36th Chamber task log

Projects and Investigations The 36th Chamber
1

Currently, we only have one project underway, the Ian Prescott matter. However, this forum is for us to work, pull resources, etc, and spearhead CMA investigations in private. The results of findings will then be revealed. Or, if we want to do a public thread to see if others in the membership may be useful in a certain area, we can do that as well.

Are there any questions or concerns that anyone here has? Is KFDW the only one with misunderstandings as to what this forum is about? I would appreciate discussions related to this forum are done in here, and not in the general forum. The only opinions that matter on this are the ones of the people here. Staff, Supporters and the CMAs.

Thanks, and Merry Christmas all you kung fu sons a bitches!

2

We need to address the “chi” issue eventually. Some how, some way.

3

I thought we already had a pretty good consensus on bullshido about chi ? i.e. :-

That there was definitely no paranormal force involved, and that real CMA teachers often used difficult to understand chinese terms for things which are explicable by western science, and which don’t translate very easily and can be confusing and/or inaccurate in light of modern physiology and sports science.

4

Agreed, but that isn’t a very good explanation for anyone who has never done any internal exercise.

Chi is not “paranormal”

It is not “nothing” either.

It is the basis for accupuncture.

Questions raised include whether it is psychosomatic. What benefit to fighting is it?

Why train in internal systems and exercises? What good is it? I strongly suspect that it has something to do with the way the body and the brain are working together.

If I can muster up the self discipline - I intend on putting real effort into one of my internal exercises that I have never worked properly. The only internal thing I’ve ever really put the work in on has been iron palm, and still, I didn’t go the initial 2 years.

5

There’s no point in attempting to say what it is. No one will agree and it will only set off firestorms of debate and flamewars.

Now I can make a pretty decent stab at defining it within a certain paradigm but if you don’t accept the paradigm, then the term, and all the definitions are worthless. The problem is that I have never really seen a discussion about what the word meant that wasn’t actually just an argument over wether or not such a thing existed. These are two different issues and I generally just avoid the subject because I don’t believe that there are more than a very small handfull of people here who are able to intelligently ditinguish the two questions.

  1. What is “qi”?

  2. Does “qi” exist?

I can do a bang up job explaining the first one but I have zero interest in debating the second. I actually reached a point in my training this past year where I had to make a decision to stop attempting to explain it through the modern scientific paradigm. It was interfering to much with my training. Regardless of the existence or not of such a thing, the belief in the existence of such a thing and the accompanying practices predicated on such a belief work.

For many years I was getting by on either dodging the subject or by telling my self that even if it was a psyhosomatic effect or some kind of self hypnosis, what worked worked. Unforntunately as I work my way deeper into this stuff I am running into some cognative dissonance. I have to decide wether it is more important to me to be a researcher or a practitioner. I chose practitioner. So now my practice is riddled with what most people would consider superstitious nonsense. Nonetheless, my abilities are continuoing to imrove and I am learning some, what I consider to be, pretty wild shit.

I am always interested in any recent developments at explaining it through modern scientific method but am carefull not to let that be the last word on my practice.

I’ll probably have more to say on this later but I have to get to the gym now for the part of my training that everyone would pat me on the back for if I put it in a training log even though I consider it to be the least important part of my training.

Later.

6

The standard definition I always work from when dealing with the tai chi classics is breath/vitality.

I see if it has an obvious surface meaning, like sink the qi to the dan tien=breath with your diaphram, but you have to remeber the conitations of vitality that it carries with it, and that it’s often used in a much more poetical context than is usual. It often describes what you feel rather than what actually is.

Regarding the use of qi in acupunture, I read somewhere that this comes from people disecting hung criminals and finding that they had hollow tubes, veins that the blood had drained out of, and so they assumed that the qi(air/breath) flowed through them.

I don’t know how true it is, and I can’t remeber where I read it, but it is a nice story and explains the similarities between the meridians and the circularitory system.

I’d be interested to hear about that wierd shit, in a troll free enviroment omar.

