Taijiquan and the paranormal

[gurugeorge]

I study the Chinese martial art of Taijiquan (or T'ai Chi Chuen). There are many extraordinary legends and claims surrounding that art.

It turns out that some of them are true and valid, others not. To take two examples:-

(1) YES it is possible for an old, frail looking gentleman to (apparently) gently push a hulking youth in such a way that the hulking youth appears to literally fly off the old gentleman's arm.

(2) But NO, it's not yet been found that some supposed "expert" can just wave their arms about and somebody on the other side of the room be jerked around like a puppet (unless - oddly enough! - the jerkee happens to be a student of the jerker).

Sundry people claim to be able to do (2) (and can demonstrate it - on their students, natch!).

But 90% of the people who practice things called "Taiji" can't do (1).

Finding somebody who can do (1) is really difficult, even in mainland China. Not impossible, but only slightly easier than finding a needle in a haystack.

Yet such people do exist. And the explanation for their ability in Western biomechanical terms is being sought by some recent enthusiasts who themselves have learnt how to replicate what are essentially (as one might imagine) clever body tricks exploiting leverage (and a few other things, like certain incompletely understood, yet novel-to-Western-science qualities of certain tissues in the body, namely the "fascia").

Now, what if the situation is analogous with regard to psychic or paranormal abilities, in the sense that there really is something going on in this area that's interesting, and potentially explainable by only slightly stretching or expanding science?

I know this is something of an argument obscurum per obscurus, but I thought people could have fun with it.

(Note: I must stress that the fascial properties responsible for some of the Taiji abilities noted above are only just now being discovered by sober research into the analgesic effects of acupuncture, in experiments totally unconnected with the martial arts - it looks like it might be an interesting expansion of biomechanical and medical knowledge, not earth shattering, but interesting)

 

[crimresearch]

Unfortunately, the 90% that you cite would make an interesting discussion highly unlikely.

But hey, if you do get some folks who know the difference between fajing and lin kong in, and have done their homework on how fascial DC current and neigung may be related, I'd love to hear it.

 

[Operaider]

This reminds me of a discussion I had a few years back with a coworker.

That co worker (Matt) began to tell me about Bruce Lee's ability to do a "1 inch punch". He told me that Bruce could throw a punch, stop it 1 inch from a person, and still cause that person to be knocked down. Matt refused to believe that he was incorrect.
Even after I explained that I had a black belt in Kenpo and Tai Kwon Do, and would probably know better than he would. The "1 inch punch" was Bruce’s ability to supposedly start a punch 1 inch away from a person and still generate enough power in it to knock a man down. If any of you've seen Kill Bill Volume 2 you've seen a glorified version of this. It does not require any magical ability. Just a great amount of strength, allot of practice, and focusing your punch about a foot behind your opponent.

 

[gurugeorge]

Unfortunately, the 90% that you cite would make an interesting discussion highly unlikely.

But hey, if you do get some folks who know the difference between fajing and lin kong in, and have done their homework on how fascial DC current and neigung may be related, I'd love to hear it.

Heh, so you know whereof I speak Well there you go - if the situation wrt psi is analogous, then testing "Psychic Mary" and her ilk isn't going to get anyone any closer to discovering if there's anything at the bottom of the "legends" re. psi.

You'd have to test ... oh, I don't know, some of those Tibetan tantric Buddhists, or something like that. Even then, even that would still be a minefield. (Analogous: you might think you could find real Chen Taiji abilities in Beijing, but actually you'd have to go to Chenjiagou village to find them, something like that.)

 

[gurugeorge]

This reminds me of a discussion I had a few years back with a coworker.

That co worker (Matt) began to tell me about Bruce Lee's ability to do a "1 inch punch". He told me that Bruce could throw a punch, stop it 1 inch from a person, and still cause that person to be knocked down. Matt refused to believe that he was incorrect.
Even after I explained that I had a black belt in Kenpo and Tai Kwon Do, and would probably know better than he would. The "1 inch punch" was Bruce’s ability to supposedly start a punch 1 inch away from a person and still generate enough power in it to knock a man down. If any of you've seen Kill Bill Volume 2 you've seen a glorified version of this. It does not require any magical ability. Just a great amount of strength, allot of practice, and focusing your punch about a foot behind your opponent.

Yep - and the thing is, there are numerous possible varieties of things that look similar. Bruce's one incher isn't the same as the kind of neijia one-incher I'm talking about; and there are still other ways and means to have a similar effect.

