

One of the worst I've seen is Dim Mak or Death touch where a "practitioner" can knock a person out(even kill them) by disrupting an opponents chi with a touch. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dim_mak

Here a rather funny youtube video on a local news report on it
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pdrzBL2dHMI
 
I remember a guy martial arts guy doing "chi throwing" or something like that on National Geographic. Basically he stood away and put up his hands in the typical mystic focusing on person way and the person would fall down. I forget what school he was.

Then the skeptics came and he couldn't do it to them.

I did aikido when I was a kid and I don't remember anything supernatural, but that was a while ago :p .

But yeah, whenever I would read about a martial art school I would be put off by the rather odd underlying ideas like ki, chi, copying nature, etc.
 
I remember a guy martial arts guy doing "chi throwing" or something like that on National Geographic. Basically he stood away and put up his hands in the typical mystic focusing on person way and the person would fall down. I forget what school he was.

Then the skeptics came and he couldn't do it to them.

I did aikido when I was a kid and I don't remember anything supernatural, but that was a while ago :p .

But yeah, whenever I would read about a martial art school I would be put off by the rather odd underlying ideas like ki, chi, copying nature, etc.

That would be Dim Mak. Take a look at the video. Didn't work against non-believers either.

Many modern Japanese martial arts including most Karate, Aikido etc. seems to have left the idea of Ki behind except as a "inner strength" or proper breathing concept. Even modern Chinese fighting styles don't really have much supernatural components, just some of the very traditional ones.
 
Heh, it actually reminds me a little of that faith healer guy Popoff who would have people fall down too after touching them :p .
 
I prefer this one:

Kiai Master vs MMA
 
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There's a guy who has a site that is devoted to goofy martial arts claims - it's called "Bullshido" as I recall. He used to post here but I have not seen him in a while. Let's see here...

Here's the forum page for it: Bullshido Forums. I can't get the main page to come up for some reason but there seems to be plenty of info and links on this page.

I've seen videos of that "death touch" stuff. Amazing how people can go for that sort of obvious fakery, but I guess they do. I studied martial arts for a while but was very fortunately not exposed to that kind of crap. I would have laughed anyway, maybe everyone knew better than to mention it to me. :D
 
One of the gems of the Bullshido forums is the thread about that one Ultimate Fighter coach who handed out bibles to his team and have them identify who he is in the bible. He was queen... somethingoranother. Look for "queen matt hughes" or something.
 
I always took the chi to mean the centre {i.e. centre of gravity} and balance, especially in aikido.

Good chi meant good balance, physically, emotionally and mentally, in order to apply the techniques.
 
I've had the luck of studying with good sensei's that teach some meditative components of martial arts but are not into the whole supernatural chi powers although they do believe in power of things like Kiais (Good Ki shouts) etc.
That's not really wooish though and shouldn't be included in the group. I don't know what the thing about yelling is but it martial arts isn't the only sport where that happens. Certain tennis players yell like banshees. I wonder if the effect is more psychological than anything.
 
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I practiced shito-ryu karate for 6 years with a sensei who was pretty reason-based. But then he brought in a tai chi instructor who was all about the chi and feeling the energy and focusing the energy. After the first seminar with this guy, I thought we'd be through. Normally our seminars (4-6 hour intensive training sessions) were with a wonderful aikido instructor or a gojo-ryu sensei from Spokane. I couldn't figure out why sensei seemed to want to support this tai chi guy but he did, several times.

Later I learned that our sensei wasn't quite as reason-driven as I had thought; he used both chiropractic and rolfing therapies and advocated acupuncture and TCM for many of us whose bodies were showing the stresses and injuries common to athletic endeavors.

Now I just go to Gold's and sweat on the ellipticals, though I still miss doing kata in class. On my own doesn't seem to generate the same effort and I have a tough time catching myself in the small stuff.

I can clearly recall the sense of being "in the moment" while practicing kata, where everything else dropped out of my conscious awareness except where and how I was moving my body. There's nothing woo about that, it's the product of intense concentration. I don't get the whole effort to mystify proper body mechanics and tough physical training.
 
Chi or Ki is a good tool that a teacher/sensei uses to get the pupil to learn to focus. Focus and concentration are an integral part of any athletic endeavour performed at the highest. (I guess that fine looking Russian pole vaulter is practising ki when she narrows in on nothing but the bar and run up?_


The fact that they used to believe it was magic, and some still latch onto that part speaks more to the perceivers' inabilities and confirmation bias than anything else.
 
