Comments on: Qi

By: Aaron

Aaron — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:40:39 +0000

One of the reasons I like baguazhang is its erratic and flowing circular movements. In baguazhang, you can attack, defend, or evade in any direction at any time, at any point of a circle, even when it comes to multiple attackers. The combination of the internal aspects, with active constant movement and non-linear combat make it effective for self defense and meditation, but also a generally fun art to practice. Xingyiquan is a great art to learn as well, quite powerful and quick when its used right. . Sometimes, baguazhang and xingyiquan are taught at the same time, as they do compliment each other pretty well. I’ve studied a variety of different martial arts (mostly shaolinquan, baguazhang and taijiquan) and they really all have something good to offer as long as there is an open mind. I can tell that you certainly are ahead of most in that category, so whatever you decide to learn, I am sure you will learn much.

Peace to you.

By: rodrigo

rodrigo — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 09:56:46 +0000

Aaron, nice to read your comment, it seems you understood my position better than other people. I don’t claim the superpower stuff is true, was just sharing what I’m starting to learn, so nice you’re on the same “middle road”

and yeah, will keep training taijiquan, and, when possible, I’d like to do some xingyiquan, but what about baguazhang, what do you like about it?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:56:07 +0000

Today’s armchair “scientists” who look to disprove qi, are an irritating and painful group to listen to. But then again so are the sideshow mentality people who claim to have qi superpowers. So it is good to see I am not the only one who seems to have a “middle road” view on the topic. Since the relationship between energy and matter has been studied for over 60+ years, and the somewhat common knowledge that eating food gives energy at a cellular level once digested via the ATP cycle, its actually not necessarily a superpower, but natural biomechanics. Its not like everyone who does TaiJiQuan or QiGong goes around using “mind bullets”, or shooting eye lasers, most don’t even claim they can. So I guess I don’t really understand all the disbelief out there. I’ve practiced TaiJiQuan and Baguazhang for a while now, I’ve never claimed to be superhuman. I have however found that synchronizing breathing with movement and mental clarity, certainly has it’s advantages. I enjoyed reading your post. Its good to see there are others out there who don’t see qi as “fake Chinese magic”.

Keep training, TaiJiQuan is a good art to learn for a lot of reasons.
Much Respect.

By: Rodrigo Moya

Rodrigo Moya — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:17:44 +0000

tes, right, no difference in naming, I was just talking about the difference between the people that learn/teach the complete art, including the martial aspect, and the people who just learn/teach a subset of that, and I used 2 names to make the difference, given that, when you look for the martial aspect, people usually refer to it as Taijiquan, while when you look for the “other” laerning/teaching process, people usually call it just Taiji.

By: tes

tes — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:47:59 +0000

Then you are referring to the concept in Taoism, but there certainly is no “non-martial derivative Taichi”. I agree that there are a lot of people that don’t know what they are teaching, but there is no difference in naming between the two (over here at least).

By: Sam

Sam — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:53:32 +0000

Qi is better thought of as will or focus. Letting your focus travel and examine each part of the body you always find little bits of tension (eg cramped neck, tight hamstring, etc) that were too small to capture attention like what one normally thinks of as a cramp. Just by finding the small aches the body seems to relax them and eventually many little distractions are dealt with. When weight lifting I let my will rest in the joint and muscle group being worked and the body automatically finds good form. Working against the joint or shocking the muscle with jerky motions can be thought of as just not paying attention to what is good for your body. When you see someone heading angrily at another to harangue them and you step out of their way, you just got moved by their Qi!

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 19:32:11 +0000

Oh no, the Empiriquisition are after you! Recant lest Science combusts you at the stake!

I think Qi might be a good metaphor for how you mentally focus your body, so I wish people didn’t try to unnecessarily ground it on mystical pseudoscience.

By: rodrigo

rodrigo — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:07:57 +0000

There is indeeda big difference between Taijiquan and what lots of people learn as Taiji: it is the martial aspect. Most people learn and most teachers teachTaiji without even knowing it is a martial art, thus losing lots of things (hard to fully understand a posture if you don’t know what it is used for). The video is indeed the Beijing 24 simplified form, which is derived from the 108 long form, and even though most people learn it as Taiji (that is, without the martial aspect), every movement has a martial application. and that’s what it was created for. Popularity has made that, even in China, the martial aspect is being lost, so people now think as Taiji as a form of meditation in movement, while it is much more than just that.

That’s the difference, they are the same, but the teaching/learning process is either complete (including the very important martial aspect) or just a subset (popular Taiji used for health reasons).

As for confusing it with Qigong, no, Taiji(quan) is indeed a form of Qigong.

By: tes

tes — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 08:23:50 +0000

There is no difference between Tai Ji and Tai Ji Quan. The movie you posted is the simplified form, which is the form most people know/practice. Maybe you are confused with Qi Qong?

By: Rudd-O

Rudd-O — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 07:03:46 +0000

This Qi thing is *garbage*. There is no such thing as bioelectricity, and you’d have to be very deluded to consider it as fact. Anyone is, of course, invited to make an experiment that shows Qi to be true. A real, double-blind, experiment. Not anecdotal garbage.

Don’t fall for this garbage.