get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength
Posted: Fri May 08, 2020 8:43 am
The Chinese phrase for get angry, 生 氣, sheng qi, we could literally translate as "give birth to qi".
Everyone probably has the experience of feeling stronger when we are angry. We hear stories of people lifting cars (maybe under anxiety and a variation of fight/flight response) or movers who try to scream and get a little "angry" before lifting heavy things, and anecdotally, we all probably observe this works. Even grunting to lift a heavy weight or hit a tennis ball helps.
Now we say this is due to increased adrenaline. I would say this is sort of related in a baby step way to "internal power" but not the main internal power we want in IMA. You can feel the effect of the "internal" chemical processes on your nervous system and (I guess) it can temporarily activate more muscle fibers. It's not a biomechanical leverage technique but based on "internal" processes that temporarily give you added "raw" but usable power.
However, for "internal power" in IMA, we don't want to just be angry or increase "brute strength" or always require fight/flight to add power. For lack of better vocabulary, I'd say we want a "qi state" between chee hugging at the tree like the limp noodle tai chi folks or yogis or monks with no MA interests, and the "sheng qi" kind of qi state, then combined with good biomechanics. This just makes common sense to balance this "internal" with some "external". Even in sports, you can tell when you get angry, you have some temporarily extra speed/power, but you may lose some control. For example you hit the tennis ball super hard because you're angry about the last point, but it goes out of bounds. Plus being constantly angry doesn't seem healthy.
Everyone probably has the experience of feeling stronger when we are angry. We hear stories of people lifting cars (maybe under anxiety and a variation of fight/flight response) or movers who try to scream and get a little "angry" before lifting heavy things, and anecdotally, we all probably observe this works. Even grunting to lift a heavy weight or hit a tennis ball helps.
Now we say this is due to increased adrenaline. I would say this is sort of related in a baby step way to "internal power" but not the main internal power we want in IMA. You can feel the effect of the "internal" chemical processes on your nervous system and (I guess) it can temporarily activate more muscle fibers. It's not a biomechanical leverage technique but based on "internal" processes that temporarily give you added "raw" but usable power.
However, for "internal power" in IMA, we don't want to just be angry or increase "brute strength" or always require fight/flight to add power. For lack of better vocabulary, I'd say we want a "qi state" between chee hugging at the tree like the limp noodle tai chi folks or yogis or monks with no MA interests, and the "sheng qi" kind of qi state, then combined with good biomechanics. This just makes common sense to balance this "internal" with some "external". Even in sports, you can tell when you get angry, you have some temporarily extra speed/power, but you may lose some control. For example you hit the tennis ball super hard because you're angry about the last point, but it goes out of bounds. Plus being constantly angry doesn't seem healthy.