Using "qi" to break vs. physics (video)

Wai Jia: The Kung Fu Forum Kung Fu Forum
1

Watch the breaking in this video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qHL2PSpecI&feature=related

When breaking the bricks, he is lifting the brick up right before he hits it, and then hitting the brick into the corner of the step. Physics, not qi.

Similarly, most of the other breaks he does are tricks of physics, not qi. Especially when breaking the long concrete slabs well above the middle point while the middle is pressed up against a step or something. Sure, you still have to hit them hard enough to break them, but there’s no “qi” involved.

Or the long poles that are broken well below the mid point, resulting in physics (momentum) causing the break, not qi in the forearm.

Look, I’m not saying that untrained Joe Schmoe could replicate all of these (he probably could for some of them, certainly not the trident in the stomach or the stuff that involves your head, since some PHYSICAL (not qi) conditioning is needed to do those), but these are not “feats of qi” and I feel it is misleading to be presenting them as such.

And this is National Geographic and Shaolin Monks. I would expect higher quality/less BS from them.

This is trying to mystify the martial arts. Just like the “sensei is too deadly to spar with” stuff.

Discuss.

2

I agree that some of the stuff they do is for show, impressive as it is, there needs to be an explnation of what is a skill and what is parlour trick.

Many times when people break you can see the trick they used, not to the untrained but for real IP people it is quite evenident.

but for the demos they like to show off thier mental focus and physical conditioning which is far greater than most anyone has reached on this board or anywehere else for that matter, so you gotta give them thier respect for thier acomplishments.

Qi breaks? no… but is qi used to do the breaks? yes

knowing the differnce priceless

3

There are many people who have fooled the public for too long.

there is a Certain self-proclaimed grandmaster who state that if you do not break your bricks the long way versus the short way, you are not doing iron palm.

What complete and utter BS.

I have a few videos out there of me breaking, and they get a lot of flack from people. The funny thing is, the detractors scream BS, but cannot duplicate the breaks nor have they EVER posted up a video of them doing the same breaks.

How about this break. With the brick laying flat on the ground and using minimal if no body weight, the power is brought up and then transferred down into the hand and into the brick

http://youtu.be/048T0E8MRbA

4

nice break dale, nothing fake about that one, but as you know there wqill always be sceptic and haters. that just measn your doing somethign right :smiley:

we spoke about Rod and the flat break when I invited josh walker up to NY for a IP seminar as I aksed him about it, because my sifu does a vibrating palm break in which his hand never leaves contact with the brick.

So therefore I thought the flat break was not a great or best way of demostrating vibrating palm but I was corrected as there is more than one way to perfrom vibrational breaking. your thoughts?

5

To me, using yin soft power is similar but different than using yang power which is obvious and harder.

Whether you keep contact or not, is not really the issue but can you hit softly and penetrate into the material you are hitting: i.e. bricks, people, thick skulls, etc.

6

Here is a bottom brick break with me kipping up onto the bricks to show all the detractors and naysayers that the bricks were solid.

Being 6’2" and 295 makes it extremely difficult for fake bricks when you lean on them as they would break.

http://youtu.be/cyXzlR3sDAc

7

Another short break video.

No huge windups.

Just drop the hand and breath.

http://youtu.be/5KDciiFeo4Q

8

Here is another break where there is no windup but the initial movement that was brought up from the ground and then into the brick.

http://youtu.be/1dS9HTxvtrE

9

concrete has high compressive strength, its strong when pressed between two surfaces

it has weak tensile strength, its weak when suspended in the air

10

[QUOTE=bawang;1119509]concrete has high compressive strength, its strong when pressed between two surfaces

it has weak tensile strength, its weak when suspended in the air[/QUOTE]

which is why they use spacers to look hardcore when really its nothing special… respect the hand conditioning, but most breakers are just using simple brute force… unlike the cats who lightly slap the brick pile but only break the bottom one… big difference ay.

same can be said for the metal break over the head… all conditioning so it doesnt hurt like a motherfukcer, but thats the only skill there…

11

Most breaking is actually what we call parlor tricks. There are ways of doing it that make it easier. However, it does take some physical prowess to achieve. A weak person with hands that are not conditioned will not likely be able to break a brick even if it were suspended at the very ends.
Being able to break objects without parlor tricks requires strength, but it also requires hand speed and application of qi at the very instant of impact. I used to do a little trick when I was a young man that no one was able to duplicate. I would take the 12" by 12" by 1" piece of wood and break it with the grain. Easy to do with the fist or hand edge, but what I did was shove a thumb tack into oposing corners and tie a piece of cotton sewing thread across them. I would hang this from something. With the tips of the fingers of my right hand I could take off 2" increments of this board without breaking the thread. You could lift it quarter of an inch and drop it and the thread would break. I had dozens of people say it was easy when they seen me do it, but no one has ever duplicated it. The speed of the strike, the shock of the strike, was such that it didn’t even move the board on impact. When anyone else tried it the board went flying off across the floor. Oh, the grain was side to side. No one can break it across the grain like that.

