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I don’t think I’ve ever been satisfied with any definition of chi that I’ve ever heard. Bruce has this quote in the Qigong section of the Energy Arts site:
“According to Taoism, every human being contains “the three treasures”—jing (sperm/ovary energy, or the essence of the physical body), chi (energy, including the thoughts and emotions), and shen (spirit or spiritual power). Wu (emptiness) gives birth to and integrates the three treasures.”
For me, the jing phase includes all of the physicality of the neigung elements. Physical alignments, lengthening of the tissues like tendon and ligaments, physical twisting, breaking up the fascia, opening and closing the joints, breathing well, etc. It also includes basic dissolving because simple relaxation is about making the muscles work more efficiently. The internal arts spend more time on this then external arts. From one point of view, it is nothing more than eliminating antagonistic muscle contraction. From a health perspective this improves blood flow by eliminating constriction of the blood vessels which improves oxygenation which aides all manner of physiologic function. Blah, blah, blah.
Chi is energy. Okay, could you possibly be more vague?
One possible way to be clearer is to say that the chi phase is when you start using pressure rather than muscles to motivate the body. For me, this is what push hands really is about in the beginning. You are trying to eliminate the habit of using muscles and contracting to respond to force. Rather you learn to allow the pressure to move the body. But really, do you hit someone with relaxation? Is this enough to explain Bruce’s superior strength and speed?
I’m not satisfied.
After all of these years, has anyone found a better explanation? Or has anyone found how you can work with the central channel inside the bone marrow like it is a pressure system that is capable of slipping between the porous bone? This makes your arms feel heavy and land like a lead pipe. This explains what the standing postures are about. This motivates the body stronger than muscle while unifying it. This sounds like neigung element # 10) “Learning to move chi to any part of the body at will.” This requires practice to eliminate gaps and balance the pressure so you can express it smoothly and evenly anywhere along the central channel. This requires the understanding and opening of the central channel and the three tan tiens. The constant motion of this pressure in and out of the bones feels like bone marrow washing. Is that what is happening? I don’t know. Feels like it.
Is this the foundation of the chi phase?
IMO, No.
IMO, Qi is subtlety in the breath.
This subtlety is that which can not be named.
(see Lao tse in the “Tao de Ching.”)The Yi leads the Qi, the Qi leads the Li.
(Or conversely, the Li–blood–is lead by the Qi,
the Qi is lead by the Yi. To find the Qi work backwards from the blood.)I don’t think Qi is just “pressure.”
Yi, Qi, Li, Jing, Shen are related.
(“related?” What a cop-out.)Bruce says, in “”Opening the Energy Gates of your Body, page 244, Neigong #1,
“Just as breathing and chi are connected and directly influence each other, so are chi and blood.”
“”chi, not just the heart and vascular system, moves the blood.”I would go further,
breathing and chi are not just “connected,”
Qi is the unknowable subtlety animating the breath.Moses in the Book of Genesis nailed it:
And the Lord God…breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2: 7Yi is the foundation of the Qi.
Not just your mind intent, but big Yi intent.
This is the foundation of the chi phase.
So, this is where I respectfully disagree with conventional thinking. I’ve heard all of the chi is breath and yi leads the chi which directs the li stuff. It doesn’t explain anything. It doesn’t explain how Bruce can hit with extraordinary power whether he is breathing or not.
So, again we are back at the same place: no one knows what we are supposed to be doing or worse how to do it.
At least my explanation gives you a mechanism that explains the power, that explains how Bruce can project energy from any part of his arm in any direction (see Bruce’s video “Bagua Single and Double Palm Changes: Martial Arts Fighting Applications” at minute 1:30). It also explains why the yin side of what Bruce is teaching in that video is like moving into water.
What I described requires a lot of skill and long term training. Even if I described it is exacting detail, you couldn’t do it without years of training.
Anyway, my intent isn’t to argue about who is right or wrong. My intent is to point out that no one knows.
I think that is just it: you have to persist and do the best you can. However, I’d prefer that my time was well spent and knowing what I’m trying to achieve would be helpful toward that end.
I’ll add that this mechanism inside the bones that I mentioned and said feels like pressure explains a lot. If I were to guess it is the basis of the tai chi space. Yin and yang literally give birth to it. When it is balanced, it is empty. This allows you to explore form and emptiness. It explains why emptiness is balanced and compassion is a form of emptiness.
