# Putting out candles with chi



## Jotaro Joestar (Jul 1, 2003)

I have seen "Masters" put out candle flames from a palm strike from several feet distance at tournaments before.  What are peoples general feelings about the ability to put out a candle flame from 4'+ with a palm strike?  What is the general belief in the technique to be able to achieve this?

I have my own beliefs, but I am interested into hearing others first.

Many thanks in advance.

Jotaro Joestar


----------



## RobP (Jul 2, 2003)

Whenever I've done it it's nothing to do with "chi", just the snap of the punch. My teacher also demo'd it with a staff.


----------



## Despairbear (Jul 2, 2003)

I have yet to see any proof that chi/ki is anything more than timing and kinesiology. Now having said that I study Aikido, a rather ki heavy art and have no problem telling a new student that focusing your ki will improve your abilitys and showing them an example. It is not magic it is simply a good way to explain a complicated idea. Puting a candle out with a palmstrike? So can a fan or a strong breath. 



Despair Bear


----------



## Arthur (Jul 2, 2003)

The candle trick works by pushing air abruptly and then ceasing quickly (a snap strike as mentioned earlier) because a tiny vacuum occurs for an instant behind the pushed air. In the absence of oxygen the flame goes out.

Sort of the opposite reason as is often assumed, and no Qi involved 

Arthur


----------



## Disco (Jul 2, 2003)

Back in Brooklyn, da guys youse to do it all da time. Vinny No Neck Lamonty was really good at it. It was amazzin. We'd, meanin us guys, would lite the candle and Vinny would stand about 5 feet away. He then would grab Tony Chi by the seat of da pants and would throw the bum at the candle. Hey, it would go out every frickin time. Just amazzin.


----------



## andurilking2 (Jul 6, 2003)

_please_ try to offer intellagible answers


----------



## Taiji fan (Jul 7, 2003)

I put out candles using qi all of the time......from a few inches away...

Qi = breath...

its easy...you just put your lips together and blow...give it a try you will be amazed.


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 7, 2003)

Chi is damn undeniabley real (if you have a clue about it), but when I put out the candles on MY cake with a palm strike, I always consider it to be air disturbance and not chi transfer.

If anyone here thinks it's chi, show me someone who can do it from behind a piece of glass in front of the flame, or do it slowly.  If they can't, it's not chi.


----------



## Phil Elmore (Jul 8, 2003)

"Chi" is metaphorical.  It is a very _useful_ metaphor, but nobody here is using the Force.


----------



## J-kid (Jul 8, 2003)

eez i want someone to shoot fire balls in the UFC.

Infact i would pay good money to see chi at work, if its real why dosnt anyone stop crime with it or make them selves rich, wait people do that all the time by getting crazy ideas into peoples minds.

Science proved the earth was round, now lets work on chi.....


----------



## Despairbear (Jul 8, 2003)

Is chi real yes. Can chi make you fly or throw fireballs or any other magic thing no. Judeo-Kid I don't know who has been telling you that chi will do these things but they are very wrong. Oh and one more thing the world i not round it is elliptical.



Despair Bear


----------



## Taiji fan (Jul 8, 2003)

what do you mean the world is round (or eliptical)....so what happend to all those ships that fell off the edge then :rofl:


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 8, 2003)

Sea serpents were superstition and myth until they caught a few of them.  Unknown (and sometimes thought-to-be-extinct) fish are now known.

Sailors always knew about them.

But people drew pictures of them as huge dragons and 100-foot squid (Oops, those are real too) and other fictitious beasts.  Sailors were ridiculed for believing in sea monsters.


:asian: 

Chi is just a metaphor until you open your eyes and apply the term "chi" to everyday experience.

The Chinese always knew about it (as did many other cultures in different ways and with different words).

But people turned it into some psychic power through movies and frauds doing tricks.  So people who recognize they use it every day, and can use it effectively in martial arts are written off as "misunderstanding" physics.


:soapbox:

So without assigning the Chi article in Martial Talk Magazine for homework, here's a hint -- the Chinese language is not abstract, except to those who are unfamiliar with the culture and language.  The words themselves are rarely metaphorical, and are only used that way as phrases, such as "beating the heavenly drum" for tapping the cerebellum.