But I guess my main point was: you can have a field where 99% of it looks like, and indeed is, complete ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ yet there's still something genuine there at the back of it all.

 

[Wudang]

Well yeah but if you're trying to draw an analogy between psi and taijiquan, the problem is that the genuine ones can and do publicly demonstrate what they can do in a replicable manner. And you don't have to go to Chen village - is Ren GuangYi still teaching in NY? Bob Loce in Rochester? Chen Xiao Wang tours the world. Mike Sigman is still running his seminars. In the UK Aarvo Tucker and Dan Docherty can do the walk. In France Anya Meot of Tung style. None of those people get put off by "skeptical attitudes" - several thrive on them.
Nothing mysterious - just hard work.
And nothing mysterious about the Lee 1-inhc punch and you don't need to be terribly strong - you just have to train the snap. Take a plain wooden kitchen chair, stand behind it, pick it up by the top corners of the back, palms inwards. Flick the chair through 180 with as little arm movement and windup as possible. As you start to tire your arms you'll feel your legs and hips do more. Repeat ad nauseum.
Once you can do it repeatedly and quickly - open a wooden swing door so it can move freely. Stand feet parallel and extend you arm as far as you would to flip the chair, fingers straight out. Touch the door with the tip of your middle finger. Now as if you were flipping the chair snap your bottom knuckle at the door, clenching your fist. Don't push, just a small action et voila.
The fascia thing was discussed extensively on the neijia and 6H mailing lists years back and the concensus was that's another piece of drivel made up by people who want to fantasise about enormous power without sweating.
A guideline from there that I swear by is that if you're doing proper internal MA training you should be able to do 1000 unloaded squats in a session - that's how your leg muscles should be conditioned. And it can't be faked with compliant students.
[edited for typo]

 

[crimresearch]

I was on the neijia list, and there was no such consensus about Mike Sigman being full of crap with his fascial research.
There were however, plenty of people who refused to listen to what he was saying, and insisted that *their* visualizations of muscle types or force vectors or whatever, were the *real* (TM) explanation.

There are also people out there (and you have named at least one of them) who have tried to replicate neijia through external efforts, and have come up with a most convincing way of seeming to 'walk the walk'...without actually doing the same thing that the Chen villagers are doing.

Even at the level at which most of the woo-woo New Age Tai Chi bunch has been dismissed, it is almost impossible to communicate via the internet, a decent analysis of neijia.

However, unlike psi and other paranormal stuff, there is that one small kernel of evidence, namely the first example that the original poster mentioned...and wading though all of the 'Ohhh...we do that too' crowd, some slow progress is being made at coming up with a scientific explanation for the phenomenon.

 

[Wudang]

I don't remember Mike supporting fascia, maybe my memory is going. Hell, must be 2 years since I last chatted.

[eta - my memory is going apparently, just read the Peng FAQ]

 

[Wudang]

One thing I remember throwing into the neijia list was, during an argument about Qi and Jing, that a useful analogy was centrifugal and centripetal force. The former doesn't exist but it's still somehow an easier or more intuitive way to deal with how we experience it. If you try and add up all the force vectors in a simple forward push (ji) you'll get lost before you get past the knee.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Can someone show me an example of 'force vectors'?

At first blush it sounds to me almost as silly as bringing qi into the picture.

 

[crimresearch]

'Force vectors' is an imaginary device to allow one to conceptualize the micro-muscular adjustments that are being made...it is exactly like Qi in that regard.

If someone had already cut a living body in half , and used it to 'show' what is happening during 'sung' 'peng jin' 'fajing', etc, I suppose it would be a lot easier to study...absent that, visualizations are a tool, except when misapprehended by people who persist in mistaking them for reality.

 

[gurugeorge]

Mike's now into the fascia thing - it's the "sheath" of yore, but souped-up with new visualisations and a little bit of scientific backing (the new research I mentioned).

Anyway, my point still stands: (I'll bold it again, just to make sure it gets through ) you can have a field that looks like 99% bulls**t, and there be something at the back of it.

It's true that the genuine internal dudes can demonstrate this stuff, but what if we're still at the stage the West was at wrt TJQ back in the 70s, when all the evidence was purely anecdotal and legendary, and not enough people had enough anecdotes to tell to make it "real"?

 

[Wudang]

Well they didn't have enough anecdotes because none of them were doing it right. Thye were doing what they called "tai chi" but it was just waving their arms in the air. And if you want to analogise then tai chi without hard work and jing training is not real. And it's pretty obvious when someone can walk the walk because they do it and people sit up and take notice. And when they do, they realise there is nothing mystical about it, nothing that breaks the laws of physics, just some neat body tricks.

