Bao wrote:Taste of Death wrote:Sam Tam always says, "Sink the chi."
I've heard several of his students as well as other who says "now I sink the qi" before pushing someone away. OOH, it doesn't make sense. You should always keep your qi sunk. "Sinking the qi" is the standard mode in all IMA. This is the foundation of any IMA shenfa/body method and is what keeps your "motor" running. Without "sinking the qi" (relaxing mind, body and breath while keeping the integrity of balance and alignment), there's no jin, no shenfa, no nothing.
"The qi sinks to the dantien" as in the 10 important points and "now I sink the qi" are two different instructions talking about different things. What makes things confusing is all of the conflation of different types of qi.
Here, specifically, I'll say that the qi to the dantien is about the breath as in air. The action of breathing and the center of energetic focus goes to the dantien.
"Now I sink" I understand as a specific release of muscles to drop and direct the potential energy of the mass of the body. (Not just "bending the knees", it's not always visible) I hesitate to get specific because like everything else it seems to get deeper and deeper.
You can always sink more because you're always rising. The funny thing about taijiquan is that you release coming and going.
OTOH, I think they mean the same as what Li Yaxuan and others spoke about as fajin. He says when you fajin, you should take a deep breath and relax your whole body deeply while keeping your focus. But then again, he also speaks about that you should always relax as much as possible and keep sunk.
"Sink the qi" is abstract. How do you do it? Li Yaxuan explains how to do it in a practical way that students can understand, follow and do the same.
Is it though? In my experience it is a definite, concrete, palpable action. Again, though, conflation confuses.
I really don't like teachers who keep to the abstract and don't explain the "how to". They only confuse their students and sometimes, intentionally or unintentionally, as perpetual beginners. Instructions should make things easier for the student to replicate, not to confuse them, or irritate them.
So, IMHO, "qi" can be useful in a theoretical context, explaining things or be used when there's a lack of words to explain things. But in the latter case, there is mostly still a consensus between teacher and student what is meant.
However, Qi is completely useless when it comes to the "how to", explaining who to do things and why.
I just disagree completely here.
If you understand the yin and a yang of a thing you can comprehend the qi of the thing. If you can comprehend the qi of the thing there is a chance you can influence or harness it.
You. What is you? The pineal gland? The mind? The state of the signal running through your circuitry? Your fingers and toes? Your clothes? Your house, town, country,
planet, galaxy? The universe?
Where does YOU stop and everything else begin?
Sense data seems so immediate and important but is that really us? Maybe we're just a ghost pushing buttons in the dark and watching a screen to see what happens.
In that case most of what I consider to be "me" is just stuff they gave me when I got here that I've been figuring out how to use. A big messy mass of wires from my control room. I had to plug in and attach buttons and levers. I had to work out routines to make sense of what it's telling me and to get it to do what I want. Most of that activity is take care of itself so I can keep the lights on but I digress.
I am a spiritual being having a mostly inconvenient physical experience.
Sometimes, though, I'm my clothes. When I'm looking extra fly or kind of scrubby that definitely impacts my sense of self.
Sometimes, my family, an insult to my wife is like spitting in my eye.
Or maybe my art, my club, my country, my favorite musician, my sportsball team of choice that definitely isn't just because it's where my Dad was born and grew up watching.
Sometimes those feel a lot like "me".
I'm not trying to be vague or mystical here.
The question of cultivating Qi has a simple answer. Drink your Ovaltine and practice Taijiquan.
The question of using Qi depends on what you are aware of and what you have control of.
Qi follows awareness, move your awareness inside your sphere of influence and perception and observe the movement of the Qi and the activity that follows it.
Identify the Yin and the Yang and the subtle manifestations inside you and around you and use them to harmonize with and influence these processes.
It's not "imagination", it's awareness and observation. If we start imagining, then we start making things up. This is part of why the good teachers tell you where to look not what to see.
In my experience, what begins as moving awareness becomes moving physical energy. Nothing mystical or magical about it, just laying down tracks, strengthening neural connections, nourishing tissues.
What I personally found challenging to grok at first was that the physical energy isn't innately tied to the mass of a moving object, if that makes any sense.
When you're hit a certain way, it's like a hard wind. You don't feel the impact so much as you feel a rush of energy crashing in and lifting you. It's not slamming one object into another. The body at this point is like an energy delivery device, not an impact weapon.
I don't know if this tracks with anybody else's understanding or not or if it's useful for you or not.
TL;DR there's buttons, knobs, switches, and wires running all through you and around you.