How Do Internal Arts Generate Power?

I’ve met a lot of people who have internal power. I studied Yang style Tai Chi Chuan with Gin Soon Chu for a time. I didn’t intend to imply that there aren’t a lot of people out there with internal skills. I’ve just never met anyone who was either willing or capable of articulating how they generate power.

Power: Part 2
(continued from above)

James, you and I, being from the Pacific NorthWest, know about Hydroelectric Power:
A Mass of water is stored in a high mountain reservior and then released. Gravity forces the water to Ocean elevation. Meanwhile it runs through generators which spin and create electro-magnetic Energy which is transmitted as electricity to factories which do Work with it.

So basic physical alignment is the foundation for internal martial Power. The vectors of Force of our body must be optimally aligned plumb vertical with the vertical lines of Gravity to the Center of the Earth.

Bruce is consistent with Master Dong.
In “The Power of Internal Martial Arts” he identifies the eight primary body energies that are the foundation of every tai chi movement (peng/lu/ji/an/tsai/lieh/jou/kao). But he notes that these are nonphysical energies. They do not refer to physical movements.

Hmmm, so much for us dummies who think there is a connection between science and tai chi.

So much for your “blood” theory.
Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming might agree. He writes that if your Power is manifested oonly through the blood circulation that carries the Qi to the muscles, then it is only Li (physical Power).
Musclar Li, though Powerful, will only generate Power that is shallow.
Whereas, Internal Power is soft Power. This soft Jin (Power) is strong, like a relaxed soft whip–the tip penentrates strongly. Fa Jin.

But Master Yang and others still do not agree on the source of that Power. Biochemical? Bio-Electric? Neuro-electricity? Blood flow?
Power discharge from harmony of mind and force?

I currently like the fact that gravitational waves have just this past year been measured physically. The LIGO experiment at Hanford has “heard” the gravitational wave created by the merger of two merging enormous black holes millions of years ago. It’s spherical (like Rolling the Tai Chi Ball). It’s invisible like Qi. It is part of the fabric of the weave of space-time–like the Tao (which is why it can not be named.)

Somewhere we have to abandon the search for the source of Power (the acummulation-approach is unending) and take a leap of faith.

Yay–there’s Internal energy.

(to be continued after a lunch break)

Hey there- I appreciate the seeking/testing (what works- just a bit more, incremental improvement and all), the little steps, as well as the “big-picture”.

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anyway- below just some thoughts- tried to lay-out what I think might add to understanding via a certain perspective (of course, it could be read as just thinking-words.. need to be able to do and feel-it… but words are more to point (the moon and all that), and are what we can put here.. I hope this might augment the prior recent post messages, even though written in a different style than your palm-change exploration… any insights on ‘how one generates power’ from this you might see?
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–just too-sense (well 2-cents), when the specific example, below, from the original post, it brings up the idea of “Means-Whereby” vs “the driver” (so to speak), or- in other words- it something (hydraulic-pressure of blood, arterial-venous vs capillary would make a different-context)… is that the means-whereby an effect happens (caused by another “driver”), or is that the driver itself?
–or in short- what creates that fluid-pressure wave? (a crutch/baby-step “could be” to use Tension/Contraction someplace to create that pressure.. perhaps in intra-abs, or even in pelvic/inguinal-crease, or even the interior-thigh…. or likewise in the armpit/top of lungs area… these are hidden-ways to use tension and “force”.. -but not internal…)

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Related to:(copied from original post)
“The most basic mechanism is based on blood movement. The blood moves up the legs to the height of the lower tan tien, than you use the blood vessels like a back pressure valve and push off which circulates the blood up the body to the arms and head.”
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(so if this is a Means-Whereby, but “the driver” is else.. a facility to gather-density into a fluid-area, and either accumulate to a spot (soak it), or disperse and send a flow (either away from an area, or as support to that prior accum ~soak)…
that would depend upon the method, whether that is called X-factor or whatever, ie ~’chi’/qi/xi (why call it anything?)
move your Left-Thumb, how? nerves triggered from spine? -speculation, one does feel sending from spine, nor in ‘head’, let alone what is nerve? one feels thumb or finger.. and moves that “feeling”…

