Well, I think that the point that has been made is that, while some people would like to believe in the possibilty of distance skills, they don’t really exist. What brought this on was the thread I referred to at the beginning, where people where claiming the reality of it. I started this thread to give anyone who knew an instance of confirmation a chance to say so. I don’t believe in it, and I was hoping that someone who did could give evidence as to why.
I do believe that pursuing crap like mystical kongjing skills “because my teacher could do it to me” is a waste of a practitioners time and contributes to generally poor impression of the internal arts by non-practitioners of the styles. Slavish devotion to sensational experiences will keep the internals out on the fringes of the martial arts world. When I say that I practice Taiji and the response is “I’m not interested in that Hippy stuff,” then I know that we have a long way to go. How will we bring up the level of our arts if we are not taken seriously? Negative social perceptions keep our numbers down and so retard everyones level.
In China they have the advantage of higher densities of skilled practitioners, even considering the ravages of the last 150 years. How many generations deep is your training group? We count ourselves fortunate if there is one or two moderately skilled assistants to the teacher.
“The heart of the study of boxing is to have natural instinct resemble the dragon” Wang Xiangzai
There are graduations of what are are calling “empty force”. The ability to throw someone with a thought, is only an extreme development of what all decent practicioners can do. That is, maintain superior position through increasing subtle movements, which of course are directed by Yi and supported by Qi.
If it does exist, and it is subtle, then of course it will be difficult to observe. There may in fact be zero indication that it came into play; you only notice that a person was defeated, perhaps in a ridiculously “easy” manner. We’ve all seen this happen before; the question is “did we see what we were looking at?”
If you want to train sending in a martial context, you need a partner to receive, and vice versa. To try and examine one without referencing the other is irrational. It is like a house, which is defined by its doors, windows, and empty spaces. The relationship is at least as significant as its members.
is what your saying that you would beleive in empty force if some one told you of a seniario where a person was struck with chi with out knowing it by a qi-gong or tai chi master? if it is as simple as that then you should now beleive! and realize that your basis of conjunction is with the people only on this board, most old masters who have such skill and have done what you are asking, do not log on to the internet!
You poss this empty force, it won’t be so ego-based as it is for most people who “want” the skill. It will likely just be a skill you have developed.
A proverb I snatched from a fantasy book goes something like this:
Two men are disccusing how sometimes things that seem magical are not really magic. And how magic does not exist, only tricks. And what appears to be a trick to someone, to you is just a skill.
Man A asks Man B, do you know how to juggle?
Man B says, ‘Yes’
Man A gives man B 3 oranges.
Man A says, ‘Juggle those oranges’
Man B begins to juggle them.
Man A says, ‘Now, juggle all of them in one hand’
Man B tries to and the oranges drop to the ground.
Man A says, ‘To a young child, your ability to juggle 3 oranges will appear to be magic. To you, you know it is only a trick(skill). When you learn to juggle 3 oranges using no hands at all you will completely understand this concept.’
Hopefully this sheds some light on this subject of Empty Force.
Nexus
Freedom is what you do with what is done to you. - Sartres
Just because there’s a name for it in CMA, and some people devloped training methods and claimed skill in it, doesn’t mean it was ever actually effective. Let’s not forget that there were very specific training methods and sincere belief in the ability to make one’s self impervious to bullets during the Boxer Rebellion. That didn’t work overly well, and that seems like a more realistic skill to me than kong jing.
Sifu Frantzis has an awesome book out called The Power of Internal Martial Arts and he takes a couple of paragraphs to comment on Empty Force that all here may find interesting:
“A controversial subject often connected to I Chuan is the training technique of Kong Jin, or “Empty Force”. In this technique, teachers move their students physically either backward, up in th air, or down to the ground by a wave of their hands from a distance, all without physcially touching them. Unfortunately, although this works well with students, many incorrectly assume it can be done to strangers against their will, which, it can safely be said, rarely happens. Extensive research was done on this subject in Beijing to find out if empty force would work on uncooperative martial art experts-it did not. However, the technique of empty force chi training can, in fact, be useful for moving chi therapeutically to clear blocked energy channels.”
“Empty force is a training technique whose purpose is to sensitize practitioners to the movement of chi in themselves, in their opponents, in the space between themselves and their opponents, and in the psychic energy generated in combat. It aims to empower the recipient to be able to become sensitive and respond appropriately to the chi of others, whether during physical contact, or unimpeded in the gap before they touch your flesh or hit you. It requires cooperation at the psychic level between student and teacher, and often the histrionics seen during the encounter with empty force are incredibly exaggerated. The purpose of this exaggeration is simply to generate a sensitivity to energy and to be able to use the sensitivity to respond to a physical stimulus in real time, in a physical confrontation, rather than to gain the magical ability to knock King Kong down with an invisible force from a wave of your fingers.”
you have GOT to be kidding me…
i wish these people were closer to me,
as i would love to see if some guy could
manipulate me via thin air, or even with
an object between us.
that kid who got all goofy should be
ashamed and embarassed… reminds me of
cult behavior. do anything to make the
head guy look good at all costs, even if
it makes you look bad.
where is this?? if i am EVER in that area
i will certainly show up, and be in total
sarcastic mode because i HAVE to see if it
is real.
i have studied internal martial arts for better
than 10 years now and if something like this is
real, then i wanna know about it.