7

I recently read a book called ‘The Naked Warrior’ by Pavel Tsatouline. He talks a lot about breath control and intrabdominal pressure and the way in which it effects your strength in powerlifts and the difficult low-rep bodyweight exercises presented in the book. He gives some subjective but neat little ‘tricks’ you can play with your own body to demonstrate the idea to yourself.

He also talks a lot about how tensing muscles that don’t appear to be directly involved in an exercise can trick the CNS into driving greater tension into the muscles that are involved.

It’s all explained from an empirical and rationalist standpoint, but at the level of fairly subtle interactions which soviet sports scientists studied.

I think anybody wanting to research CMA ‘internal’ training from a totally empirical, rationalist perspective should read his books.

As far as I can tell, these terms are still kind of broad cognates for things which would be classed as disparate phenomena by western science.

8

I downloaded this for review purposes, earlier today. If anyone else is interested in reviewing his work I could post a copy off you sendit.
:new_all_c

9

maybe we should prepare an article about southern CMA and the use of low stance work to create a solid base and “rooting”

it seems that most people on the board would consider low stance work to be a waste of training time, better spent running, skipping rope, kicking the bag or doing squats.

although i think that all the above exercises have value, i also feel that my hung ga stancework has given me a solid base that i would not have without it.

thoughts? dumb topic? not worth the flames we will get?

10

Check out the video of JFS using a very low stance in sparring in one of the Maryland throwdown vids. When I asked him about it he said ‘if it was a real fight I would be even lower down’. People there at the time noted that they were very impressed with how quickly he could cover distance whilst sparring. Perhaps he would be a good collaborator on such an article.

I definitely noticed my legs get stronger doing the first form of Wing Chun (holding the pigeon-toed ‘high horse’ for 30 mins at a time).

Some of the more exotic positions I’ve seen in southern shaolin derived CMA probably work hard-to-reach muscles and simulataneously act as stretches.

A lot of eople will just say ‘this is just a less efficient than doing squats, and you look like a dumbass too, LOL111!!!’.

They might be right on the ‘less efficient than squats’, but that’s perhaps only true if you assume that the low stances purpose is to strengthen the major muscle groups. Anyway, learning exercises you can do anywhere, with no equipment, is still useful IMHO.

11

I started a thread on stances about 2 years ago. http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=6012

Stances the best leg workout I’ve ever done. I gotten more out of stances than squats. I have done and do both. Stances strengthen and harden the legs in ways weights can’t, at least not in my experience.

It’s not a waste of time either - I do them when watching TV. Yeah, it’s a good topic, but I think it may be deemed “sub-optimal”

12

stances
as far as this goes, I have trained and done stance work since I was eight.
In my twenties, this took a turn for the better, and a GIANT leap forward in
terms of usefulness, understanding, and practicality when I met my sifu. At
the time I could squat 600+ lbs, and deadlift close to 750+ at a weight of
215 lbs. The stance work I began practice in consisted of 66 basic steps and
four static postures held for as long as I could. That crap wiped me out on a
daily basis. Generally, stancework is like throwing a baseball. . .you can do
lots of exercises to strengthen your arm, but, only throwing that baseball in
repettition will make you a better, more accurate pitcher.

chi
I’m not touching it. (well. . .ok, just a little bit)
Does it exist? Most assuredly.
Can it be explained by Western science? No. Especially if it can’t be defined by such methods.
Is it breath? No. As a concept, breathing is a part of it, but, not “it.”

There is a word in the hawaiian language denoted simply as “ha”.
It, too can be loosely translated as “breath” but, the concept of
“ha” is very deeply rooted, and can mean much, much more. The
context of it’s use lends to a better understanding of the word,
yet you are still left with a feeling that you are “not quite getting
it.” “Ha” can mean “breath” but, more like “the breath of life.”
which can be translated as “spirit,” but, not “aerobic circulation.”

