Chi and Me (ChiKi - pronounced Cheeky)

 

 

I’ve tried to follow the ‘Chi’ discussion this week and thought I might contribute a few thoughts.  Of course the standard disclaimer, “I really don’t know much I’ve just been practicing Tai Chi for 27 years and Isshinryu for over 30.”

 

First there is a great confusion of many different topics by just discussing Chi/Ki.  From the little I know there is much more involved and there is a lot of confusion from the different layers of abstraction using the term “Chi”. This isn’t one discussion, its multitudes of discussions hidden within the use of one term (my basic General Semantics orientation is showing there).

 

Let me put this on a very personal level.

 

Does Chi exist?  My answer, “Yep, 100%, them’s fight’n words to suggest otherwise”.

Does Chi work? “Yep”

Do you find Chi in your Karate? “Yep”

Does use of Chi change your art?  “Yep”

Do you make decisions on the use of Chi? “Yep”

 

There it is in a nutshell.

 

The first point I’d like to suggest is forget the name Chi. Why get into Chinese esoterica or the name game?  Chi as I would suggest just means energy. Everything you do is a result of you using energy.

 

Second if you try to look at the Chinese literature on this, they have many terms, and Chi’s use is more like the energy stored in a battery, and they have a wider range of terms about the release and use of that energy.  In reality, where we use energy, how we use it is the important thing. Can you use it more efficiently? Sure you can, that’s why all of us study and train, nothing more.

 

By the time you got to black belt, weren’t you more powerful than you were as a beginner, or more efficient using your energy? So you’re more efficient using your Chi. Is this hard to accept? Or that more work should make you more efficient in the future? Unless you have black belt disease where you’re not going further, and I’m sorry but that’s a fatal disease, because we all tend to become what we believe we become.

 

I can only talk about the uses of energy I’ve experienced. Some of the one’s being suggested,  meridian theory, acupuncture, etc. are beyond my experience and will always be. So I’d like to suggest a naming convention that might help us speak on some of the different aspects without getting too confused.

 

Definition of Terms

 

Chi = Ki = Energy

Chi1 = the experience and use of energy in the soft arts like tai chi (no I know they’re not soft but at least most understand there are levels of distinction)

Chi2 = the experience and use of energy in the faster soft arts like the Indonesian ones.

Chi3 = the esoterica in my discussion – Meridian theory – acupuncture and any others.

Ki1   = the experience and use of energy in the hard arts like karate.

Ki2   = the experience and use of energy from Chinkuchi or Sanchin style training.

Reality1 = there is no difference between any of these arts or the energy usage in them, but the false distinctions I’m making might ease the discussion process.

 

Chi1 in Tai Chi

 

I’m a student of Ernie Rothrock. For 27 years whenever we’ve discussed tai chi (Yang and Wu and others) not once have we wafted into the force. The discussions have been nothing but technical, such as him giving several hundred corrections after seeing my form. I’m a long distance away from him, receiving those corrections after decades of work is very humbling, believe me, but he does it not to knock me down, but as he says it to guide me over the next year(s). He’s right but it’s not fun either.

 

Within several months of training with him I began to experience a feeling of ‘energy waves’ in me for lack of better terms.  This wasn’t that I was creating ‘Chi1’, but I would put it I was becoming sensitized to my own energy. It’s not really hard to believe. You can become sensitized to feeling your teeth on occasion but most of the time you know they’re there but that’s about it (tooth pain is a different level of abstraction – one that hurts).

 

Outside of experiencing it, it doesn’t mean much, you need long years of work before more can be considered.

 

Some Chi1 observations based on personal experience: 

 

How you experience those feelings can be modified because of your environment. Inside in a quiet room is a very different experience than outside in natures noises and open space.

 

Experiencing your Chi1 is not a constant given. You have good versus less than good days. You progress, you fall back, and something experience nothing. Learning is not a constant progression.