I’m interested in the relationships between the poles of paradoxes (yin-yang for instance); it helps me cope with some of the paradoxes of life/death.
Of course no one knows how a nebulous concept of chi can embrace actionable power.
It is hardly conventional thinking to explore this chi-power paradox.
And I would not deny another’s experience (or Bruce’s) with extraordinary power.
I do not, however, expect a definitive answer from Bruce, or you, or any one else (I’ll continue to try to look for clues from others.)
I know that I’ll never be able to personally work with Bruce. Nevertheless, I am not intimidated by Bruce (but neither will I challenge him to a cage match. Nor would I have gotten into the ring with Mohammad Ali, Bruce should also have hesitated to think about that.)
The best explanation comes from my own personal experience.
Actually I’m not very impressed with physical power, especially how any tai chi master can send people flying across the room.
(I’ve commanded power to wipe out whole cities as well as small villages. It was not with chi or water power. Try air power, artillery, tanks, ground assault troops. In the long-run these forms of power, too, explain and prove nothing. I’d call this power formula “conventional thinking.”)
I agree with you that there is no right or wrong here.
But I’m not deterred by the fact that no one knows how or that I’ll never be able to match extraordinary feats, no matter how long I train.
I like your persistence in exploring bagua.In short, I have no idea what you what you mean by “the chi phase.”
You say,
“But really, do you hit someone with relaxation?”
My answer: “Yes.”
Somewhere Bruce talks about the tai chi punch
(as in the movement “Brush Knee and Twist).
He said that there is a difference when the arm/fist/knuckles turns out–here the target is the opponent’s superficial body,
a standard punch to the solar plexus,
as compared with a punching arm/fist/palm that at the last second reverses the outward turn and turns in,
a tai chi punch where the target is the opponent’s inner body (the heart or right out the back of the opponent’s body) which penetrates with chi power and does permanent damage internally.
In forward there must be backwards–the forward thrust of the fist must be balanced with backward pressure, too.
(principle of the fulcrum on the see-saw–
jump off your end of the teeter-totter and the big fat kid on the other end crashes down to the ground.)Could this be an example of the jing phase changing to the chi phase?
One of my tai chi students refuses to accept that relaxation carries power. To him there always must be muscle action.
Admittedly, without muscle tension somewhere, our body would be dead.
In Standing exercises, we eliminate big muscle tension.
The tent stays upright with the small, equal tension of the tent lines–the center pole supports all the weight.
Indeed there is a lot of pressure borne by the center tent pole.None of which explains “the chi phase.”
Eventually, through training, the channels align and the movement of yang and yin that Bruce says is the basis of the trigrams becomes obvious, or more accurately the space they both come from becomes clear. That tai chi space is what everyone needs to find. Dissolving leads you to it. Neigung leads you to it. Bagua leads you to it.
This isn’t the end all. It is the beginning. Finding the tai chi space is the gate to the Chi phase.
I’m also a member of the Tai Chi Mastery Program. For anyone who has access to that forum, I’d recommend you watch Bruce’s video “Landmarks of Qi Development”. To jump to a summary in that video, start at 2:20.
Rough Summary:
1st step: everything that occurs along the way until you can feel qi.
2nd step: directing qi with your mind
3rd step: going to the source of qi where start moving into Tai Chi as meditation. In Bagua’s I Ching diagram, this is the phase where you start exploring the emptiness at the center of the diagram.In this thread I was trying to describe the mechanism that allows you to begin working very concretely with step 2. I called it the Chi phase. IMO, most people are stuck in step 1 and they don’t have any idea how to get out of there. I also believe Bruce has taught enough to figure it out.
New experience: Qi does not move.
(Often my “experiences” turn out to be figments my imagination.)Does gravity move?
Gravity is the fabric of space-time.
Things (masses) move in the fabric of gravity.Last week while working with acupressure master points I “experienced” Qi between my partner’s left and right fingerd-tips, the field of Qi “ran” through her heart.
It did not move.
It did not flow.
We did not lead it with our minds.It was a discernible field.
The earth moves in the sun’s gravitational field.
Our blood, bones, joints, limbs move in our Qi field–
It seems so when doing tai chi.
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