I went and watched the other videos that were on that page, and I’m pretty sure the one you posted was a joke.
I enjoyed the other ones, where the guys went sliding across the floor too. Of course, it was a nicely polished tile floor, and they are wearing the almost tractionless “tai chi slippers”.
Kevin, you wrote…
Does anyone know of any master who has applied empty force distance skills on an unwilling opponent? Even an anecdote would be helpful.
Most American internal martial artists have heard of Sifu Share Lew. Sifu Lew is an actual temple taught Taoist monk. He spent 14 years in the Gee Lum Gee Monastary in Guangun , China.
For more info on him ry this link… http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/martarts/lew.html
About 7 years ago he was in New York City giving a Chi-gong seminar that was attended by many of that cities Chinese Sifus.
One of the sifus was famous for his horse stance, which he claimed no one had ever pushed him out of. He asked Sifu Lew if he would like to try to move him from his horse stance. Sifu Lew said sure, I’ll try.
The chinese sifu got into his stance and invited Sifu Lew to walk over to him and try.
Sifu Lew said he didn’t need to walk the 10 feet to the man and that he would try from where he was. He pointed his right palm at the other sifu and after a few breaths the other sifu yelled for Sifu Lew to stop and lept backwards out of his stance.
So, yeah, a top level guy like Sifu Lew can affect a non-cooperating person.
agian many of you have not seen high level qi-gong masters manipulate people’s energy feilds (chi). I and my qi-gong master have put on demonstrations all over the U.s, she is the 3rd highest ranked qi-gong master in the world and can take out your left side with a swip of her finger, willing or unwilling. kevin please check out my web site and click potos/masters and see the picture of me inserting a 9 inch steel wire needle through my thigh, without the slighest pain or even a drop of blood. will this work on a noncoopertive person? only if the have chi that can be manipulated, moved or redirected! who has chi? anyone or thing thats alive…
Yes well, B.K. Frantzis is by no means an expert on the subject. I his book IS full of information but is limited to the point that im sure a lot of the information in there is aquired by other means than his own experience. I hate to be this blunt (cos I never lower myself on this forum to this level usually) but I don’t particularly rate Mister Frantzis. He does have skill but I feel that his reputation is a little over-inflated. How can one take his word for it when he has hardly experienced it himself. Thats just like saying I don’t like America that much, even though I’ve never been there but i’ve read a bout it. Sorry just having a rant.
C’mon, no disrespect but how can you confuse inserting some steel through your thigh and qigong? That can be seen in many religious/mystical trances, it’s impressive indeed but only made possible through anatomical feats of the human body and more important through functions of the brain that we are only starting to get aware of…without trying to look for esoterical things, there is at least 60-70% of the human brain’s functions that are unknown to us and that will definitely give us some surprises when we start finding out about them…But on the other hand qigong also implies a heavy use of mind…so maybe it is qigong…
As for my left side, well women knoww howw to take it from me pretty well heheheheheheheh
No disrespect intended once again, but I just wanted to share my views on this controversial issue…
To answer your questions I will first make you realize that we are americans and know very little about qi-gong! you may think you know but do you really ? my teacher has devoted her life, 47 years to mastery from her grand mother and father. this is what makes her third highest ranked! it is the family art of (jin gong tzu li gung) qi-gong.it is a very famous stlye in china but becuse you guys live in the US if you say you’ve never heard of it! I wonder why? how many people out here have over 20 years of qi-gong training from a master? please raise your hands… but yet becuse of your limited knowledge of a chinese art which we know so little about you agrue or doubt my teachers skill? !!!..well I will explain it to you for agruments sake, her grand mother learned the art from a taoist monk who lived his life on the wudang mountains in the jia yi temple. he taught her the art as a favor from her father, a request from a man that saved his life when he was a boy. She then taught her son who then taught his daughter and then she moved to the US in 1995 . her name is yen chu fang. The reason you have not heard of her is you probalbly have never been to china, but her family name and art is by far one of the highest level qi-gong in existence today! so please becuse you have not heard of her please do not think that becuse she has no web site or school or makes money teaching she is not who she says is .. for it is our ignorance of qi-gong that is the biggest secret of all… as for magic, I did not mention that feat to impress you or make you belive in what I say . I dont care. it was kevin who started this thread that I was trying to explian what I meant. please do not think I’m being harsh but it seems as there are very narrow minded people out here, who dont beleive in anything that they dont know of. …next you’ll try to tell me that chi doesnt exist!
let me ask you this have you heard of a master named shu ming? if you have not go ask your shifu ( if they are from china) and they will tell you of a man who teaches in bejing park that is very very famous for his chi level and tai chi. but I guess you’ve never heard of him either so that must mean he is not as good as the thousands of people that wait in line to learn from him…all becuse you dont know him!!!
