“Power of Chi” debunked — 3 Fake Tai Chi magic tricks expose

[marvin8]

Ramsey Dewey
Mar 12, 2023

By popular demand, I watched the trailer for Adam Mizner’s documentary “The Power of Chi”. From the trailer alone, I immediately noticed several exploitations of illusionist tricks being passed off as legitimate martial arts, or rather as supernatural chi powers.

Additionally, one of Adam Mizner’s students called me out on the internet, challenging me to explain how Adam was able to push him around.

In this video, I expose the body mechanics behind three of these martial illusions to the point that a comolete beginnerscouod replicate them.

For those of you who don’t speak or write Mandarin, the word taichi has nothing to do with mystical chi energy. The confusion comes from the old Wade Giles romanization of the Mandarin Chinese language, where both the “CH”, the “Q”, and the “J” sound (as in taiji) were written with a “ch”. In the modern romanization, pinyin, it’s clear these are two separate words: ji 极 and qi 气.

Taiji means the highest and the lowest, the supreme and the ultimate, a sharp contrast. Taijiquan 太极拳refers to hand to hand combat. Taijijian 太极剑 refers to sword fighting. Qi 气 means air, breath, or gas… but the word has been co-opted in modern times, especially among western martial arts mystics to mean supernatural power.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rnAfM_UFdE