12

Not to use the Bruce Lee “boards don’t hit back” quote, but well…

If these “breaking skills” had any combat effectiveness, wouldn’t there be some MMA fighters who would just break their opponents’ outstretched arms, post-punch? I understand that the skills are dramatic… some are probably faked, but I mean, why would someone want to break a board in two inch increments, unless they were a carpenter?

13

[QUOTE=Dale Dugas;1119494]There are many people who have fooled the public for too long.

there is a Certain self-proclaimed grandmaster who state that if you do not break your bricks the long way versus the short way, you are not doing iron palm.[/quote]

I only know of one guy who breaks them that way. Is his last name a color?

How about this break. With the brick laying flat on the ground and using minimal if no body weight, the power is brought up and then transferred down into the hand and into the brick

http://youtu.be/048T0E8MRbA

Your breaks looked good. If you’re using physics to cheat it’s not blatantly obvious like in that vid I posted.

14

[QUOTE=Darthlawyer;1119535]Not to use the Bruce Lee “boards don’t hit back” quote, but well…

If these “breaking skills” had any combat effectiveness, wouldn’t there be some MMA fighters who would just break their opponents’ outstretched arms, post-punch?[/quote]

Yes.

Of course, you have to remember that real fighters who are actually trying to hurt you don’t leave their arms extended after they punch.

I understand that the skills are dramatic… some are probably faked, but I mean, why would someone want to break a board in two inch increments, unless they were a carpenter?

I always looked at breaking as just a test of hand conditioning. If you can punch through a board you’re probably less likely to break your hand punching someone.

Or, breaking can be a cool art in itself. Sort of like a martial arts equivalent of powerlifting.

Breaking doesn’t mean you’re a good fighter.

I always wondered, however, if say you’re fighting someone and you get them in your guard, could you just iron palm strike them in the head and crack their skull (coconut break style or whatever)?

I just figure… if all this mystical stuff was as effective as people think, professional fighters would use it. I absolutely agree with you.

But I don’t see any pro fighters doing hour long iron vest sets. If they really resulted in the ability to not take any damage from any torso strikes after 3 years like they claim, fighters would be all over them. Immunity to liver punches, kicks that slip past your defenses and hit you in the ribs, etc. No pain, no damage, not even being stunned. Every pro fighter would love to have that advantage.

But people will just say “oh yeah, that’s too deadly for the ring” or whatever :smiley: It’s the same reason their instructor won’t spar with them.

And also, if no touch knockout worked, pro fighters would be interested in it. We’ve all seen the vid of that no touch knockout guy vs the kickboxer or karate guy or whatever it was. The poor old man got punched in the face pretty hard.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to see a TMA guy win an NHB tournament using something that no one has ever seen before. No touch knockouts, qi-based invulnerability, snake or mantis style or something and everyone is just like omg, that was awesome, I want to learn that! But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Or maybe MMA guys should start hanging by their necks like the guys in those videos were doing so they can last longer before tapping out from chokes!

It seems to me like this mystic stuff is just trying to defraud people. “Whoa, that guy broke 3 bricks with iron palm! I bet he could beat Mike Tyson!” And then when he doesn’t, it’s “oh… well that stuff was too deadly to use in the ring, anyway.”

At least with magicians, you know it’s an illusion, and they don’t pretend otherwise. But those monks are trying to pass it off as having legit super-human skills when, in fact, the majority of what they did was parlor tricks.

15

“Bottom brick break” or “Bottom brick broken”?

You weren’t showing IronFist that this is “Qi breaking” were you? Most of those were just about learning the right technique, which is again, physics. Not that Joe Schmoe could do them…

But I notice something odd with your “bottom brick break”:

[QUOTE=Dale Dugas;1119501]Here is a bottom brick break with me kipping up onto the bricks to show all the detractors and naysayers that the bricks were solid.

Being 6’2" and 295 makes it extremely difficult for fake bricks when you lean on them as they would break.

http://youtu.be/cyXzlR3sDAc[/QUOTE]

At the start of this video the two bricks were solid against each other.

Then at 0:17 in the clip when you pushed on (the outside of) them a little you can here a dull “pop” and there came an obvious black space between them. At the bottom of the lower brick, right in the middle there is also a small black spot that appeared.

This small black spot is exactly where the brick cracked when you tapped it.

16

[QUOTE=IronFist;1119547]I always wondered, however, if say you’re fighting someone and you get them in your guard, could you just iron palm strike them in the head and crack their skull (coconut break style or whatever)?[/QUOTE]

Would you compete in a competition in which your opponent was trying to crack your skull? Or where your opponent would purposely break your arm?

MMA has rules and MMA fighters are not trying to kill or permanently injure one another. It is **** sport, not gladiators fighting in an arena.

Even in 70s bare-knuckle fights we respected each other enough not to try and purposely main each other.

Now some are probably going to say, “Oh, so its too deadly for the ring” and do the immature snicker. Yes, there are techniques too deadly for the ring. That is why there are rules. And that is why some states do not allow MMA matches as they currently stand. Watch the number of states that allow MMA matches drop if peeps start getting permanently maimed.

Even with rules, are you aware of these statistics that I posted in another thread a couple of months ago?

