Internal Martial Arts

The speaker discusses the meditative use of martial arts, specifically focusing on the concept of Qi. They explain that Qi/Chi is an advanced aspect of internal martial arts, initially involving body mechanics and opponent's movements to change their intention. The speaker also mentions that most practitioners reach a level where they understand and utilize these techniques effectively. They suggest some Tai Chi teachers rely more on physical strength, rather than the true principles of Tai Chi. Overall, the speaker emphasizes the importance of understanding and practicing the various levels of martial arts training. Hi everyone, I thought I'd talk today a little bit about the meditative use of martial arts or meditation in the physical form, physical form, being, movement, body and things like Qi which you may have heard of that are used in internal martial arts. In fact, let's start with Qi. Qi is similar to the idea of grace or Baraka in Islam, grace in Christianity and it is a very, it's quite an advanced thing, the actual Qi because it is a magical thing if you like. Before getting to that sort of stage, the stage preceding that if you like, the movements that you are doing in Tai Chi Chuan and Xingyi and Baokao, the internal martial arts, it's based on body mechanics, it's based upon, you can't really call them tricks, but it's an advanced form of training where the movement itself and the movement of the opponent is used to manipulate them. So it looks like you're throwing them backwards or with great velocity. In fact, you're using the whole body and you're transferring or using their energy and using your very strong muscles and your rising energy and your twisting energy, I say energy, the twisting mechanics of the body to get these effects and that is the level really that most practitioners reach and it's quite, again, it takes a lot of training. When I was first doing it, I mean I did quite a lot of Tai Chi, I never understood it. I never understood the idea of Qi because it wasn't, it was just taught in a way that made absolutely no sense and that's partly because the teachers that are available to most people are not sufficiently adept themselves to understand anything more than that. So they teach you techniques and say, oh, this is what you're doing here. I mean, for example, you will learn two things in most Tai Chi classes. You will learn Qi Kung, which is the warm-up exercises, that gets the blood flow going and that relaxes all the joints and makes the joints flexible, makes you flexible, makes you more able to create a relaxed format in which you can do the form. Then you are taught the form and quite often you are taught sticky hands, which is just basically a contact-based movement where you're trying to be as gentle and as soft as possible and pull and push, not pull and push, but trying to unbalance the other person by your own movements and it develops a great deal of sensitivity based upon the physical contact. So as soon as contact is made, you can relax and then take that attack, not take that attack, but transform that attack into a circle or into a rise or into a sort of push back, if you like. So this is the stage and that in itself can take many, many years of practice to understand and to do. And then before that, we have the more mechanical, the quicker, I would call them the quicker hearts, if you like, which are based upon speed or aggression or strength or particular physical techniques, direct confrontation, if you like. And you'll see some Tai Chi very, well, very, I shouldn't say very bad, but not very good Tai Chi teachers who teach, who are really physically very able and they teach what they think is or what they are teaching as a physical combat Tai Chi. And it very often is not that. It very often is not that. It's just that they're strong and they're using strength against strength and they're using techniques that come from Tai Chi and applying them. So every technique that they're using comes from the form and it's an application of that. This is something similar you'll find in other harder or external martial arts. There's no softness in it. It's literally the technique, which is very effective, against technique. Anyway, that's a brief, I didn't intend to start with Chi, but we did. All right, that's all from me for today. Bye now.