get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

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get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby everything on 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.
Last edited by everything on Fri May 08, 2020 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby Bao on Fri May 08, 2020 1:54 pm

When you are angry you can also say “Tai qi le”, meaning “too much Qi”. So what it means, also sheng qi, is that there’s an imbalance that is unhealthy so you use up your qi rapidly. It’s a bad condition, not a good thing.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby everything on Sat May 09, 2020 12:43 pm

yeah I think that's so. I had this random thought b/c I got angry (playing a video game), felt strong, swung a KB a bit harder than normal, lol. Also, I posted the random comment for the people who focus only on musculoskeletal and seem to forget the brain/yi to qi and chemical process to electrical component that controls it all. That's all "internal" and some "qi" to me, but a simple (easy to follow/relate to) example. Easy to remember this yi/qi stuff is a part of IMA, even if we say MA is mostly biomechanics.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby Bhassler on Sat May 09, 2020 7:56 pm

You're talking about what Dan John calls "arousal", which is the intensity level you need to be at to compete in different things. An example he gives is a discuss throw, where you need to be smooth and fluid, vs. a max deadlift, which is all focus and intensity on one thing. As far as I know Dan John is the only one who uses the specific term "arousal", but the concept is well understood in the competitive sports world. So, I wouldn't say that has anything to do with "internal", specifically. Moreover, I think most "external" athletes (like competitive MMA or BJJ guys) have a much better understanding of what it is and how to train with it than your typical IMA expert. This may be a significant factor on why IMA guys keep losing fights...
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby Trick on Sun May 10, 2020 12:21 am

Testosterone?
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby Bao on Sun May 10, 2020 5:37 am

Bhassler wrote:As far as I know Dan John is the only one who uses the specific term "arousal", but the concept is well understood in the competitive sports world. So, I wouldn't say that has anything to do with "internal", specifically. Moreover, I think most "external" athletes (like competitive MMA or BJJ guys) have a much better understanding of what it is and how to train with it than your typical IMA expert. This may be a significant factor on why IMA guys keep losing fights...


I have no experience of competitions fighting expect looking at some. But I suspect that those top fighters are very used to, and like being in, that kind of environment and obviously they prepare themselves methodically, both physical and mentally a long tome before each competition. If you have no experience of what it "feels like" being in the spotlight in the ring, you certainly would have a disadvantage. Just like getting on stage, having a lecture etc. can affect you in ways you can't really prepare yourself for if you are not already used to it. If you are not used to that rush or understand how you react, there will be a disadvantage. Just entering the ring and believe that you should be able to have a chance when you don't understand the game play is a bit, well, funny, regardless what background you have. However, I can't really understand what any of this would have to do with the topic. (Though I don't really understand what this topic is about.)
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby everything on Sun May 10, 2020 7:40 am

Welllll I wouldn't use some recent expert's concept to explain sheng qi but yeah sort of.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby Bhassler on Sun May 10, 2020 7:55 am

MMA competition was not the point, it was an aside. The topic is about mental and emotional intensity, and whether or not that's something central to IMA, specifically. My answer is "no".

The below excerpt might require a bit of thinking to see how it maps to the CMA paradigm. I realize that thinking is not a strong suit of the internet as a whole, but I have faith that folks here can do it. Teamwork makes the dream work!

Dan John does a deeper dive on his Mental Set Triads in his book Now What.

http://danjohn.net/2012/04/the-mental-set-triads/
The next post in this Triad is the “Arousal” continuum. Of all the things I teach and preach, this is the most delicate. Now, I hadn’t put a name on this until recently, but my training certainly had the basics in it. Quick example: when in college, I had a meet against another school where it was painfully obvious that I was going to win and win big. I won’t mention the school because possibly my daughter goes there.

These guys were so bad, so poorly trained and coached, that it was hurting me as a thrower to watch them warm up and compete. These guys were not at the level of most high school kids I train. Coach Ralph Maughan came over to me and explained to me that I would spend the afternoon “Honoring them with my best performance.” As a thrower, it’s always about the individual, but I dialed up my intensity, my arousal, to somewhere around eight or nine on the scale. And, since a bunch of my readers are thinking this any way…the scale goes to “Eleven.”
Here…Nigel on “Eleven.”
Now, flip this to the Nationals or any other big event. Watch people get introduced and then walk around in a daze. Their arousal meter is on zero. To throw the discus far, or do whatever you do, you need to actively find the right place on the arousal scale. The Olympic trials might be as low as two or three for some. A massive deadlift is going to be all the way to eleven.

I use many tools to teach this. In “The Contrarian Book for the Discus Throw,” available free on my site, I have the “One Throw Competition.” The idea is to actually mess with the athlete’s head so that they learn to dial up and down the intensity needed to compete.