Deaths in the Ring

Journal of Combative Sport

From 1890 to 2007 1,335 deaths occurred world-wide in a boxing type format:
14 Toughman style fighters
126 training deaths
293 amateur boxers
923 professional boxers

From 1960 to 2007 there were 421 boxing-related deaths. 80% of the deaths were attributed to head, brain or neck injuries.

http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_svinth_b_0700.htm

17

[QUOTE=mooyingmantis;1119556]Would you compete in a competition in which your opponent was trying to crack your skull? Or where your opponent would purposely break your arm?

MMA has rules and MMA fighters are not trying to kill or permanently injure one another. It is **** sport, not gladiators fighting in an arena.

Even in 70s bare-knuckle fights we respected each other enough not to try and purposely main each other.

Now some are probably going to say, “Oh, so its too deadly for the ring” and do the immature snicker. Yes, there are techniques too deadly for the ring. That is why there are rules. And that is why some states do not allow MMA matches as they currently stand. Watch the number of states that allow MMA matches drop if peeps start getting permanently maimed.

Even with rules, are you aware of these statistics that I posted in another thread a couple of months ago?

Deaths in the Ring

Journal of Combative Sport

From 1890 to 2007 1,335 deaths occurred world-wide in a boxing type format:
14 Toughman style fighters
126 training deaths
293 amateur boxers
923 professional boxers

From 1960 to 2007 there were 421 boxing-related deaths. 80% of the deaths were attributed to head, brain or neck injuries.

http://ejmas.com/jcs/jcsart_svinth_b_0700.htm[/QUOTE]

No dude I was talking about in a life or death fight.

Many of the iron palm" breaks I’ve seen involve using a large amount of bodyweight. I wonder if they could do it while laying on their back.

Challenge: IP guys: do a break while laying on your back and not using any body weight (be careful the brick doesn’t fall on your head after you break it!)

I suggested this technique because I don’t think a grappler would care too much about “a strike that looks like a slap” while he’s in your guard. Not to mention, grapplers tend to not care too much about incoming punches from the guy on the bottom because they have no bodyweight behind them.

So it could be entirely unexpected, and if successful, could be an equalizer of sorts for kung fu guys against grapplers, because let’s be honest, the grappler is gonna win 99% of the time against a kung fu guy who has a) no experience on the ground and/or b) no experience against a resisting opponent. btw this is fact. It is not up for discussion. Every single one of us who were TMA’ists and then went to a grappling or MMA school got owned in like 30 seconds against a grappler the first time we sparred with one.

18

[QUOTE=LFJ;1119549]You weren’t showing IronFist that this is “Qi breaking” were you? Most of those were just about learning the right technique, which is again, physics. Not that Joe Schmoe could do them…

But I notice something odd with your “bottom brick break”:

At the start of this video the two bricks were solid against each other.

Then at 0:17 in the clip when you pushed on (the outside of) them a little you can here a dull “pop” and there came an obvious black space between them. At the bottom of the lower brick, right in the middle there is also a small black spot that appeared.

This small black spot is exactly where the brick cracked when you tapped it.
[/QUOTE]

Whoa, I didn’t even notice that before, probably because I watched the vid at like 3am. lol.

Possible explanations:

  1. camera artifacts from Youtube’s compression method

  2. suspicious bottom brick that was flexible or somehow bendy (it did sort of appear to go from a little convex to a little concave when he pressed on them… but this was likely camera artificats)

  3. there was a gap between them, and his qi actually went through the top brick, through the space, and into the bottom brick to break it. Short-distance no-touch KO!

But if you’ll notice, the black gap didn’t appear until after he was pulling his weight off of it, which leads me to believe it was a camera artifact. Watch when his hand is in front of the bricks. There are other black gaps that appear and redraw.

Serious question: why was the bottom brick red rather than concrete color?

Suggestion: next time show each brick independently, show that it is real, then put them on the stand, then break them. I only say this because you pressed on the edges of the bricks and they supported your weight. Nay-sayers will say maybe the middle of the bricks were modified somehow.

Or, set up the bricks and start stacking some weights on them, like weight plates or dumbbells or whatever, to show that they are real.

Not hating, I thought your breaks were good. Just giving some suggestions for next time.

19

Ohh, I have a question:

Why are the bricks always supported just on the very edges? That seems unstable. I notice this in every breaking vid I’ve seen (except for when the brick is on the ground). I’m always worried the bricks are going to fall off and land on the guys toes or something because they’re only supported by like 3mm on each side.

Would the break still be just as doable if the supporting stands were a little closer? Or does having them further apart give you more leverage for the break? Now that I think about it, I think it would. Or maybe it gives more room for your hand to follow through after the break (safety)?

I’m not a breaker so I really don’t know. I would assume having them entirely on a surface (like Dale’s ground break) would be harder. Is this correct?

Opinions?

Here’s a pic:

20

This is a GENERAL post, not directed at anyone in particular, NOT directed at Dale, etc

But generally, breaking things is a show. IF someone with no fighting ability CAN break stuff, then even if people who CAN fight break stuff what does it mean?

Kyokushinkai used to make a big deal about breaking. But (I think it was Bluming?) when it came out how much of those breaks were completely manipulated