‘oss’ is just a general term of respect used in JMA. They say it can mean 1000 different things, but who knows? 
As long as the focus and intent is there when you do your movements, there doesn’t need to be a huge shout accompanying it imo 
david
Originally posted by dezhen2001
My Sigong once told me about a style of qigong solely based on using different sounds to connect to different organs. It’s called ‘6 Healing Sounds Qigong’ or something like that. Not part of our style anyway. Quite interesting that you use different sounds in some MA as well…
Sifu was trying to explain the concept of Qi once in class. So he did some internal form really slowly making all these different sounds (I was quite young so I thought it was funny). After that he came up to a student and told him to stand in bow-and-arrow stance and resist (this dude used to be a weightlifter so he was quite heavy and his leg muscles were huge), and got another guy to stand behind him (to make sure he didn’t break the mirrors). Then he put his hand lightly on the guys chest, he stood there for a few seconds, totally relaxed, then his hand kinda twitched and the guy got knocked back!!
Internal power is something that really just astounds me! I’m trying to get my head around that at the moment.
The amount of skill and dedication some people have is just something inspiring (hopefully one day i’ll get there!)
Back on topic: does anyone study a qigong style or gong fu style that uses sounds in any way? Even a non-chinese style (apart from the typical kiai way that is)
david
thx for the reply Guohuen
The style my Sigong talked about was Buddhist i think? This is really interesting… I’ll ask my Sifu more about this when i see him next week 
david
My first sifu taught me a set of exercises he called the “five healing sounds of qigong”, he learned them from Kwan Saihung. Anyway each organ has a corresponding movement and sound which exercise the organ, when you do all five it’s supposed to balance the bodys system.
Aside from that he would encourage “kiais” when we got tired during sparring to help keep focus and intent(it worked) we don’t yell kiai but we use the sound “Ha” which is pretty genertic in CMA. I’ve seen allot of systems do it.
Anyway on an interesting note I notice if I use the “ha” strait from the begining I get tired faster but if I start using it when I get tired I last longer than I do without it. Just my experience.
The problem with these ridiculous kiais in tournaments is that they are so long, so pronounced, and so over-the-top, they lose what effectiveness they were meant to have in the first place, i.e. focus your power onto an impact point. It’s not impressive to watch somebody KIAI for thirty seconds, shaking his limbs, face twisted into a grotesque mask–it’s just silly and embarrassing.
What upsets me the most, though, is that apparently this over-acting impresses the judges. Which says everything you need to know about their questionable credentials and the ultimate worth of these tournaments…
i think its cuz people watched too much dragon ball z
if you want blonde hair, get some dye
peace
trav
seriously tho
however, i do grunt when playing basketball, and need to push out that little extra bit of speed while running down the court
or in the gym when i just need a little extra in that lift
it seems to work
however… i cant imagine myself doing that while doing any form or anything else in wing chun; i dont think your supposed to use your muscles like that (at least in wing chun)
peace
trav
Thanks for all the replies. Finally got back so now I can ramble for a bit!
I asked cos I’m interested in two things:
- The physical effect on your own body;
- The internal/energy projection dynamic.
Of course, I figure they overlap.
In aikido we were always taught to breathe as naturally as possible but to aim for breathing in to absorb the attack and breathing out to send it away again. So, inward action, inward breath, outward action outward breath. And no discernible kiai, though in practice, some people gave an ‘oos’. Of course, skilled practitioners REALLY could pass pineapples through their rectums (recta?), with damage limitation through the use of the internal technique shirigatana (loosely translated as ‘ass-blade’), to cut the pineapple into slices and stack them neatly:D.
BTW, the ‘oos’ is a general greeting in Japanese for your real manly men. It is also a goodbye. In some ma schools it is a strong ‘hai’ (‘yes’/‘understood’/‘that is the case’). It is also used as a kiai in many situations, including focusing your energy for lifting really heavy things such as mikoshi (’ ‘portable’ shrines’) (it is also chanted in some mikoshi festivals as you carry them when it often gains an extra syllable in exertion, making it sound funnily like ‘uso’, the Japanese word for lying crap:eek:. Some old men use it when they sit down. As a kiai in ma, it often becomes an ‘sss’ sound. In that case it is useful for keeping the stomach muscles in a state of relaxed preparation, and setting the tongue and jaw so you don’t bite the end of your tongue off when you get chinned.
OK lecture over, sorry for rambling AGAIN 
don’t get much time on the board.
Now here’s another coupla parts of the question: in my first two wing chun schools we never used kiai (what is the chinese name??) but were told to breathe normally. Now I’m being taught a sound like ‘sut’, with the ‘t’ disappearing into a kind of backwards ‘oos’ sound, and a stronger one sounding more like ‘sOt’. If you don’t get is right, it’s also like a strangulated ‘oos’: kind of like a steroidal snake on crack :D! Other than the reasons I already mentioned, does anyone have any references/knowledge about the specifics of these sounds?
And guohen and others who answered to do with the six chigung sounds… is anything like ‘oos’/‘sut’ used in them? I imagine the sounds to be more like the ‘aum’ (‘om’) meditation used to lead the chi (‘prana’?) from the earth chakra up to the air/void chakra and back down to the tanden… (how many bloody languages can I use badly in one sentence:rolleyes::)?!.
BTW The founder of modern aikido (Ueshiba) belonged to a religion which believes that the universe was created by a cosmic vibration (kotodama) of the sound ‘suu’… kind of a Big Bang, or as maybe Sticky Fingers would have it, a big cosmic ripper! What a kiai!!!
we dont shout or yell. I see it as a sign of weakness, showing emotion. U ‘should’ be calm or whatever but shut the hell up.