The problem is that the understanding of breath is different from culture to culture, and therefore the things we can do with it are limited by that understanding -- that frame of reference for understanding the world.  Chinese scientific process is not Western, and that is why they achieve different results and abilities.  

Chi is a whole body experience, and we experience it all the time without putting a label on it or being aware of it.  Those of us that do can do things that aint in the physics book.  Not usually like the stuff from movies mind you, but interesting feats from various documentaries.

What I've found is that people who desperately try to pick it apart with physics don't understand physics any more than chi.  Science has been an interest of mine since I was four years old, and no one has been able to explain chi properly from that frame of reference -- it's like trying to eat melted ice cream with a fork.

And that's why people limited to Western thought will never get it, and consider the rest of us fools.


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 8, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Taiji fan _
> * what do you mean the world is round (or eliptical).... *



Actually, it's an oblate spheriod.


----------



## Sauzin (Jul 8, 2003)

Got an interesting video of a news reporting group doing investigative journalism for CNN in a Chinese town.  The camera man ends up getting an eye infection needing treatment and the locals refer him to an acupuncturist in town.  The acupuncturist uses needles just a little differently then most.  He charges them with his hands as they are inserted.  When he does this the muscles of the subject spasm with small movements, similar to what you would see if you connected them to a small battery.  The reporters asked him what he was doing and he motioned them to put out their hand, then he "zapped" the reporter who quickly recoiled his hand.  At the same time (with the camera running) you could hear the mic distort slightly.  He did it a couple more times to a few other people explaining that he was no different then an electric eel.  The positive comes from his stomach and the negative from his groin area.  He then took them outside and put a newspaper on the ground.  No sleeves, no prep, just a piece of paper laying several inches beneath the acupuncturists hands.  He then lit it on fire.

I'm sure you could call it a hoax and say that if such a thing could be done it would have been brought up by science by now.  All I can tell you is that I have personally seen people do things without touching that cannot be explained away by psychological theories or scientific laws.  I do not believe the acupuncturist previously mentioned was a stage magician or a local trickster.  He was a well respected local acupuncturist.  They are two different schools of thought in my experience.

Not everything around us has been explained by science.  Where this not the case, progress would not exist.  The candle phenomena I think is a bad example more easily explained by aerodynamics.  Where I looking for more substantial evidence I would look towards those who practice moving plants or pushing blindfolded opponents with slow no touching motions.  Ki-iyejitsu is another example, though more easily disputable.  

-Paul Holsinger


----------



## Taiji fan (Jul 9, 2003)

> Not everything around us has been explained by science. Where this not the case, progress would not exist.


 science is constantly evolving and changing its mind.  Science is also limited by its people and equipment, instead of having to prove qi exsists why are the experiments not trying to prove that it doesn't?


----------



## RobP (Jul 9, 2003)

Where tests have been done the results have not been positive, whether it was for acupuncture, empty force or spoon bending.

There are details of Soviet experiments in a book called Experiments in Mental Suggestion but they were working from a different model to the Chinese Chi approach. 

As far as I know medical science still hasn't found the meridian system. Perhaps Dr's western mindset keeps them from seeing a group of channels that runs through the body?
Then again some say it corresponds to the nervous system, others that it is a separate thing in itself.  And there lies another problem - definitions which seem to change from one practitioner to another, or over time. 

When I first started training, many years ago, almost everything was ascribed to "chi". As things were gradually explained away as bio-mechanical or psychological chi became increasingly something just used for "empty force", still a very dubious practice IMHO  - aside from Derren Brown


----------



## Taiji fan (Jul 9, 2003)

> When I first started training, many years ago, almost everything was ascribed to "chi".


 I had much the same....it was a great way for a sub standard teacher to get out of really having to explain something.   All I ever got was.....its just the chi....


----------



## RobP (Jul 9, 2003)

True, but I've had that from some of the big name teachers too!
Lot's of talk of chi power yet behind the scenes they are busily hefting around iron balls, shaking 12 poles, etc, etc


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by RobP _
> *As far as I know medical science still hasn't found the meridian system. Perhaps Dr's western mindset keeps them from seeing a group of channels that runs through the body?
> 
> Then again some say it corresponds to the nervous system, others that it is a separate thing in itself.  And there lies another problem - definitions which seem to change from one practitioner to another, or over time. *



This year, equipment has been developed to track chi flow and it does follow the meridians of Chinese medicine.