What strikes me (HAH) is that this guy seemed to be totally absorbed in his imagined world. He must have been a competent martial artist, or else he would have been taken down and humiliated well before he could start his own school. It seems like this guy convinced even himself that he had amazing chi powers, to the exclusion of all of the training in the real world that he had completed. After he gets hit, he doesn't do anything but try and magically repel his opponent, with the obvious results. But nobody likes getting punched in the head, and he did not use any sort of fighting skills to prevent just that. The only thing he has, as this point, is the belief that students who pay him to be taught are impartial arbiters of the value of his system.
Like so much woo, in the end it is more sad than anything else.
 
What strikes me (HAH) is that this guy seemed to be totally absorbed in his imagined world. He must have been a competent martial artist, or else he would have been taken down and humiliated well before he could start his own school. It seems like this guy convinced even himself that he had amazing chi powers, to the exclusion of all of the training in the real world that he had completed. After he gets hit, he doesn't do anything but try and magically repel his opponent, with the obvious results. But nobody likes getting punched in the head, and he did not use any sort of fighting skills to prevent just that. The only thing he has, as this point, is the belief that students who pay him to be taught are impartial arbiters of the value of his system.
Like so much woo, in the end it is more sad than anything else.
That's often the case. It is basically self-delusion feeding self-delusion. When all your sifus and partners are believers, you can't help but come to believe in this similar delusion as well. I remember a video several months back...its an Australian news piece I believe, where a sifu was claiming to be able to withstand sword strikes. So, they brought in a real sword, not a practise sword that he normally use.

He willfully got struck by the sword and got cut. He seemed surprised that his chi did not repel the strike.

Of course after that, he went back and stated that he wasn't prepared, his chi wasn't focus etc.
 
Chi or Ki is a good tool that a teacher/sensei uses to get the pupil to learn to focus. Focus and concentration are an integral part of any athletic endeavour performed at the highest. (I guess that fine looking Russian pole vaulter is practising ki when she narrows in on nothing but the bar and run up?_
Well, I kiai a lot in Kendo...more so than most other martial arts I'm aware of. This helps with scaring the hell out of the opponent, disrupting his concentration, helps with my focus and breathing. Nothing magical about that.
 
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A friend of mine, a martial artist of many years, recounted his first day at a new school. The instructor bade him spar with one of his long-standing pupils. My friend, who'd been practicing his "Kiai", launched an attack along with a particularly blood-curdling shout guaranteed to freeze his opponent into immobility.
The fellow smoothly blocked the attack and tossed my friend across the mat.

He was deaf....
 
Yellow Bamboo?

Bwahahaha! You guys better be careful or this thread's going to get moved to Humor...
 
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One of the gems of the Bullshido forums is the thread about that one Ultimate Fighter coach who handed out bibles to his team and have them identify who he is in the bible. He was queen... somethingoranother. Look for "queen matt hughes" or something.
Yeah, that was embarrassing to watch. It was the Book of Esther IIRC and Hughes said he was the Queen because "he really likes to help people and give back to the community". I guess he does not identify himself with attributes like "modesty" or "humility".

Hughes is a great fighter though, shame about the personality.
 
I´m reminded of another "religious fighting" episode. A year back or so Kenny Florian and Sean Sherk fought for the UFC lightweight title. Between the rounds Florians cornermen kept saying how "God will tell you what to do Kenny!" :jaw-dropp

Now I do respect peoples beliefs, but c´mon... your fighter is getting his ass kicked and best advice you can give him is "listen to God"!?! And what kind of way is that to boost the guys confidence:"Only God can help you now".

Well, Florian lost the fight so I guess God was betting on Sherk that night. Maybe he even told Florian to throw the fight?
 
I´m reminded of another "religious fighting" episode. A year back or so Kenny Florian and Sean Sherk fought for the UFC lightweight title. Between the rounds Florians cornermen kept saying how "God will tell you what to do Kenny!" :jaw-dropp

Now I do respect peoples beliefs, but c´mon... your fighter is getting his ass kicked and best advice you can give him is "listen to God"!?! And what kind of way is that to boost the guys confidence:"Only God can help you now".

Well, Florian lost the fight so I guess God was betting on Sherk that night. Maybe he even told Florian to throw the fight?

Get kicked in the head often enough and you'll start hearing god all right...
"Well pal...I have money on the other guy...sorry."
 
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Good grief. Belief is one thing, reality is another... especially if you are in a fight!
 