 

[crimresearch]

Agreed, with the caveat that there are some folks out there who have grabbed the idea of being able to fling someone off of their arm, and have practiced a *different* set of body tricks until they can acheive that goal...then they announce that they too are doing real neijia...

So in a study of the subtle micro-muscular training, and the visualizations involving the fascia, etc., we have several intervening variables that would muddy the water so to speak:

>The large percentage of Tai Chi practitioners, students, and experts who are doing New Age handwaving...

>The batch of wrestlers and kickboxers who can kick butt, and insist that their gross muscular exertions are also Tai Chi...

>The external Chinese practitioners who insist that their White Crane 'Qi packing' or their Wing Chun one inch punch, is also neijia...

>The smaller number of people who have picked up or mimicked a crude simulation of Taijiquan or Baguazhang, etc. and insist that their flinging of students into the air (often accompanied by 'fajing' from the student's feet ) is also neijia

Then take the comparatively tiny number of folks who actually perform neijia, and subtract those who don't care/aren't suited to devote tons of time getting the correct method across to the world...

And you have a pool of subjects available for teaching/research which is miniscule (my guess would be on the order of 100 - 200 worldwide) compared to a pool of at least a million who are not performing real or complete neijia...

Which of course, is a claim that could easily be made to explain the lack of replicable results or scienific validation for other paranormal phenomena, such as psi.

 

[Wudang]

(often accompanied by 'fajing' from the student's feet )

I think I'll steal that line, thanks

And you have a pool of subjects available for teaching/research which is miniscule (my guess would be on the order of 100 - 200 worldwide) compared to a pool of at least a million who are not performing real or complete neijia...

Which of course, is a claim that could easily be made to explain the lack of replicable results or scienific validation for other paranormal phenomena, such as psi.

Not really, because it's not that difficult to find people who can do undisputed neijai - the Chen Xiao Wangs etc. They are out there in the public eye.

 

[gurugeorge]

Not really, because it's not that difficult to find people who can do undisputed neijai - the Chen Xiao Wangs etc. They are out there in the public eye.

Ah, but remember, the thing is they weren't, for a long time.

So there was a time when this whole field smelt of ◊◊◊◊ (because finding people who could replicate the tricks was pretty hard), but it just so happens there's something at the bottom of it all.

Now there are a few people who can show the real stuff in some variation, not many, but more than there were.

PSI, if real, hasn't even reached that stage yet, but (again, if it's real, and the situation's as I think it might be) it could get to that stage.

Again, if it's real, it's still too early days even with Randi's prize. We are inclined to smirk, disbelieving that the fact of the prize hasn't reached all quarters of the world. But perhaps the kinds of people who can really do this stuff just haven't become aware of it yet.

 

[crimresearch]

I think I'll steal that line, thanks

Feel free to.


Not really, because it's not that difficult to find people who can do undisputed neijai - the Chen Xiao Wangs etc. They are out there in the public eye.

Granted that the real deal preactitioners are more accessible than ever before, and that some of their disciples are spreading the word...it is still a matter of finding a few needles in a haystack instead of a single one.

I was first introduced to Tai Chi in 1971, after many years in Japanese arts, and I didn't have a clue that what I was being shown wasn't the real thing....I did realize fairly quickly that what I was being shown wasn't martial.....it took me a few years to find out about original Yang style, then Baguazhang, then find a good Baguazhang teacher, then find out about Chen style body mechanics and Mike Sigman, etc...now the local TaeKwonDo schools are claiming to teach neijia...

So if some non-practitioner wanted to gather up TaiChi 'experts' for independent research, how would they know if they were getting Chen Village or the Taoist Tai Chi Society?

 

[gurugeorge]

!

So if some non-practitioner wanted to gather up TaiChi 'experts' for independent research, how would they know if they were getting Chen Village or the Taoist Tai Chi Society?

Exactly!

The situation could look as it looks today, and there still be something to PSI (only nobody who's in a position to influence opinion about this has yet seen any in real PSI action).

Also, yes, fair enough, you can, with some difficulty, locate authentic neijia practitioners and ask to be shown something; but even then it would still be pretty anecdotal.

I mean, has even Mike Sigman (whom I admire tremendously as a pioneer in this area) written anything in a peer-reviewed journal?

 

[Wudang]

Oh come on. If neijia had a fraction of the research done on on it that ESP has, then we wouldn't be having this debate.

 

[crimresearch]

I didn't know that there was anything to debate.

What position are you taking?