Newsletter 998

The Two Types of Internal Power (chi)!

Hi guys and gals!
Happy Corona vacation!
I hope you’ve made the best of it,
learned an art or two,
worked out every day,
preserved your health and safety
for your whole life.
If not…okay,
you’ve still got time.

One of the big mysteries in the martial arts
is this thing called Chi Power,
or ‘internal power.’
It is spoken of in Karate and kung fu,
Aikido and Tai Chi
and all manner of arts.
Interestingly,
MMA,
and more modern arts,
don’t speak of it.
In fact,
‘chi power’ is often denigrated,
held in poor repute.
All that means is that people don’t understand it,
and so bad mouth it.
So,
let me delve into the subject briefly.
Before I do,
however,
you should know something.
Most arts won’t generate chi power
for the simple reason
that the body is not structured properly.
To make chi you first have to have resistance,
and the body must be formed
to take advantage of that resistance.
you don’t make muscles,
although muscles occur,
in real martial arts.
You generate awareness,
and awareness becomes chi power.
When you do the Master Instructor course
you learn how to create resistance
by structuring the body correctly,
and that turns into chi power,
but it’s not easy.
It takes time and awareness,
and most people are too interested in beating people up
and so ignore the simple fact of awareness.
When you do the Matrix Karate you learn how to structure an art,
and that speeds everything up.
No missing pieces in your path,
nothing out of place or not making sense.

Okay,
that all said,
let’s talk about the two main types
of internal power in the martial arts.

There are hard arts,
karate and kung fu and such.
Then there are soft arts,
such as Aikido and Tai Chi.

Karate is a matter of analyzing the body
so that it provides certain paths of resistance,
and then using as little force as possible
on these paths.
Why as little force as possible?
Because if you use force you build muscles.
If you don’t use force,
then you start to use energy.
But the paths of resistance MUST be correct
for the generation of energy to occur.
If you turn your feet wrong you lose resistance.
If your hips aren’t aligned you lose resistance.
If your shoulders overthrow you lose resistance,
and so on and so on.
This is why the old guys who teach hard chi
obsess on such things as the wrist not being turned properly.
Even if you knock the other guy out…bad form.

Now,
here is an interesting phenomena.
Most karate teaches explosive power.
It’s all in your ability to explode.
If your form is correct
you might make the transition
and start to generate chi power.
Most styles of karate,
however,
do not have proper form.
they have been made into boxing,
or the instructors haven’t understood what they are doing
and the art has become tweaked and incorrect.

Actually,
the proper way to teach hard chi
is as follows.
Push with the foot,
feel the turn of the leg,
feel the turn of the hip,
feel the power go up the body,
feel the corkscrew of the arm
snap the fist.

This is described in many places,
but the directions are poor,
or they leave things out.
The instructor doesn’t teach the student
to stop tightening the whole body
and to tighten only the wrist.
Or breathing is neglected.
Or the purpose of stances is not adhered to.
(sink the weight into the ground to create a motor).
But if you relax, breath correctly,
feel weight and sensation course up through the body
through exact configuration
(spiral, unfold, pulse, etc.)
then you don’t get chi power.

tell the truth,
I had chi power from my study of karate.
I had a teacher who taught a good art,
and I obsessed on figuring out the best way to form the body.
But I didn’t understand it,
and wasn’t able to teach it effectively
until after I had done Tai Chi.
Tai Chi gave me the ‘emptiness’ that I needed
to fulfill the ‘empty’ in ‘empty hands.’

Okay,
having mentioned Tai Chi,
let’s talk about the chi power you get
from such arts as Tai Chi or Aikido.

Karate is an explosion.
A ball of boom!
Aikido and Tai Chi…
they rely on getting ahead of the attacker
just enough to unbalance them.
Now,
here is the secret.
When you move with somebody,
in harmony with them,
you tap into more power.
It is the simple fact of two motors
(two bodies)
working in tandem.
More energy is created.
And, harmony has more inherent energy
than the fact of exploding.

Which is not to say karate or kung fu
don’t have harmony.
But it is constantly being upset by the need for power.
If a person can stop lusting for power,
learn to relax while punching,
harmony breeds.
Never as much as in Tai Chi or Aikido,
but enough.

So these are the two types of internal power
you get from the classical martial arts,
arts that haven’t been corrupted by such things as politics,
MMA, boxing, the need to pay rent, and so on.

But there are more types of internal energy.
Much more.
But the correct path would be to develop
one, or both, of the types of energy I describe here,
then let other energies develop.
And they will develop.
Every person is different,
however,
so it may be difficult to predict
what kind of energy and ability you will develop,
and it may not be what you were expecting.
But whatever you get,
it will be in keeping with your personality
and your personal evolution of spirit.

If you want what I am describing here,
I recommend

the Master Instructor course
to learn how to structure the body correctly.

Matrix Karate
to learn how to structure an art
so there will be no missing pieces,
no out of place oddities.

And,
if you are a long timer
and understand all that I am saying,
you might like to delve into
Tai Chi Chuan.

Okay,
‘nuff said,
have yourself a great and wonderful Corona vacation,
and a super duper work out.
Al

2c Five Army Tai Chi Chuan