Feeling IP hits

[Chris McKinley]

Because there's an initial bleeding into the local tissues, but somewhat deep. The clotting mechanism activates, stopping most of the bleeding. However, there's still a small tear in the vessel, resulting in continued bleeding over the next few days. Because the bleeding is deep and (relatively) limited, it can take a while for the body to dissipate and expel the blood throughout the local tissues and toward the surface of the body at that location.

[Daniel]

Edited for brevity.

D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[Pandrews1982]

I was once with my teacher and a friend of ours who is an experienced tai chi teacher. They were discussing the similarities and differences between xing yi's beng and tai chi's press. I ended up being the test subject. Our tai chi friend began by doing press, my teacher tried to replicate but the feeling was different. My teacher's hit was obviously a beng.

They continued testing and discussing then our friend just said, okay now I'll bounce the energy into you and lift you off the floor - he did. Then he says I'm going to hit you with the energy like a wave and knock you back - he did. Then he says this time the wave will come down and knock you over and he did, felt like my feet stuck to the floor and the rest of me was pressed back and down.

All of this was impressive but my teacher now a little frustrated he wasn't fully getting the same feelings stepped up next to me turned to our friend and said "this is beng" in a way which obviously meant, "that other stuff we've been doing, you ain't seen nothing yet". His fist was almost touching my abdomen when he began and he made no step, only the slightest of movement and suddenly it felt like I'd been hit in the spine, I honestly didn't feel the impact to my stomach. As the strike hit my body felt like the back was accelerating away so I curled around and doubled over at the same time. The strike knocked me back at least 5 feet and made me fall onto my back.

It was similar to the feeling of being kicked in the testicles except he'd hit me in the gut, I felt nausous, the pain was not particulary sharp but intense aching over a large area but also more intense at the centre and lasted for a number of minutes afterwards. I still had an ache in my back the next day but I never developed any bruising from it.

He'd hit me before with heavy and powerful strikes but this was the first time he'd hit me so softly and got so much response. I've seen and felt this a few times again since then and it is remarkable.

Since then I've been somewhat able to replicate this myself, though to a lesser degree, with some of my training partners. I can use cun (inch) jin and zero distance strikes but not with the same sophistication or result as i felt from my teacher.

I once was showing a very small pi quan variant and whilst talking and lookign at another student demonstrated on one guy, I hit him in the chest with what felt like no effort and he immediately fell onto his arse and rolled all the way over. I said "what the hell was that" thinking he was taking the piss but he said genuinely he couldn't stop himself from going over. I once hit a guy who had come to check out my class fairly lightly with a beng. He was a big guy, much taller than me and professed to doing all sorts of MA before, karate, taekwondo, judo, tai chi etc. I hit him and he seemed to take it well so I let him carry on with another student. I came back over in ten minutes or so and he'd stopped training and was rubbing his gut. I asked what was wrong and he said that the punch I gave him was still hurting. He sent me an email the next day saying how he enjoyed my class but won't be coming back because he wanted to focus on his other arts.

Also after spending some time on our version of iron body training I got a classmate to hit me in the stomach, he hit me once and I stopped the power, and again, on the third time just as he made contact with my gut I did beng through my gut and knocked him back. I've only been able to do this a couple of times without consistency (sometimes it just doesn't work and I get hit) and its not something I practice regularly as it is not really that combat viable (difficult to stop a knife with iron body).

[cloudz]

I remember being knocked on my ass by Alex K in Holland park, and it literally felt like a wave had crashed into me, which felt like it went beyond the point of contact which was somewhere around my sternum. What I mean by that was even though the point of contact was the back of his hand, it felt like a wave crashed over me from the waist up. The strike was two handed like a press in tcc, hence the back of the hand.

Difficult to explain, without sounding kooky.. But It's possible in part that some of what I felt came from me (maybe).. I have felt something similar from my first teacher, but not quite to that degree. I think what i felt may have been driven or came from the strength of the mind/ intent. All I know something was being felt by me, that was somewhat beyond the physical contact. Not saying that's what knocked me down, but it certainly augmented the physical strike to some degree.

As to training this.. This is my best guess, something from Alex and it's detailed in 1 or 2 of his books. Take the movement you want to train, first train it big and physical for a period of time, then test the power. second, train it with a smaller visible movement, x amount of time, then test the power. third train the movement without any external physical movement only the movements of the body inside can be felt, x time, test the power. lastly - no physical movement inside, now only the mind moves/ does the movement, x time, test the power..

I can't say I do enough of this, but I try do do some.

[Pandrews1982]

George, I like that kind of training. The xing yi classics say "the boxing must be tightly reeled". To me this means that the energy is focused and compact, when you compress and tighten something you provide it with stored energy, when water flows into a smaller channel it accelerates (due to the pressure behind it pressing forwards).

IME as you make movements smaller the energy used can be compressed to make the effect greater, which means you need less energy to create the same effect or if you use the same amount of energy you get a bigger effect.

[jjy5016]

Depending on what type of jin was being used my experiences had one thing in common which was the force manifested suddenly and by the time I felt anything it was too late to defend against whether soft or hard, short or long, quick or slow.