In the 25+ years I have been with my sifu I have seen, studied,
and experienced many things that cannot readily be explained
by Western science. Neither my sifu, nor his sifu discuss “chi” in
terms of martial arts, and never attribute any martial abilities to
“chi” or the concept of “chi” yet, it’s there.

`~/

13

Thanks for the input Meex.

14

Actually, my sifu’s sifu does “tricks” with his “chi” all the time,
and just laughs it off, and never explains what he’s done.

He says, “. . . reliance on that aspect of the training will only
get you hurt in the street, so stop asking silly questions and
go train!”

`~/

15

Are you glad you started when you were 8?

Were your 66 steps something you did in a sequence with the 4 static postures interlaced within it?

16

Yeah. That, and the duckwalks and jumping and shrimping exercises from judo
helped a lot with athletic pursuits (football, baseball, volleyball, surfing, swimming,
etc.) Starting so early also got me to accept all the “work” involved in athletic
training/practice/etc.

The 66 steps are a basic set/form to train the legs. It includes all the move-
ments used in our style. I still practice about an hours worth per day of that
set. The jeongs (sp?) or static postures were used to train specific portions
of our style. Holding them produced enough dynamic tension to help us know
when and where we needed to work on our form(s). There were a lot more,
but, my sifu decided not to teach them, as he felt the others didn’t help more
than doing things another way. The four were ones he considered essential.

Thx,
`~/

17

That’s very cool to know. My stance training is just standing in a position for a period of time then moving to the next position and holding it, and so on.

18

Holding postures is good for developing strength. However, that is
not necessarily how they are used. You need to make yoiur stances
your own. Use them, walk in them, sit in them, drive in them. They
need to become your everyday way to move, and second nature.

My sifu used to have four or five of us attack him, and take us all out
with stance work. No direct kicks, and hands behind his back. Just a
display of moving in, and using our stances. That’s what keeps me
training them. . .he demonstrated the usefulness of stances in use.

`~/

19

Yes. I do that. The thing is, I can’t help it. It is automatic.

But!

I don’t know how to sit or drive in them…

20

Great, now we can start at the beginning!
Remember how we learned to write back in kingergarten/1st grade?
With the large lined paper and big pencils? Printing within the lines
was hard sometimes, but, you gradually got better and better? Now
we no longer need the lines, and no longer write that way, anymore?

Well, now you experiment with what you know, and see what else
you can do with it. . .change the height of the stance (up or down),
the weight balance (forward, backward, sidewards.), the length (shorter
or longer), the speed/pace of it, etc. Play with it, feel it, be it.

Along the way you will subconsciously be evaluating and addressing
what feels right, and what doesn’t, what belongs and what doesn’t,
and what fits you, and what doesn’t.

Do you have a low stance in your white ape? Is it a balanced lateral
stance, or some kind of forward stance? While in the act of sitting, I
would try to maintain this balance/feel. Then, while sitting, i would try
to keep it, and see if I could throw techniques from that position. In
this way, I explore any and all aspects of my training, and know why
and what I can do from all manner of places, and positions I might
find myself in during the day.

We used to have a group that practiced during lunch, downtown. I
used to practice with two CPAs, an Attorney, two federal agents, and
three other office workers. We would practice sometimes in the art
gallery/lobby of my building, Walking with our stances, playing chase-
master (without others noticing), still dressedd in our business wear.
Often we would practice in a parking structure, a stairwell, a back alley,
or, anywhere that someone might actually be attacked.

It was kind cool to see the ladies doing kicks with skirts and high heels!
Ooops, I mean we had some great, practical practice sessions, then.

Driving ??
Yeah, I’m kinda mental sometimes, but, I do know how to apply the
leverage I’d get from certain stances, while I am sitting in the driver’s
seat of my car. It was even useful once when my wife’s ex. appeared
out of nowhere and came at me from the driver’s side window at a red
light (I slipped his punch, and pulled the arm further in, locking it within
the steering wheel, and backfisting him across the face. Then, i opened
the door a few times just for fun. I didn’t know who it was, either.)
:ninjadanc

`~/