 

You can experience the feeling of your instructors ‘Chi1’ under some circumstances. Whether this is sensitivity to the electromagnetic fields of a person, whether it’s using the slow motion training to increase skin and hair follicle sensitivity, or whether it’s some Chi3 inner experience I can’t say. Just that I have done so.

 

Others training in Ki2 can feel your Chi1 as you practice too.

 

I believe the issue of Chi1 is simply as you become more and more and more technically proficient, you’re ability to use your energy increases.  You discover how some very, very subtle techniques when your body is working together become incredibly effective, that without that harmony in movement would become nothing of use.

 

Take a karate example. Did you ever see as student so tight their muscles were bunched, trying to do a kata.  Their misuse of energy is so painful to watch, and you know their punch has no ‘power’ because their power is elsewhere.

 

In similar fashion the study of tai chi, correctly done, stops the misuse of Chi1 and makes its use more efficient.  Hardly different from any study.

 

What I eventually got from my instructor, once I had developed a personal level of sensitivity to my own training, was a conceptual framework to make my study better. It’s just a simple tool, but using it I more readily learn how to correct my technique, I can guide  student more efficiently, I can instantly evaluate martially any technique performance from anyone, and of course I can use it to recognize errors to attack.

And it works for karate too.

 

This tool isn’t magic, in fact its only a way to understand how and why you have to perform your system’s basics correctly as designed, but it’s use sensitizes the student to why they have to do it, and that’s a really big step to making improvement.

 

So larn’n Chi1 helps me teach and use Ki1……

 

In reality I am what I am. I’m Isshinryu, I’m a Tai Chi student, I’ve trained in many arts for a bit, and perhaps I’m not very good at anything. There are those who will support that, but then I’m not looking for anyone in the universe’s approval either.

 

What I found studying tai chi as a new Sho-dan in Isshinryu, I had a personal conflict between my tai chi study and the practice of Sanchin.  Perhaps I would put it today what I perceived as Sanchin did nothing for me to increase my Ki1.

 

So I made a very hard choice, and chose to de-emphasize Sanchin.  Decades later learning Uechi Sanchin I found something that sang to me, a truly magnificent release of energy (Ki1). It took me years before I was able to take the personal step and change my Sanchin to full speed and natural breathing, and personally found a link to what I would suggest is Ki1. A form when I run it makes me more alive, more explosive in my intent and more personal.

 

Not to suggest the study of Sanchin is one wit more important than anything else. It’s just what I experience in its release.

 

The truth is much that I focus on these years today is nothing but preparing cleaner and cleaner basics in all of our kata.  More Ki1. I’m not very good, but I have a few students that are making some strides I think.

 

Now Chi2 in the Indonesian arts, is done very fast but with an extremely relaxed use of energy in the extremely efficient techniques of those arts.

 

It’s hard to know if any of this makes sense to those outside myself.

 

But I’ve experienced strong Chinese arts that don’t discuss Chi, but use it, in Tai Chi. Or Chinese arts like Eagle Claw which are ultra efficient in their working vital points with their locks, but don’t study meridians at all, ever, nor do they need anything but the art they practice. I’ve experienced Indonesian arts at a level that make me think of magic must be involved, but it’s nothing but a very unique use of energy release and movement. I’ve experienced incredible karate at many levels, that are nothing but the same.

And once I got the tai chi development tool, and began looking very hard, all of the technical proficient people I’ve trained with, regardless of art, are using the same tools, just without the conceptual framework to express them.

 

The more advanced texts I’ve found on Energy, are the available Chinese ones on tai chi. It’s difficult to understand all they’ve written, even though conceptually I understand a little. It appears they’ve spent a lot of time trying to describe fine distinctions about how to create more efficient energy, and study the many ways it may be released. But most of what I read is simply Chi3 to me, and will remain so.

 

Arts don’t come from books or discussions.  Perhaps in several decades more those words will make more sense. Perhaps not. That’s not what I’m seeking.

 

So am I chi/ki or not?