Good grief. Belief is one thing, reality is another... especially if you are in a fight!
Martial arts is a good breeding ground for nonsensical faith for exactly that reason: real fights among adults are so rare that it's easy for most teachers and students to get by through life without ever encountering one (and even then, even bad methods don't always fail).
 
Martial arts is a good breeding ground for nonsensical faith for exactly that reason: real fights among adults are so rare that it's easy for most teachers and students to get by through life without ever encountering one (and even then, even bad methods don't always fail).

There are other factors. To an extent I blame holywood in spreading the idea that chi or whatever can win fights alone.

Other factors are that as the teacher gets older they don't get involved other than training and when you are throwing people around as demonstrations they are going to tend to go down rather easy particularly if resistance is going to hurt. After a while easy to convince yourself and the people you are demonstraiting on that you don't need to touch them at all.

Then there is there is always a temptation to reduce the fighting element. Fighting carries a significant risk so you are always going to get a fair number of people looking for ways to reduce that. Playing around with chi rather than actualy fighting is one way to do that. This seems to be a trend in almost all martial arts unless there is a strong pressure otherwise. So duel to the death becomes duel to first blood to fenceing. Jujutsu becomes a series of Kata. On the other hand Boxing while stylised still involves fighting because that is the income stream.
 
That's not really wooish though and shouldn't be included in the group. I don't know what the thing about yelling is but it martial arts isn't the only sport where that happens. Certain tennis players yell like banshees. I wonder if the effect is more psychological than anything.
I do Western martial arts rather than Eastern, and while I can say that shouting as you hit someone with a sword is very satisfying, none of the European masters ever advocated it in any of their works. Even George Silver, whose Paradoxes of Defense is considered the definitive work for the English sword, never mentioned vocalisation. Nor did Talhoffer (German 1465), Capo Ferro (Italian 1610), Narvaez (Spanish 1569) or Thibault (French 1630). If these greats of the European sword tradition didn't discover that shouting has a physical effect on one's opponent, I'm inclined to suggest that the effect just isn't there.

In fact, compared to Asian systems, the European martial arts are almost entirely devoid of woo. The worst that it gets is the metaphysics of the Destreza of Narvaez - but even that is almost legitimate philosophy.
 
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There are other factors. To an extent I blame holywood in spreading the idea that chi or whatever can win fights alone.

Other factors are that as the teacher gets older they don't get involved other than training and when you are throwing people around as demonstrations they are going to tend to go down rather easy particularly if resistance is going to hurt. After a while easy to convince yourself and the people you are demonstraiting on that you don't need to touch them at all.

Then there is there is always a temptation to reduce the fighting element. Fighting carries a significant risk so you are always going to get a fair number of people looking for ways to reduce that. Playing around with chi rather than actualy fighting is one way to do that. This seems to be a trend in almost all martial arts unless there is a strong pressure otherwise. So duel to the death becomes duel to first blood to fenceing. Jujutsu becomes a series of Kata. On the other hand Boxing while stylised still involves fighting because that is the income stream.

Good post. I also think that the belt rank system applied in many eastern martial arts often adds a woo element: it is implied that after certain ranks, you acquire some secret knowledge and previously unknown powers.

It is also interesting that many dojos give out belts based on training, not competition. So you can become a black belt without ever actually fighting outside your own dojo. This is stark contrast to sports like boxing or MMA: an aspiring boxer can train 8 hours a day for years and years, but he is still a nobody until he actually fights someone and establishes himself in the contention. There are no belts (except championship belts, but that´s different) or personal rankings, only thing that matters is your performance in the ring or octagon.
 
This is one that hits rather close for me. I've been a boxer since I was 7 years old. As a teenager, I was involved in numerous national competitions and once placed second in my state's Golden Gloves. Even today, I still train and spar regularly, although I no longer compete.

I won't say boxing is any better or worse than anything else, but sometimes I can't help but laugh when I watch some of these guys dancing around hitting the air and making their little noises. I've learned in my years in the ring that the only way you will ever learn to fight is the hard way, by fighting. You can do compliant drills and hit the air as much as you want, but until you've been in the trenches, it's hard to really know how you'll react. You can't really build the sort of spontaneous, think on your feet attitude required to actually win real fights without being in lots of them.

As the oft-attributed quote goes, "Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face."

A lot of these guys are selling goofy dancing under the premise of lethal fighting. Save your money and go to the boxing gym, or at least one where you actually have to fight a guy every now and then.
 