The simplified description I use in class is that it follows (roughly) the nervous and lymphatic systems, flows like the circulatory system, is often accompanied by neuro-muscular activity, but is most related tot he pulmonary system.


----------



## jeffkyle (Jul 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Disco _
> *Back in Brooklyn, da guys youse to do it all da time. Vinny No Neck Lamonty was really good at it. It was amazzin. We'd, meanin us guys, would lite the candle and Vinny would stand about 5 feet away. He then would grab Tony Chi by the seat of da pants and would throw the bum at the candle. Hey, it would go out every frickin time. Just amazzin. *



HAHAHAHA!


----------



## jeffkyle (Jul 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Judo-kid _
> *
> Science proved the earth was round, now lets work on chi..... *



I thought Columbus proved that???


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by jeffkyle _
> *I thought Columbus proved that???   *



 

Don't believe everything you were taight in grade school -- Columbus was an ***, and probably was the LAST person of his time to realize it was round.  And he never did "prove" it by landing on islands in the Caribbean thinking it was India.

The curvature of the Earth was calcualted in ancient times, and was a hell-of-a-lot more accurate than Columbus's wishful thinking to reach the Orient.  If it wasn't for unknown land masses, him and his crew(s) would have all died.

Ironically, only the ones stupid enough not to join the mutiny made it to the new world.


----------



## jeffkyle (Jul 9, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Ken JP Stuczynski _
> *
> 
> Don't believe everything you were taight in grade school -- Columbus was an ***, and probably was the LAST person of his time to realize it was round.  And he never did "prove" it by landing on islands in the Caribbean thinking it was India.
> ...



Ok...just so you would have known i was joking i guess i should have put a   behind my


----------



## Kleyman97 (Jul 22, 2003)

I think Chi is real and I know Dim Mak is real. But none of this seems to explain the terrible burn I have in my pants!:soapbox:


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 23, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Kleyman97 _
> *...But none of this seems to explain the terrible burn I have in my pants! *



Isn't there a thread on Chinese herbal medicine?


----------



## Taiji fan (Jul 23, 2003)

> Isn't there a thread on Chinese herbal medicine?


 :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :fart: :boing2:


----------



## phlux (Jul 25, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Sauzin _
> *Got an interesting video .... He then lit it on fire.
> 
> 
> -Paul Holsinger *



I have seen that same video. It was some time ago - maybe before I even started in martial arts. and it is the first thing that got me interested in Chi.

I just call it energy though - not Chi. I then had my first major experiences with energy after training for a few years.

Anyone who claims that energy doesnt exist - or it is all a hoax or whatever is just limited. Limited in their abilty to see, learn accept feel and discover.

There is so much more to being human and living and being conscious than what you are lead to believe. Seek. 

Many who understand energy would be happy to say "I could care less if you choose to beileve and discover for yourself that Energy is a fact of existence, a fact of life" - I dont feel this way. I pity the people who allow themselves to live in a limited state - not seeking the truth of the universe from the universe itself. rather seeking truth and "proof" from everything and everyone but themselves.


----------



## RobP (Jul 25, 2003)

-sigh - this is exactly the problem, you are interested in chi, but call it soemthing else. So how does that fit in with the Chinese theories? 

If it is energy, fine. I'm sure we all accept the body has elctro-magnetic energies and the like. All I am saying is, let's call them that, find out how they work, discover how we can use them, rather than use out-dated terms and vague idea.

A Chinese belief is that feeding babies too much milk will make them more hairy than normal. Should we accept that blindly too?


----------



## phlux (Jul 25, 2003)

> _Originally posted by RobP _
> *-sigh - this is exactly the problem, you are interested in chi, but call it soemthing else. So how does that fit in with the Chinese theories? *



I do not call it Chi because 1) I am not Chinese 2) chi is not something limited to only the chinese - it is a fact of human existence.

The term Chi might be good at conveying the Idea to some, but for others it carries no meaning. I personally do not know the official definition of the term Chi - I do howerver know what energy is - and I know what it feels like flowing through me.

Another term we can use is Intent.

There is a differnece between being in The Mode - and thinking you are feeling Chi/Energy.

