I came across the above video while I was reading someone else’s blog, and to be honest I can’t belive the stupidity of some people. Firstly I can’t belive the stupid blind following of this guys students or why they would want to take part in such plain deciet. At the end of the day who do they think they are fooling? Other people? I doubt it. Themselves? Probably.
Even crazier than the students is the teacher. Can he really have deluded himself so much that he belives that he can take on someone with some “real” martial arts training? Well he apparently belives in himself enough to wager $5000 that he can beat any MMA.
If anyone ever hears about this guy offering another wager involving his fighting skills give me a shout I’ll gladly take him on!
This is the danger of improper teaching
This is what Wang Xiang-Zhai was warning about when he said, the emission of qi was preposterous.
In general this “works” but only on your own students. When you see people doing this, they should be admonished. At the very least their root is extremely weak or nonexistant.
What’s even worse is that people begin to believe this is the end-goal of qigong/internal martial arts…..
It’s absolutely unbelievable. The students are so overly respectful of their master that they just fall over for him. I’ve seen similar things in aikido classes in England. As renli suggests, nobody outside the teacher’s school would indulge him like this.
And I agree that the second part is even crazier. The teacher has even begun to believe in his supposed supernatural powers.
Kenny, I think I will join you if he makes another wager like this.
Hahahaha, back of the line please cmc.
There is also a very sad side to this I think. As cmc pointed out the teacher must indeed have become to believe in his own powers, why else would he risk public humiliation? But sadder yet is that he probably made some feeble excuse to his students for his poor preformance, one that they both probably believe and are only too eager to accept.
So then following on from this, what is going to happen to the poor student the first time they face a “real life” combat situation?
I don’t know why I should be, but I am suprised to hear that this kind of “teacher” also operates right here in the UK.
I’ve seen that film before – I find it very saddening indeed. What a terrible way for him to discover that he’s been swept along on a wave of deceit presumably going back to his own teacher and down to his students.
It is very important that we shatter these illusions so that people do not get badly hurt due to their unrealistic expectations.
psst. Kenny – Renli snuck a “qigong” and an “internal martial arts” past your 100% Qi-Free screen
There is no qigong, because there is no qi. There are no internal martial arts.
Oh. I didn’t mean to imply it was real or anything (when in rome..) I was just saying that out of the people who are very well known and can deal with the qi paradigm (i.e. top level family people), you get a lot of antagonism towards no-touch skills.
The fact that those *particular* people postulate a qi-paradigm isn’t the issue to me, just that they are equally vocal about how this no-touch kiai master stuff is an illusion.
On that I think everyone agrees.
Psst. Joanna – it’s OK I have the new all singing all dancing 100% Qi Free screen. It has been set to allow the word qi, providing it isn’t in the context of promoting it.
If qi is mentioned in any sort of promotional way, my screen automatically deletes their comment, then it melts their processor!
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
And I’m ready with my trusty six-shooter to handle them qigong varmints the good ol’ fashioned way. Yessir.
Yee ha!
Why, I’d fill ‘em full o’ holes afore they could so much as take a breath or fire a qi ball. If I don’t know nuthin’ ’bout nuthin’ round here an’ I says I do, I’d says there’ll be none o’ that stuff in this ol’ town.
Lights go down.
End of Act One, Scene Four.
Whites o’ their eyes…
On a serious note, people who DO subscribe to the so-called “internal arts” and “qigong” rationales will dismiss what other qigong people do while claiming that what THEY do is different – that somehow THEY have the Real Deal, Authentic Transmission, 24 Carat, Hidden, Internal, High Level, Secret, Family, Subtle, Superhuman, Energetic Skills that few Westerners understand.
It’s a lie.
I agree!
Well, not that qi works or anything
but to comment on what Joanna said, within the confines of the qi-paradigm, there is information which comes from the source/the lineage, and information which does not. Well okay, that’s obvious. But there’s a lot of new info coming to light these days, take Chen Xin’s “new” book (the one recently translated into english) for example. I am the first one to receive this book in the world. The implied authoritative weight of this book with respect to chi kung is very interesting. Chen Xin appears quite lucid on exactly what was required for chen tai chi in the 1800s. When this book goes to a second printing I think a lot of things are going to have to change. What exactly, I won’t say 
I think it would be interesting to back-test what this book says against some of what the modern day qi and jing jocks are saying. If they don’t agree, it would be clear who is a fraud and who is not. I think it sheds an interesting light in that even though qi itself may be a dying methodology, that some people may actually have a “real deal” in the fact that it is the “original” i.e. applied method. Why is that interesting? Because even if qi doesn’t work, if the correct methods for *qi* were preserved, it makes sense to me to assume the other (combat, martial) applications would have been preserved as well.
Sigh – typically enigmatic and riddlish talk, implying access to hidden knowledge.