I also experienced a no touch from a guy. Wasn't a hit though. Was for healing. From about 8 ft away he pointed at me and it felt the same as if an acupuncturist left a needle in a point on my body. Don't know if this guy could do a hit from a distance but I'm sure his teacher can. Wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him.

For a specific example I'll use pi from Hebei hsing yi. When someone does it right you feel like you are being compressed and then thrown backwards, after the initial hit which feels like a sledgehammer.

My teacher hit me with his fingertips using a very short movement that just felt like knives going into my chest. Didn't leave marks. Just hurt for several minutes after.

[Dale Dugas]

I have been touched and bounced back into walls, as well as being touched, controlled and left on the floor.

Both were exampled of IP, one being more physical and the other much softer with me being totally controlled.

[DeusTrismegistus]

I have been hit by my teacher in my right side and a line of mild pain traveled about 3/4 of the way to my left side then stopped and blossomed like a flower into quite a bit more than mild pain. There are a few more but that one sticks out.

[Chris McKinley]

I've given and received those kinds of 'tastes' of internal striking a bunch and IME it hinges on having the timing and structural momentum to cause fluid dynamic pressure waves in the viscera and internal organs of the body. It's a function of the fact that water just doesn't compress very much and can transfer impacts quite deeply as a result.

[Shooter]

That's another common thread to internal hits both giving and receiving. Especially with the Swimming Dragon material I've studied, it's very common to report nerve hits, pain and tingling.

While I've never actually been in physical contact with a cuttlefish, whenever I see one on tv doing its pulsing, color-change thing I'm reminded of that experience.

Daniel wrote:

Do you know any of the training behind the hits you got? Was it generalized IMA, for want of better phrase, or was there some specific component included in it?

Among other, basic movement and 'bearing' exercises (both solo and partner), cloudz outlined a similar approach to what I was shown to these trainings, in relating material he's found in a couple of books;

"Take the movement you want to train, first train it big and physical for a period of time, then test the power. second, train it with a smaller visible movement, x amount of time, then test the power. third train the movement without any external physical movement only the movements of the body inside can be felt, x time, test the power. lastly - no physical movement inside, now only the mind moves/ does the movement, x time, test the power.."

Of course, 'testing the power' is very specific and depends on the level the practitioner is operating on.

I don't know how to answer your second question without taking this discussion on a tangent I've already beaten to death here over the years. I'm not going to do that. This is a very good discussion and I didn't want you to think I was being rude by ignoring the question.

[yusuf]

The feeling of some hits without naming teachers who have wailed on me..

Push from one of our own that lifted me up and chucked me half way across a room. Zero motion of the arms.
Punch to sternum, delayed heart palpitations and feinting, sudden convulsions. Sorted in five minutes with some massage and tea from a professional.
Split forehead and headache for a week from a two inch punch, felt like a mechanical hammer just touching and being pulled away very quickly
Lots of simple punches that hurt, and then a second/third force like waves repeatedly crashing
Five finger grab of my chest that made my legs collapse and induced crapping like a maniac for two days
Punch into one place with the output being directed to wherever the person wanted. So they would hit the stomach, the force is felt somewhere else like shoulder. Hit the arm, crippling pain is in the lower back etc etc


This is on top of the heavy hits that good teachers deliver.. and after all that the very-semi-heavy hits is the only one I can do

[Daniel]

I don't know how to answer your second question without taking this discussion on a tangent I've already beaten to death here over the years. I'm not going to do that. This is a very good discussion and I didn't want you to think I was being rude by ignoring the question.

I really appreciate the courtesy, Shooter, thank you. Yes, this thread is really good. Thank you for sharing, guys.


D.

Sarcasm. Oh yeah, like that´ll work.

[NoSword]

Question for those on the board who can produce strikes with unusual effects, mechanics, etc.:

I'd appreciate a bit more insight into how exactly you cultivated this ability. Was it the sort of thing where after practicing forms, standing etc. for a certain period of time, you just woke up one morning and could do something you couldn't do before? Did you get a 'hunch' that a particular practice method could produce a certain result, and deliberately worked on it and refined it? If you got very systematic, step-by-step instruction from a teacher in how to produce them, how did the teacher convey the material in a way which was progressive and safe?

In general, I'm much less interested in esoteric, virtuoso skills once they are a "finished product," because at that point it can become quite difficult to retrace the steps up the mountain. Usually the most interesting insights come from people whose skills are still a work in progress and sort of rough; the basic mechanism tends to be more visible at that point and you can see some of the potential pitfalls and sticking points. (Key insight from one teacher of mine: "Any time you see someone doing something which seems complicated or difficult, the internal process must be something which is simple and easy.")

What's intriguing to me about the "IP striking" phenomenon is that while I've seen some people who could do unusual things, and many more who could not, I've yet to encounter one who could *sort of* do them. This is very unlike most skills, in which the majority of practitioners tend to cluster around the intermediate level.

AK

[Chris McKinley]

AK,

I'd appreciate a bit more insight into how exactly you cultivated this ability. Was it the sort of thing where after practicing forms, standing etc. for a certain period of time, you just woke up one morning and could do something you couldn't do before?

