Re: Does internal arts or chi gong require movements?
For what it is worth, this is what I’ve learned during the 1 1/2 years I’ve been doing chi kung… Part of the reason I’m mentioning my experiences is to encourage other people to comment on their own training. Of course, I’m very interested in people who have done more training than I have!
What’s the purpose of all that movements? When you do chi gong, cannot you just medidate – sit still – and circulate the energy around? I’ve never performed those chi gong movements, but I already have some basic skills with manipulating chi, will I gain by doing the movements?
I haven’t been told to “move chi”. That could be a more advanced practice. For me, what is being emphasized is coordination, so that all the parts of the body are connected together and moving together. It’s an efficient and powerful way of moving. The movements are done so that you get used to keeping your body connected during movement. First it’s done slowly in chi kung so that it can be learned and then applied to forms, sparring, and fighting.
Now that you have the internal chi circulation, if you know how to use it for martial purposes, do you still need to associate it with Tai Chi or Pagua attack’s movements? For example, if I become very powerful with Chi, can I it to supplement – for example – a modern moxing straight punch?
Again, I don’t know about “chi circulation”, but the martial purpose of the movements comes immediately. You can think of each joint in the body like a pulley. The more joints that are involved in a movement, the more leverage and power you have. And if the body is coordinated, moving together, the more mass is behind a movement. So a modern straight punch would become more powerful due to better body mechanics.
My wonder is why does chi gong movement and meditation always get taught together.
Each of the movements have broad applicability to techniques, so you train the core movement first, get good at it, and then you can learn techniques one after the other, very quickly. There is a limited number of core movements which apply to most techniques. Even the standing meditation (standing post) has a physical component at it’s core.
And most of the schools I have been to only knows the movements, and I can feel them try to make up the answer when I start asking about the internal strength and meditation. And I can see most of the students who have perfected those movements for 2 -5 years and still know nothing about Chi.
I know what you mean! I haven’t seen many schools that could explain how the movements relate to fighting either. Actually, what I’ve seen is they can explain it with “chi” and and “meditation” and so-called internal strength, but it can’t really be demonstrated. I think most chi kung is like tai chi for health: people get healthier and feel better because they are moving their body more than they did before taking the class. But that doesn’t mean it’s because of some mystical idea - they are just moving around more!
So far what I’ve been taught could be explained using western terms like coordination and alignment. I have to admit, I am very skeptical of people that explain things using terms like meridians and such, simply because I’ve never experienced a meridian. I’m still very open to those ideas, however. I experience chi as just feelings in my body. And when I’m doing things right, my body feels very coordinated, relaxed, and with good alignment.
So that’s a newbie’s response. Hope it helps in some way.
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