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likewise- one needs training and a method (unless just making it up), so how learn to work, some joints, or a pocket/cavity area, or as in prior post spoken about shoulder-nest and assoc “accu-pts” (speaking of accu-pts, as if real, and yet saying not sure how to activate and utilize chi.. confuses me a bit, as if saying using the chi-direction isn’t clear, which I can relate, then it would seem an “Accu-pt” not as a location, but as a dynamic-component, would be even more so?
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So to jump to moving fluids- need to either create that phenom-dyn indirectly, via using something else one can directly do.. or one must be able to directly create a change in fluid pressure/flow ~ie create a flow-change in the same way of “thought” like moving a finger, or one’s “left thumb” -if you can’t move it (physical therapy) ie accident/shock, or stroke, post-surgery.. there are some that “lose” the ability to just “move it” (thus used to have it) let alone developing coordination and refinement beyond prior abilities… so if think to do it “directly” step2 is learning/developing facility of that fluid movement, once one can just think-it, but first step1 is gaining it…
–otherwise, it remains “indirectly” (and then perhaps an external kung-fu method, which I would distinguish from internal, as well as from Skilled-athletics, ie a learned skill-trick-intricate coordination, beyond brute-power (the later being something that can be developed in an area or part or whole, the former is a skill based on learning to wire-in a reaction in a certain engineering-type application of leverage via timing etc… vs Ext’l KungFu, which requires a change in ones structure, not just learning a certain reflex-timing, or just enhancing magnitude/power.. but altering your form-physically (say greater saturation of fluid-circulation, and/or increased elasticity of connective-tissue to a degree that it changes in kind (not just degree), thus allowing a different storage/transformation/release of forces…

[internal kung-fu: I name as this same phenom of needing to create a change in one’s being, to develop a new capacity.. but not in form-physically.. but in part of one’s structure, that is not physical, but can affect physical results.. the key of internal kung-fu, or external kung-fu, is that one “off the street” can’t “get-the-trick” any “move” that you can line-up a person, get your joints “just-so” an in a few minutes get the affect, is cool, but is one of the first (brute-strength, aimed or not, or skilled athletic-timing.. as so many tricks are/postures efficiency..]
good stuff. but to then utilize, and thus “Practice” by doing XYZ-one needs to do XYZ.. and like training the skill of filling (periph-center, and then center-up and down,,, then all periph, etc. this is practice and exploring what-how one can feel-grab flow that fluid soaking..
but first have that linkage and “if” one has this as an internal-kungfu there is some change one has made in your internal and/or external doings.. (ie a new option is added to your repertoire, like moving a finger, but one that others don’t have available, until they train/develop it.. and you can just wiggle that “finger”- to make that X-factor happen).

(say the ability to move one’s joint capsules, like in elbow, and knees, both in the joint(s) itself but also in the ‘pits’ pocket and create a continuous turnover of pressure altering- not push in a rush, but slight increase, and then smoothly flip to a slight decrease and then flip.. that regularity flux creates a dynamic that can be piggybacked.. but before can layer something on that, need to not only be able to do that consistently- let alone do that ‘while doing some other movement’.. etc… [or another example, say Breathing- using the five ring-layers.. A) as fills from wrist to elbow, feel the wave ankle to knee, and collarbone downward into-through the lungs&heart, then elbow to armpit, as knee into kwa, as flows from within lungs&heart down to int’l organs into-through the diaphram and stomach (biz-man’s special area)….
flowing A to/thru B (all three at once, not individually, but as one whole, even though different parts.. ? first separate-KAI, and ‘then’ combine-HE), into and then from centre- thru B to/thru A (all three at once, that outer ring, not seen as an image or felt as locations in space, but each of five extremes has a feeling- like a perimeter.. and all have a reach- as a distance from-outward from- that centre…

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last example just wanted to continue, so I’ll finish this, may be too much, but I’ll put out there some examples-

to do that dynamic, as breath.. — that flow actually drives the air movement (not change/alter that pressure in lungs, or torso shape, as force-tension).. and can be sensed as a feeling-sense like a wind moving and having a certain quality, then it flips and has a similar wind-moving sense that has a different quality.. then focus and just sustain and flip those two qualities.. -the smoothness of that transition and continuity… (creates a sort of current, a dynamic “something” that can be tapped…)..

similar to the way that above, the joint capsule can alter, not microtension in that area of bone-muscles, but release the joint till it feels like it swells a bit sort of expands and reveals that quality- and then directly (as above) affect it, until can trigger and sense that continuity of that “flip”
(not so much how big or fast it can go either ‘way” but by creating that linkage-turnover flip continuous flow).