I don’t doubt that there will be differences between what Chen Xin’s book says and modern qigong becaus there is no consistency within the methodology anyway. It is all just superstition and whispers.
Finally, it should come as no surprise that Chen Xin will believe in qi – people in China did believe in it back then, just as people in the UK used to believe in the 4 humours http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Temperaments.
They were also ignorant of anatomy.
Tai Chi folk are obsessed with qi. Outside of our school it is almost all most of them talk about.
IT ISN’T REAL & IT NEVER WAS.
OK guys, enough of the qi talk please. This is looking too much like breaking into a qi disscusion.
I don’t really want to have to invoke my godlike powers and delete comments on my blog. Thank you
Kenny – I would be as happy as you to see all mention of qi disappear. Delete at will
No deletes….just yet. But everyone has been warned (hmmm wonder how you do a strict smiley)
I’m upset that you’re taking such a hardnosed approach – since no one said qi existed.
I was just trying to make a point about people like chen xiao wang, ma yue liang, etc. and how they agreed with what you were saying.
No touch is BS. It isn’t about Qi. Not everything has to be made into a discussion about qi.
I am personally upset that you would accuse me of hoarding secret knowledge or that you feel the need to “warn people” (i.e. me) that you’re not allowed to talk about Qi. That’s ridiculous. Again: No one said Qi was real or anything. So I won’t respond to any of the comments wrt qi being real, or not. That was never my point. I hope you can understand this.
And if you really want to delete this post, go ahead. It isn’t about Qi. It’s about a ridiculous level of intolerance where it is suddenly okay to say that people like CXW and Ma Yue Liang are inconsistent frauds.
So if you really want to delete this, fine, it’s your blog after all (remember?) but I do hope you understand that what I said had nothing to do with qi being real or not in the first place.
Hi Renli,
first off I want to say that my comment wasn’t aimed specifically at you, it was aimed at both you and Joanna.
I certainly didn’t mean to upset anyone, so please accept my apology.
As for deleting posts I don’t want to delete ANYTHING. But I also don’t want people to fall out on my blog. It looked to me like you and Joanna were going to start butting heads if I didn’t step in and put a stop to the whole matter right away. I hope this way we can all stay friends.
I want this to be a friendly place not a battleground
“first off I want to say that my comment wasn’t aimed specifically at you, it was aimed at both you and Joanna.”
bloomin’ cheek
Someone has to keep order around here, so I have appointed myself as the sherrif of this here blog
I don’t think renli appreciates that as far as me and the MTA goes, it isn’t just saying qi exists or is real that is essentially off limits – it is all talk of qi, qigong and so-called “internal arts”, “internal work”, “energies”, “energetics” and all the usual esoteric nonsense that plagues Chinese martial arts. That sort of talk dominates every other Tai Chi space in the world – the MTA is the alternative. Qi is not part of MTA Tai Chi training.
I have spent the last year having to fight tooth and claw on forum after forum and blog after blog defending this stance from qi-believers and the occasional qi-agnostic. I think Tai Chi blogs can be about other things – such as the quan / ch’uan component. In my opinion this blog is a space for discussing fighting training, bruises and making bad jokes.
[...] Qi Debate #861a (Transferred from “Oh Please!!“). [...]
Okay Kenny, I respect your wishes, and Joanna I respect your opinion too. I don’t think this blog should house a debate about these things either.
Yet I do feel I want to say something. I respectfully request that if anyone has anything to say WRT “the thing which has no name”, that they do it on my blog. I’ve written up an article to house comments about this, if anyone is interested.
http://renli.wordpress.com/2007/09/04/qi-debate-861a/
I have posted a reply which is awaiting moderation. I have to spend a huge amount of time defending the MTA’s position on these matters from those who try to damage our reputation based on what? On our peformance? On the quan? No – on this stupid metaphysical fix that they’re all addicted to.
Now they’re trotting out the same tired old stuff about having “access to knowledge” I’ll never understand, presumably because I don’t speak much Chinese and I’m not into Chinese medicine. I have had a Chinese teacher though and trained with a Taiwanese guy and his students and had a lot of very positive feedback from them (plus many others since.) I’m sure they’d have told me if I was missing something. Truth is I’ve outfought my peers and even bettered a teacher so I must be doing something right, eh?
What’s the use? Let them think what they like – they will anyway. I’ve had it with blogs and forums. I know not many people understand why I do it, but I have steered a few people away from the esoteric side with my debates, and even to save one life would have made it all worthwhile. Yes it honestly is that important.
The resistence is growing, and not just from me. Let the ripples spread out across the pond.
“What’s the use? Let them think what they like – they will anyway.”
They certainly will think what they like, so just let ‘em get on with it. For what it’s worth I think that you have made the right decision, well done
Oh no wait!! Am I being a bit hasty….who’s gonna read my blog now
They wouldn’t understand it anyway – it’s all about fighting and martial training
I think the clue is probably in the name “martial art” art of fighting!