Applying chi to martial arts.

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

The correct practice is based on several prerequisites:

 

- "Lian Shi" practice posture:  this means that you practice the correct mechanics of any given movement until you master all of the requirements of posture and micro movements within it.

- "Lian Xing" practice the physical body:  you need to get the correct shape of posture.

- "Lian Xin" practice the heart:  you need to be able to cultivate the mind in such a way that "Qing" feeling and "Xing" consciousness mix together in the movement in a smooth and correct way.

- "Lian Yi" practice the intention:  The intention has to stretch not only to the whole body, but also to the arc of the movement and the destination point of the movement.

- "Chen Qi" sink the Qi:  this is partially related to sinking the posture and partially related to sinking the intention into the lower dantian.

- "Jin Fa" power method:  The power method is however your martial art expresses trained power.

- "Li Fa" strength method:  this is the way in which your style practices physical strength.

- "Shen Fa" the method of body use:  This is how the style uses the body, for instance, opening and closing, spirals, drilling, folding etc are all forms of shen fa.

- "Lian Xu" Cultivate emptiness:  cultivating emptiness is how to let the Qi smoothly flow through the body unimpeded.

- "Nei Wai Hun Yuan" internal and external "Chaotic Qi":  connecting the movement with the three treasures of Jing, qi, and shen, held together as Hun Yuan qi, and then connecting this original chaotic Qi to the Qi of the outside environment and your opponent.

- "Kong Jin" empty force:  if you can achieve this, it will seem like you move and it can't be detected how you moved.  People will see this and not understand it, it is very subtle.  I've only personally seen this once in my life in a park in Shanghai and I was too shy to go over and ask the master about his style.  I don't even know what style he was practising to be honest.  His movements looked totally empty and without root.  It was really weird.

 

These different stages might not always follow the same order, but basically, if you want to practice qi in the martial arts and get to a high level, you will have to pass through these stages to get to the point at which the body, mind, and nature merge together and instead of moving of your own intention, you move with nature.   I certainly haven't achieved this, but have met people at various levels of this practice.  I personally think that to get to the very high level, you will have to learn to meditate, because the meditation practice is probably the best way to understand emptiness and then apply it to martial arts.  the problem is, after you achieve something in meditation, you might quit martial arts because you realize how much better it is just to breathe and be free than worry about punching people all the time  :) :)

[Bearded Dragon]

The concepts that I use are really straightforward.

 

1) Raise energy up the spine and unify it as a whole. This is the power source, and also you won't have poor posture or technique if the spine remains unified and continually flowing.

 

2) Relax onto your center. This progressively happens until every single movement is a movement/rotation of perhaps a pea sized sphere (not many are that good, I assure you). By relaxing onto the center you're connecting everything back to it. Since everything is connected to the center you can control every movement from there. When the center gets really small you start to do things with great force and speed. Not only that but it's really simple to apply and it just works amazingly.

 

There's more to it, but that's the basic setup. Then you kind of just have to point your intent either from your spine or center, If you point it through the arms then this will fill them with chi. If your intent stays connected with your opponent then the movements will naturally work.

 

Example: Play around with flailing your arms around by rotating a point at your heart center. Do it until you loosen up. There should be not movement initiated by the arm muscles.... only initiated by the center point. Then add in an intent that there is energy being projected from the heart center to your fists. See what happens. Now project your intent at a point in the air and do the center rotation. Pick a different point and see what happens. You'll notice that as you do the movement your fists will want to track to where your intent is pointed. Don't try and control the technique of the arms. Just control the movement of the center and your intent. Have a play and see for yourself. You may have to at least raise energy up your spine to at least the level of the heart center because I've found that you can't really project your intent from any point above the level that your spine is able to be raised to.