-so then you can go “Ah- that sort of wum-wum-wum-wum sort of feeling-sensation, I can make that happen..” ~like this… (sound to rep that sort of hum of a reversing -flux)
[ which is something that isn’t usually there, but having been developed (through whatever training methodology one follows.. to answer the what? how?)- that development being the Gung-Fu ]

the creating a reservoir of water in a pool accumulated a drip-drop of water at a time, first just is some wetness.. ? – then sort of accums (sort of lose it), keep it? so what? .. but eventually enough “Water” have developed in this reservoir to have a mass that is felt as a different-quality that is available..

– then can try and 1) use it in different ways and 2) to combine it with other parts of body, that in combination augment/alter.. from how work/worked alone.. (ie if add that to a movement, in N way, via X method..
then it changes how that movement works alone– like the way of using qi to alter the ‘density” of a fist or edge of arm, ..etc.. what is that “density” that is added or not added– what change if felt? depends upon the ability to create this X-factor, and then alter it in that flavor/method, and combine it ‘there”.. vs in a different flavor-frequency, in a different place would do something-else..
as examples. (hopefully that is exhaustive enough to be of some use, to any interested, but hopefully not exhausting

[ i have to admit to now not going back and deeply editing and reworking above. ] luck… let me know and insights from applying this to your own practice and perspective(s)

I haven’t had a chance to go through all of the posts that came in around this topic. I’ll try to get to them when I have more time.

I just thought I’d clarify: the basis of power starts with the basic blood flow that I described and at a glance seems consistent with many of the quotes Robert presented. The physical dominates in the first 4 palm changes. The next 3 palms penetrate the bones.

Ultimately I’m just using the natural mechanisms of the body (and there are a lot of them at play) but enhancing them and gaining more direct control through the central nervous system.

The eighth uses the central channel. That’s where things get weird, but IMO you need to develop the skills in 1-7 to use it. Jumping to the idea of the central channel without the requisite skills is a waste of time and the equivalent of looking for magic.

Just to further emphasize your last point: <>
I’d say that “Jumping to the idea of”.. is distinct from “jumping to working with” – as working with X one should be able to point-out X right here (~ ‘ is what I’m working with.’).. if can’t (metaphorically- yet distinctly) “touch it”/grasp it.. then one can’t work with it.

[beyond emphasizing, if , there are other perquisite skills… just gaining the access, or as Bruce has put it “Contact”]..

then with a connection, even a not very strong or coordinated (weak and clumsy, but still clear what one is dealing with).. it is like a finger, can move it this way and then that

— then can start to ‘consider’ combining it, and coordinating it, with other skills and capacities.. (whether a neigung component, or a quality like the vascular-bed of blood flow.. or just pressing with the palm of hand or edge or arm so that one’s torso&leg shrinks-or-grows (which can be just obvious physical movement of form, but can be backed-up/reinforced by x-factor(s)…

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anyway- just to complete a thought I had– this being an interesting subject to me, and one that is currently addressed mostly as -if anyone could figure this out we’d already know how… sort-of, so makes it difficult to peer into this matter.

(and what is wrong with the “equivalent to looking for magic” – unless the implication is “magic” isn’t real, this either is or isn’t.. then that is just a label-slam. Current culture uses the “magic is just using forces we don’t undrestand, then if we understand it, it won’t be…” which is a looping-thought bug, and only muddles perception. -but that’s just one perspective.) -go beyond “looking for magic” and touch/contact magic, then begin to clearly and reliably “do something with” that ‘magic’ (with the understanding, that it will begin quiet and hesitantly.. just like a plant sprouting up.. growing slowly.. build that foundation.)

I try not to agree with a concept until I personally experience a manifestation of that concept.

I now agree with Lesson 15 and you.

Blood creates POWER.

In mudwalking (or Brush Knee Twist) I never could agree about Pushing off the back heel to move the torso forward.
This seems to use muscle power (Li).
Even if the resulting “Bounce” is effortless.

But becoming aware of blood flow has made a difference.
Now I can feel a flow of heat down the back of my empty leg, especially in the hamstring. (Led by the mind and the Qi.)

I agree that Blood flow creates power.

This takes no muscle power.
And I still am able to strike from the foot (rather with the arm and hand).