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Well, I kiai a lot in Kendo...more so than most other martial arts I'm aware of. This helps with scaring the hell out of the opponent, disrupting his concentration, helps with my focus and breathing. Nothing magical about that.
Yes; it also disrupts the natural reflex to slow down before striking something (I think that's what you mean by focus). Even as a raw beginner at TKD, I found it a lot easier to, say, break boards while doing a kiai than not, for exactly that reason. It's like distracting the brain from the "my hand might get hurt" reflex.
 
A really good book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shorter-Sci...=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216031213&sr=1-5

which pointed out that there were (crudely) 2 streams of Taoism - an alchemical pre-scientific one and a shamnistic one, crucially they shared a vocabulary but were tralking about different things. A bit like a physicist, a medic and homeopath talking about energy.
So historically in China when you spoke of a tai chi guy having good "chi" you were complimenting his leg strength.
Hitting people without touching them - lim kong jing or empty force started as just that, getting someone to move without hitting them is what a boxer would call a feint. The rest belongs to the "what if this Monopoloy money was real" school of thought.
As to the older guys being given an easy ride in lazy schools - that's not always true. I recall a retired lecture who stayed an active member of Glasgow Uni judo club and really could show what economy of effort really meant.
 
I do Western martial arts rather than Eastern, and while I can say that shouting as you hit someone with a sword is very satisfying, none of the European masters ever advocated it in any of their works. Even George Silver, whose Paradoxes of Defense is considered the definitive work for the English sword, never mentioned vocalisation. Nor did Talhoffer (German 1465), Capo Ferro (Italian 1610), Narvaez (Spanish 1569) or Thibault (French 1630). If these greats of the European sword tradition didn't discover that shouting has a physical effect on one's opponent, I'm inclined to suggest that the effect just isn't there.

In fact, compared to Asian systems, the European martial arts are almost entirely devoid of woo. The worst that it gets is the metaphysics of the Destreza of Narvaez - but even that is almost legitimate philosophy.

Well many Eastern martial arts tended to include elements of Taoist beliefs into their system as time passed while I really doubt Western swordmanship has any real Christian beliefs inherent in its system. This idea of chi/ki stems from that and other supernatural beliefs.

Kiais mostly helps with my breathing control and focus. Some of the best Kendokas can kiai, dash an entire basketball court while doing men-strikes in one breathe...that's great breathing control. It may be something Eastern fighters discovered but was never really used by Western fighters.
 
Good post. I also think that the belt rank system applied in many eastern martial arts often adds a woo element: it is implied that after certain ranks, you acquire some secret knowledge and previously unknown powers.

The whole belt system is considered a bit of joke by many traditional martial artists especially Japanese. The color system or Kyu are basically beginners and the black belt or dan are considered...adequote in training so as actually begin learning proper martial arts. It was developed by a doctor in Japan, I believe who was of peasant descent.

In fact in Kendo, which grew out of the Samurai tradition, there are no colors as they look down on a system developed by "peasants". I believe this may be best. We only have the beginners and the advance students. No other colors or ranking matter.
 
This is one that hits rather close for me. I've been a boxer since I was 7 years old. As a teenager, I was involved in numerous national competitions and once placed second in my state's Golden Gloves. Even today, I still train and spar regularly, although I no longer compete.

I won't say boxing is any better or worse than anything else, but sometimes I can't help but laugh when I watch some of these guys dancing around hitting the air and making their little noises. I've learned in my years in the ring that the only way you will ever learn to fight is the hard way, by fighting. You can do compliant drills and hit the air as much as you want, but until you've been in the trenches, it's hard to really know how you'll react. You can't really build the sort of spontaneous, think on your feet attitude required to actually win real fights without being in lots of them.

As the oft-attributed quote goes, "Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the face."

A lot of these guys are selling goofy dancing under the premise of lethal fighting. Save your money and go to the boxing gym, or at least one where you actually have to fight a guy every now and then.

I find this attitude among western fighters built entirely from ignorance and arrogance.

Katas or as you put it "guys dancing around hitting the air and making their little noises" are about proper form and concentration. No one ever uses these forms in combat.

Almost all Eastern martial arts involve direct combat and sparring including being "hit in the face".
In fact many modern Karate variants from the Kyokushin school involve full contact strikes and kicks with no protection. Some other schools also teach grapples and throws as well.

You don't want to know my impression of the sport of boxing.
 
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Hey, didn't Frank Dux (Jean Claude Van Damme) have to perform something called the Dim Mak to get into the Bloodsport tournament? And didn't his sensei try to slap him around while Dux was wearing a blindfold? It may be woo, but it's hilarious woo.
 

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