Absolutely not. At the risk of a double negative, we never didn't put time into all of the slices of the pie, and we tested everything at every step of the way as we went.

If you got very systematic, step-by-step instruction from a teacher in how to produce them, how did the teacher convey the material in a way which was progressive and safe?

I'd say the foundation was first in being able to feel, and therefore exert a degree of control over, all of the relevant parts of the body that are involved. Most untrained folks, for example, can't even feel the difference between their hips and their waist, or move their waist without also moving their shoulders. After that, Rome wasn't built in a day. You build the movement through a combination of a 'piece at a time' approach and/or 'all at once', but each time getting a little deeper and more refined, as appropriate. Interacting with another person and getting that kind of feedback and structural testing is absolutely vital. Otherwise, you get what you have today....a lot of people who think that they have something because they've spent a lot of time training it, when the truth is they have nothing that will hold up under pressure with another person.

What's intriguing to me about the "IP striking" phenomenon is that while I've seen some people who could do unusual things, and many more who could not, I've yet to encounter one who could *sort of* do them.

IMO, this is because these types of skills are firstly the domain of the IMA, so are necessarily going to be somewhat rare regardless. Additionally, within the community that calls itself the IMA, there is so very little regular functional testing of anything that they do, especially compared with most mainstream popular martial arts, where you see all levels of skill displayed commonly. You would only expect to see a spectrum of functionality among a group of practitioners where the calibrating and testing of the skill occurred at frequent regular intervals, thus revealing practitioners at various stages of development. That said, some of it is such that once you get the hang of it, the progress can begin to occur fairly rapidly, so people can go from not being able to do it to being able to do it decently enough over a somewhat short span of time with dedicated practice of the correct movement.

[Andy_S]

In order of appearance in my MA career...

1980s TKD: Delayed Death Touch
Years ago, as a beginner at the Univ of Kent TKD club, on the last day or term, was practicing the TKD swinging ax kick with a mate. When he swung his leg upward, it caught me under the knee cap. It hurt a fair bit, but I finished the session and went out on the pish with the lads that same night. The following day, I could barely move my leg, the knee joint was swollen and almost immovable. Went to quack, who removed some blood and told me if I had waited much longer I might have been seriously injured. Massive bruise sprouted subsequently and I was limping for weeks. Interestingly, my TKD teacher had suffered a ruptured spleen at a tourney - in fact, he won the fight in question - but it had not really hurt, so he not realised what had happened. Then he collapsed at the post-tourney pish up and was hospitalized hours later....All this from lowly TKD...

1990s Hapkido: Light Strike KO
Was sparring with a guy in Hapkido and we both did spin back kicks at the time, but I landed as he was turning, so caught him in in the back, where the armour does not reach. The kid went down. It was pretty light sparring and it had not felt hard, so nobody (incl me) realised he had been hurt...the coach walked over and said, "Come on, get up." But he literally could not move, he was flattened. He was taken to hospital and never showed up for training again. (That incident put a stop to sparring for a good while)

1990s Mantis: No inch strike
My mantis teacher, Wang Shiang-min, once put his fist on my pec and gave a short punch. Very odd feeling, almost like being winded (ie hit in the solar plexus) but his fist was on my chest. And it was pretty light - he was just demonstrating that "the body does the work, not the hand."

1990s HsingI: Body Shot
My HsingI teacher, Ray Wiley was talking about beng, and I was standing next to him - also I was the guy in the class most interested in HsingI's martial apps, the other guys were more into Taiji - and he put his fist on my lowed abdomen and benged. I doubled up and went down, severely winded>L I was useless for a couple of minutes. He said it was about 10 percent power. I was impressed at the time, but not sure if this was not just a specific demo....could he do the same thing from out of contact, and in movement?

For this reason, I'd be curious to know if anyone has been hit with these kinds of shots in sparring, rather than in demonstrations...?

2000S Chen Taiji shoulder strike
At Chenjiagou, I asked to feel Chen Ziqiang's shoulder strike while we were grappling. He told me through a translator that he would give me three shots of increasing intensity. First one was a bump that moved me, but was no big deal. Second one (with, IIRC, no wind up) sent me flying about 15 feet backward, and I breakfalled hard. He grinned and asked if I wanted to feel the third one. I shook my head...(2) was enough to convince me of his efficacy.

2000s Chen Taiji: Leg Destroyer
My Chen Taiji master, Chen Xiaoxing, was once showing the basic Taiji 'flash the back' throw using me as dummy. I still don't know quite what he did or how he did it, but I had a sense that if he had moved another half-inch during the throw, my knee would have been popped out of joint, probably due to the way had had placed my weight onto one leg and/or due to his leg placement. What interested me is that I have not come across the kind of internal organ IP strikes mentioned above in Chen Taiji, which is more a manipulative system than a striking system. But if what Chen XX did to me was not a fluke - and I suspect it was not - then Taiji has some very nasty ways indeed to attack the muscular-skeletal system, as opposed to the internal organs.