Internal Power

[Tim49]

Once I saw the newspaper trick I knew it was bogus.
Oh please!!

Tim Shaw
Essex
UK

[Gary]

There's pukka internal energy / power and then there's parlour tricks!

[Simao Mate]

Can you update your signature with your full name please. I know your log in name may be your name, but the convention here is to have it at the bottom of all posts.

Forgive the new guy,there is a lot to learn wadoka!
Thanks again for the add.

For me, I have a hard time accepting this.
But that is just me.
My gut reaction is that I think David Copperfield does it better.
My internal arts view is that this stuff has to make a more powerful version of me.
Perhaps I am being small minded but it will not be the first time I am accused of that.
Nothing in that video fits my model of internal power but it's a big playground so...
In my opinion he has some stuff but he has then leveraged parlour tricks into his act so he lost me.

Yes I respect it,its only what internal power means in China.Stuff like that.
They exist many imposters in China too but this case is something totally different.

Once I saw the newspaper trick I knew it was bogus.
Oh please!!

You don’t have a lot of experience with internal martial arts of China Tim?
Well its not a trick and its not bogus Tim.
Not this guy, many others yes I agree with you 100 % but not for him.
If you are interesting you could search about Mo Pai and who is he.
Its not for everyone not for masses and difficult to believe I know but its out there if you want it.Be skeptical but not reject everything.
There are many things that exist out there and that we don’t know it right?
Please don’t take it in the wrong way after all is only what Chinese believe about internal power nothing more nothing less

[Tim49]

Once I saw the newspaper trick I knew it was bogus.
Oh please!!

You don’t have a lot of experience with internal martial arts of China Tim?
Well its not a trick and its not bogus Tim.
Not this guy, many others yes I agree with you 100 % but not for him.
If you are interesting you could search about Mo Pai and who is he.
Its not for everyone not for masses and difficult to believe I know but its out there if you want it.Be skeptical but not reject everything.
There are many things that exist out there and that we don’t know it right?
Please don’t take it in the wrong way after all is only what Chinese believe about internal power nothing more nothing less

I would not be so rigid as to say that everything unexplained is bogus. Anything that is unexplained is just….unexplained.

There are tricksters and hucksters in all cultures. But there are also skills which verge on the miraculous, some musicians fall into that category (Tuvan throat singing from Southern Siberia is a slightly wacky but good example). Kuroda Tetsuzan is a wonderful example from Japanese martial arts.

Spontaneous combustion of paper is an old magic trick; there are several ways to achieve it.

When trying to work out how any magic tricks work observe the set up. Why do things have to happen the way they do? If things HAVE to happen in a certain way for it to work then this in itself is a vital clue.

We have had thousands of years wishing that the laws of nature and science would just suspend themselves, but sadly, give or take a few minor and inconsequential anomalies, they never do. Hence our fascination with wizards on broomsticks.

PS, for driving objects through wood with his bare hands, read up on Joseph Greenstein 1893 - 1977 'The Mighty Atom'. Greenstein was 5' 4" and 140 lbs. No Chi needed for this guy.

Tim Shaw
Essex
UK

[kyudo]

PS, for driving objects through wood with his bare hands, read up on Joseph Greenstein 1893 - 1977 'The Mighty Atom'. Greenstein was 5' 4" and 140 lbs. No Chi needed for this guy.

Fascinating...
I wouldn't jump to conclusions regarding the Chi part though. It appears ol' Joe had training in jujutsu under a sensei called Yamashita.

It's not as if I ever saw a jujutsu master bite through nails, but still...
I can open a beer bottle with my teeth. Does that count?

[Tim49]

PS, for driving objects through wood with his bare hands, read up on Joseph Greenstein 1893 - 1977 'The Mighty Atom'. Greenstein was 5' 4" and 140 lbs. No Chi needed for this guy.

Fascinating...
I wouldn't jump to conclusions regarding the Chi part though. It appears ol' Joe had training in jujutsu under a sensei called Yamashita.

It's not as if I ever saw a jujutsu master bite through nails, but still...
I can open a beer bottle with my teeth. Does that count?

Must play hell with your enamel.
The Chi comment was a flippant throw away remark.
Don't want to get into it here but my feeling is that the Chi/Ki thing is somewhat lost in translation.

Tim Shaw
Essex
UK

[kyudo]

I can open a beer bottle with my teeth. Does that count?

Must play hell with your enamel.

When need is highest, tooth is nighest.

[shep]

I can open a beer bottle with my teeth. Does that count?

No, my wife can do that

Shep

[Gusei21]

A guy who lives in San Francisco maintains this blog. Some of what he writes is funny and he has gone around and taken some good stuff from several people skilled in the internal arts so for people unfamiliar with internal power it might be fun to poke around his blog.

I thought given the previous post on Chinese internal power this would be appropriate.


http://www.yachigusaryu.com/blog/2007/0 ... posed.html

There are plenty of amazing Chinese internal arts masters out there who have the real goods starting with Chen Xiaowang, the Yang Tai Chi master to Liu Chengde,Jiangxi - Zimenquan, Chen Zhonghua, Li Chugong.

The whole point of internal power is to make a more powerful version of you. There are limits. You can't stop a dump truck. Not gonna happen...
But this is pretty cool...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZf4taeqht0

[Gusei21]

Since I can't remember what I had for breakfast yesterday - no seriously...tell me the same joke every month and I will laugh each time because I don't remember having heard it the first time..

But anyway, Mike Sigman's blogs are interesting if you have any interest in internal power.

http://mikesigman.blogspot.com/2013/03/ ... power.html

Mike is sort of controversial for various reasons but he does have power.
I am not saying I agree with everything he says but he has way more power than I do so...
He is an ex US Marine who does Tai Chi. And he knows how to fight.

No one is perfect. I am far from perfect. Mike is not perfect. So read everything with the realization that we are all works in progress and ideas change over time and experience.

Mike is just one guy actively working in the internal 'pool' and teaching this stuff along with people like Toby Threadgill, Akuzawa Minoru, Tetsuzan Kurodan, Dan Harden, Chen Xiaowang and others.

Food for thought. In Wado we are not allowed to turn our hips in naihanchi. We can turn our waist but we try to keep our hips level and forward.
In Seishan the first half we are not allowed to move our trunk. We have to maintain mami as our feet move below us and our arms move to block and punch.
We want vertical power flow. Not horizontal. (therefore our knees have to remain over our toes and cannot move from side to side).
The stances of Naihanchi, yoko seishan, tate seishan are all corkscrew like actions starting in the head of the femur in order to generate what the internal martial artists call spiraling energy - dual opposing spirals in the body being released thru your arms which are also corkscrewing from the head of your humerus.
Wado kata movement is not an accident. Within the context of Naihanchi, Seishan and even Chinto , everything fits the internal model. Tate seishan is intentional. We don't stand in hangetsu dachi or even sanchin dachi. Tate seishan is extremely sophisticated. That's the book I want to be able to write someday. There is a reason some of us are taught to end each class doing gyakuzuki in tate seishan as opposed to the regular gyakuzuki stance. Both Takagi Sensei and Arakawa Sensei have figured it out and that is why in their classes they have the students do gyakuzuki up and down the floor in tate seishan. I haven't come across any other Wado instructor in Japan that gets that. Tate seishan is profound if seen from an internal viewpoint. Everyone else just mimicks it. And more importantly if your kihon sucks then everything fails. All the theory in the world will not help you if your body is not conditioned properly through correct kihon, whole body connection and cross body awareness.

Here is another opinion on the subject.
http://www.innerdharma.org/id_article_002.pdf