The difference is that while many people might feel a small trickle of Chi coming out of their hands while doing some martial arts or meditation or what have you, this is just a very small glimpse at what it really feels like when you are fully in the mode and conscious of the energy and actively directing it with your intent.


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 25, 2003)

> _Originally posted by phlux _
> *...
> Another term we can use is Intent....*



No.  Intent is your "yi" whcih directs your chi.

Many people call it spirit, but that is incorrect also -- "shen" (spirit) is a completely different concept as well.

Just wondering --

DID ANYONE READ MY ARTICLE ON CHI IN MARTIAL TALK MAGAZINE?????????????????????????????????????


----------



## phlux (Jul 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Ken JP Stuczynski _
> *No.  Intent is your "yi" whcih directs your chi.
> *



You're right - I mistakenly stated that it could be used interchangably...

I wrote this about Intent on Kutaki;

Intent is a very interesting and very tricky subject to learn.

many people get the wrong idea of what intent actually is - and how to use it properly. There are several ways you can apply and practice intent.

In the beginning it is important to *intend* to hit your uke. The reason this is important is that as you train you want to make sure that when you are in a real situation, you are confident and comfortable with actually using your body to hit and attack someone. The reason why this is critical is that under the stress and intensity of real combat - your senses go haywire (they actually dont go haywire - but unless you are familiar with how you react in intense situations - it will seem euphoric and some senses (like touch) will seem lessened and others (such as your emotions) will be heightened) - so you will be more intouch with your emotional senses during stressful situations and less aware of the physical senses. This natural reaction is a defense mech of the human body - it allows us to become overwhelmed with emotion so that we can flee, and be a little less physically attached so that we are not paralysed by pain.

so - back to intent. During situations like this - you need to be in control of and aware of your intent to use your physical body (your fist) to do something (hit). The intent that you will feel must be trained upon so you can recognise when your thoughts are directing your will to use your fist and hit something - and be in control of your emotional state (fear & shock)and your physical senses (adrenal rushes & physical pain)

so that is the first reason why training on proper intent is important. But it is very important that you do not confuse true intent with "looking mean - or being scary" - the scary aspect of someone with real intent comes from the opponent recognizing one who is in complete control of the way they handle the reality of the situation. Both beings recognize that a fight is a situation of danger - and the one who is not in control of his animalistic instinctive reactions to stressful altercations is in danger. One who is in control of themselves and can operate as a unit on all levels of their being - regardless of the circumstances will be in control and be recognized as such. This is scary.

- 

Next you get into the differnet purposes of intent as you become aware of what real intent actually is. Intent is the consciencousness of what you are and what you do - True intent is an ocean of Potential Energy. You can focus your intent but many times - since we are physical, we tend to let the intent of action flow right into preparation of movement (telegraphing) - instead of letting our intent build but carry no form.

This becomes readable - and can be used against us.

additionally we can also use our intent to project false information - to evoke certain movements and reactions out of our uke/opponent.

Thanks


----------



## phlux (Jul 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Ken JP Stuczynski _
> *DID ANYONE READ MY ARTICLE ON CHI IN MARTIAL TALK MAGAZINE?????????????????????????????????????
> *



No, but would you happen to have a link to it? I would love to read it. ill look now too.


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by phlux _
> *No, but would you happen to have a link to it? I would love to read it. ill look now too. *




http://www.martialtalk.com/magazine/

page 23 ...

Incidentally, Intent is covered briefly in the next issue which will be out any time now.


----------



## Bob Hubbard (Jul 27, 2003)

> _Originally posted by Ken JP Stuczynski _
> *http://www.martialtalk.com/magazine/
> 
> page 23 ...
> ...



1st or 2nd of August.


----------



## KennethKu (Jul 28, 2003)

I can't believe I wasted time reading thru 3 pages of this stuff.   This is the result of pissing away truly knowledgeable posters like the Yili people.


----------



## Ken JP Stuczynski (Jul 29, 2003)

> _Originally posted by KennethKu _
> *I can't believe I wasted time reading thru 3 pages of this stuff.   This is the result of pissing away truly knowledgeable posters like the Yili people. *



Clarify?


----------



## arnisador (Sep 11, 2003)

Thread moved.

-Arnisador
-MT Admin-


----------

