KnightWhoSaysNi

(This was copied from another post in a different subject area, but I don't think many people saw it, so I decided to bring it here)

I have a question for the martial arts skeptics. When I was in New Zealand, I met someone who trained in aikido. I told him I was skeptical of "chi" and he provided me a demonstration to show proof it exists.

What he would do is fully extend his arm and place it on my shoulder, palms facing upwards. He then asked me to place my arms on top of his arm and try to force it down and bend it by the elbow. Of course, I wasn't able to do it.

He claims that he focused his "chi" out of his arm, making it impossible for me to bend his arm. However, I'm somewhat skeptical of that expanation. Is anyone familiar with this trick and how it's done?

[ January 28, 2002: Message edited by: Nightshade ]</p>

RyanS2

That sounds like a leverage principle, which is what a lot of Aikido moves are famous for. I saw one similar to that before. The one I saw and found out how it worked is where you stick out one arm, and you say, "Before I use my chi, I will show you how one person can take my arm down". The demonstrater then has a person pull down his arm. Then he gets about six volunteers from the audience and says, "Using Chi, all six of these people will try to get my arm down, but none will succeed". The six people will then struggle to pull down the master's arm, and none of them will succeed. What happens? The problem with six people trying to pull down one arm is that they get into each other's way, and none of them have the movement or leverage to effectively pull down the arm, while one person does.

Try replicating what he did with one of your friends and see if the leverage principle plays into it.

Francois Tremblay

It's an unconscious motor reaction. James Randi talks about this kind of flim-flammery in his book "Flim-Flam !" - people testing cigarettes by pushing on people's arms, and so on. It's another technique.

The problem in testing this is that there are two possible reactions (i.e. either making one's arm stronger, or pushing stronger), and so it cannot really be tested "double-blind". The poor fellow might as well think Chi exists, and it's probably very convincing for him, but that's no way to test it.

Of course, from the general point of view, there is no biological evidence that Chi exists. It's just another primitive way to simplify the human body for the simple-minded, much like iridology.

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: Franc28 ]</p>

Adrian Selby

i'm bemused by the shaolin monks and the balancing on spears, i mean, even if they're not a fine point, i don't understand how the points don't pierce skin, all in all, they're able to do some tremendous stuff, I've heard of very down to earth friends doing some kung fu and their master has rooted himself, or has supposedly used chi to push them and they've really been pushed. It's all only training of course, but perhaps what they call chi is simply some physiological phenomenon that we might call something else.

Adrian