I hate that crap they do before NFL games where you get a guy yelling and woofing and screaming. Go to the games: it’s a set piece. Often, the guys yelling the most are not starters. Often? Probably always. Sure, sometimes you see a Quarterback there, but I would tell you that this is just either showboating or stupid. A QB needs to control his arousal. Any sport that demands “touch” is going to be important for arousal control. Sure, you can scream out as loud as you like before a 100 mile race, but I doubt it will do much for you at the 80 mile mark.

Glide Shot putters need more arousal than discus throwers. I know that when I played football, too much arousal made me lose my ability to focus on jobs I had to do. I usually had three tasks on defense and the opponent’s job is to get me off my task. Against El Camino, the wide receivers kept chopping me (legal at the time, but it was still considered poor play), so I went on a vengeful warpath. It didn’t help. My arousal to get revenge, played with my brain…I should have just lined up wider and took the angles away. So, you can get killed with poor arousal control.

It is possible to be too excited. In track, especially the throws and horizontal jumps, it is not uncommon to see the best marks happen in warm ups. But, long warm ups are poison as they tend to make the athlete just deflate like a balloon with a bad knot. PHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…and you are all done.

It’s been interesting to watch how some throwers always look for the new shiny penny when it comes to strength training. Their success or failure is rarely based on performance in the weight room. Of course, I always joke about strength coaches: “Last hired, first fired.”

A much better assessment for throwers is arousal levels. “I had nothing” indicates that we perhaps needed more meets where we actively worked on excitement or dullness up and down. I had an interesting experience a few weeks ago when a thrower told me the “I had nothing” story. It was the first meet of the year. The event started at eight in the morning. The athlete hadn’t had a bowel movement in a few days. Yes, that is a factor and if you think I am joking, it’s obvious you haven’t been around long enough.

My questions: How many times have you trained at eight? “Never.”

All further questions were worthless. If you have never trained in the morning, it’s really hard to compete. I like to get up on competition day really early to insure I take care of nature’s calls. I also preload myself with a lot of Sugar Free Orange Flavored Metamucil. If you think I am joking, go to a big track meet and compete. You will learn. You will learn.

So, how do you control arousal at eight in the morning? First, you have to practice then and see how much extra time you need to feel normal. I noticed this late in my career in the Stone Put at Highland Games. It is almost always the first event and some guys are barely out of bed, rubbing sleepies from their eyes, and looking for coffee. I felt that this was the reason my record at winning the Stone Put was so good: I got up early and spent a good amount of time drinking coffee, eating, relaxing and warming up. Folks, this stuff adds up!

The University of Hawaii has a wonderful home football field advantage called “Hawaii.” To get them back, so to speak, Air Force schedules their home games with Hawaii in cold and high Colorado at ten in the morning local time which is not the same as Hawaiian standard time in terms of sleep and warmth.

Strength coaches teach arousal every minute of every session. It’s so natural to rev the engine up a little more as we add load. A concentration curl is going to need less fierceness than a max deadlift. We all know this. My point is simple: carry it over into the technical and tactical work, too.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby windwalker on Sun May 10, 2020 10:14 am

"What makes SERE school so unique is the stress tailored to the individual Soldier. Regardless of a Soldier's background, the SERE-C training approach exploits his or her weakness in order to induce the most amount of stress safely and effectively," said Maj. Anthony Hanson, commander, U.S. Army SERE School at Fort Rucker.

https://www.army.mil/article/138765/ser ... nvironment

Good training if one has the opportunity to go through it.
Addresses some of the points talked about here.
exposes one to a high stress environment, adapting normalizing
the stress loads one encounters.


Therefore, one who is good at being a warrior doesn't make a show of his might;
One who is good in battle doesn't get angry;
One who is good at defeating the enemy doesn't engage him.
And one who is good at using men places himself below them.
This is called the virtue of not competing;
This is called [correctly] using men;
This is called matching Heaven.
It's the high point of the past.

http://intertexts.net/tao/68
Last edited by windwalker on Sun May 10, 2020 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby robert on Sun May 10, 2020 10:42 am

everything wrote:The Chinese phrase for get angry, 生 氣, sheng qi, we could literally translate as "give birth to qi".

This seems misleading to me or perhaps I'm missing something. The character 氣 (qi) has a number of different meanings based on context. One is anger.

gas / air / smell / weather / to make angry / to annoy / to get angry / vital energy / qi

The literal translation of 生 氣, sheng qi, would be "give birth to anger" and probably means grow angry.
FWIW.
Last edited by robert on Sun May 10, 2020 10:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby Trick on Mon May 11, 2020 3:32 am

everything wrote: I got angry (playing a video game), felt strong, swung a KB a bit harder than normal,

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-life ... t-20045434
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Re: get angry / sheng qi / give birth to qi / strength

Postby everything on Mon May 11, 2020 12:36 pm

lol .... I was losing big in this video game (probably to 15 year old experts) haahaha. back slightly on topic. I did put the arousal to use.
amateur practices til gets right pro til can't get wrong
/ better approx answer to right q than exact answer to wrong q which can be made precise /
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